1st Gen Lunchtable Thread - General Discussion

seems legit

 

Those techdeck skateboards used to be just key chains back in the 80's. Little surfboards and hang loose hands as well.

 

That's right, TechDeck...I couldn't remember the name for the life of me

We'd always bring them to school and kids would learn to do all kinds of crazy tricks with them on their desks

 

So you guys know how I work for a Texas Department of Transportation contractor now doing IT? Well back in December I applied with TxDOT directly and never heard anything back. And they just called to schedule an interview.

The position is empty right now and sits in the desk next to me.... I said yes to the interview.

 

Nice! We had a guy quit last week, and guess who got a head hunter request for his position (the same position I'm in...)?


Oh the tangled web we weave.


Good luck!

 

Haha that's kind of funny...so would you be doing the same thing just as an employee and not a contractor? If so then I would think that would be a better gig, at least in CA you get more perks as an employee over being a contractor. Although...they did implement new laws here a few years ago that gives contractors the same benefits as employees if they put in certain amount of hours, so IDK.

Businesses in CA were taking big time advantage of contractors and interns so they made changes to the system

 

Yeah I’d be doing the same thing with maybe less driving. Or same driving with a government truck. Right now the gov/TxDOT employees get more time off and better benefits than the company I work for. But I don’t know the gov position pay. It just says 40K-50K.

They could offer me $3K more and better benefits and it would honestly makes sense to jump ship. But it feels so weird to leave a job 3-4 weeks in.

 

That's a peculiar spot to be in, but yeah if it were me I would take the full time employee gig. Government pay is usually not that great (at least here) but the benefits are usually way better than most private businesses. So if pay & benefits are better...I would make the switch if possible.

 

Actually, TW is the world's worst lottery.

 

Should've pulled the trigger. Then maybe you'd have gone to summer camp!

 

Ya know, people knock it, but's it's way easier to unload your shit this way!

 

Some of the worst contractor abuse was in Tampa FL with GTE Data Services. When I lived there they laid off or transferred a large number of their FTE staff to contractors. I think the number was something like 1,200. So they would work as contractors for roughly 9 months out of the year. While the year went on hiring salaries would increase based on a shortage of technical people. Then they would lay everybody off for 2 or 3 months. So the contractors would start low bidding on jobs usually at 1/2 the going hourly rate with no benefits just to keep from losing everything. In the two years, that I lived there, I saw it go through two cycles of that craziness. A number of companies moved there just to get cheap labor. It was kind of like living in a 3rd world country.

Since there was a steady stream of people moving there from the northeast to live with a retired parent, they had artificially low living expenses. I remember interviewing dozens of programmers with the same story. If I can get a job here and live with my retired parent, I only need to make enough money to provide health benefits for my family and cover their food expense that would be 30k a year. Housing was free since they were living with a parent.

My wife was a school teacher at the time. She found teachers in Arkansas were paid 8% a year more than teachers in Tampa. Salaries in my industry were way better than in Florida. I couldn't get out of that state fast enough.

 

Haha. The most comforting thing I've seen all week.

 

Good lord communicating with people that aren't in the building is such a PITA.

"Make me a pdf of all of the products on the wall that you do not have pictures of"

*sends PDF*

"What about the others?"

we already had pictures of those

"Why didn't you include them in the PDF?"

*facepalm*

 

Wow that is crazy. It's interesting to see how an entire industry/industries will shift and change in order to maximize profit while staying within the boundaries of law (or close enough) to get away with it for so long before everyone catches on and something gets done about it.

Here, the whole idea of internships was so loosely regulated that it was incredibly easy to take advantage of, same with hiring independent contractors. And so many people needing work that they would just go along with it. And with how heavily small businesses especially are taxed out here its no wonder owners are always looking for ways to save money, but it just got way too out of hand.

The company I work for, back when I worked for an actual department, had a few people that were brought on as contractors. In some cases they made more than we did but they didn't get any of the benefits provided to a full time employee, even though they put in the same hours. Once the law changed we kept one of them on full time and the others got cut loose.

 

@0xDEADBEEF

 

This is a great representation of how biased photography (or pictures in general) can be, the truth of any situation can be altered via one's point of view.

TRUST NO ONE

 

God dammit...I can get a nice discount off Fenix flash lights...

@Wulf
@eon_blue
@xtremewlr

you guys need anything?

 

I legit read that as flesh lights at first

I'll peruse the website, can never have too many 'let there be light sticks'