Re: What are a programmer's rights to what he writes?

[MacWheel99@xxxxxxx]

From Al Macintyre getting a bit off topic again

I was paid time & a half for my programming etc. work until the first major 
conversion project, in the early 1970's ... My Yearly Pay hiked from $ 12,000 
one year to $ 18,000 the next year, thanks to all the overtime ... and in 
that year I started getting most of my meals from fast food places, because 
it was eat & run - no time to prepare it myself, and I have been in that 
habit ever since, except for microwaved plastic stuff.

The next year the company put me on salary with a lot of huffing & puffing 
about traditional significance of this, which was (I want to use a certain 
phrase here that won't get past the censors) ... I continued to average 55-65 
hours a week to stay even with what everyone needed, which took me to 
$14,000.00 a year, but now I was living as if my means were $18,000.00 / year 
which put me in debt until I switched jobs that took me above what I was 
living as if my means were.

The bottom line is, people in our profession generally get paid more than 
people in other professions, and although we work more hours, do we really 
deserve more, as compared to contributions by say engineers & medical 
professionals?  Do other professions typically put in the hours that we do?

My sister is a high school teacher at the top of her profession, with all 
sorts of national awards, yet she has to work 2 jobs (part time teaching nite 
school at a University) to get a standard of living that compares to mine, 
and the homework she has eats up an enornous volume of time away from the 
academic institutions ... grading student papers, preparing lesson plans, 
working on projects associated with academic beaurocracy, such as the fight 
for superior text books for future academic years ... both the content issue 
and the funding issue.

>  From:    JFritz@sharperimage.com (Joel Fritz)
>  
>  When I was a heat treater, one of the guys I worked with was given a more
>  prestigious title and put on salary at what translated to a higher hourly
>  rate (for a 40 hour week.)  Because of the loss of overtime for the 60 hour
>  weeks he continued to work, it worked out to a substantial pay cut. 
>  
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: boothm@earth.Goddard.edu [mailto:boothm@earth.Goddard.edu]
>  
>  I am curious though about one part of your comment "the programmers would
>  work long hours and still only get their salary.".  
>  How did Year-end wages compare?  After the
>  time and a half was added 
>  in, did the union workers earn anywhere near what the programmers earned 
>  on "only their salaries"??  I'm not a union guy in any way but for most 
>  union people, even after everything is added in, they still don't make all 
>  that much money.
>  
>  _______________________
>  Booth Martin

Al Macintyre  ©¿©

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