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Salary vs. hourly

cdad2000

Hello Everybody,

I'm a salary worker and tired of getting duked. I make twice the amount as my cousin 'The technician", but he takes home more weekly with Overtime. What are the avantages of being a salary worker?

Thanxxxx I just had to vent alittle.

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Comments

undomiel

You get to do more work for the company for free?

Well there is the ability to take a half day and not have your rate of pay affected. But I've seen way more companies taking advantage of the "free" overtime than letting you get away with the free half day or even hour early leave.

dan87951

The only way to go in IT in my opinion is hourly. I was taken advantage of by a company that constantly wanted me to work on Saturday. After a while I got burned out..

Vassago68

Honestly, after being in the Army and working for peanuts for 12 years now, I would be glad to take anyone's salary over what I get paid per year, and the amount of hours I work. More so with the deployments.

Aldur

I think that a big thing to consider is that your cousin "must" work those extra hours to make more money weekly then you. This means less time for him to do other things and also might mean that he's back to making less when that OT isn't available. Take for instance at my work place, I get paid hourly and when OT was available I made some serious cash. Granted I was putting in around 40-50 hrs of OT a pay check and this pretty much doubled my pay rate. Then about a month ago we had a hiring surge and OT went away. Now I'm making just my hourly rate but I have time to do other things, such as homework and study for certs

.

Honestly I would prefer to have the time to have a life or pursue cert study then all the extra OT and living at the office.

Just my 2 cents.

IT Man

When I originally interviewed for my last job, I was told the position would be hourly. I was later informed that my position would be salary, at that point, I had to ask for more money to offset the extra evenings and weekends I would be working. So I guess the first thing is to negotiate a salary that you feel is fair to accommodate the extra time you will be putting in. Its no way to determine how much but I asked for 5K more and I got it. Also like what was stated earlier, I don't mine doing OT, but I also need time for myself or you will burn out. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

leefdaddy

I was salary for the first 7-8 years of my IT career and had never had an hourly IT position.... until about 9 months ago....

Hourly is the way to go... now when you get stuck working late on broken things you are getting paid time in a half...

Still get all the same benefits etc... just more money.

unclejohnny

In IT I think being hourly is crucial. You are going to find times that you have to work over weekends to repair/replace hardware or software without impacting users. The key is to get an hourly wage that won't kill you on those checks where OT either wasn't available or wasn't taken. My team could take as much OT as we wanted at my last job. At the end we were probably only taking about two or three hours OT a week because we were so burned out.

blargoe

What kinds of positions do you hourly guys have in IT?

whistler

I guess at the moment I have the best combination. My current employer, til January or when ever they lay me off finally, pays me X/week for 37.5 hours and then from 37.5 to 40 hours/week they pay a regular hourly rate and evrything over 40 time and 1/2.

But then again there is no shift differential for my hours, 2nd shift, and I basically work until the job is done or I am relieved. Usually 3:30pm to 12:30-1am.

pwjohnston

If you can get Non-Exempt status with benefits at a decent rate, thats the way to go!

http://career-advice.monster.com/salary-trends/Whats-the-Difference-Between-Exempt/home.aspx

mengo17

Aldur wrote:

Honestly I would prefer to have the time to have a life or pursue cert study then all the extra OT and living at the office.

Me too. 8hrs a day in the office is more than enough!!!!

leefdaddy

blargoe wrote:

What kinds of positions do you hourly guys have in IT?

network analyst / admin for a large beverage distributor...

networker050184

Most hourly guys I see are contractors and some telecom guys. I personally have only worked salary and have never had any issues with it. Just make sure you get paid enough salary to make up for those late nights