Hi Rick, Here's where I'll disagree with you. I think that no matter how "indispensable" we make ourselves, it will not guarantee our job security, nor increase our salaries. State government employees get a bad rap for being unproductive, and in some areas, that reputation may be well deserved. But if a tech is willing to work hard to make him/herself indispensable, that just means the government/institution is getting a higher rate of productivity. You don't get salary raises in the public sector for becoming indispensible the way other jobs do from private sector companies. Unfortunately, regardless of qualifications/skills/talent, those who set salary ranges for us look at other schools to determine salary levels for given occupations. My dean told me not to expect our school to be a trend setter for higher salaries, because it hasn't been traditionally so. But what is not considered in the process is that what may be a great salary for a single person, or a semi-retired tech with no children to support, might not pay for trailer park living for a tech with a family. Sure, if I was single, this salary would be fine. I wouldn't need a 3 bedroom home in a safe neighborhood with good schools, where the kids would have friends like themselves to build their social skills after school. I wouldn't need a 2nd vehicle for the wife, roomy enough for child-safety-seats AND suitcases. I wouldn't have $80 water bills, $200 power bills and $600 grocery bills every month. But this salary shouldn't be set up for a single person with no dependents. This skill SHOULD provide a modest living for a family, and there should be no expectation that the wife needs to get a job so that 90% of her bring-home pay can go to paying for someone else to raise the children, and the other costs associated with her going to work. This is a skill and a talent that few in this country have, and the fact that the salary I am paid is based on a salary that a single person, semi-retired person, or a person taking a huge paycut because health insurance has become unaffordable finds reasonable is what I have qualms with, while private sector techs earn double our salary and more. Becoming "indispensible" goes only as far as how much the next guy will take the job for. If I can't stay for this salary, administrators see that other schools are only paying so much, and figure they can probably find some other single, semi-retired, looking for lower health insurance costs etc., tech who can be "indispensable" for a lower salary, and the administration really doesn't give a rat's behind what kind of PTG qualifications that person might have as long as the faculty is satisfied. And all that usually takes is for a person to be able to tune a pianer and fix it when it breaks. If Fred's belief that we'll have universal health care (or at least regulation) reasonably soon does come to pass, I'll have a heck of a lot easier time telling the school to raise the salary or I'm gone. But right now, my outside clientele is so small I can't take that leap. And I think this is the issue most of the other techs who are either already CAUTs or are considering becoming CAUTs are dealing with. There aren't many of these jobs out there, particulary in my part of the world, where I can stay within reasonable driving distance of family. Turnover is extremely low and one of these positions comes available at the rate of about one every 15 years in this part of the country. My predecessor was here 22 years. One tech at another local institution has been full-time since 1987, and was on contract since 1972! So, if you like this work, and you have one of these positions, you'd better keep it. You just shouldn't have to adjust to a trailer park lifestyle if you've got a family, or be forced to work an extra 20 or 30 hours a week to make up for it. Look, if the guy across the street can't be hired at a $70K job playing on computers all the time for the simple fact that he was accustomed to $100K plus income and nobody will hire him because they're afraid he'll take off as soon as the economy turns around, and computer techies are pretty much a dime a dozen at that income level (I can throw a rock and hit 3 houses on my street where that's been the case in the past year), wouldn't you think that the ONE full-time CAUT position in the whole state would be worth at least $50-60K? Sure it is. But it can't be, because other schools aren't paying what the position is worth either. It's not that the "job is so bad..." But if you expect qualified techs to take these jobs, the pay has got to get better. Jeff Rick Florence wrote: > >From the "if your job is so bad, why don't you get a new one" >department:
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC