Anyone Work in the Public Sector?

zdx

I'm not happy with where I'm at. I'm a Desktop Support Tech and I make about 33k a year. The benefits are great but I really could use the money to buy my own place. I'm required to live in town and be on call 24/7 and since its for a municipality that means calls about officers not being able to work detectives and those above are in the office late at night and need to something to be setup. Its part of the job but its sometimes hard to get by living here and I feel like arguing for a raise would be pointless. I don't feel like being here anymore. Is it any better at other public sector jobs? I've been looking into applying at another municipality or maybe a college. I value more life/work balance then a paycheck but here its neither of that.

Welly_59

Whats your location? People might be better informed to advise on your salary in comparison to your locality if they know where you are

McxRisley

IMO, arguing for a raise is never pointless. The worst your boss could do is say no. Maybe you could do something to make yourself more valuable like obtaining some work relevant certifications or do some schooling like you mentioned. You could use that in your argument for a raise. This method has always worked for me.

N7Valiant

Different locales have different governments. In mine, the pay is low but the pensions are great. However people often have a habit of being dead-ended by public sector jobs. What I mean is that the State workers are typically lazy and unmotivated and rarely move on from their positions. YMMV, but I wouldn't do it unless it was temporary(first job or something).

Nightflier101BL

I've had two different stints working for local government, currently in one of them. My wife also works in local government in a different locality. It's all the same, at least in this area. Lower pay but great benefits. I just recently accepted a new job back in the private sector - the pay is much better and the benefits are still great but not as great as government. It's a happy medium for me and gets me more in line with my career goals.

If it's early in your career, I would stick it out for a while and working on your skills. If you've been there for a while and feel you're not learning anything new, get out ASAP. Personally, my government days are over. Too many politics, too many "lifers" that fear change, poor management, no budget, etc.

Money is why we're all doing this, FYI. Higher pay can offset the lesser benefits to a degree.

YuckTheFankees

I agree with Nightflier, if you are just starting out, try to hold out and get the experience...the money will come. If you have 5+ years of experience, go out there and start looking.

And I don't think you are disliking the company as much as the job. Start looking into other fields: security, networking, devops, cloud, data, etc. Go to indeed.com, search for jobs you would want, see what skills they are needing and then create a plan to gain those skills.

dhay13

If you want a raise you need to articulate why you deserve it and show your value to the company/organization. When I started my current job I had A+ and N+ with a few years of experience as a system admin. I got several more certs, including CISSP and CSA+. I also busted my butt and overachieved. I plead my case for quite awhile but made no progress. I started looking for other opportunities and out of the blue my manager called me with a very nice raise that actually put me in line with what others with similar experience and certs were making. I like my job and was only looking because of the lack of pay but since getting the raise I have quit looking and plan to stay where I am for awhile longer.

What did it for me was my motivation, getting the certs and going above and beyond. Hope you have similar results!