What do you do?

Phelps McManus_sl said:

What do you expect from a guy named Bruce Grewcock?

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LOl wut?

Wasn't him. I had to google him. He's CEO of a company that we're tied in with currently that I have no dealings with. I only deal with the field erector. It's an odd contract our customer is the field erector instead of the customer, engineering firm, general contractor etc... It's a loooong story. I wouldn't mind having the job of the guy that his title is consortium manager. I see Kiewit on a lot of documents and they are tied in, but no direct dealings with them. We're waaay down the food chain on this. It's a billion dollar project and we're doing $20 million of it.

No the guy I met with was Jim Bernhard he started his pipe fab company with 4 guys working outside and grew it eventually into the Shaw Group. They were bought out by Chicago Bridge and Iron. Now his investment group is buying and moving Brown and Root to Baton Rouge.

I don't hob knob with the CEO crowd. I only know the guy when I had done a little work for them when they were nothing, and I mean nothing. He's also friends with my former boss and was in the office often is all.

While hiring liberally and firing the bottom x% every year sounds like a great idea on paper, the reality is that it really sucks to fire people. I don't mean the actual firing part, but all the other stuff (documentation) that you have to take care of before you are legally allowed to let someone go. Once we decide to fire someone, it takes about 2 months before we can actually let them go...unless they do something incredibly stupid.

Black_Death_sl said:

While hiring liberally and firing the bottom x% every year sounds like a great idea on paper, the reality is that it really sucks to fire people. I don't mean the actual firing part, but all the other stuff (documentation) that you have to take care of before you are legally allowed to let someone go. Once we decide to fire someone, it takes about 2 months before we can actually let them go...unless they do something incredibly stupid.

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Thats just HR protecting the company from any chance of a lawsuit.

It is not a legal requirement in any "right to work" state.

I've seen plenty of people fired on the spot.

Tough on morale to have a continuous shit can cycle all ye time, prob good for production though.

My friend is in charge of all nurses at a large hospital, they are the largest employer in the state. It took him 1-1/2 years to fire 2 people he said was going to do the first day he took the job. They wound up rehiring them in another capacity. It was really rough on his morale and those around him apparently. He had extra hurdles to jump and and cross the T's and dot the I's because the state was involved and they were both a minority.

What happens in my little small sector of our industry which is mostly privately owned companies is they stop giving a bonus to that person and they start looking for other employment. Good bonuses start at 20% of gross pay and go up. My dad got roughly 50% every year (he retired from the same company I worked for later) and those who they wanted gone got zero. They don't call it profit sharing or anything like that, just a bonus. Apparently some people will hang on till they actually get fired tho.

Picasso_sl said:

Tough on morale to have a continuous shit can cycle all ye time, prob good for production though.

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On the flip side is having people on the payroll that everyone knows can't accomplish shit. Really tough in small businesses. I know for a fact this impacts morale.

Yup, delicate dance. I don't agree there should be a jack Welch permanent fire program but the dregs definitely need to get cut until they end up at the government.

Which is why my employment with the government was short lived. I've mentioned it before. I was hired summers in college to go out to the national forest and be the "eyes" of the silviculturist whose job is to decide when to harvest, burn, thin, plant etc...basically a fancy name for forester. He couldn't set foot on the national forest as part of his agreement with the courts when he gave up his conspirators in a $400k timber theft operation. But he couldn't be fired. They moved him from one forest to another. He didn't even have to move. Instead of driving 30 minutes east each morning he drove 30 minutes west to get to work. That was 20 years ago and I heard a few years ago he was still working for the US Forest Service and his agreement with the courts expired or whatever.

I could do without that shit everyday. Still pisses me off. He talked of having the dream job and all it required was steal $400k of timber (that they know of) and almost go to jail and you're set for life.

In my industry, if they want to fire you, they will just quit giving you work (auto industry) and starve you out.

Most shops have a lot of turnover from people jumping skip once work slows.

Picasso_sl said:

Tough on morale to have a continuous shit can cycle all ye time, prob good for production though.

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This depends on the job roles too. All of the training up the new hires can be taking away from potential productive workers time.

Where I work they give all new employees a 3 month trial period . . . and they mean it. A lot simply don't last the 3 months, and quite a few are dropped in just the first few weeks. But I can say that the team we have is the best I've ever worked with. It's good to know that the company isn't going to tolerate un-productive workers.

How much more per hour would you guys normally charge for short-term contract work that's basically the same thing that you do during your day job? I've had a couple doctor's offices offer me something like this and I have no idea how much money I should ask for.

I'd probably at 33% but it depends on the job. Some software engineers that work as contractors have 3x their normal hourly rate

After reading the past few pages (and as a software architect), I'm curious, Cad, if you find being a lawyer more satisfying/stimulating (outside of money) than your software dev job? It seems like money is a very primary consideration but do you enjoy the actual work?

Noodlemod_sl said:

I'd probably at 33% but it depends on the job. Some software engineers that work as contractors have 3x their normal hourly rate

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Yep, I'd be charging > 200 /hr. Gotta make up for options, bonuses, etc. (Note: This is cheap for good contractors :|)

So I got a new job in September last year and I was always getting funny feelings from the company that shit wasn't just right. They gave me a bonus for the first year to get up to speed (I work on commission) and in order to even match that number next year I would have to triple my business. I was kind of lied to when I first started working here about the level of business and demand. Meh. Many systems that I would consider core in actually running a business weren't there. Many of the people operating the business weren't either the most professional or efficient at their work and these people were bottlenecks.

Just as some of the bigger issues came to a head (along with drama) and I was getting a bit nervous about income, an old colleague of mine called me up and offered me a job. Starting in a week now.

Now I'm going to be in business development from NYC through Mississippi. Some more cash, potentially a lot more cash, and more work. Look forward to the challenge. I just hope I wasn't sold false hope again. This new company seems to be levels higher in professionalism. We'll see.

Xequecal_sl said:

How much more per hour would you guys normally charge for short-term contract work that's basically the same thing that you do during your day job? I've had a couple doctor's offices offer me something like this and I have no idea how much money I should ask for.

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I did 100% contract work for 15 years. I don't have an exact percentage. I got paid $150 per sheet to draw and $50 per sheet to check. Some stuff it would have been cheaper to pay someone by the hour and in others it was cheaper for me to do it.

Lots of times what I charged $600 for could have been done in an hour by someone on salary at the office. It kind of evens out but most companies didn't want to keep someone around full time or they contracted out the really large multi week/month stuff and kept the few people in the office who did it working on short turn around stuff to be more flexible.

Draegan_sl said:

I just hope I wasn't sold false hope again. This new company seems to be levels higher in professionalism. We'll see.

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Some owners and upper management have resisted in the past when they throw out a lot of BS and I ask to see the numbers in an interview. I have been hesitant to move across country for a new job without seeing the actual numbers and a pretty solid idea of the future of the company. I know lots of people that it never concerns them as long as the check clears.

I like professionalism, but I'm old fashioned. It's possibly my biggest draw to a company. I could write an entire article on what has happened to companies thru lack of professionalism in my industry. From a company going up the owners son nose to another that two guys tried to stage a coup to take control of the company from the owner.

Sounds like things are an improvement and I say go with your gut, if you have a funny feeling there trust your gut.