So, I've been working for a consulting company in the greater Philadelphia area for over a year now. I've never gotten a raise, my "promotion/raise" was to "promote" me to salary, which is at about $1500 more than what I would have made hourly, if I worked a normal 40 hour week. Which I rarely do, usually it's closer to 60 hours. Then they took my company car away, because insurance will no longer cover me, due to two tickets, one of which is 2.5 years old, the other is running a stop sign. And now they'll no longer pay my gas either, which is obviously a large bill, being as I live in Lancaster and work in Philly(though sometimes I'm unlucky enough to have to go to Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Wilmington or Harrisburg). So now I've put roughly 18,000 miles on my personal car since OCTOBER. Yes, 18,000 miles in not even 5 months.

It sucks, because I like the people I work for/work with, I know all of my clients environments(I can't stand my clients, but there's a certain piece of mind when you walk through the door and know what is going on), and the pay is *decent*. Not great, but good for my age.



So...anyone know of any companies looking for a new network technician/jr admin in the lancaster/reading area? Won't work for less than $45k.

 

Do you have a degree? Any sales experience?

 

time to get yourself a pepsi car Chevy Aveo haha ( work only ) or a toyota prius 60mpg

paint it jet black so no one notices ya much and tint the windows so people dont know whos behind the wheel :P

 

I would have quit the second they took away the company car. Even Comcast has a 3 ticket in 3 years rule and thats not exactly a relaxed rule.

There is no way someone is going to ask me to drive my personal car for business purposes unless I own the business and my car is a tax write off to the company. I've tried it before TWICE and it ended with me leaving both company's in a very poor fashion in under 1 month. It's like taking whatever your making and cutting it in half for gas, and vehicle maintenance.

The bottom line is companies will push and push for you to do more and more without compensating you for it to "Prove your loyalty" to the company. The last place I worked referred to it as "Motivational Minutes" (keep in mind this was advertised as a Flex 40 position) where you stayed after 5 for appearances regardless of if there was work to be done. If you need the money you need the money and you'll have to put up with the bullshit.

Contract work is nice however because it's seldom salaried and it usually carries overtime. If you don't like the people you work with don't worry cause in 6 months you'll get a whole new set. Best jobs I've ever worked have been contract just due to the work being very straight forward. "Heres what we want you to do, here is what you're going to get paid for doing it." Simple.

 

you could apply for a sales job at my company. you'll make more than 45K base before commssions. pm me if interested.
fyi - it's a big technology company with over 40,000 employees and has sales positions in your area

 

Thanks everyone for the replies I appreciate it.

While I'm bitching to everyone, did I mention that my daily driver is a 94 Saturn which is costing me more money in maintnence than it's worth. I want to buy a new car, but it's pretty much out of the cards right now.

It's amazing to think...at this time last year, I was extatic for what I was making. Of course, back then, I had a company car, gas paid, no insurance payment on my personal car(dropped the insurance because I never drove it). So I had much less overhead back then, and besides. What I make was great for me back then, considering at the time I was 19 and didn't have much useful experience, and thought I'd get a decent raise by now.

Yes, this is very money oriented, which isn't my normal style, but when I'm living paycheck to paycheck and shouldn't be...it's an issue.
No degree, no college education. I have a "Diploma" from a technical school, A+ certification and can get Microsoft Certified if required, about a year and a half worth of in-field experience, as well as many years of personal experience helping family and friends. No sales experience, in fact, I couldn't sell water to a man dying in the desert
It's not contract work, I'm a full employee with benefits, steady work, etc. I'm on call for a few contract companies in this area, but they keep throwing me gigs that are durring the daytime, for which I'm obviously occupied spending a good chunk of my income to drive to philadelphia daily and make a lot of money for my company...or what's worse, when there's no work to do, I have to waste my gas to drive to norristown(about 3/4 the way to philly, from my house), sit in the office on my thumb. Those days really bug me, because I'm wasting gas and my entire freaking day to do nothing when I could be doing anything else. Working on the FD, doing contract work for one of the other companies that has me on file, etc.

If I could get steady work through the contract companies, I'd do that full time. At least then I could make my own hours, do the jobs I want to do and make some overtime again.
I'm probably the worlds worst salesmen. too honest, I hate to not give people exactly what they want.

 

Wow your market must me nice. I've got 4 years exp in Helpdesk, another 3 in Network infrastructure, A+, CCNA, i-Net+ and I've never made 45k +.

 

The market is decent around here, because there are tons of people who fail at it. They're willing to pay the money for anyone who is good at what they do.

Perhaps $45k is a little steep, but I know I'm worth at least 40k.

 

Do you have a clearance?

If so, I might be able to hook you on a help desk\cumputer support job!

 

Got a clearence?

I could check under my company, see if they have anything up there.

 

Yes, I have an ordinary secret, but it's still interim.

 

You willing to work in Arlington\DC?

I think there would be an opening on my team (well not mine, the one I work for); and I can put a word for you. There is another team, a TIER 2 computer support, and they were looking for people couple of weeks ago.

 

It's really a haul for me. It'd have to be enough money for me to buy a new (used) car so I'm not driving my Rx-7 that far.

 

No, I've never gotten clearance. Considered getting it and working for the DoD, but I decided it'd be an awful lot of work for such a small step forward.

 

Judging from the cars my co-workers drive and the size of their fat asses, Goverment jobs are pretty comfortable, can't get fired from, positions (according to my co-workers anyway). My job really isn't. Its just bitchwork, but the hours fit my schedule at the moment.

 

ya..but didn;t you just say that even with 7 years of IT experience, you're still making under $45k? That doesn't sound like somewhere I'd want to be in another 5.5 years.

 

I'm also back in college due to the lack of movement in salary range. Hence the fitting work hours (weekends graveyard shift and time during the week as well) Most of the places willing to pay 60k were looking for 4 year degrees on the resume, without it they were pretty much putting them in the trash can.

I'd also like to add that they didn't care what your degree was in... as long as you had one.

 

Yeah, it's in the plan to go to night classes and get my Bachelors in CS, but I need to stabalize my life first, get a nice place to live, pay off my other student loans, etc. before I can get back to school.

 

My $0.02...
Go back to school and do anything you can to get through it to get a degree.

FYI- you can defer the student loans you have now if you become a student again. They are some of the lowest interest loans anywhere so you shouldn't be too worried about paying them off so quickly.

I hate to say it but it will be very hard to find a company that will take you seriously and pay you decently without some kind of degree. These hurdles will only get harder as you get older. Do it now if you are young.

 

i drive a trash truck pickup about 200 houses a day work for about 6 hours a day and made 43,600 last year ...

gettin a raise in april probably put me over the 45k mark for this year.. been at it 3 years now

and i work alone - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQkuoEdrjHU

i do not break a sweat either unless its 100 outside... change in career cause in the area closer to cities you make a lil more then I do ... more customers.

 

I don't consider 17.750% to be a low interest rate, but maybe I'm just greedy.

Im young--I'll be 21 next month-- but I'm not ready to go back to school yet. I have much more important things going on that need to be straightened out, such as my crippling travel expences. Also, realize that if I'd go to school now, with my current job, I'd be working 9am-5pm when I'm lucky, then either a: have to find a night school in the philly area(which won't cut it when I'm working in harrisburg, wilkes-barre or scranton) then have a 2 hour drive home. Or b: have to find a night school in my area, and start classes after 7pm. That's not even including nights when I have to work after hours, which is rather frequently, as I just walked in the door and sat down when I posted the original reply.