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Traditional Catholic Faith => Catholic Living in the Modern World => Topic started by: ggreg on September 04, 2013, 09:21:03 AM

Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: ggreg on September 04, 2013, 09:21:03 AM
An engineer that helped build a nuclear power plant finally retired after decades of loyal service and was given a clock for his mantlepiece as a "thank you".

Six weeks after he retired, he received a frantic call from the new plant engineer.  "Alarms are going off and we can't figure out what is wrong!"

"I'll be right there," the retired engineer said.  He hung up and raced to the plant, running into the control room.  The new engineer quickly briefed the retiree on the situation.

The retired engineer thought quietly for a minute, then calmly reached out and pressed one flashing red button among dozens of similar flashing buttons.  The alarm claxons ceased blaring, and one by one all the other flashing lights stopped and the urgent warning messages disappeared.

"Thank you so much," the new chief engineer cried.  "Please don't forget to submit a bill to us for your time."

A week later, the new chief accountant called him at home and said, "I'm sorry, but I have an invoice here for TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS for what appears to be half a day of work, that is 10 times what our CEO makes.  Could you give us an itemised breakdown?"

The retiree opened MS Word and typed

Pressing Red Button:  $1
Knowing Which Red Button To Press:  $9,999

- - -

Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: ggreg on September 04, 2013, 09:35:08 AM
For those of you in jobs where the value you deliver has a direct impact on the bottom line and a very measurable one how do you measure the effort you expend versus your hire?

For contractors and IT specialists, for example, if you were working on a T&M basis and you agreed 6 months to complete a piece of work, but then discovered a way you could do it in three months by using a new tool or a piece of Open Source programming would you

a.  Work 2.5 days per week for the next 6 months?

b.  Tell the client about your discovery and be content to collect half the money for the task and hope they appreciated your honesty and rewarded you with more work?

Is there anything morally wrong, in your opinion, with quoting 6 months if you already know about the free open source code before you quote?  i.e. Overquoting on the basis that you will win on some contracts and lose on others?


The problem is that in the world, scrupulous honesty is often not respected or rewarded.  Frankly sometimes it is not even noticed.  Even in government and local governement if budgets aren't all spent by the end of the financial year they are cut the following year.

Many inventors and engineers have made millions, if not billions, of dollars due to their inventions for their employers and been given derisory rewards.  The synthetic diamond and the Post-it note are two items that spring to mind.  The Dilbert Cartoons are funny because people see a common truth in them.

So how do other forum members handle this?  Clearly one extreme is a moral quagmire and the other extreme of scruplous honesty will leave you ripe for exploitation.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: TCat on September 04, 2013, 09:53:41 AM
The way I look at it is, If it is more money for me, a Catholic, who is part of the Catholic church, then it is more money for the Catholic church, which means that I can say I done 6 hours study when I got it done in 10 minutes, so I get paid all the same.

I don't like having to lie, but I think the ends justify the means because money is a matter of survival. I cant go out and beg alms, id be locked up.
Catholics need 2 things for their religion to thrive, peace and resources.
If you don't have resources like money, you will have no church, or probably the extreme situation of not having somewhere to live, or probably somewhere to live that is dangerous. You need money to ensure your security in practical ways, this is how we get peace. If you have peace without resources, you are either lucky or in a monastery, but at any time something can happen that robs you of your habitat and interrupts your prayer life.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: Frances on September 04, 2013, 04:25:45 PM
 :dancing-banana:You can go out and beg alms in New York without getting locked up, so long as you stay a step ahead or behind the police.  Lying is unacceptable.  If you promised a certain amount of time and did not need it, then get paid for the work and go, or find other work.  
What do you think of this?  My nephew had a high school class in technology where the students took an on-line course through a local community college.  While the students did the course, the teacher sat at his desk and conducted his own business on his laptop, thus collecting a full-time teacher's salary of $85K AND his web business at the same time.  Aside from answering the occasional question, he did no actual teaching.  Were his actions a stroke of genius or unethical?
The school district decided for the latter and terminated his job.  
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: claudel on September 04, 2013, 04:53:26 PM
Quote from: TCat
I don't like having to lie, but I think the ends justify the means because money is a matter of survival.


That you could utter the foregoing with a straight face compels the conclusion that either your religious formation was severely defective or else, no matter how good it was, it failed to make a dent in you.

While the entirety of your comment was disturbing to read, this plain statement is inconceivable coming from a genuine Catholic, even from a dyed-in-the-wool conciliarist for that matter.

Find yourself an orthodox spiritual director, and stay offline until you have set yourself on the right course.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: Matto on September 04, 2013, 05:03:54 PM
I don't think TCat knows a lot about the faith yet. I first noticed this when he said that deacons can hear confessions. In time he will learn more.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: wallflower on September 04, 2013, 05:41:21 PM
If it were hourly pay, I would be honest and they would re-hire me because they like paying me less. But I would brainstorm ways to use the faster method as leverage. Re-write the contract or re-negotiate your terms for the same amount of time pay that it would take someone else. They're not paying you any more to do it in 3 months than they would pay anyone else to do it in 6, so I don't see why they would be against it. They aren't out in any way and actually benefit.

Chances are that getting it done faster is good for the employer because they can get whatever it is up and running faster, thereby making more profit. It could be good for their bottom line and well worth it for them to pay the same amount for the job done in 3 months rather than 6. Then the guys who know your new way become more valuable and everyone is motivated to adopt your improvement. If you haven't given your secrets away, you could create a space for yourself as a consultant. Patent your idea and sell it or teach it. Maybe the employer would buy the idea and hire you as a consultant to others in the field. Either way you choose, you are working your field and making improvements on it but also being compensated justly for your great idea instead of being exploited for it.

If those avenues are impossible or unsuccessful for whatever reason then I would quote honestly anyway because my honesty isn't between me and my employer, it's between me and God. It would be disappointing that I couldn't leverage the idea for better pay, but in the end I got paid 3 months wage for 3 months work, so I can't really complain. I'm just free 3 months earlier to work on something else.  

I would not overquote as a policy. If a person gets so few contracts that they are starving and need to be dishonest with whoever does give them work, just so that can get more money to tide them over other lost contracts, then perhaps it's time for a career change? Even if it's so common that it becomes industry standard, it's really nothing more than a fancy way of saying "Everyone else is doing it!" which we know doesn't fly in morality. If they aren't starving but are overquoting out of greed, that answers itself.

If the company has to raise prices to pay for the overquoting and pilfering of time that that field is doing, the cost gets passed on to the consumer so if a person is going to overquote they should be able to overdeliver, otherwise it is just theft from each one of those people affected.

I may just be uneducated but I don't understand the benefit of "use it or lose it" budgets. My husband worked logistics for a few years and once had to spend $107,000 in 4 hours when extra money dropped suddenly, use it or lose it not just that year but that day! It's not that they didn't eventually use what was spent but that method pretty much guarantees abuse in the organizations set up like that. There should be a budget set, then incentive to come in below budget, so the extra monies can be redirected elsewhere where it may be more needed. The stress and pressure he was under to spend every dollar every year -- or else -- was ridiculous.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: ggreg on September 05, 2013, 08:10:59 AM
Quote from: wallflower
If it were hourly pay, I would be honest and they would re-hire me because they like paying me less. But I would brainstorm ways to use the faster method as leverage. Re-write the contract or re-negotiate your terms for the same amount of time pay that it would take someone else. They're not paying you any more to do it in 3 months than they would pay anyone else to do it in 6, so I don't see why they would be against it. They aren't out in any way and actually benefit.


You don't renegotiate your contract with a billion dollar firm like Oracle or SAP.  Big firms just don't work in that way.  They have a process and you fit into it.  Frankly, thinking about it, this is true for most firms with more than 100 employees.  They give you a standard consultancy agreement and you sign it.  You're assuming business people think rationally and without emotion.  If you lowered your rates, the MOST likely thing they would do is dump you because they would figure you were working for a competitor (and double dipping) or a lunatic or planning to set up your own company.  They would be suspicious as to why anyone would lower their rates and anyone doing that would more likely be treated with contempt.

Businesses hire expensive consultants and pay CEOs and senior executives megabucks precisely because their boards and other senior management think "expensive is good", especially where there are not like-for-like comparisons or the deliverable is based on trust and trust is based on reputation.  Just like people buy Rolex watches and prestige cars.  Aston Martin does not make a cheap runabout for similar reasons.  People would not like or trust the DB9

Quote from: wallflower

If those avenues are impossible or unsuccessful for whatever reason then I would quote honestly anyway because my honesty isn't between me and my employer, it's between me and God. It would be disappointing that I couldn't leverage the idea for better pay, but in the end I got paid 3 months wage for 3 months work, so I can't really complain. I'm just free 3 months earlier to work on something else.  


You'd be free in 3 months anyway.  Or, more accuately, you could be doing 2.5 days per week for another client and therefore not have all your income eggs in one basket.  No consultancy agreement is going to ban you from working for another firm, provided they are not a competitor.

Quote from: wallflower

I would not overquote as a policy. If a person gets so few contracts that they are starving and need to be dishonest with whoever does give them work, just so that can get more money to tide them over other lost contracts, then perhaps it's time for a career change?
 


The nature of most consultancy or contracting is stopping and starting, feast and famine.  If you are engaged all year every year then you are not charging enough.  The nature of capitalism is supply and demand.  One's time is a limited resource and therefore you charge what the market will bear.  The optimum pricing point will give you gaps in your schedule, just as a company lending money does not aim for or wish to get a zero default rate on loans.  What it does is OPTIMIZE its default rates with it's acceptance rates to maximize its profits.

What is wrong in principle with some of your clients paying you $70 per hour and other clients paying $100 per hour or even $140?  Provided both clients are happy with your output/product/service then why is that dishonest?  When you book a flight on a cheap airline and pay $50 for a ticket and the person sitting next to you on the flight has paid $200 have they been ripped off or treated dishonestly?  They each agreed to pay the price they paid for a service.  Perhaps the flight is more valuable to them.  Perhaps $200 is less important.

The economic REALITY is that the $200 passenger is subsidising the cost of the $50 passenger.  It costs the airline more than $50 to fly you in jet fuel alone, but as a business they have chosen to use a dynamic pricing model to sell airline travel.



Quote from: wallflower

Even if it's so common that it becomes industry standard, it's really nothing more than a fancy way of saying "Everyone else is doing it!" which we know doesn't fly in morality. If they aren't starving but are overquoting out of greed, that answers itself.


Low cost airlines function better as businesses than the way airlines used to price tickets.  The innovators changed the pricing model so now "everyone is doing it".

Greed.  This is the debatable point.  Is it greedy to charge $50, 500, 5000, 50,000 per hour for your time if business are happy to pay that?  If it is, then perhaps all Trads who wish to get to heaven should be smallholding farmers and make a fixed 20% profit margin over input costs to cover for failed crops and the basic costs of living.

By charging $300 dollars per hour the better contractor also gives the junior contractor an opportunity to work for a living wage.  If the expensive consultant charged $30 per hour because he did not want to be greedy, while the shareholders of the firm would benefit through higher profits, the junior contractor would never leave his burger flipping job in Mc Donalds.

The Soviet Union had very cheap prices for things.  Soviet citizens could go on cheap holidays, buy cheap food, cheap clothes, utilities were peanuts.  People always had excess money.  Unfortunately there were also a lot of empty shelves because supply and demand were not matched.

Should Catholics ignore the economic paradigm they live in and behave the same regardless, or earn what they are able to and do some good with their excess wealth?
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: ggreg on September 05, 2013, 08:47:04 AM
Quote from: wallflower


If the company has to raise prices to pay for the overquoting and pilfering of time that that field is doing, the cost gets passed on to the consumer so if a person is going to overquote they should be able to overdeliver, otherwise it is just theft from each one of those people affected.



Companies raise prices based on demand, not input costs.  Apple IPads cost what they do because people are prepared to pay that much for them.  If Samsung suddenly came out with an IPad killer iPads would all be sold for a loss and the shareholders would take a hit regardless of the input costs (which would be the same)

"Pilfering of time" is an interesting concept.  When one takes a coffee break in an office is one pilfering time from their employer?  Or says the midday Angelus?  Or has a long boozy lunch with a client or another employee and chats about golf for most of it.

It's a judgement call really.  One has to be honest with oneself and say, is what I am delivering fair and equitable.  Generally speaking if they are paying your invoices, it is.  What keeps you "honest" is competition.

If one runs their own business, is one oblidged morally to work as diligently as an employee employed by a business, in as much as one cannot cheat oneself of ones own wages.  My job for example is about concrete results not turning out widgets or entering data.  If I get those results nobody cares how I got them, so I take as many shortcuts as I can.

I took two of my children for a 1km race yesterday and used $30 of gas to drive 80 miles (round trip) and paid $10 to enter them into the race.  If gas was a $50 per gallon instead of $10 I would probably not have taken them.

So your suggestion of "theft from each one of those affected" is not really true in as much as theft is taking something without the permission or the owner of that thing.  When people buy an IPad for $440 dollars as opposed to $400 dollars they have agreed to pay that price in either case.  The Samsung tablet maker, who hired the cheaper or more "honest" contractor is therefore $140 cheaper, rather than $100 cheaper and presumably sells more units.

Nobody is being stolen from regardless of what iPads cost.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: ggreg on September 05, 2013, 09:02:04 AM
Even greed and corruption have their own supply and demand equation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10019953/Greed-is-no-longer-good-study-finds.html

Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: claudel on September 05, 2013, 12:27:29 PM
Quote from: ggreg
… The problem is that in the world, scrupulous honesty is often not respected or rewarded.  Frankly sometimes it is not even noticed. …

So how do other forum members handle this? Clearly one extreme is a moral quagmire and the other extreme of scrupulous honesty will leave you ripe for exploitation.


You deserve recognition and, yes, praise—especially, as a matter of simple justice, from those who, like me, frequently or usually disagree with you—for laboring to show the inexperienced, the uninformed, and the more or less wilfully ignorant that the dime-store socialism proclaimed by far too many commenters hereabouts is profoundly false (hence, un-Catholic), even when it issues from the mouth of a self-proclaimed believer rather than an unbeliever.* If more than a century's worth of idiotic prelates' cries that All We Need Is Love to just get along—at a level of material comfort that no prelate would ever tolerate for himself, needless to say—doesn't demonstrate that not all the holy water in the world will baptize radical economic misdirection and socialist evil-mindedness or sacramentally transform greed, envy, and jealousy in those who have been well styled the Undeserving Poor into legitimate claims upon their betters' purse, nothing will.** But hats' off for the attempt!

The point you make about widely differing airline and hotel rates is too good to overlook (though it will be), not least because its model is a certain parable concerning workers in the field, some of whom get a certain flat fee—let's call it a hundred bucks, shall we?—for working an hour, while others get it for the work of an entire day. I don't dispute, of course, that the parable—one of whose central points is that God's justice is not man's and so one would do well to hold his tongue rather than piss and moan about it—is not meant to be an entry in a management consultant's handbook. (How many well-qualified potential employees, after all, will respond favorably to a stated caution that they should expect to see layabouts and incompetents paid as much as or more than they themselves are likely to get?) But if even a single reader gets a glimmer of understanding that if there is a just analogy to be drawn between economic justice and a math equation,*** the equation must look far, far less like 2 + 2 = 4 than like a third-order integration—whose form alone might take an hour to set up—then you will have done a good day's work.
___________________________________

* Of course, you got half a dozen reflexive down thumbs, presumably because "everyone" knows you're evil. Half or more of them clearly came before the given comment was even read. Yet TCat's truly vicious and shocking paganism (which he displays on virtually every thread he "contributes" to) gets up-thumbed by at least one other moral midget, and several of those who pointed out his profound misdirection (disclaimer time: moi-même among them) got down-thumbed for doing so. Welcome to Tradville! Any resemblance to an all–Orthodox Jєωιѕн neighborhood is totally coincidental.

** I do disagree with your use of the expression "scrupulous honesty," since such an attitude is virtuous rather than otherwise. You ought to have said, I think, "overscrupulous 'honesty'". Overscrupulousness, after all, is at least a fault and is sometimes sinful, and when overscrupulosity is present, genuine honesty rapidly declines into "honesty."

*** Like many other Yanks, I have spent a considerable time during the past forty-five years wondering why Brits and Ozzies shorten mathematics to maths, rather than to our American preference, which has clearly been anointed by the Lord Himself. If linguistic imperialism is not to fall into laugh-ridden contempt among the Great Unwashed, the Obama administration ought to threaten "surgical strikes" against maths users.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: ggreg on September 05, 2013, 12:33:27 PM
You're right, overscrupulous honesty is the term I meant.

I was multi-tasking before my road trip.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: OHCA on September 05, 2013, 06:29:30 PM
Quote from: claudel
Quote from: TCat
I don't like having to lie, but I think the ends justify the means because money is a matter of survival.


That you could utter the foregoing with a straight face compels the conclusion that either your religious formation was severely defective or else, no matter how good it was, it failed to make a dent in you.

While the entirety of your comment was disturbing to read, this plain statement is inconceivable coming from a genuine Catholic, even from a dyed-in-the-wool conciliarist for that matter.

Find yourself an orthodox spiritual director, and stay offline until you have set yourself on the right course.


TCat is simply a troll.  I doubt he has any sort of Catholic background whatsoever.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: OHCA on September 05, 2013, 06:30:48 PM
Quote from: Matto
I don't think TCat knows a lot about the faith yet. I first noticed this when he said that deacons can hear confessions. In time he will learn more.


He is more interested in pontificating than learning.  I think he is a troll.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: claudel on September 05, 2013, 07:27:53 PM
Quote from: OHCA
Quote from: Matto
I don't think TCat knows a lot about the faith yet. I first noticed this when he said that deacons can hear confessions. In time he will learn more.


He is more interested in pontificating than learning. I think he is a troll.


The more I see of him, the more I fear you're correct in your assessment. That Frances thinks well of him is the only thing I know of that speaks in his defense.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: wallflower on September 05, 2013, 08:50:18 PM
Quote from: ggreg

You don't renegotiate your contract with a billion dollar firm like Oracle or SAP.  Big firms just don't work in that way.  They have a process and you fit into it.  Frankly, thinking about it, this is true for most firms with more than 100 employees.  They give you a standard consultancy agreement and you sign it.  You're assuming business people think rationally and without emotion.  If you lowered your rates, the MOST likely thing they would do is dump you because they would figure you were working for a competitor (and double dipping) or a lunatic or planning to set up your own company.  They would be suspicious as to why anyone would lower their rates and anyone doing that would more likely be treated with contempt.

Businesses hire expensive consultants and pay CEOs and senior executives megabucks precisely because their boards and other senior management think "expensive is good", especially where there are not like-for-like comparisons or the deliverable is based on trust and trust is based on reputation.  Just like people buy Rolex watches and prestige cars.  Aston Martin does not make a cheap runabout for similar reasons.  People would not like or trust the DB9


But you aren't lowering your rates. You are keeping the same $300/hour rate, you just take less time. I cannot imagine a scenario where saying "Hey, I'll do the job for the same $300/hour of my competitor but in half the time" would reflect badly on a person's value. In fact if you ARE somehow able to negotiate the same pay for 3 months work as the other guy would in 6 months work, you are doubling your rate.

The only way that would work is if the company wants to pay X amount of dollars for X job and the details of how long it took you are irrelevant. Then the pay is based on the value of the job done and not strictly by the hour. In that case I would have no problem taking home the same pay as the other guy even if I got the job done faster. Then my pay is based on me being good at what I do and using my time efficiently rather than lying about how many hours I put in. There's no justification for claiming to work 5 days a week when only working 2.5. But if they don't care how many hours it takes and simply want the job done for X wage, then taking X dollars is perfectly fine. The bottom line then is that you are resourceful not deceitful, it makes a big difference.


Quote from: ggreg

The nature of most consultancy or contracting is stopping and starting, feast and famine.  If you are engaged all year every year then you are not charging enough.  The nature of capitalism is supply and demand.  One's time is a limited resource and therefore you charge what the market will bear.  The optimum pricing point will give you gaps in your schedule, just as a company lending money does not aim for or wish to get a zero default rate on loans.  What it does is OPTIMIZE its default rates with it's acceptance rates to maximize its profits.

What is wrong in principle with some of your clients paying you $70 per hour and other clients paying $100 per hour or even $140?  Provided both clients are happy with your output/product/service then why is that dishonest?  When you book a flight on a cheap airline and pay $50 for a ticket and the person sitting next to you on the flight has paid $200 have they been ripped off or treated dishonestly?  They each agreed to pay the price they paid for a service.  Perhaps the flight is more valuable to them.  Perhaps $200 is less important.

The economic REALITY is that the $200 passenger is subsidising the cost of the $50 passenger.  It costs the airline more than $50 to fly you in jet fuel alone, but as a business they have chosen to use a dynamic pricing model to sell airline travel.


Working by commission is that way too but as I understand it, with greater risk/reward work like that, you have to balance your budget accordingly. A feast shouldn't really be a feast because you are either catching up from the recent famine or preparing for the next one. If that is the reality of some types of work then they still have an obligation to live within their means which includes putting away for times of famine -- not overcharging and sticking it to the next guy. He didn't choose for you to have feast or famine work, you did. It's not an excuse to introduce dishonest practices like overcharging or overquoting. If a person can't handle the feast/famine cycle, doesn't like it or ends up in famine too much to make ends meet then they should get a different kind of job with a steady paycheck every two weeks.

Overall I don't mind people like that making a good living. They actually have to. It's a high stress kind of job and no one would take the risk if it didn't reap rewards. So it does have to pay off eventually and the feast has to make it worthwhile for them to continue. And the many, many people who aren't willing to take the risk can't grumble when those who do, reap the rewards.

But let's say someone does 2 contracts a year worth $50,000 each. They should live within the means of a $100,000/year budget. If they start overcharging so they can cover their debts from living outside their means, then there would be a problem IMO. But I'm still referring to the first example of overcharging 5 days a week when only actually working 2.5. If they are getting paid what the market is willing to pay it's fine but still not without pitfalls for a clear conscience.

I understand that what a person is willing to pay makes the job worth that much. I don't know how it works with a billion dollar entity but as an individual, my reasons for charging $70 to one client, $100 to another and $140 to another would determine whether I am being morally upright or not. If the average value of my services is about $140 and I'm charging someone $70 because I can afford to give them a break and they really need it, then I'm not in bad shape. If, however, the average value of my services is worth closer to $70 and I charge $140 because the person doesn't know any better, then I am being pretty dishonest. Yeah, they're willing to pay it but "because I can" isn't always the best reason. They should educate themselves or get a second opinion, but it still doesn't give me an excuse to prey on their weakness. If it's a company with money to burn and the guy writing the check couldn't care less that I doublecharged because it's company money and no skin off his back, I still see it as wrong because it will ripple effect down to the consumer. What people are willing to pay may guide the value of a product or service but I don't think it justifies a free for all.

That's it for now. I left it open all day but didn't get back to it very often.

Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: ggreg on September 05, 2013, 09:02:09 PM
Interesting points Wallflower.  While I am travelling I will try to think of some other examples.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: Hobbledehoy on September 05, 2013, 09:19:46 PM
As a journeyman in the construction industry, I end up at the bottom run of a complex hierarchy of contractors who sub-contract other contractors, &c., which makes me feel more like a free-lancer but more distant from the project. However, I try to make a connection with the project (usually home remodels) and with the people (even though I may not like them and they may not like me, I have to be professional and assume the best).

There are two types of guys I've met in this predicament: the minimalist sort clocks in at a certain hour in the morning and clocks out at a certain hour in the afternoon, whether the project would meet the contractors' deadline or not notwithstanding; the other sort doesn't mind leaving later in the day or having to report to the job site earlier in the morning, and goes out of his way to help the contractor finish the project even if he is not invested therein in any fiduciary or emotional manner.  

I try to be like the latter type. Not because I'm hoping for tips or anything like that, but because I feel it is my duty to help when I can help someone out, even if that someone is a contractor who is profiting way more than I am or the homeowner who may have assumed I'm getting paid more than I actually am.

There are two reasons why this would be prudent even on a naturalist level: 1) the experience and 2) the networking far outweigh any benefits from salary re-negotiation. Over and above these, is the blessing of having a job at all, and being thereby able to fulfill my duties of state. Whether my bosses or the homeowners appreciate it or not is a factor that does not matter to me. Oftentimes, they manifest gratitude and even offer me tips, but it is something like a pleasant surprise.

The best thing for me is to remain detached from the process that is above me (the relationship between contractors who hire me and the homeowners) whilst being as efficient and effective a worker as possible. The big contractor winning more profit from having me and the other guys work more, either qualitatively or quantitatively, whilst having no impact on what I get paid, is a fact that is irrelevant to me (even if the other guys do complain).

I have to know my place, and it is far better than most have to go through to make ends meet.
Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: Stubborn on September 06, 2013, 02:02:58 PM
Quote from: ggreg
For those of you in jobs where the value you deliver has a direct impact on the bottom line and a very measurable one how do you measure the effort you expend versus your hire?

For contractors and IT specialists, for example, if you were working on a T&M basis and you agreed 6 months to complete a piece of work, but then discovered a way you could do it in three months by using a new tool or a piece of Open Source programming would you

a.  Work 2.5 days per week for the next 6 months?

b.  Tell the client about your discovery and be content to collect half the money for the task and hope they appreciated your honesty and rewarded you with more work?


b. Is the way to go. Even if you know the customer will never have another job to give you. Your real commitment is to complete the job for your customer *within* the agreed upon time slot. Usually never works that way but if able to complete the job to the customer's satisfaction early, that's what you do.


 

Quote from: ggreg

Is there anything morally wrong, in your opinion, with quoting 6 months if you already know about the free open source code before you quote?  i.e. Overquoting on the basis that you will win on some contracts and lose on others?


Often, your quote is based upon what you think the competitors will quote, so there is nothing wrong at all with bidding high (if that's what Overquoting means). Depending on the award process, usually, even if they want to award you the contract, you still have the choice of retracting your bid before accepting.



Quote from: ggreg

So how do other forum members handle this?  Clearly one extreme is a moral quagmire and the other extreme of scruplous honesty will leave you ripe for exploitation.


I don't consider it scruplous honesty, just good old fashioned honesty. Face it, T&M programs pretty much depend on the honesty of the company doing the work. . . . . which is why I thought they did away with T&M a long time ago because it didn't fit in with lean manufacturing.


Title: Being worthy of your hire vs not being exploited
Post by: Graham on September 06, 2013, 05:36:42 PM
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