What is more important... Salary or fringe benefits?

chaos_sl said:

Give me a good salary and good health insurance and I'll shovel coal in a fucking slag pit.

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http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...=Shovel%20coal

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Eomer_sl said:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...=Shovel%20coal

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Nice

My place doesn't really care too much when I do and don't work. As long as my stuff is done at the end of the sprint and it works come release time they don't really care what I do or when I do it. But I still try and work a somewhat usual day starting at 9 and ending no earlier than 3:30. Only because I'd fear if I ever leave this place and go to a more stringent work environment I'd die.

I'm in my 50s. I find money to be the most important. I have a limited amount of time to save up as much for retirement as possible. I'm relatively healthy, so healthcare isn't that important to me. The fringe benefits aren't that valuable to me, but I'm taking advantage of the tuition reimbursement to get another bachelors degree.

The majority of companies will only give 2-3% raises each year. This means that if you stay there too long, new hires will be making more than you do. When you apply for a mortgage, they're only going to look at the dollar amount on the W2. No amount of free sodas will change that.

I work from home one or two days a week and that's more than enough. I'd go crazy if I did that everyday. I need a social environment to go to. Plus, when I get off work I like laying on the couch and watching some sports or TV for a bit. When I work from home, I want to leave as soon as I'm off work because I've been home all day. This leads to more weekday drinking than I'd like to get myself into.

Tenks_sl said:

I get to wear jeans every day at work and that is worth at least $5k/yr to me

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Man I love suit pants. I despise ties and buttoning up to my collar though. I've got all the range of motion I need in business clothing below the waist, but less so above.

My top issue is probably commute. I love living near where I work. Going from point A to point B is a waste of time. Stepping out to get lunch? Waste half the time in transit. I order in at the office and try to work near my house.

Conversely, I love when I have to travel for business. It's just entirely different. I like planes and hotels and taxis. I think its being a passenger and spending my time productively. But fuck that stupid "turn off your shit while we're taking off and landing". They haven't got that worked out yet? Some bullshit.

All relative. Good compared to what? I'm looking at other options now so I'm trying to make decisions like:

What's more important? 15-20k more in salary or 3 extra weeks vacations, shorter commute and less work/stress.

Even that is relative, since going from say 35k to 55k would be huge, while going from 100k to 115k would just be nice. The other thing with more money is how quick you get used to it. It's really hard to go back down.

Dashel_sl said:

All relative. Good compared to what? I'm looking at other options now so I'm trying to make decisions like:

What's more important? 15-20k more in salary or 3 extra weeks vacations, shorter commute and less work/stress.

Even that is relative, since going from say 35k to 55k would be huge, while going from 100k to 115k would just be nice. The other thing with more money is how quick you get used to it. It's really hard to go back down.

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Some companies also dangle a lot of great benefits that are completely unusable in front of you. I get 8 weeks of vacation a year at my company. But I am a software developer working with a niche product (Microsoft BizTalk) and am the only developer that knows the technology here. I will NEVER be able to take 8 actual weeks of vacation a year and you only get to rollover 2 weeks.

Of course, everything else about this job was better as well. 30 minutes closer to my house, 15% raise, better health benefits but if I had taken this job JUST because of the vacation time without thinking about it first I would be very disappointed right now.

Take all your vacation, if they start denying you the ability to use it then call them on it. They agreed to that amount of PTO when hiring you and you can hold them to it.

They don't deny me the vacation time. They just call me all day long with issues while I'm on said vacation. If I turn off my phone and e-mail they won't discipline me, I'll just have a metric ton of shit to deal with when I come back.

Mostly because of issues with other downstream processes and people trying to "fix" stuff with a hammer while I am gone, causing more harm than good.

Then take your vacation and just let it happen, clean up what you can in your hours when you return. They will get the message that having any one person with all the knowledge is a terrible idea.

I don't get the obligation to do "all the work", you work your hours (40 a week unless otherwise agreed to) and get as much done as is possible and possibly add a few in special circumstances. If work starts to overflow on a regular basis, they need more people and that really isn't your problem.

I think you misunderstand. I get 8.... 8 weeks of vacation. It's almost like being a teacher, except my job doesn't suck. That's way more vacation than I could ever realistically take anyway. When you include holidays it's close to getting a week off a month. It's not as if I only get 3 weeks and feel obligated to never take my vacation. I can work 4 day weeks for almost an entire year. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying if I had used that as the sole decision driver when job hunting I would be disappointed because it's kind of a wasted benefit. Realistically I'll only use about 5 weeks a year and that is plenty.

5 weeks is even a lot. And I forgot to mention, they actually start you at that number (8 weeks). After 5 years you get an absurd 10 weeks of vacation time.

Oh, and they've trained 2 other people here on this software. They just constantly complain they have too much on their plate as it is so the training is all but forgotten and I can't utilize them anyway. It's a good company to work for, but every place has its problems.

Hah yea, I can see how it would be hard to take. I just hit the point where my 4 weeks doesn't cut it for the vacations I want to take with my fiancee (she has to take 1 week unpaid to use the 4 atm). Think its an age and income dependent thing. I would just kill for 8 weeks!

Porkchop_sl said:

No water coolers, no coffee, a barely working microwave, a vending machine that charges double the price of a convenience store

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None of these reasons should factor in to why you work somewhere.

I just found out I'm losing the biggest fringe benefit my job offers: my boss is an old friend of mine and my best friend's wife. It was so easy to get time off, knock off early when I needed/wanted, and the work environment was great.

She put in her notice today so she's out at the end of the month and god knows what kind of douchebag will replace her.

Lyrical_sl said:

None of these reasons should factor in to why you work somewhere.

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Says you. I compare this to heated seats in a car. You never need them until you have them. And then you never want to go without it again.

Not having water coolers or free coffee is supremely annoying. You'd be surprised how far 2 little things like that go for most people.

Yeah, I don't know what kind of caves you're working in where there's no water cooler or coffee. That's not even considered a fringe benefit in my book. That's just something an office should provide.

Khane_sl said:

Not having water coolers or free coffee is supremely annoying. You'd be surprised how far 2 little things like that go for most people.

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I never looked at that when I worked. The first place where I worked, we had no water cooler, and we all had to chip in and buy a coffee maker and have a coffee fund (that we paid for ourselves). Hell, when someone retired after 30 years of service, the company didn't buy them a gift, we all chipped in and did it. I didn't look at any of that, I understood I was working for a Fortune 10 company that wasn't going anywhere and never missed my check. After I got promoted to District Manager, I drove all day and definitely had no amenities. The pay was not good either, but I saw the million dollar homes that the guys in corner office had.

After 12 years, they let me build a hell of a resume. By the time I left, I had a district doing $200 million a year, which is larger than a lot of companies. And I was making good jack.

When I look back, and see how working for that company opened up opportunities elsewhere, I don't get butthurt over no free coffee.

Never did I even think about things like a water cooler or lack of free coffee. These things are inconsequential when there are other larger opportunities.

Eventually, I got perks, like working out of my home, eight weeks vacation, decent pay, cell phone and company car of my choice, but I had to earn those. I'd rather have all of that than a water cooler and free coffee.

"You don't want what you've never had".

Water coolers and free coffee are things that if you've never had you don't really care about it, because you don't even think about it as you said. Once you've been at a company that offers it, and move to a company that does not, it becomes a supreme annoyance. Enough to leave a job? Probably not. But incredibly annoying and something I would definitely complain about.

I'm not arguing that the other perks you mentioned are a lot more meaningful and rewarding, but it's the little things that usually send people over the edge.