Thats a big change dude, good for you.
@jdm135 - Iām sick and tired of the bull shit that goes on. It is so unprofessional. It is so poor these days. Margins are tiny, and people are cutting corners everywhere. The Government agencies have to play silly games to get funding and as a contractor I have to play along. As they make up 99% of the client base.
I want to go somewhere I can do ārightā.
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Thats really admirable dude. Isnāt the pay cut a bit drastic though?
Well over 50% of the rate I take for a salaried role. But considering I do most of my work free lance where the cash is better - its a hell of a drop. About 60%.
Iām looking to make it up with over time and driver shift (Iāll hold a LGV licence so I can pick up days here and there).
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Worth it for the impact you can make though.
Yeah - I currently wake up and my sole goal for the day is to make the company share holders more money.
That is a just a bit crap.
This way I will get to be of more use. To save people.
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Jumping in on the paramedic discussion, the base salary is dire, but they really heavily incentivise overtime/weekends and nights. You can really bring the salary up significantly by taking a few of the extras which are constantly available.
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This is what Iāve been told.
Once Iām qualified I can add a few Ā£Ā£Ā£ by doing a regular weekend shift.
Iām okay with that. I donāt have any mates away lol.
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My unsolicited opinion is that this is bullshit, and any job ā especially one as necessary and tough as being a paramedic ā that āincentivizesā you to give up your free time so your life can revolve around work, is scummy.
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I donāt know about other countries, but thatās pretty much the norm in the US anymore. And if you have a high base salary job like engineering or law, the expectation is often a lot of unpaid hours.
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Well, speaking at it from a semiconductor engineering job perspective-
Sure, I can literally just spend 40 hours a week. That just means that my contribution to the project will take about year to complete. Seeing as I am waiting for someone to finish their part so that I can start, and how there are many others who are waiting for me to finish my part so that they can start their you can easily start to see how, if people take the 40 hour work week seriously, then engineering projects probably will take upwards of 3+ years PER project.
The total time budgeted for this project is 6 months. And this doesnāt even take into account that people are either juggling 2+ projects at once or are expected to pay attention to many other tasks on top of their main project.
I think it is just unavoidable for your life to revolve around work in certain fields, and I donāt think this is solely because of shitty companies that prioritize profit over everything else.
I think people can make their own choices of what they want to do with their time. What starts to bother me is-
When companies do not recognize the time their employees put in and compensate and recognize them appropriately.
When employees forget that they can choose to leave a company if they feel that the company is fucking with them.
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You could donate your money to those in need if you feel that your job isnāt very useful to society?
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Wow this is so different from where I work. Do you feel you get compensated enough for the extra hours you put in compared to maybe companies that donāt require that from their employees? Also how much overtime is this typically?
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Ya, I do (did). I got paid what should have been paid about 5-6 year into my job when I was 2 years in and this trend has largely continued, so pretty pleased with that. I am extremely thankful that my company valued my contributions and paid me accordingly.
I am not aware of many semiconductor company that doesnāt require crunch time from their employee at certain points. It was horrid back when my company was a start-up (before it got acquired by a much larger company) because of having to deal with cutthroat competition-a lot more projects and very tight schedules to stay competitive. It is far better now because there are fewer projects.
I do recognize that it is different between companies, and it really depends on what the company does and who their target customer is. We just got a project to do something with the U.S. government. From my limited perspective, this thing is moving at a snailās pace and seems to be entirely at the mercy of the schedule quoted by the people doing the work. Contrast that with the project Iām working on now, which is for a certain very large Japanese company. This projectās schedule is dictated mostly by said companyās testchip shuttle schedule. They decided which shuttle we can fit on based on our quote, but it would be a lie to say that our input mattered more than theirs.
I think currently, averaging out from the not so busy days (when Iād typically work 6-8hr, not including time spent at home monitoring e-mails since I work with a lot of overseas people), to crunch time (when Iād basically do nothing but work and lift), Iād say it averages to 50-55 hour? I donāt really know. Suffice it to say that, pre-COVID, the extreme low end was ~35hr/week and extreme high end was ~72hr+/week.
Honestly, I think I have an easier time stomaching this because I saw my dad basically do 6-9 for my entire childhood, so Iām conditioned to think in this fashion.
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Couldnāt agree more - but itās just the reality of the job in the UK at present. Unfortunately it is a lot of careers as well these days, thatās why Iām aiming for early retirement!
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Yeah - the idea that we will pay you enough to live but to achieve a good standard of living you have to take on 2/3 shifts of over time a week it a bit rough. But it is what it is. This is better than what I do now. Which is the same number of hours (for more money) but all with the singular aim of making the shareholders more wealth.
This is kinda the situation from my current role. Iām paid such an amount that I get nothing for over time. Even weekends. And by over time - Iām on site from 07.00 till 17:00. Minimum. I drive home on the phone, I get home and Iām on the laptop/phone. I had/have a note book next to my bed so when I wake up in the night I have a way of writing down whats going on in my head. Things Iāve forgotten, need to order, new programme ideas ETC.
It never stops. Sometimes it slows down. But honestly - when a project starts to ramp up it is 24/7.
A bit wide of the mark to be fair. But my job is not āun-usefulā. With out guys like me there would be no roads, bridges, power, gas, water ETC. I build infrastructure. It is that the goal is not to build the ābest infrastructure we can for the budgetā but āhow cheaply can be match the specificationā.
And this means doing things Iām not happy about.
Lying, cheating , āstealingā. Bending and breaking H&S, environmental protection and employment law.
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Itās very noticeable to me that this seems to apply even more to the essential jobs. Firefighters, medical front liners, police etc. Shocking wages, high expectation of overtime, shit working conditions. I know Iām pretty awesome, but I absolutely shouldnāt be getting paid more money than a policeman, or a paramedic or my sister in law whoās literally keeping people alive in operating theatres. I know why the system is like it is, but it still seems wrong to me.
Overtime is pretty much a given in my industry. It is definitely possible for a good manager to still perform to an acceptable level, while only working the required 39 hours a week, especially if they luck out in the people they have in their team. I believe itās absolutely not possible to exceed or progress though. In 6 years in this company and many more in a previous company, I have never once seen a manager progress without extreme amounts of unpaid overtime. Never. Which is good because āprogressionā would mean moving to a role in which those hours are absolutely required, all the time. Itās no wonder many, including myself, donāt want that job.
Iām in a similar boat. Iām necassary for society to function, but that doesnāt make what I do anymore rewarding. Any money I make for the company goes back into the company, there arenāt even any shareholders, and yet I see how that money is wasted and squandered daily. And the lengths we have to go to, the moral lines we have to walk right up to and hover on the brink of make it a pretty unsatisfying experience.
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Work for today:
Press (ss. Pull ups):
5 x 5 @ 57.5kg
Squat (ss. Pull ups or BPA):
5 x 57.5kg
5 x 60kg
5 x 70kg
5 x 80kg
5 x 90kg
5 x 100kg
5 x 110kg
5 x 117.5kg
5 x 10 @ 87.5kg
Notes:
- Things moved smoothly today. Fairly hard on both Press and Squat but no major form breakdowns or slowing down of the bar. Iāll need to be stronger by the last week of next cycle.
- Iāll be glad to be rid of these 5 x 10s
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wow. It seemed to me like companies are valuing work life balance more and all the companies I got an offer for when I got out were only expecting 40 hours a week. The one I currently work for even gives me overtime if I go over but I have to get it approved and honestly donāt want it anyways. I might not make as much as you though (although compared to other places around here it seems I get paid more so idk) and I am in the defense industry too so that might change things. But this blows my mind that anyone could expect 72 hours a week ever. I mean what kind of a life is that for a family? And the funny thing is our projects are still āfast pacedā I would say.
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