Quote:
Originally Posted by WaterDR
. For example, besides my salary, we have agressive bonus programs, advancement, 401k with a match, and a full company paid pension. Not to mention, that as a manager, I will be eligible for stock options in a few years. AND, I have never belonged to a union.
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they have been giving me stock options since i signed up with the company, lol.
Yah 401k matched to 5% gross, medical, dental, vision, flex accounts, life insurance, bonus programs, etc.
Some tech jobs like mine CAN break 100k a year, the base pay maxes at 37.50 per hour, add 7,000 shift differential and some 1.5 OT and 2.5x holiday pay, it can be done with just a few extra hours a week once you cap out which i have not yet done on pay. I still have several raises to go before i hit 37 bucks. lol
a lot of tech-school jobs though probably wont make it much past 50k a year though and yeah, they dont offer much room for growth.
However, not all tech jobs are equal, that is fore sure. And anyone who is expecting to break 50k a year doing any vocational tech job, well, just take what those commercials of the potential earning power with a grain of salt, my job is a rare exception, and you wont see any commercials to learn this stuff during maury povich on daytime tv
The job im in, well, damn. Lets put it this way, most telecom companys will use 1 major switching platform, and they have thier techs specialized to learn either the proactive or reactive side. And it takes literally YEARS for a tech to get up to speed on just one aspect of the system. They have many different groups that handle different roles.
Well, here, i have to work both sides of not only one, but FOUR class 5 switching platforms plus our class 4 VOIP switching network, as well as the entire signalling systems that get them all to work together. Throw in our Voicemail systems, conferencing systems, 1-800 network, and all of that, i preform what was normally about 15-20 different jobs at AT&T, MCI, QWEST, ICG, etc....
And i RULE at it. Lol. Im GLAD we get to work on everything, i love the total control i have of a trouble and the fact i dont have to rely on other people to provide bits of information. Ive been doing telecommunications now for 12 years and i STILL learn something new every day. Most of the people who cant handle it have been weeded out a long time ago and i work with the best group of telecom techs in the world, hands down, no doubt. Every time we hire a new hotshot from qwest or at&t or from another company they come in thinking they know thier shit (which they do, that one part of it), then after seeing what all we work on they usually get extremly overwhelmed and many times throw in the towel within a month. lol.
It is definatly one of the hardest technical jobs out there, it doestn matter how smart or educated you are, you really have to have a very strong talent for fixing things. And that is WHY we can eventually hit the triple digit mark.
Same goes for IP networking, those guys can also hit 6 digit income.
But a LOT of the stuff you see on daytime TV, dental tech, x-ray tech, etc, etc, they claim tons of money but most of them start out at 40k a year and end at 50k a year with no real advancement.
im lucky in that aspect, i could switch to engineering, or tier2, or whatnot, and even go higher, however i really enjoy what i do here and dont wanna stop yet. Plus, layoffs usually trim the fat in other departments, our maintenance department is pretty lean as it is. lol. better job security.
as far as management opportunities, we have some techs who eventually became directors and such, personally, if i cannot have full controll of everyone then i dont want to be responsible for anyone but myself. lol