What do you do?

Cool, didn't mean to sound shitty I think I just worded it strangely.

So I moved into pre-sales (Sales/Solution Engineer) role to keep my travel to shorter trips about 3 months ago or so. Still working at a NoSQL company, doing big things. Kinda fun being the first technical contact with cool projects around the country and doing use case planning, initial architecture, sizing, PoCs etc. The commission aspect isn't bad either Closed my first Fortune 500 customer, feels pretty awesome!

I got a call today from a guy who identified himself as CEO of XXX. He went on for several minutes. I didn't want to be rude but I finally told I had never heard of his company. Turns out I sent them a resume as a feeler about 2 years ago and since then they got bought out lol.

Kind of an odd phone call. I wanted to ask him if they normally move this slow, but I didn't.

Cad_sl said:

I had an interview back in my software dev days, and like 5 months later they called and wanted to offer me the job, I said on the phone "Look man, if I was still looking for a job 5 months later, would I really be the kind of guy you want to hire? Ya'll need to move faster. Good luck with your next offer."

Maybe it was a dick thing to say, but I was just flabbergasted they waited that long.

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Yeah kinda what I was thinking, but I sent it in while self employed so who knows. I'm on paid leave till after the first. I have a meeting with him scheduled over lunch so I got that going for me lol. I've been reading about the company in the local paper and they are really expanding in several cities in our area so who knows.

I'm kind of glad he didn't go into detail about my resume. After two years I really have no idea what I put on it. I normally send them out pretty regular just to see what people are offering and normally tailor them to the job listing since I have about 5 official titles.

That was a waste other than the free meal. Guy started talking about 12 hour shifts or whatever and all the over time available. I haven't gotten paid by the hour since high school 25 years ago. After that is was contract or salary. Even my 2 year old resume should have made that pretty clear.

I never even got to what he wanted me to do. I really can't imagine a business where they hire you to run it, that they pay you by the hour.

I work in litigation and negotiations for an organised tax fraud unit.

Deathwing_sl said:

If it nets you more money per pay period, who cares if it's salary/hourly/contract/whatever?

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So you want me to run a multi million dollar organization that has plants in 4 states and pay me by the hour...Right I see that neting me for a pay period.

I think someone slipped him the wrong resume or something since it has been so long. I had never heard of the guy even tho I've worked with that company. I'm going to make some calls out of curiosity and see if he's new or they had a merger or something similar.

At least my free meal was decent.

monnoh_sl said:

I work in litigation and negotiations for an organised tax fraud unit.

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Jealous of people that have people skills. I assume you use those in negotiations or is it more of a bottom line type of deal?

English isn't my native language, I assume by bottom line type of deal you mean it's all about the money we bring in? In short, what usually happens is that the guys who handle audit perform a taxation (usually consisting of tax + an increase). In the bigger audits this is often not the final taxation, it's used more as a sort of first proposition towards the person(s) being investigated. Then their lawyers initiate negotiations where they try to lower/eliminate the increase (in organized fraud the tax as such is almost never debated). They have leverage in the fact that an agreement means their client pays up in short order, while litigation in my country often takes years or decades and collection chances for organized fraud cases are abysmal (<10%). We have leverage because they often have to settle with taxes first before they can make a deal when it comes to the penal aspect of their case. If you notice they actually want/have to make a deal, your negotiation skills can mean the difference between a 10-20-50% increase. In organized fraud that adds up, so we're intensively trained for it.

I hope this answers your question.

Cad_sl said:

People in my firm made over a million bucks last year and we all get paid by the hour.

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The only people in my indsutry that get paid by the hour work in the shop. On top of that he started talking about 12 hour shifts and such. Yeah let me jump right on that. Except for shop people nobody in my industry works shifts. If the work needs done, it gets done.

I'm not even sure what I would make per hour to be equal to what I normally make. If he can find someone to even entertain the thought of working per hour, good for him. There's currently about 4-5 people in my region that do what I do (unless he needed me for a subset of my skills which the per hour thing would even be more of a joke), one guy works with me and he thought the idea funny. Another is my dad, I know what he would say.

I can't stress enough how ODD it would be to even discuss. I tried to clue the guy in so he might actually get some help because he was saying they really were desperate and had looked for a while.

The people that I know that do what I do work salary or contract per job basis. You might work 80 hours one week during a turnaround for the same pay as usual on salary. But then you get the flexibility of taking off early, days. Basically you are very flexibile when not in a turnaround to come and go. Getting paid by the hour might work during a turnaround, except those only occur twice a year.

Again it would just be odd. It would like paying an office worker by the sheet for what they print out of the printer.

monnoh_sl said:

English isn't my native language, I assume by bottom line type of deal you mean it's all about the money we bring in? In short, what usually happens is that the guys who handle audit perform a taxation (usually consisting of tax + an increase). In the bigger audits this is often not the final taxation, it's used more as a sort of first proposition towards the person(s) being investigated. Then their lawyers initiate negotiations where they try to lower/eliminate the increase (in organized fraud the tax as such is almost never debated). They have leverage in the fact that an agreement means their client pays up in short order, while litigation in my country often takes years or decades and collection chances for organized fraud cases are abysmal (<10%). We have leverage because they often have to settle with taxes first before they can make a deal when it comes to the penal aspect of their case. If you notice they actually want/have to make a deal, your negotiation skills can mean the difference between a 10-20-50% increase. In organized fraud that adds up, so we're intensively trained for it.

I hope this answers your question.

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Yup, thanks.

Money is all the same to me, if a company wants me to work hourly and they're willing to pay more then sign me up.

Contract pay is good. I once did a one year contract and the project got canceled in the first week. Nothing beats a one year pay check for a weeks worth of work. Sometimes I charge by the pound for what I draw. This job was around 2 million pounds for the entire precipitator. I offered to do it for $2 per pound as a joke lol. They would have come out way ahead because you only get paid for what you submit and is approved by the final engineer. They wouldn't have owed me anything compared to one years salary.

I think I prefer hourly. At least then you get paid for the work you put in. I am salaried and I routinely work nights and weekends for no additional money.

Of course you're salaried, because they know if you were hourly you wouldn't be putting in that extra time because they wouldn't want to actually pay you for it.

Noodleface_sl said:

Of course you're salaried, because they know if you were hourly you wouldn't be putting in that extra time because they wouldn't want to actually pay you for it.

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It really doesn't work that way for us. The shop works per hour and they work when they are told.

The office which is small works when the guys in the shop work and sometimes more. You get your job done regardless. Our world doesn't revolve around normal hours. Like I said I might work 80 hours during a turnaround to get something done they can fab and ship to the field in a few days. We have no overlap in the office and everyone in the office has to know how to do multiple jobs. We have two engineers (owner and his son), two draftsman/designers, a general manager who also does the invoiced, and a shop forearm. That's it on payroll. One of us skips out early they shut down. We have 100 guys in the shop we have to keep busy. I also estimate and a number of other jobs when not drawing.

Our business revolves around it has to be done NOW. Exxon says money is no object and it has to be done, now they are one of the few companies that can back that up. Put me in the category of I can't belive gas isn't $10.00 per gallon lol.