Hourly vs Salary?

[ultrarunner]

ultra, I also work for a hospital (florida) I am the only electrician on our staff (PlantOps). We are owned by HCA. Our department has 5 daytime, 1 2nd shift and 1 3rd shift employee. We hire out a lot of jobs. The 5 daytime employees share the 'on call, weekends. We are paid $3 hour we are on call. When called in we dod not get the $3 we are on time-and-a-half salery. Does not matter 15 minutes or 2 hour we are paid 2 hours time-and-a-half. If we are needed 3 hours we are paid 3 hours time-and-a-half.
Weekends are on call
Saturday 7am to 8am on call
punch in 8am till 4:30pm saturday (minus 1/2 hour lunch).
on call 4:30pm saturday till 8am sunday
8am sunday punch in till 4:30pm (minus 1/2 hour lunch)
on call 4:30pm sunday till 7am monday
We have taught the Nursing Supervisors over the years if the problems at night are not life threatening or absolutely necessary for patient satisfaction we are not coming in to work.

We were HCA back in the 90's and that was the peak as for benefits... in 1998 HCA pulled out and we were a stand alone.

Still have a small account with HCA... only downside is back then they had a long vesting process and at the time of the spin off I was only 20% vested... so 80% was gone.

Call outs happen regularly since there is no back up unless we bring in someone from another facility... at one time only the CEO or DON could make the call outside of alarms or emergencies... it changed to where my hospital cell is posted and just about anyone can call

 

[kenmac]

Exactly why I say.....go enjoy life.......get out of the corp. life as soon as you can........good luck!

Exactly, When another company wanted to buy my company. I sold. I'm 58, and wanted to go live the good life. Glad to be out of the rat race.
You never know when your time will come. My mom died at 68, my dad at 73

 

[ultrarunner]

Any regrets for those opting early retirement... other than waiting too long?

A lot of my friends are retired... most are career military or public safety. As one told me, he was basically working for a couple of bucks an hour as an Oakland Police Officer as his pension with medical was 90% of his pay... so at 53 he retired with 30 years in... spends most of his time being there for his grandkids as he missed a lot when his two were young...

I can see where those with a nice pension might have an easier choice.

This week has been a wake up call... tonight two of my co-workers were in tears... they have more time in than I do and their positions are being eliminated as all accounts payable and receivable will no longer be onsite... both have been offered positions in admitting and medical records and are willing to give it a try but it is very much like starting over.

Some here have said it should be looked at as starting a new job... and that is very true.

 

[MossRoad]

.......

This week has been a wake up call... tonight two of my co-workers were in tears... they have more time in than I do and their positions are being eliminated as all accounts payable and receivable will no longer be onsite... both have been offered positions in admitting and medical records and are willing to give it a try but it is very much like starting over.

Some here have said it should be looked at as starting a new job... and that is very true.

We had about 25 sister companies under our parent. All were pretty much autonomous. However, starting about 10 years ago, corporate realized the waste that was going on in duplication of services. They had 25 Accounting departments. 25 HR departments. 25 Advertising departments. 25 I.T. departments, etc....

I like to use this analogy...

As any of you with any computer knowledge knows, if you look at your CPU usage, it is almost always 95% idle. Its not being used 95% of the time. Apply that to your people. Sounds harsh, but its true. They may not be idle 95% of the time, but they are idle a lot of the time. This is evident in the fact that even though we've had 6 rounds of employee reductions, we are still a functioning company. Yes, we're all working harder. But we're still getting the jobs done. So someone, somewhere, wasn't pulling their weight, or their job could have been automated, or consolidated, or eliminated, etc...

So back to the duplication of services...

As mentioned in our example, we had 25 sister companies. Corporate decides to create one Accounting department. One HR department. One Advertising department. One I.T. department, etc.... INSTANTLY they eliminate 24 VP positions and 24 director positions. They consolidate all computer services to two sets of scalable high availability blade servers running virtual machines in redundant locations (or better yet, farm out to vendors), and that eliminates 24 sets of servers and all the associated hardware maintenance, software contracts and people needed to maintain them. Its a huge cost savings in terms of personnel and physical assets.

So, in this day and age, all you can pretty much hope for is that you are either:
A. Taken in by corporate to manage whatever managing chores are left.
B. Move over to one of the few jobs that are left maintaining a physical plant, and that one you are lucky because many places hire out the work to vendors.
C. You get a job with one of your vendors providing services back to the company you used to work for, usually at a much reduced salary from what you were making.

Either way it works out, yes, look at it as starting a new job. That's exactly what it is.

 

[LD1]

I worked at a union plant that had a similar 4 hr. pay call in. The difference is if I got a call because of an alarm or anything else I could refuse and the next in line would take it, it just depended how you felt at the time. In my case if I came in and hit the reset button or closed the valve off and went home after 3 minutes, you would get paid 4 hrs. If the job was such that you needed to stay, you get paid as long as you stayed.

So the thing to do was come in, fix the problem and if the cleanup or solution could wait until normal hours, that's what would be done.

If you got a call, came in then a quick fix took care of it and went home, you are ahead of the game. But if you did that and got called again that day for another unrelated problem, another 4 hrs.

If you came in and fixed the problem and went home, and the supposed fix broke again, then you come in for free, or refuse it and let somebody else come in. But pride would never let me do that.

Call ins were not very often but really paid off well most of the time.

That is the way it is supposed to work.

What I was getting at.....is some management types dont like that model of paying 4hrs for 3 min of work. They interpret the language in the contract to mean they are "guaranteeing you 4 hours of work" and if they cannot provide you with work, and allow you to leave, they still pay the full 4. So the result is....they find 4 hours of work for you. And if you refuse to stay, you are leaving "voluntarily" and dont get 4 hours.

When management takes that approach, it takes everyone in the dept to stick together to get it back to the way it should be. When getting called to come in....EVERYONE needs to say no. If even one person comes in, and agrees to either only getting paid for time there.....or doing dumb stuff to look busy to meet the 4 hours.....then nothing will change.

 

[George2615]

Any regrets for those opting early retirement... other than waiting too long?

A lot of my friends are retired... most are career military or public safety. As one told me, he was basically working for a couple of bucks an hour as an Oakland Police Officer as his pension with medical was 90% of his pay... so at 53 he retired with 30 years in... spends most of his time being there for his grandkids as he missed a lot when his two were young...

I can see where those with a nice pension might have an easier choice.

This week has been a wake up call... tonight two of my co-workers were in tears... they have more time in than I do and their positions are being eliminated as all accounts payable and receivable will no longer be onsite... both have been offered positions in admitting and medical records and are willing to give it a try but it is very much like starting over.

Some here have said it should be looked at as starting a new job... and that is very true.

No regrets so far. I retired at age 63 last April after 38 years at 2 hospitals (7 yrs. at 1st & 31 yrs. at 2nd). Parents died early (52 & 68). Grandparents didn't make it past 70 either so I figured out what I needed to get by financially and found that by supplementing my S.S. with some interest money from my 401K and IRA's I'd have enough to get by. Here are just a few (not all) of my pros and cons off the top of my head. Not necessarily in order.

Pro's
1) No longer have to set and alarm, report or answer to anyone but myself.
2) No job stress.
3) Fewer miles on vehicles and less gas purchased.
4) Cheaper car insurance due to fewer miles driven.
5) More time to travel, play with classic cars, go to more car shows.
6) More time to catch up on honey-do list. That will take years to do and never be complete.
7) I enjoy working on classic cars (been doing that since I was 13) so I have more time to make some side money tinkering with other peoples cars when I want to.
8) Now able to pick up some winter plowing jobs that I couldn't do before due to work schedule.
9) Nice to do what I want when I want.
10) More family time.

Cons
1) Miss the people from work. I've stopped back a few times for coffee and to say hello.
2) Miss the extra money a regular paycheck brought in.
3) Miss the cheaper health insurance rate I paid while employed.

If I recall, you have some income from rental properties so if you have enough income to cover monthly expenses and you're still young enough to make some side job money I'd go for it.

 

[JPRambo]

The hospital I work at has been expanding or changing something since I started in 2000. We are the most profitable in our region. I started contributing to a retirement and 401K plan when I hired on. I plan to retire in Feb 2019. I will be 62 in Oct and the wife wants to wait till till she turns 63 in Feb 2019 (She is older by 8 mo.) I believe we can retire comfortable when we move to our north georgia property.

 

[Deere Dude]

Any regrets for those opting early retirement... other than waiting too long?

A lot of my friends are retired... most are career military or public safety. As one told me, he was basically working for a couple of bucks an hour as an Oakland Police Officer as his pension with medical was 90% of his pay... so at 53 he retired with 30 years in... spends most of his time being there for his grandkids as he missed a lot when his two were young...

I can see where those with a nice pension might have an easier choice.

This week has been a wake up call... tonight two of my co-workers were in tears... they have more time in than I do and their positions are being eliminated as all accounts payable and receivable will no longer be onsite... both have been offered positions in admitting and medical records and are willing to give it a try but it is very much like starting over.

Some here have said it should be looked at as starting a new job... and that is very true.

While retiring early is generally a good idea, but if you have to buy health insurance it may not be so great.

I retired as a factory worker at 52 after 30 years in. But I have had health insurance since I retired 15 years ago, of which I am so thankful for. The pension wasn't all great, maybe half of my regular pay, but I got by just super. I don't need to save for the future because I am living it.

I don't need to go in to work every day but I can't get a new car every year either. I snowbirded for 8 years and as long as I watched how I spent my money everything went smooth.

I have been on SS now for a few years and still haven't had to dip into savings for anything other than to but tractors or cars. At 67 a new tractor and a new truck will maybe outlast my use for either.

Everybody has to make their own decisions based on what they absolutely need to live on, how much money they have stockpiled, and assets available right now. All in all, it is a good time to be retired. You won't get any younger.

 

[ultrarunner]

No regrets so far. I retired at age 63 last April after 38 years at 2 hospitals (7 yrs. at 1st & 31 yrs. at 2nd). Parents died early (52 & 68). Grandparents didn't make it past 70 either so I figured out what I needed to get by financially and found that by supplementing my S.S. with some interest money from my 401K and IRA's I'd have enough to get by. Here are just a few (not all) of my pros and cons off the top of my head. Not necessarily in order.

Pro's
1) No longer have to set and alarm, report or answer to anyone but myself.
2) No job stress.
3) Fewer miles on vehicles and less gas purchased.
4) Cheaper car insurance due to fewer miles driven.
5) More time to travel, play with classic cars, go to more car shows.
6) More time to catch up on honey-do list. That will take years to do and never be complete.
7) I enjoy working on classic cars (been doing that since I was 13) so I have more time to make some side money tinkering with other peoples cars when I want to.
8) Now able to pick up some winter plowing jobs that I couldn't do before due to work schedule.
9) Nice to do what I want when I want.
10) More family time.

Cons
1) Miss the people from work. I've stopped back a few times for coffee and to say hello.
2) Miss the extra money a regular paycheck brought in.
3) Miss the cheaper health insurance rate I paid while employed.

If I recall, you have some income from rental properties so if you have enough income to cover monthly expenses and you're still young enough to make some side job money I'd go for it.

On the pros the classic car thing, number 5, has been sad... I use to judge and show all the time cars I restored... the last two years not one of my cars has left the garage... not even once... it would be nice to reconnect to my friends in the Model A Ford and Bantam Clubs... been a Model A Ford Club member for over 40 years.

On the cons it would be healthcare... a lot of my early retired friends are paying $10,000 or more for Health Insurance and the California market is very high... so this is a consideration.

Becoming part of a large chain of Hospitals means employee premium contribution would actually be less than what we had been paying.

Keeping in touch with co-workers... for years or I should say decades we have had a real close knit group... in 2009 it changed dramatically with people leaving wanting NOTHING to do with the place as not set foot on the premises even when we had our own retirement get togethers for those they were close... all were no shows.

From the rank and file to the top senior managers it was the same... Cook to the Clinical Director, OR Director, Business Services and Director of Nursing... what is more is they used every minute of leave, sick leave etc and on the day they were due to return were no shows... to say they were bitter would not be an understatement... for the OR Director we had a celebration planned for welcome back... I had the job each time to gather their personal items and deliver it...

 

[ultrarunner]

It does make some sense about duplication of duties and efficiencies... although I am not sure having to fill out requisition form to send off to corp somewhere for approval to buy a box of light bulbs is really that efficient but it is something that can easily be planned in advance.

Not clear on what the procedure will be should a boiler pump fail or A/C unit is down...

Two years ago we had a freon leak on are big chiller... it was summer and would have meant cancelling surgery...

I called the owner of the A/C company and said we have a problem and he pulled guys to make sure we were up and running... the repair and jugs of refrigerant later we were good and have been the last 23 months... that was a $5,000 expense with a lot going to refrigerant.

I have cultivated excellent relationships with our vendors... and never abuse them. If I call and say I need their help they come though and if they call me about an unpaid invoice I get to the bottom of it and hand carry if necessary...

For smaller things the company credit card comes in handy... that will also be going away... only Purchase Orders with most needed several levels of approval depending...

Some of our best under budget improvements and alterations were time and material with me side by side... in other words good people getting the job done...

Years ago I got called in for a time and material job... the boss always wanted 3 estimates and after awhile vendors get tired or simply shoot a high number.

The job she questioned came in at 42% of low bid because we shared the risk and I paved the way for access and utility shutdowns etc... they had no down time and the site was work ready...