#273625 - 08/01/2006 05:22
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: tman]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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Quote:
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Just to play Devil's advocate... What do you consider to be so wrong about this?
Because it isn't related to how well you do your job at all? You could be crap and just do enough to get by and earn way more than somebody at the same level who works like crazy but doesn't have a family. Okay, real life isn't fair. You'll get plenty of things like this anyway but thats my opinion of this isolated situation.
The original example was that the raise was based partially on need, not totally. I didn't read that performance was completely discounted. In the big scheme of things, why should someone who works like crazy be rewarded if they're still crap?
And another thing .... most people have 'job offers' (no such thing as a contract really anymore) that carry the expectation of somewhere between 35 to 40 hours a week of work. Yet I have had a past boss say to his team that he expected a minimum of 50 hours a week and that he considered less than that to be 'slacking'. I've spent way too much of the past year working 50, 60, 70 hour weeks to try to meet unrealistic deadlines, and the sad thing is that still I've had moments where I've felt guilty about leaving work before someone else on the team. Why is that? It's not _my_ fault that someone on the team is a single workaholic. This is exacerbated by the fact that workaholics are often rewarded with responsibility as well as recompense because most companies tie salary to position. The problem is that they often have interpersonal issues, like poor communication skills, or the inability to delegate anything except the simplest of tasks. So you end up with the scenario where a whole team is waiting around for their team workaholic to delegate tasks or communicate information necessary to complete a team goal, and the end result is that what could take a well-functioning team 40 hours to complete ends up taking 60. Does the single workaholic care?
Anyway, I realise that I've gone off on a slight tangent.
The reality is that even in a competitive-salary situation, needs-based salaries still exist to an extent. If I earn X dollars and have a given standard of living, then if my needs suddenly changed because, eg., my wife gave birth to a child then I'd still want to maintain that standard of living wherever possible. Of course at my next review, after pointing out what a great job I had done, I'd remind the boss that I had new financial obligations that I'd have to meet. Obviously I wouldn't demand a pay raise based on needs, but a good boss should recognise that people are going to want to maintain their standard of living, and that in a good economy and in the private IT sector, changing jobs isn't difficult and is often an easy path to a good raise.
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#273626 - 08/01/2006 07:50
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: genixia]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 20/01/2002
Posts: 2085
Loc: New Orleans, LA
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Shouldn't your standard of living be tied to the coices you make? The fact that you had a baby was a decision you made, knowing full well that it could affect your standard of living. If you choose to blow a grand a week at the track, you don't get to have nice things. No one cares if you have a gambling problem. You just spent your money on something, it doesn't entitle you to earn more so you can afford the same kind of car as everyone else at your office.
I look at it this way, a company only has so much money for payroll expenses. If someone gets a raise because they have a kid, it DOES affect me because there is less headroom for ME to get a raise.
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#273628 - 08/01/2006 08:49
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: genixia]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
And another thing .... most people have 'job offers' (no such thing as a contract really anymore) that carry the expectation of somewhere between 35 to 40 hours a week of work. Yet I have had a past boss say to his team that he expected a minimum of 50 hours a week and that he considered less than that to be 'slacking'.
Indeed. I occasionally work with a couple of small US SW companies, and it seems that 50-60 hour weeks and 5 day a year vacations is more or less a norm.
Quote:
I've spent way too much of the past year working 50, 60, 70 hour weeks to try to meet unrealistic deadlines, and the sad thing is that still I've had moments where I've felt guilty about leaving work before someone else on the team. Why is that? It's not _my_ fault that someone on the team is a single workaholic. This is exacerbated by the fact that workaholics are often rewarded with responsibility as well as recompense because most companies tie salary to position. The problem is that they often have interpersonal issues, like poor communication skills, or the inability to delegate anything except the simplest of tasks. So you end up with the scenario where a whole team is waiting around for their team workaholic to delegate tasks or communicate information necessary to complete a team goal, and the end result is that what could take a well-functioning team 40 hours to complete ends up taking 60. Does the single workaholic care?
Agreed. I think that there should be a mechanism to reward the performance regardless of position, that promotions to managerial positions should be based on relevant (organizational, communication) qualities, and that compensations should rise only modestly with hierarchical "rungs". Otherwise, we end up with incompetent managers who could have been much more useful as good engineers. And, of course, amount of time spent on work is only weakly related to performance: while dedication should be rewarded, what makes work done is efficiency.
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#273629 - 08/01/2006 16:49
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: bonzi]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 20/01/2002
Posts: 2085
Loc: New Orleans, LA
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Oof.... 5 days? I just got bumped up to 19 days. After 5 more years, 25 days. The way it works is years 1-5, 1 day a month, years 6-10, 1.5 days per month, 10+ years gets you 2 days a month. And the whole time you also get your birthday off. Plus 12 sick days, plus comp time, plus 12 paid holidays.
Working for the government DOES have its advantages.
Oh yeah, 7 hour workday. Those are the reasons I don't get paid as much as others and I don't care. Not to mention I'm on a wage, while my boss is on salary. Since 35 hour work weeks are really not realistic most of the time, I do get overtime, and as such, I end up making more than her. Wheee.
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#273630 - 08/01/2006 18:23
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: bonzi]
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veteran
Registered: 01/10/2001
Posts: 1307
Loc: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Stange, I would think this would be a commie, not right-anarchist approach...
Just confirms what I always suspected - I *am* a right-anarchist commie 
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#273631 - 08/01/2006 18:37
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: lectric]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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It is a minimum of 4x the number of days you work in a week here by law. If you do Mon-Fri then you get 20 days a year paid holiday.
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#273632 - 08/01/2006 19:25
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: tman]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2489
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+ 12 public holidays
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#273633 - 08/01/2006 19:36
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Quote:
Stange, I would think this would be a commie, not right-anarchist approach...
Sorry, I meant this quite sarcastically. The events of Atlas Shrugged are started in motion by a company which decides to compensate people based on needs rather than production.
Edit- I am also not a fan of Rand- I just thought the example was similar to the events in the book.
Edited by JeffS (08/01/2006 19:37)
_________________________
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Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#273635 - 08/01/2006 19:41
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: genixia]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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I almost never work more than 40 hours a week. I'll do OT for production support in critical instances, but not with any sort of regularity. Or to meed a reasonably set deadline that ended up being just a little too short. But I will not work OT to meet an agressive deadline- to me that's just mismanagement. My work is much poorer when I start working OT (except, of course, when you're on a roll and elect to work extra hours because you just don't feel like stopping), so I figure I do everyone a favor by keeping myself to 40 hours. Some see that as a poor work ethic. I see it as a good, human, life balancing ethic.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#273636 - 08/01/2006 19:44
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Well, even if I do get a raise this year for performance, I think it's going to be overshadowed by the 6% pay cut effective in Febuary. Seems the company is trying to find every corner to cut and they just announced cuts to the shift differencials for after hours support. Some are losing upwards of 11-12% due to it.
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#273637 - 08/01/2006 19:51
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: JeffS]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
[...] working OT to meet an agressive deadline- to me that's just mismanagement.
I agree. Overtime should never be factored in when calculating schedules. Overoptimistic deadlines will sneak in anyway - better to keep a bit of margin.
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Some see that as a poor work ethic. I see it as a good, human, life balancing ethic.
Again, agreed. People work to live, not other way around. There are families, toys, OSS projects... If interesting, challenging and rewarding work pull them here and there into a 16 hour day or an all-nighter, all the better, but employer must not count on that.
_________________________
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Q#5196
MkII #080000376, 18GB green
MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue
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#273638 - 08/01/2006 20:59
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: bonzi]
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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I once got a 26% raise after only three months on the job. I went straight from $5.15/hour to $6.50. My boss said I was one of the best shelf stockers he's ever seen. I was even making more than Chuck, who had been there for over six months.
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#273639 - 08/01/2006 22:11
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: ]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 23/09/2000
Posts: 3608
Loc: Minnetonka, MN
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#273641 - 09/01/2006 07:52
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: JeffS]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
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I think the least I have worked over the last 5 years is 40 hours, and the most is 110 (but that was when overtime pay made it worthwhile!) but the benefits include so many holidays I end up selling three or four back each year.
In my firm there is not an expectation of high hours, in fact many folks work 37 - 45 quite happily, but if you do bring in results, you will progress faster. Same as most places I expect.
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#273642 - 09/01/2006 08:05
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: frog51]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
the most is 110 (but that was when overtime pay made it worthwhile!)
110?! Did you live in the office or something?
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#273643 - 09/01/2006 11:47
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: tman]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
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Well, I got to know the local Dominos delivery team very well!
Was on 24 hour support for a large bank - and I was the support team... so when they had issues, I was it.
They needed such handholding - they called me once when I was on holiday, and although I diagnosed the problem, gave the fix, and identified the network team for the job, they 'needed' me.
So I said that was fine, if they'd pay the entire cost of the holiday. Quick discussion and £2k came my way, so I travelled back, spent 18 minutes fixing the issue (diagnosis 100% accurate) and went away again. Good ways to make money 
Edited by frog51 (09/01/2006 11:51)
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Rory
MkIIa, blue lit buttons, memory upgrade, 1Tb in Subaru Forester STi
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#273644 - 11/01/2006 03:43
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote:
Quote:
the most is 110 (but that was when overtime pay made it worthwhile!)
110?! Did you live in the office or something?
The one time that I worked hours like that, I did. Took a little backpack to work with some spare clothes, and my toiletries. Slept upstairs on a pullout cot. The day after I finished that, and went home to sleep for a few days, the place got broken into, through the room that I'd been sleeping in. 
In the last 4 years, I don't think I've never worked more than a 60 hour week (during crunch time), with most weeks being on the order of 40-45. I do overtime only because I'm in the middle of something, and don't want to lose my train of thought. A lot of times, I'll just skip out of work early on Friday to make the weekly numbers work out to 40.
Vacation is currently sitting at 4 weeks. 11 more months, and I get a 2 month paid sabbatical, plus one more week vacation/year to mark the end of my fifth year. Plus 10 public holidays -- I miss the extra holidays we had in Canada, but my vacation time sure makes up for it. If I were to go into production, I could up my vacation time by 6 weeks/year, but then I have to work nutso schedules most of the rest of the time. 
(Oh, and to answer the thread's original question, my last raise was roughly 6%, but I've had as much as 0% in the past.)
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#273645 - 11/01/2006 04:44
Re: Typical Raise for IT?
[Re: frog51]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 20/01/2002
Posts: 2085
Loc: New Orleans, LA
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I can beat that. The week following Aug 29th, I pulled 168 hours. The week after that was about 130. Of course, I got paid to sleep, what precious little time I had to. At least I got a healthy paycheck for it, as anything over 40 was 1.5 time, and since city hall was closed I got regular time for that too. So I got paid for 287 hours of work in one week. Nice. That's two month's pay in 1 week. Not that that came close to making up for losing everything in my house, but I'm better off than a LOT of people, that couldn't work at all.
Sorry to bring that up. I know ya'll are sick of hearing about N.O.
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