<p>thx, MomfromKC.
some of us ought to go to bed rather than post. :P.</p>
<p>DS previous job, he was also jerked around. However there were significant tradeoffs that kept him there longer than he needed to. </p>
<p>So, MomfromKC, got daughter? :)</p>
<p>Xiggi, I told this story just for you. </p>
<p>There is more to this story but you got the gist. The future pay increase is in response to several employees complaint of low compensation. I am guessing that the new management is attempting to make some amends and minimize defections. </p>
<p>This company is not a bad company, actually quite good and caring. It’s just inexperienced. </p>
<p>The moral is its Not the money. The lesson is of Politics, which is something that can not be bought or taught, but learned.</p>
<p>Xiggi.
The actual insurance benefits is a net cost savings to him of close to $2500/yr, if he had to purchase the insurance benefits himself. The paid personal/vacation days is of course 1/12 of whatever is his pay-The more salary, the more $ worth for the time. The 401k has the match, if you can afford the initial contributions. </p>
<p>Going to full-time status with benefits actually cost him money. He was better off staying as a temp and personally pay for the insurances and not getting paid for any personal time off. However, he is becoming a profit-center for the company. The longer he stays the more experience he gets and will cost the company more money to keep him. </p>
<p>Full-time status means zilch in today’s world.</p>
<p>The future raise will be 10% more than his temp pay plus the benefits, which is essentially a fixed cost to the company. You have all the information to determine his pay scale.</p>
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<p>Ha! That sounds like us CS faculty grousing about our students:</p>
<p>Appear to have zero or little knowledge from previous classes.
An unwillingness to work on their programs to find and fix the bugs.
A disconnect from class performance and their expected grades.
A lack of maturity when compared to previous generations.</p>
<p>Well, it’s not that bad, but there are a few students with this kind of attitude and with not much chance of finishing a CS degree.</p>
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Dagnabbit! It’s not like back in the good ole days, when giants bestrode the earth.</p>
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<p>In the short term it may have cost him $…although I’m skeptical of your $2,500 insurance cost number. I work in finance at a F500 tech company and our avg. employee total fully loaded cost is ~$270K of which benefits including health insurance account for roughly ~$70K per year. That said in the short he may be potentially losing out on $ but in the long run as a full-time employee he is better off as he has the potential to move up the ladder and exponentially grow his earnings. Something that a contract / temp employee will never have. Maybe their rate goes up slightly as they gain experience, adjust for inflation, etc. but a temp will never be in a position like a full time employee where they have the potential to get paid $2-5M a year (e.g. the average total comp of the top 2% of my company’s employees).</p>
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<p>Medical insurance for a young healthy man is probably in the $2,500 per year ballpark, though it depends a lot on the deductibles, etc… However, a company’s average cost for medical insurance over its entire employee base, which includes women (greater use of medical services, and expensive pregnancy and childbirth costs), older people (greater use of medical services), and people with pre-existing conditions who would not be able to buy individual policies (known high medical costs), is much higher than $2,500 per employee. Companies also often have lower deductibles than many individuals would choose for themselves if they paid for their own.</p>
<p>Paid time off costs are, of course, proportional to the pay rate of the employee.</p>
<p>wharton: You really need to look into the private insurance market. I really don’t want to get into this type of discussion. Let the Politicians fight it out, I know how I am going to vote.</p>
<p>Leading Edge/Bleeding Edge, tech companies, come and go very quickly. New, young employees need to be able to change jobs quickly. Mid-age employees need to be adaptable, and senior employees with big compensations need to be even quicker and more adaptable. DS company is young, growing very rapidly, and got bought by a much larger company which is more associated with M & A.</p>
<p>This is silly. Here’s my favorite quote, among many:
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<p>Yes. Might as well give up that free money, along with the higher salary, the sick days, the insurance, the four weeks of vacation, the lack of unpaid time between engagements, the employer FICA contribution, and whatever other benefits they’re offering. </p>
<p>Darn it, I’m gonna be self-sufficient no matter how much it costs me!</p>
<p>Depending on the Delta in pay between W2 and 1099 it may be worthwhile… Or may have been worthwhile when the going was good… The problem is that just like in the 80’s and early 90’s contract houses took too much of a cut off the pay and provided token ‘benefits’, then as the market improved in the late 90’s it went the other way… </p>
<p>Also keep in mind that ‘Fast Growing’ companies often means (for those of us old timers) companies with few internal clues as to what’s going on, often headed into a wall. Some of us actually remember the hay-days of the dot com boom :-)</p>
<p>MrK, DS is still on the reduced salary but with benefits. and yes, darn-it you should be should self-sufficient, no matter what the cost to you. Being self-sufficient, gives you walk-away power.</p>
<p>got that right, turbo93.
It really hurts when you had a DS, house, and a worried W.</p>
<p>LP - I’m all for self-sufficiency. Walk-away power comes with skill and savings. So why give away the extra dollars when you don’t have savings?</p>
<p>Sounds like your son is doing the right thing - hanging on to the extras while he looks for something better. No reason to unilaterally disarm.</p>
<p>By the way, please tell him to earn that maximum 401k match. Free money is free money.</p>
<p>thankyou for the advice.</p>
<p>Also, make sure he is aware of the value of benefits and payroll taxes paid for him as an employee versus a contractor, although he may value the benefits differently from the cost to the company. This is so that when he is looking for his next job, and happens to be comparing contractor jobs with employee positions, he will know that a contractor job should have a pay rate premium to compensate for the lack of benefits and payroll taxes paid for him as an employee.</p>
<p>Your story makes it look like he was not aware of this distinction, and accepted a contractor job at an employee pay rate but no employee benefits (i.e. underpaid), and then got surprised when the company adjusted the pay downward in making him an offer as an employee with benefits.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus has good points. I just sent a message showing some missing aspects of the analysis, including those. And of course, if the 50% raise does come through, it’s huge.</p>
<p>Barrons, Sorry for the unintentional hijack of this thread, **Companies unhappy with student skills **. I was attempting to give one example how, someone can be *Student (young person) unhappy with companies *.</p>
<p>Will other participants forget the numbers. The numbers are just reference points. DS knew exactly the differences of hire status. As he discovered later, on his review, he was paid as a temp, far more than other employees who had benefits. His pay cut was in response to equalize his pay to other employees. His future pay raise was in response by the current and acquiring management to equalize pay to that of the industry and to retain talent. </p>
<p>This is about the endless ways that you can be unhappy with a company in as much a company can be unhappy with new employees. Politics and looking out for #1, is integral to a job/work.</p>
<p>They’re related - if new hires consider themselves underpaid, they’ll adjust work output accordingly…</p>
<p>Well, to the extent that employers can have a legitimate gripe about student skills - writing skills, math skills, work ethic, etc. - I have to wonder why colleges haven’t cranked the required effort for coursework over the past decade or so. Entry to good schools is far more competitive, but have they raised their demands accordingly?</p>
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<p>I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. - Wimpy</p>
<p>I’d bet lunch they are using this as a delaying tactic to get people to stay while the new owners figure out who they really want to keep. Expect a big layoff right before the end of the year.</p>
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At the F500 company I work at, COBRA cost for the family insurance plan is about $18,000 per year, about $6,000 for an individual. Time off is already factored into salary cost, you can’t double-count that as a benefit cost. What is the other $50K+ in benefits?</p>