[BC] The wrong way to deal with tech budgets

[Alex Hartman]

I would like to know who the hell is paying $160k on the INTERNET side of things. I can see DBAs or sysadmins of enterprise datacenters containing large mainframes making that kind of coin, but your friend, unless he carries any of the above titles and a few degrees, is overpaid. And if he's a DBA or a sysadmin, he is most certainly on call at some point.

Rack monkeys in chicago make about 45k/yr for third shift. Amazon must have a serious bonus system to make that up.

Ever since the dot-com bubble burst, there's been quite a bit of salary correction. Unless you're the utmost in ubergeek do you get paid that kind of money. Most sysadmins i know around the midwest are making about 90k/yr, but they're on call all the time, and have no hair left either. And being a DBA/DBE pays pretty well too, if you can get the gig at a place that needs a skilled one (think big retail companies like Target or healthcare companies like Blue Cross) will pay for those kinds of people... When i worked in ISP land, a senior level datacenter tech (i crossconnected customers, racked servers, rebooted customer machines, configured cloud servers, etc) i was making about 50k/yr, then the bubble hit, and was told to either go away or work for 28k/yr.

Broadcast engineers are merely glorified janitors with a hint of specialty (ie, we know where to hit the damn thing to turn it on again!). $70k/yr for sweeping floors, changing air filters, and the occasional tube, MAYBE some wiring? ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. The on-call portion of the job isn't that bad, everyone complains about it, but really, how often are you rattled out of bed in a given year because of a real off-air emergency? Maybe 2-3 times? Sure, the timing usually involves Murphy, but it's not really all that often in reality.

Both jobs unfortunately carry one down side, management and the stupidity caused by them. I can't think of a job on this planet where you can escape them though... :/

Besides, 70k/yr is about 2x my current pay at my "day job"... i could live pretty cozy on twice the paycheck.

--
Alex Hartman

On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 12:07 AM, Broadcast List USER <Broadcast at fetrow.org> wrote:
>Good luck with that!

>On the other hand $70k is pretty low pay for a qualified guy.

>Unless I don't have to carry a pager or Crackberry, and only work a
>business 40 hour week, I am not going to even consider $70, unless it
>has some real perks.

>Hey, Internet guys make twice to three times that.  I can read, and
>change specialties.  AND, I don't need to know about a lot of stuff in
>the Internet side that a station engineer needs to know.

>When I learned a good friend is making $160k and is UNDERPAID on the
>Internet side, I decided...

>Heck, rack monkies working for Amazon make $60k before overtime and
>all the do is swap out servers in a server center.  Why be on call for
>$70k?

>--chip

>On Nov 21, 2010, at 9:00 AM, broadcast-request at radiolists.net wrote:

>> Message: 1
>> From: Alex Hartman <goober at goobe.net>
>>
>> I always said i'd go back to commercial radio for minimum wage...
>> Paid 24/7/365. That's a $70k/yr job here in my neck of the woods.
>> Unfortunately, nobody's taken me up on my offer yet. :P
>>
>> The premise being is that if they want me available 24/7/365
>> holidays, weekends, etc. They're going to pay to have that
>> availability. Simple as that... And i'm only 30...  A hobby is one
>> thing, making a living is another. If you cross the 2, realize that
>> one has to pay for the other. :)
>>
>> Alex Hartman