4 ms·

I tried this back in Philly. I asked for 3 13s or 4 10s. With 75% of the discussed salary, I was fully expecting to go down to 70%. If I'm left the hell alone,

I tried this back in Philly. I asked for 3 13s or 4 10s. With 75% of the discussed salary, I was fully expecting to go down to 70%. If I'm left the hell alone, I get a majority of my sprint work done in the first few days. Barring tedium, like upgrading network vendor devices. The most common answer was click. They just hung up on me. I burned several recruiting firms. Telling me I was not passionate about this career choice. I was also told about several companies. How dare I think I was special, and that I didn't commit to the team culture. My explanation was that to fully exercise my mind I have a variety of hobbies that eat up time. I'm working on a novel, acting, etc. They're not competing, but they provide benefit to the company. Nope. I approach this one with real caution now.

ianleeclark 10y ago
Just curious, but why would you expect lower salary for essentially the same time being worked?
- soulnothing 10y ago
  I've found something has got to give. Asking for a WFH day, or working a special schedule. Because you're not a team player, not willing to work with everyone else. You're viewed from the get go as a problem. In turn since your not the ideal candidate, you'll be paid less. I started asking for 90% of base comp, and that actually resulted in some yelling. I view this all as bupkus. But so many companies want 40 hours a butt in a seat, in case something is on fire.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    That is what they /say/ isn't it, but what they actually want is the thought of someone being "full time" as if they can use that person 24/7 by paying for them "full time". They're misunderstanding the meaning of the phrase. Real //coverage// requires shifts of multiple people for the same job. "Being reachable", used to involve special extra pay just for the option of being called in (actual pay).
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - spiderjerusalem 10y ago
    Textbook MBAs man. Hate them. All the fluff talk of innovation, but no sign of even an iota of critical thought. I keep trying to push the boundaries outwards in negotiations though, trying to find their breaking points. Often, it surprises me how much I'm able to get away with. The samizdat of our times might just be about _actually_ working while wading through seas full of these creatures.
rubicon33 10y ago
At the end of the day, it's all about leverage. I'm not sure how the job market is in Philly, but one of the reasons this worked in SF (I imagine), has to due with the leverage the employee has over their prospective employer. In SF/bay salaries are quite high, and talent is hard to find. It doesn't hurt that the engineer who I know that did this, was an incredible engineer. That said, I still recognize it's probably not something that's going to work all the time. For every 10 companies you ask, 1 will agree.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > In SF/bay salaries are quite high, and talent is hard to find. That's because they are high in absolute terms, but not high in relative terms. In other words, if the pay was actually high, talent wouldn't be hard to find.
  - pmichaud 10y ago
    That's assuming that there is a surplus of high level talent that would work if the pay were higher. I don't think this is true.
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      If the supply for talent is somewhat inelastic and smaller than we'd like, the price for talent should go up, no? Eventually, you'd attract talent from other regions and related industries (I can make 3 times more in computer science instead of meteorology, you say?). You'd also see more incentive to improve the productivity of the highly specialized, highly skilled talent. This would look like less patience for things that waste developers' time, like substandard tooling, unacceptable levels of technical debt, etc.
Applejinx 10y ago
Your answer there is 'damn right I am special', and be able to back it up in some way that relates to them. It's no use to them if you write a novel, but if you're proposing to ally your own abilities to the company on your terms and really flip on the switch for them and crank, you have to act in line with that expectation, which may include setting your own terms.
- soulnothing 10y ago
  This is the crux of the issue. Does the company care about their employee. Because a simple this is what works best for me should suffice. There are jobs where you have to be present X hours. But a knowledge worker, someone who's creating. The end goal should be what's delivered. Not how long I'm present. It's not just the 8 hours 5 days butt in seat. It's that my cell phone is plastered all over. I get lambasted for not responding to an email late at night. Work doesn't end at a cut off. I miss contracting because they would think twice about contacting me after hours. Shouldn't the company want to get the best possible work out of me. Ensure that their employee has an ideal work/life balance. So that they come to work with energy and able to work properly. Or are we just supposed to be a cog, churning out code. Again there are checks and balances. The alternative schedule is not concrete. Stuff breaks, you have a meeting week. You'll be working regular hours and then some. That's fine. Just give a balance to not have to cram everything I want to do into two days. Now I pitched it that writing helps with documentation, the other pieces helped with sales work, etc. So each piece I provided reasoning why it would be better. But that didn't matter.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    >I miss contracting because they would think twice about contacting me after hours. So why not go back to contracting? I've been thinking a little about doing this, but it seems like it would drag you around to a lot of different locations. And the pay doesn't seem that great either, given the lack of stability and the short-term nature (3, 6, 12-month contracts are the norm from what I see).
    - soulnothing 10y ago
st3v3r 10y ago
You'd still be working the same amount of hours. Why ask for such a pay cut? If you're willing to take a pay cut, cut the number of hours.
0xCMP 10y ago
If you're a contractor understand also that they would be paid less both because of the pay cut and hours cut and so recruiters outside a firm would not get the commission they wanted. There is a markup on your hourly rate so lowering the rate and hours lowers their profits in two ways. With salary it's similar except the hours do not come into play.
phil21 10y ago
I started a company basically with the goal to employ smart yet... strange... folks like you. It went somewhat well, but reality and inexperience of course hit and we ended up selling 5-6 years later in what amounts to an acquihire. My new life goal is to get back into that, as it was definitely the happiest time of my life. Just finding solid people who can get work done on projects, without having to kill yourself for no reason. If people were killing themselves for a couple weeks, it was for a damn good reason we all shared the benefits from - e.g. an informed decision by everyone to pitch in for a better outcome at the end. Conversely if we had a slow month we'd work half days on backlog pet projects to help improve tooling. Everyone understood work life had an ebb and flow just like personal life. That is truly what is working in the American workforce imo. Just the camaraderie of being in something together and believing your co-workers/managers/whatever have your back, just like you have theirs when they go through stuff. It's taken a few years to make me realize why "owning" my own labor is so important, but it's basically this. I want to have a long-term lifestyle business with people who work hard and passionately, but realize it's simply one aspect of life. I type this mostly for the simple reason that my initial response was "man I want to hire this guy" but realized how I no longer have the freedom to make such unilateral "crazy" decisions. How many others are in my position? Somewhat depressing to think about :)
- soulnothing 10y ago
  Thank you :). I'm curious what do you mean by reality/inexperience? I've had a few roles very similar to that. It was here's work, get it done by date Y. That was it. A year back during one of my breaks between roles. I spent two months trying to bootstrap a consulting firm. Ran into the no prior clients to get clients problem. But near best damn time of my life. Spending the morning networking talking to people. Then the afternoon, attending tech meetups, and working on projects. I agree a good team is a corner stone to a good work environment. My favorite places to work also had a strong team to go with it. Also there own little culture traits. I want to own my own consulting firm/labor. For the variety of projects, work schedule, etc. It's just getting back to that point. Alot of the best tech workers I know. Want to own/work in a consulting firm .For several reasons. They want their own hours/locale to work in. To not be artificially held back on a project, and alternate between tech stacks, to keep their skills sharp.
cableshaft 10y ago
Wait, you were willing to take 75% of the discussed salary so you could still work 40 hour weeks, just in less days? Wow. I can't even believe it would require that much of a cut (and clearly even that still wasn't enough for those people). Damn.

ianleeclark 10y ago

Just curious, but why would you expect lower salary for essentially the same time being worked?

soulnothing 10y ago
I've found something has got to give. Asking for a WFH day, or working a special schedule. Because you're not a team player, not willing to work with everyone else. You're viewed from the get go as a problem. In turn since your not the ideal candidate, you'll be paid less. I started asking for 90% of base comp, and that actually resulted in some yelling. I view this all as bupkus. But so many companies want 40 hours a butt in a seat, in case something is on fire.
- mjevans 10y ago
  That is what they /say/ isn't it, but what they actually want is the thought of someone being "full time" as if they can use that person 24/7 by paying for them "full time". They're misunderstanding the meaning of the phrase. Real //coverage// requires shifts of multiple people for the same job. "Being reachable", used to involve special extra pay just for the option of being called in (actual pay).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- spiderjerusalem 10y ago
  Textbook MBAs man. Hate them. All the fluff talk of innovation, but no sign of even an iota of critical thought. I keep trying to push the boundaries outwards in negotiations though, trying to find their breaking points. Often, it surprises me how much I'm able to get away with. The samizdat of our times might just be about _actually_ working while wading through seas full of these creatures.

rubicon33 10y ago

At the end of the day, it's all about leverage. I'm not sure how the job market is in Philly, but one of the reasons this worked in SF (I imagine), has to due with the leverage the employee has over their prospective employer. In SF/bay salaries are quite high, and talent is hard to find. It doesn't hurt that the engineer who I know that did this, was an incredible engineer. That said, I still recognize it's probably not something that's going to work all the time. For every 10 companies you ask, 1 will agree.

humanrebar 10y ago
> In SF/bay salaries are quite high, and talent is hard to find. That's because they are high in absolute terms, but not high in relative terms. In other words, if the pay was actually high, talent wouldn't be hard to find.
- pmichaud 10y ago
  That's assuming that there is a surplus of high level talent that would work if the pay were higher. I don't think this is true.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    If the supply for talent is somewhat inelastic and smaller than we'd like, the price for talent should go up, no? Eventually, you'd attract talent from other regions and related industries (I can make 3 times more in computer science instead of meteorology, you say?). You'd also see more incentive to improve the productivity of the highly specialized, highly skilled talent. This would look like less patience for things that waste developers' time, like substandard tooling, unacceptable levels of technical debt, etc.

Applejinx 10y ago

Your answer there is 'damn right I am special', and be able to back it up in some way that relates to them. It's no use to them if you write a novel, but if you're proposing to ally your own abilities to the company on your terms and really flip on the switch for them and crank, you have to act in line with that expectation, which may include setting your own terms.

soulnothing 10y ago
This is the crux of the issue. Does the company care about their employee. Because a simple this is what works best for me should suffice. There are jobs where you have to be present X hours. But a knowledge worker, someone who's creating. The end goal should be what's delivered. Not how long I'm present. It's not just the 8 hours 5 days butt in seat. It's that my cell phone is plastered all over. I get lambasted for not responding to an email late at night. Work doesn't end at a cut off. I miss contracting because they would think twice about contacting me after hours. Shouldn't the company want to get the best possible work out of me. Ensure that their employee has an ideal work/life balance. So that they come to work with energy and able to work properly. Or are we just supposed to be a cog, churning out code. Again there are checks and balances. The alternative schedule is not concrete. Stuff breaks, you have a meeting week. You'll be working regular hours and then some. That's fine. Just give a balance to not have to cram everything I want to do into two days. Now I pitched it that writing helps with documentation, the other pieces helped with sales work, etc. So each piece I provided reasoning why it would be better. But that didn't matter.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >I miss contracting because they would think twice about contacting me after hours. So why not go back to contracting? I've been thinking a little about doing this, but it seems like it would drag you around to a lot of different locations. And the pay doesn't seem that great either, given the lack of stability and the short-term nature (3, 6, 12-month contracts are the norm from what I see).
  - soulnothing 10y ago

st3v3r 10y ago

You'd still be working the same amount of hours. Why ask for such a pay cut? If you're willing to take a pay cut, cut the number of hours.

0xCMP 10y ago

If you're a contractor understand also that they would be paid less both because of the pay cut and hours cut and so recruiters outside a firm would not get the commission they wanted. There is a markup on your hourly rate so lowering the rate and hours lowers their profits in two ways. With salary it's similar except the hours do not come into play.

phil21 10y ago

I started a company basically with the goal to employ smart yet... strange... folks like you. It went somewhat well, but reality and inexperience of course hit and we ended up selling 5-6 years later in what amounts to an acquihire. My new life goal is to get back into that, as it was definitely the happiest time of my life. Just finding solid people who can get work done on projects, without having to kill yourself for no reason. If people were killing themselves for a couple weeks, it was for a damn good reason we all shared the benefits from - e.g. an informed decision by everyone to pitch in for a better outcome at the end. Conversely if we had a slow month we'd work half days on backlog pet projects to help improve tooling. Everyone understood work life had an ebb and flow just like personal life. That is truly what is working in the American workforce imo. Just the camaraderie of being in something together and believing your co-workers/managers/whatever have your back, just like you have theirs when they go through stuff. It's taken a few years to make me realize why "owning" my own labor is so important, but it's basically this. I want to have a long-term lifestyle business with people who work hard and passionately, but realize it's simply one aspect of life. I type this mostly for the simple reason that my initial response was "man I want to hire this guy" but realized how I no longer have the freedom to make such unilateral "crazy" decisions. How many others are in my position? Somewhat depressing to think about :)

soulnothing 10y ago
Thank you :). I'm curious what do you mean by reality/inexperience? I've had a few roles very similar to that. It was here's work, get it done by date Y. That was it. A year back during one of my breaks between roles. I spent two months trying to bootstrap a consulting firm. Ran into the no prior clients to get clients problem. But near best damn time of my life. Spending the morning networking talking to people. Then the afternoon, attending tech meetups, and working on projects. I agree a good team is a corner stone to a good work environment. My favorite places to work also had a strong team to go with it. Also there own little culture traits. I want to own my own consulting firm/labor. For the variety of projects, work schedule, etc. It's just getting back to that point. Alot of the best tech workers I know. Want to own/work in a consulting firm .For several reasons. They want their own hours/locale to work in. To not be artificially held back on a project, and alternate between tech stacks, to keep their skills sharp.

cableshaft 10y ago

Wait, you were willing to take 75% of the discussed salary so you could still work 40 hour weeks, just in less days? Wow. I can't even believe it would require that much of a cut (and clearly even that still wasn't enough for those people). Damn.