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Cyrano4747 posted:One of my wife's cousins is a firefighter and lol this guy has a long loving slog, assuming that he passes the academy. Her cousin spent about five years eating bucket after bucket of poo poo. It's not just the low pay, you're also low dude on the totem pole. I hope he doesn't want to see his kid on holidays for the next half-decade, because the new guys are 100% getting every single Christmas and Thanksgiving on-call duty. As in "gotta be IN the firehouse, none of this hanging out with family holding a beeper nonsense." Another data point for "jobs that sound exciting to kids" usually being pretty terrible in reality. See also: actor, musician, athlete. Competing with people following their dreams is BWM, nobody wants to be Process Inspection Analyst II but they probably work reasonable hours in a comfortable environment.
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Jan 6, 2023 20:26
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Can retire on a very generous pension after 20 years though, eh? Plenty of careers have to eat a lot of poo poo for the first 5. Hell, most of them.
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Jan 6, 2023 20:36
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Becoming a firefighter in your early to mid twenties when you have few attachments and it's easier to bulk up is a great gig. Gambling on becoming a firefighter closer to 40 when you have a wife and kid who don't want to move and you'll never make seniority is a terrible move.
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Jan 6, 2023 20:41
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Baddog posted:Can retire on a very generous pension after 20 years though, eh? Plenty of careers have to eat a lot of poo poo for the first 5. Hell, most of them. Sure, but it's a special kind of poo poo that involves not being able to be with your family during times where your spouse and kid will expect you to be spending time with family. I've seen that specific situation and it pretty well mirrors OP's. It's the kind of thin that is a lot easier to do when you're single and 25. Also the pension is going to be entirely dependent on the local government. Random googling, for example, turns up that a New Hampshire police or fire pension pays out according to this formula: 2 percent (.02) X the average of three highest-paid years X amount of time served So let's assume you retire at 20 years making the full 100k cap that was talked about, and you have three years at that pay bracket because you're awesome and became a Chief or something. 100,000 *. 02 = 2,000 * 20 years = 40k/yr. That's certainly fine, especially if you have a spouse with a second income and were able to make additional investments, but it's not exactly the lap of luxury. And remember that the 100k cap up there is a high COL area. The same place I pulled that number from (some FD pension website) said the average FD pay is about $43k/yr, which sounds a lot more like what the guy I know pulls. Then you also have to assume that your pension fund is solvent. The same google search turned up a TON of articles talking about how up to their gills in debt some public sector pension funds are (FDYN is apparently fuuuuucked).
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Jan 6, 2023 20:44
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My first job out of school was maintenance at a self store yard. It had the cool perk of if people stopped paying we got first dibs on whatever was in their container, the downside being it was 90% poo poo. One dude had a 20ft storage room filled with old national geographic magazines, one lady had a small unit filled with old birthday cards that she'd come and read, cry over, then come hit on me. Then there was the dude who had decked an entire 20ft unit out as a sex dungeon because he didn't want his young kids to accidently find it at home, I think he was the only one I'd describe as anything approaching GWM
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Jan 6, 2023 20:45
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I mean yeah sex dungeon is always a gwm move. Have you seen what sketchy airbnbs go for these days??
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Jan 6, 2023 21:05
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The scummiest self-storage story I've heard is from a friend who used to work at one. He was tasked with calling a unit renter if/when their card was declined to try and get them to pay up. Apparently, most of the times when he was calling these people to harass them for money, threatening to send them to collection agencies, etc, the owners had already cut the locks and started selling the stuff inside the delinquent units.
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Jan 6, 2023 21:15
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Cyrano4747 posted:Then you also have to assume that your pension fund is solvent. The same google search turned up a TON of articles talking about how up to their gills in debt some public sector pension funds are (FDYN is apparently fuuuuucked). And if it's not solvent, you're double hosed because you haven't been paying into Social Security because you had the pension.
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Jan 6, 2023 22:18
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All of this firefighter wage conjecture assumes he passes the academy. Please post here if (when) he fails. I feel bad for the wife and kids. I could move to LA from Canada and make 2x more, but we have a neurosiverse 3.5 year old who gets a lot of support here and a couple of family members who help out, so it's not even something I'd consider even for that pay bump at this point. I can't loving imagine doing it to my family for half my salary.
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Jan 6, 2023 22:37
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The real GWM angle about firefighting or other public safety jobs is that they often have an earlier retirement timeline (20 years instead of 30, or so) for a government pension, allowing someone to "retire" in 20 years and get a probably generous pension but then use their 20 years of firefighting to double-dip back into a less strenuous government job and get yourself two incomes for a while. I knew someone who was a rare triple-dip who had put 20some years into the army with full retirement then went to work for the state national guard in some administrative position, "retired" again after 10 or so years to vest in the state pension, and was then hired back as a perma-temp to collect salary #3.
Vice President fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jan 6, 2023 |
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Jan 6, 2023 23:22
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There's also the very real chance of scamming the city for hundreds of thousands a year in fraudulent overtime, but that might also be the sort of thing that comes with seniority
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Jan 6, 2023 23:34
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Vice President posted:The real GWM angle about firefighting or other public safety jobs is that they often have an earlier retirement timeline (20 years instead of 30, or so) for a government pension, allowing someone to "retire" in 20 years... Fire fighting is a hazardous employment so it could be BWL. The pension could be awarded to surviving family assuming they didn't divorce you.
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Jan 6, 2023 23:36
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Real GWM are the military officer's that retire with full military pensions and then turnaround and take 150k+/year "consulting" jobs where their utility is knowing all of the decision makers for a particular DOD contract. And that's just for mid-level officers. Generals tend to get insanely lucrative contracts with businesses in places like the UAE, Qatar, etc not to mention all of the corporate boards that they join.
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Jan 6, 2023 23:39
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laxbro posted:Real GWM are the military officer's that retire with full military pensions and then turnaround and take 150k+/year "consulting" jobs where their utility is knowing all of the decision makers for a particular DOD contract. And that's just for mid-level officers. Generals tend to get insanely lucrative contracts with businesses in places like the UAE, Qatar, etc not to mention all of the corporate boards that they join. Yeah but I imagine in order to become a general you have to eat poo poo for years and deal with an insane level of government/military office politics, even once you get there.
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Jan 6, 2023 23:42
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Residency Evil posted:Yeah but I imagine in order to become a general you have to eat poo poo for years and deal with an insane level of government/military office politics, even once you get there. It's more about having friends and family already in high places to fast-track your career, and not loving up too much on the way.
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Jan 7, 2023 00:15
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Another data point for "jobs that sound exciting to kids" usually being pretty terrible in reality. See also: actor, musician, athlete. Competing with people following their dreams is BWM, nobody wants to be Process Inspection Analyst II but they probably work reasonable hours in a comfortable environment. I really wish I'd been told this as a kid. Like really hammered home. "If you turn your passion into a job you'll never work a day in your life" No get hosed you'll burn out and resent your passion and everyone will offer to pay you in experience.
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Jan 7, 2023 01:00
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I guess they don't have a volunteer fire company in their current suburb?
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Jan 7, 2023 01:55
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Arae posted:Fire fighting is a hazardous employment so it could be BWL. The pension could be awarded to surviving family assuming they didn't divorce you. I don't know if I've ever met a retired firefighter who didn't have lingering chronic health problems that were almost certainly the result of their job.
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Jan 7, 2023 02:28
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honda whisperer posted:"If you turn your passion into a job you'll never work a day in your life" your passion best be "running/maintaining/marketing a business" because that's the part that destroys your soul and any love for your craft
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Jan 7, 2023 02:29
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xsf421 posted:It's insane, basically every new large commercial project here for the last several years has been self-storage. Self-storage facilities are a popular longer-term real estate developer holding pattern for small to midsize lots. Several of the major national chains are owned by the sort of high-level massive investment firms that can manage to run multi-generation real estate investment planning that lets that sort of thing work. If you think the area's going to gentrify or get much denser, you use the self-storage to gain value and occupy the footprint...and the gentrification/densification helps ensure you get a customer base for it! One holding company owns the lot, another owns the self-storage company, and a third will buy it as, e.g., a mixed use residential or a commercial combined zoning space as nearby residential and infra fills in.
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Jan 7, 2023 02:36
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Vice President posted:The real GWM angle about firefighting or other public safety jobs is that they often have an earlier retirement timeline (20 years instead of 30, or so) for a government pension, allowing someone to "retire" in 20 years and get a probably generous pension but then use their 20 years of firefighting to double-dip back into a less strenuous government job and get yourself two incomes for a while. I knew someone who was a rare triple-dip who had put 20some years into the army with full retirement then went to work for the state national guard in some administrative position, "retired" again after 10 or so years to vest in the state pension, and was then hired back as a perma-temp to collect salary #3. For some weird reason, my dad has a city pension, a county pension, a state pension and a federal pension (army NG) and still gets social security.
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Jan 7, 2023 03:01
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I'm a fed employee and I also pay into SS. Depends on your pension. The current Fed system relies on 401k matching, ss, and pension. The legacy one was a higher pension, but no 401k matching or SS.
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Jan 7, 2023 03:24
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tater_salad posted:are they not willing to admit that barely anyone goes there because no one wants their overpriced goods? I worked at Christmas Tree Shops for a few years. They were bought out by BBB a while ago and would get some of the merch that didn't sell at BBB or went out of style. CTS sold it for like 1/4 of the BBB price or lower and we had to use a marker to scribble over the BBB pricetags so people couldn't buy it at CTS and "return" it to BBB for a profit. We had to do it by hand and they expected us to do 25 cases an hour per person. BBB and CTS have a lovely business model. In my final performance review I was denied my $0.25 annual raise and then told "it seems like you're only here for the paycheck".
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Jan 7, 2023 03:44
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Another data point for "jobs that sound exciting to kids" usually being pretty terrible in reality. See also: actor, musician, athlete. Competing with people following their dreams is BWM, nobody wants to be Process Inspection Analyst II but they probably work reasonable hours in a comfortable environment. It's not hard to become a firefighter. Just come to California and rob a convenience store or something.
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Jan 7, 2023 07:28
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laxbro posted:Real GWM are the military officer's that retire with full military pensions and then turnaround and take 150k+/year "consulting" jobs where their utility is knowing all of the decision makers for a particular DOD contract. And that's just for mid-level officers. Generals tend to get insanely lucrative contracts with businesses in places like the UAE, Qatar, etc not to mention all of the corporate boards that they join. This is my uncle, but he goes full BWM by buying purebred miniature schnauzer puppies, when similar size/temperament rescues are available.
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Jan 7, 2023 08:31
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Sundae posted:It's not hard to become a firefighter. Just come to California and rob a convenience store or something. It’s not that hard to become a woodland firefighter in the summer in the west, but if you want to be an urban firefighter it’s a lot harder to get in.
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Jan 7, 2023 09:00
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Oil! posted:This is my uncle, but he goes full BWM by buying purebred miniature schnauzer puppies, when similar size/temperament rescues are available. Bad with mutts
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Jan 7, 2023 12:40
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Cugel the Clever posted:A lot of these same people have their homes overflowing with poo poo, too. They'll show up at city meetings to scream about a new bike lane taking away "their" street parking spaces, which they need because they've filled their two-car garage and driveway full of junk they don't need or use. Hoarding is an epidemic, we only hear about the top 1% where it gets so bad it becomes everyone else's problem. Ageing boomers in particular seem prone to just buying so much poo poo they don't need or use, of course coming right back into BWM.
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Jan 7, 2023 15:18
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Something Else posted:There's also the very real chance of scamming the city for hundreds of thousands a year in fraudulent overtime, but that might also be the sort of thing that comes with seniority Yeah I’m no expert but something seems off with Seattle Fire overtime claims. quote:Seattle Fire Department staff shortage forces extreme hours, $37.7M of OT quote:Last Christmas Eve, Seattle firefighter Daniel Kieta clocked in to work a 24-hour shift. He worked another 24 hours the next day, and after a day’s rest, put in a second 48-hour shift, logging 130 hours — all overtime — in the final week of the year. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...me-hours/?amp=1
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Jan 7, 2023 18:23
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Yeah I’m no expert but something seems off with Seattle Fire overtime claims. This isn’t really anything new, big city police and fire do it all the time. They also work it so that if someone is in their final years before retirement (ie the pension calculating years) they are called first for every overtime call and basically live at work those 3 years ti game the system so that their pension is higher.
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Jan 7, 2023 18:39
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The Wire touched on this and, more recently and more directly, We Own This City, which was pretty wild for one season of TV.
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Jan 7, 2023 19:22
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Firefighters also have really high cancer rates. Turns out breathing soot for a few decades can be bad. I know a few who retired and promptly fired from cancer.
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Jan 7, 2023 19:30
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It's not unusual for wildland firefighters to clock 1,000hrs of OT in 6 months. And the vast majority of that is out in the field digging in the dirt for 16hrs a day, not clocking 24s in station. Of course, after those 6 months they get a chance to breathe a little bit. Of course, your average federal wildlander gets paid about $16/hr so the math is just a little different for them. Cancer is the same though.
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Jan 7, 2023 20:11
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Mercury Ballistic posted:Firefighters also have really high cancer rates. Turns out breathing soot for a few decades can be bad. I know a few who retired and promptly fired from cancer. I know it's a typo, but: Tumor: I'm sorry, John, you're just not a good fit for the culture.
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Jan 7, 2023 20:22
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sparkmaster posted:It's not unusual for wildland firefighters to clock 1,000hrs of OT in 6 months. And the vast majority of that is out in the field digging in the dirt for 16hrs a day, not clocking 24s in station. Of course, after those 6 months they get a chance to breathe a little bit. I was just poking fun of the fact that California uses prison labor as firefighters.
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Jan 7, 2023 21:33
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Sundae posted:I was just poking fun of the fact that California uses prison labor as firefighters. They actually have a waitlist of convicts who want to do the job because it gets them outside and they think it will be job skills. Unfortunately California Edited to reflect that this is apparently a Calfire issue and not a Fed issue: therobit fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jan 8, 2023 |
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Jan 7, 2023 22:42
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Training convicts to be firefighters then making it illegal for them to be firefighters when they get out is some pretty creative cruelty.
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Jan 7, 2023 23:09
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therobit posted:They actually have a waitlist of convicts who want to do the job because it gets them outside and they think it will be job skills. Unfortunately California and the feds also have laws that prevent these same people from doing that job when they get out. Which is loving stupid because there’s a shortage of wild land firefighters every year and we have to hire people from Australia. Yep. Felony convictions prevent you from being a Edit: Accidentally conflated federal firefighting with CalFire. CalFire is the one that prevents inmates, not feds. Sundae fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Jan 8, 2023 |
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Jan 7, 2023 23:10
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Surely people would be less likely to end up back in prison if they had a job skill that afforded them a place to live and food to eat when they are done serving time, I mean what benefit does a law like that possibly have
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Jan 8, 2023 00:00
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Sundae posted:Yep. Felony convictions prevent you from being a federal wildlands firefighter, so the very thing people think they're going to get out of volunteering to go maybe die in a fire, they can't even do once they've served their time. This is incorrect. The feds will hire felons. No special licensure is required to be a wildland firefighter. Calfire may have different requirements, but not the feds. Those on con crews are pretty sought after for entry-level positions. They normally come out of the camps with a goodly amount of experience and some basic quals.
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Jan 8, 2023 00:15
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