Dennis G. Rears

"john" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 02:27:50 GMT, "Dennis G. Rears"
    > <[email protected]> wrote:
    >>"john" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    >>news:[email protected]. ..
    >>> Many of the federal government employees couldn't get a job outside at
    >>> anywhere near the salary they are getting from the government.
    >> This is true for a variety of reasons. It is also true for a lot of
    >>career public sector employees. Reasons include competence, being over 40,
    >>type of job, etc. I work in the IT area. The bottom dropped out of my
    >>market in 98/99. I probably get paid more now than I could get on the
    >>outside. That was not true in the early 90s. If you look at my 17 years
    >>as
    >>a government civilian employee, the public sector would have paid me much
    >>more over the whole period.
    >> A lot of federal workers do jobs that have no civilian equivalents. Is
    >>there much of a market for Armaments Engineers, Lethality Analysts,
    >>Weapons
    >>testers, etc in the public sector? I don't think so.
    >>dennis
    > You didn't mention the huge bureaucratic hierarchy to support the
    > above mentioned "jobs".

You are correct. There is a bureaucratic hierarchy to support jobs in
corporations and government employment. It is called personnel or HR (Human
Resources).

dennis

Richard Steiner

Here in rec.travel.air,
john <[email protected]> spake unto us, saying:

    >I don't believe there is a private firm in this country that has such
    >generosity with respect to sick leave.

At one of my previous employers, we were able to accrue sick time at a
fairly decent rate (somewhat faster than vacation time), and there was
no ceiling on sick time accrual.

We were also able to keep up to 12 weeks of vacation (though most of us
were acquiring it at a rate of between two and four weeks per year), so
people who didn't use all of their vacation for a given year could build
up quite a pool. It turned out to be handy when layoffs came around.

--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Smyrna, GA USA
OS/2 + eCS + Linux + Win95 + DOS + PC/GEOS + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven!
WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it!
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.

Dennis G. Rears

"john" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 02:17:52 GMT, "Dennis G. Rears"
    >>They are not exciting salaries but for career workers they tend to be ok
    >>as
    >>you work you way up in steps, The benefits make it worthwhile. I now
    >>have
    >>21 years in including my military service. I get 10 paid holidays, 26
    >>vacation days, and 13 sick days (which accrue without limits). About the
    >>only regret I have is I wish I could do some international travel in my
    >>job.
    >>dennis
    > Well, I guess that you have the world by the balls.

No, I don't even have the USA by the balls. I work for compensation. I
have a good job, interesting work, and decent pay/benefits. I have also
given up my privacy for my job. I have a TS clearance. Every personal
international trip is scrutinized, all my financial data is known to the
government, they need to know so I can keep my clearance.
Since I also serve my country as a Army reservist I am waiting for my
deployment to Iraq. It is only a matter a time. But of course that will
also piss you off because of the generous government benefits I get over
there.
we do real work that benefits the country.
    > As an employee of a private tax paying firm I really resent the
    > benefits that the government bestows on Federal workers.

If you are a USA citizen you can get a federal job yourself. That federal
job also comes with a lot of restrictions. I can not run for political
partisan office. Our ethics rules are onerous. I accept the complete
package.
    > Mosy people working outside the government are lucky to get 10 days
    > of sick leave a year. You use it in the year you accrue it or you lose
    > it.
    > Why federal workers should get 13 days sick leave a year which accrues
    > without limit is a rip-off to all the tax payers in America.

Why do you say that? If you want to talk about a federal employee's
compensation, you need to talk about the whole package. I am a post 1984
employee. That means while I accrue sick leave, when I leave I get nothing
for my unused hours.

    > Probably most federal workers , just before they retire, try to use
    > all of their accrued sick leave whether they are sick or not. Maybe
    > they just ask for the money figuring they had it coming to them.

This shows your ignorance of the federal government benefits system.
Employees who are pre-1984 (CSRS) can have their SL credited for retirement,
Post 1984 (FERS) lose it all at retirement. State and local employees of NJ
get a buy back of SL.
    > The government is deciding the benefits for government workers in a
    > vacuum.

This is not true. See further.
    > The government should be surveying the benefits of the three largest
    > private companies and then decide what benefits should be provided.
    > The benefits should be some percent of the benefits of the outside
    > companies and not way above.

The federal government (i.e. congressional committees) are constantly
comparing federal employment to public sector employment and tweaking the
system.
    > I don't believe there is a private firm in this country that has such
    > generosity with respect to sick leave.

There are lots of companies that allow people who are truly sick (i.e. heart
attacks, strokes, accidents, etc) to be on the payroll while they recover.
The federal government does not. If you don't have SL or Annual Leave (AL)
you apply for disability or you don't get paid.

BTW, I noticed that you excluded the military in your reply. Did you know
they don't get SL per se, but unlimited time off for actual
illnesses.injuries.

dennis

Js

    > >I don't believe there is a private firm in this country that has such
    > >generosity with respect to sick leave.
    > At one of my previous employers, we were able to accrue sick time at a
    > fairly decent rate (somewhat faster than vacation time), and there was
    > no ceiling on sick time accrual.
    > We were also able to keep up to 12 weeks of vacation (though most of us
    > were acquiring it at a rate of between two and four weeks per year), so
    > people who didn't use all of their vacation for a given year could build
    > up quite a pool. It turned out to be handy when layoffs came around.

See... Americans *do* get more time off in the end. Unpaid, though. :-(

John

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:22:45 -0400, [email protected] (Richard
Steiner) wrote:

    >Here in rec.travel.air,
    >john <[email protected]> spake unto us, saying:
    >>I don't believe there is a private firm in this country that has such
    >>generosity with respect to sick leave.
    >At one of my previous employers, we were able to accrue sick time at a
    >fairly decent rate (somewhat faster than vacation time), and there was
    >no ceiling on sick time accrual.
    >We were also able to keep up to 12 weeks of vacation (though most of us
    >were acquiring it at a rate of between two and four weeks per year), so
    >people who didn't use all of their vacation for a given year could build
    >up quite a pool. It turned out to be handy when layoffs came around.


Keeping 12 weeks on the books is bad for the company's bottom line.

Where I work you could keep 8 weeks of vacation saved up.

The company then ordered all of the employees to:

1. take their full vacation every year.

2. In addition, take one week of you saved vacation.

This really put the screws to the employees who were counting on
getting paid for the accrued vacation when they retired.

Ellie C

The Reids wrote:

    > Following up to Jane Sitton
    >
    >
    >>We tend to pick and choose the
    >>parts of other cultures we like best, being such a new country that we
    >>have little original beyond Jazz and maybe Tex-Mex cooking.
    >
    >
    > Jazz and the Blues. Tex-Mex and Cajun?
What about demolition derbys? Monster trucks? ;-) Religions services
involving poisonous snakes? Nah, that's probably done elsewhere as well.
Religion is universally stupid.

Ellie C

Lennart Petersen wrote:

    > "Al" <[email protected]> skrev i meddelandet
    > news:[email protected] om...
    >
    >>[email protected] (Miguel Cruz) wrote in message
    >>news:<[email protected]>...
    >>>Al <[email protected]> wrote:
    >>>>The Reids <[email protected]> wrote:
    >>>>>Following up to Rod Speed
    >>>>>>>it's actually very common for people with less than 2-5 years at a
    >>>>>>>company to
    >>>>>>>only get 1 week's vacation, and that isn't necessarily paid
    >>>>>>>vacation.
    >>>>>>Small subset of 'people in the US'
    >>>>>Is it a small subset? Ive been given the impression US workforce
    >>>>>is very mobile and change jobs and location much more than
    >>>>>Europeans?
    >>>>I think this is true, but people don't change jobs for worse
    >>>>benefits/pay.
    >>>Not until the Bush administration anyway.
    >>Let's look at this:
    >>http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost
    >>AVERAGE HOURLY EARNINGS OF PRODUCTION WORKERS
    >>The average hourly wage was $14.27 when he took office. Now it's $15.78.
    >
    > $14.27 was equal to about SEK140 at that time, $15.78 is equal to SEK110
    > only today, inflation not counted. Euro and $ was on par just a few y ago,
    > now the rate is about 1.27
    > Good news for those travelling and paid outside U.S but can't be fun for
    > people with $ salaries?
    >
    >
Really awful for people retired on US $. ;-(

Mxsmanic

The Real Bev writes:

    > I think you misunderstand. 1990 truth: In professional positions (and
    > maybe the lesser-paid ones too) if you stay at the same place your pay
    > drops behind the newly-hired people with less experience than you. Even
    > if you"re REALLY good. The way to maximize pay is to change companies
    > every two years, getting a significant kick upward in pay each time.
    > There are exceptions, of course, but they are, of course, exceptions.
    >
    > I'd be willing to guess it's about the same now, except that there's no
    > expectation by anyone, manager or employee, that jobs will last even as
    > long as two years. Stay light on your feet and be prepared to jump when
    > you need to. Life is very different now.

I think that particular truth has been applicable for a very long time.
Rare is the company that can match the jump in salary that usually comes
from changing jobs with a simple annual increase.

Indeed, to some extent the frequency with which one changes employers
must be chosen with respect to the type of salary curve one wishes to
follow. Since changing jobs usually drives salary higher, faster,
changing too often may cause one to be overpriced for one's skills after
a while, whereas not changing often enough may cause one to be seriously
underpaid after a certain number of years.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic

Jane Sitton wrote:

    > I ended my last job because I didn't get along well with my boss, and
    > because the company I worked for imposed a stupid dress code. (I worked
    > in an office, and never saw vendors or customers, so why do they care if
    > I wear white socks, fergawdssake?)

Your employer actually specified the color of the socks you must wear?

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic

Mika writes:

    > Don't think that Mixi works in some personnel department - they
    > usually pay ok - but he has a point here. Women are suspect because
    > they may become pregnant and require child care leave.

There are times when I think that the extremely generous maternity leave
that is legally required in France has hurt women more than it helps
them. The main reason for this is that no job with any real
responsibility can be abandoned for months at a time, and so no company
can afford to hire a woman for a position of real responsibility if
there is a chance that she might disappear for several months to have a
baby.

The net result is that companies tend to hire women of childbearing age
either for low-level jobs or not at all. There's no problem with
resplacing a secretary with a temp worker for a few months while the
secretary goes off to have a baby, but this would never be practical for
a woman who is a vice-president or has other strategic duties for which
her specific qualifications and personality are essential on a
day-to-day basis.

It has even occurred to me that generous maternity leave policies might
have been a deliberate attempt to "keep women in their place" by
discouraging employers from hiring them for any jobs of real
consequence.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic

Arri London writes:

    > The banks allow 'credit' if there isn't any money in the account
    > temporarily.

Many banks reserve the right to debit from the count immediately,
instead of at the end of the month, so there must be money in the
account at all times.

    > Yes there are charges the same as any credit card. While it
    > might not be called revolving credit, it does work the same way.

No, it doesn't. With revolving credit you don't have to pay for all
charges at the end of the month; you need only pay a portion of the
outstanding balance, and the remaining balance is carried (with
interest) to the next billing cycle.

French "credit cards" work like American Express: you pay the entire
balance at the end of each month. And banks typically deduct the
balance from your account automatically, so you never write a check (nor
can you choose to delay or advance payment).

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic

Lennart Petersen writes:

    > Mostly high skilled persons are allowed to emigrate from West Europe into
    > U.S
    > Guess there's little chance for an average bluecollar worker to get work
    > permit for U.S

Neither group is generally allowed to immigrate into the U.S.

There are no restrictions on emigration in Western Europe that I'm aware
of (nor are there any restrictions on emigration from the U.S., and some
Americans do emigrate each year).

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic

Frank F. Matthews writes:

    > The usual reply would be a much better salary and a more interesting
    > job.

Jobs in the U.S. aren't any more interesting, but they often pay better.

    > The salary increase will be chewed up for a few years by the cost
    > of a good immigration lawyer.

You don't need an immigration lawyer. You can win in a green-card
lottery without any lawyer, and you can also marry an American to obtain
the right to stay (illegal if you marry solely for that purpose, but
hard to prove).

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic

Old_Timer writes:

    > I have NEVER seen a Vietnamese person standing on the corner with a
    > "Please Help" or "Will Work" sign.

I've never seen any Oriental immigrant begging for money anywhere,
although I suppose such a thing must exist, somewhere.

Asians are quite smart, overall, and so they are rarely reduced to
begging no matter where they choose to live. They are often textbook
examples of "good" immigrants.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Js

    > > I ended my last job because I didn't get along well with my boss, and
    > > because the company I worked for imposed a stupid dress code. (I worked
    > > in an office, and never saw vendors or customers, so why do they care if
    > > I wear white socks, fergawdssake?)
    > Your employer actually specified the color of the socks you must wear?

That sounds pretty drastic and unreasonable... unless the employer was this
baseball team that just won the World Series. ;-)