Job Hunt Opinions Needed

[sergechronos]

Well, after several months working at Ninja, I recently decided to start looking for new work. Something that offers better pay, benefits and preferably a shorter commute for me.

I had an interview for a company building utility body trucks, pay would've been 14-18 per hour, but no response yet since my second interview a week ago.

Have an interview tomorrow for a field service tech job for CNC machines. No indication on salary, however it is a 100% travel position so I'd fly out on Monday mornings and home on Friday afternoons. Not an ideal scenario, but if the money is right (I'd like to be seeing mid to upper 30k at least) might be worth doing.

What I'm trying to find from the community is a kind of general sense of what most of you look for in a job and how you weigh salary and benefits vs the work life balance, see maybe if there's a point I haven't considered or a devils advocate opinion.

[stealthee]

It's all in what you want. There are those that will sacrifice their home life for more money, then there are those that would rather make less and still live life. There are a lot of factors, but the ultimate choice comes down to how you want to live.

[j2k4]

It's really all down to what you can make work for yourself, and the situation you feel you're likely to occupy on the financial ladder:

How long will it last?

Is there appreciable upward mobility?

Does it interest you? Be honest.

Are you or are you likely to be involved with a woman?

Do you want to be?

Also, as Brian says - look at the life you've got, and be sure you're evaluating things accurately.

That last is pretty fucking important, I've found.

There have been about a half-dozen critical decisions I've made in my life that were in serious error.

In every instance I acted rashly.

Don't do that, ffs. :p

[R/T93]

Check out usajobs.gov for possible government jobs in the area. Top step mechanics make 25+ an hour and have really good benefits. Kind of hard to get in but worth looking at. Send me a PM if you want more info on the application process.

[stealthee]

I posted my original response from my phone, so I will extrapolate even further now that I am at my PC. I have had job opportunities and even actual offers that could have potentially made me a lot more money than I am used to, but I turned them down for the simple fact of what is the point in having money if you can't get to enjoy it?

My brother just got his Class A CDL's and has been job hunting. He had one offer, which he attempted to take up which would have worked him 12 hours a day 6 days a week at $18 an hour. With OT and everything that would have put him around $82,000 a year. He was reluctant about even accepting the offer because having more money than he ever had before would be a waste working 6pm to 6am. His intent was to take the job until something else came along. Ironically the job kinda fell through when the rigs the company was hauling water to went down.

A few years ago as the fraccing boom hit I had many opportunities to go work one of the rigs making at least 80k, but I would have never been home. People were like "Do it for a year or two and bank money then get into something else." What people like that don't consider is you get used to making that kind of money and then you aren't going to be likely to find that kind of money elsewhere when its time to make a change.

These are just my thoughts, but you may feel differently.

[onebadmollafolla]

would have worked him 12 hours a day 6 days a week at $18 an hour. With OT and everything that would have put him around $82,000 a year.

AKA indentured servitude.

[DK77]

A few years ago as the fraccing boom hit I had many opportunities to go work one of the rigs making at least 80k, but I would have never been home. People were like "Do it for a year or two and bank money then get into something else." What people like that don't consider is you get used to making that kind of money and then you aren't going to be likely to find that kind of money elsewhere when its time to make a change.

This is exactly what happened to a buddy of mine. He made bank working on the rigs and bought a new house with a badass garage and a lot of toys, then gas prices crashed and he got laid off (and split with his girl) so now he's selling everything because it's more than he needs and it's too expensive.

[stealthee]

Yeah, the crash hit hard here too. My brother and I both lost our jobs because of it. We both worked for a supplier to the rigs.

I've got relatives in the coal mines and they are going to end up being out of jobs thanks to cut backs and severe over regulation in that market too. They are going to end up having their pay cut in half with whatever else they get into.

Making a lot of money is nice, but if its not what you want to do, or not stable then it might be smarter to make less and do something else.

[futurevr4man]

As I said on FB, CNC is a good world to be in. It's also worth figuring out if the travel job can morph into something closer to home... maybe they stick the low-man on the travel jobs but once you're trained, you can do more local stuff?

[donniekak]

If you want to do actual work type work for a living, move to a union state. Back in eastern Ohio/western pa most laborers for the drilling and pipeline work going on are making around $30 an hour through the local labor hall, and getting 60+ hours a week. It's outside, dirty, hard work, but it's like the old adage "you get what you pay for", except what you get is money, and what you pay is hard work.

Not sure what you're physical condition is either, but trimming trees through the ibew on power line right of ways starts out around $15, and tops out around double. The good thing about that is you can get a job through a company with a union contract and get into the union right away.

[sergechronos]

Well, since I've got a wee bit more time now (and a working laptop) I'll crap out a better explanation of where I'm at. Things with Ninja have been fun, but that's not a real career path. That's banking on the parts and platform staying there for 40 years for me to retire, not the sort of thing I want to roll the dice on. So for the last few months I've been looking for additional work, whether as a part time job to do with Ninja, or as a primary job to do and help Chris out when I can. The more time has passed, the more I've been looking at my future. Chris can't afford to provide health insurance or a 401k, and my paychecks cover my essential expenses only and I spend about 3 hours a work day with my commute to and from. I'm 28 and haven't had health insurance in 3 years, I have no money in savings and have been forced to pull from retirement money to cover a few catastrophic incidents over the last few years thus depleting it to near nothing.

The big thing that prompted this thread was an interview with a prominent company that produces CNC machines for wood, stone and glass. Such a position would entail flying out Monday mornings, and flying back in Friday afternoons. Airfare, rental car and hotel are all provided (and booked) by the company, plus there is of course a per diem for food, company cell phone and laptop provided. I've taken courses on large machine maintenance, CAD work, circuits and even programming when I was studying to become a nuclear power plant operator and all of those are very applicable to the field. The pay would be very nice for someone my age (low to mid 40k range as a base, obviously higher with overtime into the low 50s) Benefits are medical, dental and vision for which my premiums would be all covered by the company, and they have a flex savings account as well (obviously my obligation.) 401k has a 50% match on the first 5%. Company provides all training, and all the tools (roughly 50 pounds of them apparently.) 10 paid holidays per year, 10 vacation days per year, 6 sick days per year.

While I do have a wonderful woman who is very supportive of me, and we have dealt with the long distance thing before, it does raise some issues. Obviously it's one thing to put up with not seeing each other for a week or two, but to go 5 days every week without seeing each other would likely be much harder on her than me. That said, we both know that we could use the money and within a couple of years pay down most of our personal and student loan debts. I have family within about 2-3 hours of where I am, so it wouldn't be impossible to see them on weekends.

There is *some* upward mobility within the company, although in-house stationary tech work wouldn't be an option for a minimum of 2-3 years (realistically 5 or more.) From there, service team lead which averages about 12 years of experience and eventually service team manager (20ish years of experience.) There are opportunities to transfer into sales or something else after a year or two if the tech side isn't doing it for me although obviously pay is a bit different.

All that said, I do greatly enjoy working with my hands and trying to figure out what's broken and how to fix it. Getting paid to travel on someone else's dime isn't bad either. From most of what I've heard, the travel does get a bit old after a year or so, but the work always brings something new to go wrong and fix. The company pulls in a pretty good amount of sales per year, not including service/repair costs, and during the recession even when sales were zero there were minimal losses of staff. From what I've seen of their HQs for a long interview, most everyone wears multiple hats and there wasn't much for idle time by employees (which I always count as a good thing.)

I'm still applying and interviewing elsewhere, they are supposed to call me after the 1st to discuss it further, but gut thought is to take it and at least pay down debts and rebuild savings. If I don't like the travel, I can tough it out for a year or two until I've got sufficient experience to transfer to a CNC tech job that isn't as much travel. If I don't like the job at all, I could stick with it long enough to get my financial situation a bit more sorted. Obviously those are worst case scenarios, but compared to most of the other job offers I've gotten (paying around 10/hr) or interviews I've had and haven't heard back yet (most in the 13-14/hr range) I feel it's a step in the right direction since most of these jobs are not the sort of thing I'd even want to do at all (unlike servicing and installing CNC machines.)

Haven't checked the usajobs site yet, but will take a look and see what I can find.

[j2k4]

Keep us updated. :)

[futurevr4man]

Sounds like a good opportunity

[sergechronos]

Just received an official job offer for the position. Not going to go into specifics, lets just say that it's on the higher end of the scale that they told me and puts me within spitting distance of what google says an entry level mechanical engineer would make. Obviously subject to a background check (which should be fine) but holy crap, they told me it'd be a week or two. Gonna sit and think on it for a bit, talk to my folks and see what they have for input/suggestions.

[RealMcCoy]

If you take the job, and eventually come to the conclusion the cost/benefit ratio doesn't ad up for you, you will still be in a MUCH better position to find something that does.

A couple things my Dad always said before he retired: "I was looking for a job when I found this one", and "It's a lot easer to find a job when you have one".

[sergechronos]

If you take the job, and eventually come to the conclusion the cost/benefit ratio doesn't ad up for you, you will still be in a MUCH better position to find something that does.

A couple things my Dad always said before he retired: "I was looking for a job when I found this one", and "It's a lot easer to find a job when you have one".

Good words of wisdom. I've done the math on it based on tax rates and such, I'd still have over a grand left at the end of the month after covering all of our housing and utility obligations, put money into 401k, and my outstanding debts. I could have my credit card debts paid off within 2 months, the bike within 4 and STILL have money to put aside into savings for a rainy day fund. I'm on the fence, but very much think that I'll take that path. I'll talk to my dad about it tomorrow when I see him for Christmas eve. He spent a few years working out of state from my mom and the rest of the family and coming home on weekends, not exactly the same situation, but semi-close.

If nothing else, the fact I could have most of my debts paid off within 6 months (which would eliminate a few hundred dollars a month in bills) would be well worth it.

[futurevr4man]

Just received an official job offer for the position. Not going to go into specifics, lets just say that it's on the higher end of the scale that they told me and puts me within spitting distance of what google says an entry level mechanical engineer would make.

So they offered you what I said they would? :shock:

[sergechronos]

Nobody listens to you Nathan :p

But yes.

Should go without saying, but while I will still help Ninja out on occasion, but I am no longer formally employed by Chris and will not have access to orders, tracking information or news about upcoming products (unless they are products that I am producing for Chris.)