Pretty much every company I have worked for rewards its employees for longevity by giving them more paid time off for vacation.  I knew one guy that had worked for the same company for 13 years.  He had four weeks of paid vacation every year.  With all the allocated sick/personal time off that we automatically received, he had something like six weeks paid time off in total.

Yeah, that's if you can get hired as a full-time employee. Everyone I know gets hired and works just slightly short of full-time (35 hours / week and not 40,) so the company is not required to provide diddly, including sick days or floating holidays (those are "full time benefits,") and you're f'n lucky to get vacation time... and then, it starts at like 3 days, after 1 year of work, and might go up a day the next year... if your performance review is stellar. I know this from experience. Also, I know of few companies that pay for sick time -- you get the day off, sure, and they don't fire you, but you don't get paid for it. You didn't get fired -- that's your reward. Maybe its just different departments that have different "rules" but every place I have worked has not been "incentive happy" -- you work because you want / need money.

Or, you could be a teacher and get like 3 months off every year. I almost did that, but got bored with the stupidity of college.

serleran wrote:Or, you could be a teacher and get like 3 months off every year. I almost did that, but got bored with the stupidity of college.

While teachers do get the summer off, they don't get paid for it. I know this may not matter to many people, but they do conveniently overlook that fact.

I am a pretty conservative guy, but targeting teachers and their income is usually a more populist stance. Considering the fact that most have MAs and they put up with more BS than most of us could ever imagine, they are not really a good target. Yes, there are bad teachers, but that is no excuse to blast the entire profession. They are one of the few government empployees who I think are actually underpaid.

bbarsh wrote:
While teachers do get the summer off, they don't get paid for it. I know this may not matter to many people, but they do conveniently overlook that fact.
.

That's not necessarily true.  Most schools allow their teachers to get paid yearly instead of for 9 months.  Their salary obviously remains the same and therefore their individual paychecks are lower, but most schools do allow for that option.

Teachers on average make a salary in the low 40's. Nine months of work equals $4,600 a month, or roughly $1,150 a week.

serleran wrote:Which means they, on average, make more than I do. Damn. I should have stayed with the college... even if they were inbred morons.

Agreed. Universities are a bastion of morons.

bbarsh wrote:
Agreed. Universities are a bastion of morons.

I hope that is sarcasm.  If not you really need to stop making these types of generalizations.  Unless of course you are speaking about Texas Tech or Texas A&M.....then I really don't have a problem with it.  

serleran wrote:Heh, mine was only in reference to where I had attended. Twice. I guess I didn't learn my lesson the first time. Anyway, the physics classes were easier than what I had in junior high (literally, we got to use the teacher's edition to answer the questions, and if we were still stumped we could ask the professor and he'd fill in the answer) and the calculus classes were based on multiple choice (which was kinda refreshing, but weird.) I imagine the other Cal State Universities are better, but not the one I was at. It was like a mellow high school.

Evergreen State College on the Left Coast (in Washington State) is a trip. They don't give grades; you take all your classes, and you either get "pass" or "fail" at the end of the semester.  I had a friend go there, and believe it or not, she flunked out...  She took courses such as "Pop Culture", "How to Be Green", "Biking" and "The Politics of Racism" (ok, I don't remember the real names, but I just flipped over to the class listings on their website and those would fit in perfectly.....) She didn't flunk out because of the tough classes, but because she was drinking and smoking dope everyday...I don't THINK they offered a class in that, unfortunately.

Mike B.

bbarsh wrote:While teachers do get the summer off, they don't get paid for it. I know this may not matter to many people, but they do conveniently overlook that fact.

...

They are one of the few government empployees who I think are actually underpaid.

The fact that they don't work summers is one of the primary reasons they don't get paid well.  They work something like 180 days a year where your typical full time job is 250 days a year.

Grug Greyskin wrote:
The fact that they don't work summers is one of the primary reasons they don't get paid well.  They work something like 180 days a year where your typical full time job is 250 days a year.

I am aware of that. Regardless, good teachers are still underpaid. That is just my opinion.