kapkomet

I got a rumor. Trade Billy Botch to Florida. Did you all hear about that yet?

In a more lighthearted topic, what are some of your favorite road signs or city names? One that you Michganders can relate to, and I crack up everytime I go by: I-75 exit 69 Big Beaver Road.

true but you have to be a dumbass to just leave it laying around...

First, I can tell you now that we go through Administaff (which is the concept of a conglomeration of small businesses getting together and keeping the overall cost of benefits down - so the concept that GW was walking around like it was a new concept has been around for a while, idiot), and I'll tell you what we pay for "benefits". It's roughly 23% more then a base salary per person. So a person making $100,000 at our company costs us $123,000. Now, if I as a hiring manager go out and contract through Manpower, I pay at least a 33% markup on the rate. Translation: someone coming in as a temp making $20.00 an hour, we're going to end up paying Manpower $26.66 an hour (at least). That means, generally I pay the same OR more for contractors. I have a real difficult time when people say they contract out people and it costs them less. Frankly, there's ways around this... and if management were half ways intelligent, they'd find a way to lower their costs. So why do comapanies do this? Here's the big dirty secret. I don't have to count contract folks as headcount. Translate that to Wall Street. We're not too heavy on our employees headcount that way, and we get the full write off of "contract labor". It's nothing more then a shell game.

Again, what the hell are you talking about? Someone mentioned getting Cameron, and I said that the Sox got rid of him once, and why would they go get him back for 3-4 times what they were paying him when they got rid of him. Then you spew more HARRIS stats at me. Taking on more then one argument at once is difficult, trust me...

wth? I wasn't talking about Harris, I was commenting on bringing back Cameron.

laptops are pretty handy at school... and if you get one of those little wireless mouse's, those are pretty cool. If you have the money, for the little extra I'd go with a laptop, for the portability. There's a lot of times you'll wish you had. If $$ is a consideration, desktops are the way to go (better bang for the buck).

Automation, I agree with. Outsourcing? That money is still taxed. Or do you mean foreign outsourcing? And even then, MNC's (multi-national corps) are still taxed, but there's a lot of loopholes.

Besides that, the Sox let him go once, why would they bring him back for waaaay more money then they were going to pay him the first time? Granted, he's much better now compared to then, but still...

What a bastard. Testing mods like that. Hey Tex, :fyou

OMG. Could you imagine Bobby Knight being PURDUE'S coach?!?!

Ya, this was all over the news here this morning. It's very sad...

PLASTIC!

You know you're in trouble if: Juror #4: "my hotel room is right around the corner..."

So you are equating IT jobs as what drives wage growth? That's ludicrous. Look, Dot.Com people were over paid to begin with. I don't feel sorry for someone that should have been making 100k to begin with getting knocked off that 500k perch. 100k is fine, 500k was overpaid. And there was a lot of that. That HAD to be broken. The wage growth in the 90's was, at best, articifial. I think that the wage growth you are seeing in basically all sectors EXCEPT IT is more in line with what should be happening anyway. You absolutely CANNOT sustain an economy on IT. We all saw the results. Remember, too, that y2k inflated growth in the economy too. Frankly, looking back, that was a gimmick to make people and companies spend money on IT infastructre - a trap, IMO. Bottom line: IT is NOT the place you should be looking for growth, because the articial "wage growth" in the 90's shouldn't have been as high as it was.

You know, there's ways to get money... Start a soxtalk.com superfund!

The reason I asked that is because when you get to a place where there are no salary increases for 3 years, and they sit there and tell you it's because they need to keep costs down, yet, senior management gets increases, that absolutely drives me crazy. It's not cool at all and morale goes down the crapper. That's what happened to me at my last job, they kept promising things that never happened. There is a lot of movement in the job market right now. Our company, privately held, (but it's health care, not manufacturing) is hiring 35 people between now and August, which is about a 15% increase (we currently employ almost 200). Who know what the fall will bring, which is our biggest time of the year.

SS2k, you around to read this one?

Question for you Queen, How profitable is your company? Is it privately held or public?

I know that here is growing again. When I came here in 2000 it was booming, and then it slowed down. Now, there's a lot of firms and companies hiring here again.

In addition to job growth, wage growth is accelarating at a very fast pace as well. What is so hard to understand that? Translation: The jobs being created ARE NOT MINIMUM WAGE TYPE JOBS.

Hey Steff - how did this go? I think I have to have the same thing. I'm trying to resist the dark side of allergists.

Did we really need to know about albino poop?

Yea, that is what I was saying. I think the guy's an ass, and the kid is in the right, but his parents are taking this waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far. The kid could care less, he just wants to be a kid.