Tbag

Hiya Vic Oh dear.... that's not very Floridian
It better warm up by Thanksgiving the folks are coming and we are trucking down that way

britvic

Thats nice If I was that way I would pop in and see Ray.

jumping doris

Would you be better having them file for both. If the GC gets bogged down, and you never know when retrogression might strike the EB2's then at least you can get here next Oct on an H1b.

My OH is being filed as an EB2 (sounds painful) and we have been told that we will have our GC's next year. They are using PERM but I'll believe it when I see it.

rincewind

It depends what job you are in.

My position is salary based and I work from 8:30am to 5:00pm (I usually start at 7:30am).

My vacation time is two weeks per year but when I was in England, that was the amount of my hoildays I would use anyway. My vacation allowance will go up the longer I stay here.

My boss is great and doesn't mind me leaving early some days if I have something to do (recently didn't mind last week when I took half a day to buy a new car).

Not all companies work you to death but they are out there.

To be honest, I love the company I work for. More so than any company I've worked for in England.

BmblBee

A lot depends on whether or not you are salaried or hourly. Salaried positions typically mean 40 hours pay for at least 60 hours work and two weeks vacation (that you will have a hard time taking, at least as you scheduled). Expect to work at home in the evening and on weekends. Some employers limit the number of hours an hourly employee may work to avoid paying overtime (usually the base hourly rate plus one half the base). A few will even “suggest” (illegally) hourly employees work a “little extra” for no compensation to “support the team”, and they usually get away with it. Many hourly positions are low paying, and the employee can’t afford to loose the job or hire an attorney to protect their rights. Contrary to the figures stated in the media, many areas of the US have more people looking for work than jobs available, so replacing someone who is “not a team player” isn’t an issue.

Be very diligent in investigating potential employers. Do your homework. Most are honest, some are not.

gardnma

Took a salaried job a year ago for the first time. Just could not used to working for nothing. It felt too much like the comapny was using me as there was no recompense or even thanks for the time freely given (if we left early, we had to make sure that we had done 40 hours that week regardless of the fact that the previous may have totalled 55!).
Well, so I quit and start on Monday doing job shop work, earning time and a half for OT. Feels better already.

hoegaarth

Hi,

I've lived in the US for 7 years now, and at first it does appear daunting - longer hours and less vacation is the norm BUT, and this is a big BUT, everything is negotiable. I'm just starting a new job and I negotiated 5 weeks of vacation into the deal. Even the big blue chip companies are flexible.

I moved here from the UK, and it took me a while to realize that this is a big cultural difference - companies will treat you like a door mat, unless you stand up for yourself. And if you do, you can climb that ladder pretty fast.

Good luck,

-Mike

Bob

Or, and like a lot of them will, tell you to sod off....it's all very well if your going up for VP type position or the dogs nuts, but most positions, they would laugh at you, including the very big companies.

Dan725

Both relevant points from Bob and Hoegaarth.

The trick is to arrive at a happy medium in a lot of cases. Its very hard to do, but you have to try to negotiate right up to the "bugger off we'll get someone else" breaking point, but not beyond.

Bob

the happy medium could well be asking for unpaid time off...but then place has to be big enough to be able to lose a person for that kind of time as well...but the other problem, you tend to be in a fairly weak position if there offering even half decent medical insurance, because in the US, that is the only benefit that most people care about.

Arizona Wurzel

Totaly agree with you Ricewind,I am retired now,took early retirement,I started off with my last boss nineteen years ago with two weeks vacation time and when i retired i was up to six weeks vacation time.Iwas in construction as a salaried superintendent.I only worked three Saturdays overtime in all that time and never worked more than forty hours a week.I had a pickup truck supplied plus all fuel and all my food paid for at work.I recieved many bonuses over the years plus he took me golfing and still does and paid all my green fees.I have never paid any hospital insurance for my family as the company paid everything.They also matched half of my 401K and my boss had a suite in the Purple Palace in Phoenix where we could go and watch the Coyotes Ice Hockey team/Phoenix Suns also he had 12 seats up in the Luge in ASU stadium in Tempe for the Arizona Cardinals.He was the best Boss i could have ever wished for,mind you i made him and the company a lot of money,so there are decent companies out there,just my two cents worth.

hoegaarth

Yeah, there is some truth to that, I work in a high demand field, and as a result you can play one offer against another.

Course, the problem isn't how much time off you actually have - I've found that its really hard to actually take vacation, and even when I am on vacation I still get email and calls from the office..... ugh

Bob

or if you do have the time, not actually being allowed to take it off in large blocks....I get 3 weeks, but they prefer not to have more than 2 weeks taken off in one go, but can be discussed...just as long as it ain't around a crunch deadline it would be okay...so that rules out most of the year then *lol*

Pulaski

The Big 4 will flog you to death no matter where you work. .... Otherwise, US corporations seem to consider annual vacation a reward for promotion, so the higher up the corporate ladder you climb the more days you get.

I consider that I get, and take, a fair number of days (comparable to what I got when I worked in the UK) and I expect to still have 14 days unused and rolled over at the end of this year after four years in my current job. I am optimistic that I may be able to wangle a title promotion around the turn of the year, and that will give me another five days each year.

I think you know already that you are going to be worked hard by any Big 4 firm - the question is, can you leverage that to jump ship later to another employer that doesn't overwork you?

snowbunny

I work in a high demand field but I do compete with H1B visa holders for jobs. The work culture in my field is also such that it is easy to be hired as a contractor but difficult to be hired as an employee. Ergo -- no paid vacation and if you do get hired on as an employee, the average stay in any one job is usually less than five years so that you don't accrue vacation.

The work culture is also to not take much vacation, with the exception of going back to one's home country periodically.

I wish this would change and things would go back to the way they were 20 years ago, but I'm not holding my breath!