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Type17 said:
Man, I feel for your friend; that's agonizing. Honestly, pension wise, the government was ridiculously good and if you stay in government long enough, you'll be very well taken care of in retirement provided you're not dead wood during your working years.
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I know eh. I never hear stuff like that from people in public.

Heck a buddy of mine who works for the feds, was going for "pension readiness seminars". He is at least ten years or so before he can retire or at least consider retiring with full pension. Absurd. I shoulda listen to my grandparents back in the day, they always said work for the government.
 
sburns said:
How can someone who is starting out go beyond private middle? Those benefits and pension are worth a lot. I would have loved to be taken care of after working for "X" company but not many have a pension or some will scam you out of it in the private sector. A friend was just telling me story of a colleague who was let go after several years of employment just under the year they would have gotten a full pension. This from one of the big banks.
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Sorry, but I'm not understanding. Doesn't that just mean he has to wait a little for full pension?
 
sburns said:
How can someone who is starting out go beyond private middle?
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Hard work. Take initiative. Think outside the norm. Lifelong learning.
Take as many opportunities as possible - the value of networking cannot be underestimated.
Be nice to people and spend more time listening than talking.
 
shanekingsley said:
Hard work. Take initiative. Think outside the norm. Lifelong learning.
Take as many opportunities as possible - the value of networking cannot be underestimated.
Be nice to people and spend more time listening than talking.
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Also add (although it falls under life long learning) getting more formal education in your area like MSc, MBA, etc.

As for networking expect to have to do it over and over again. You may build a great network of peers and execs only to see a disruption in your field or your employer that causes most of your network to disappear, move on etc. Then you have to build it all over again, so it is really ongoing. I have had this happen a half dozen times already in my career.

When these disruptions happen, it is also when your network may be the most important.
 
Lol, people here speak of the government as it being so hard.

My ex was in government & she said people don't answer their phones at 4pm. Getting ready to leave at 5.

While we're at it, ever heard the joke about the veteran going for a government job? Since it's a snowy day, I'll type it out.

A veteran went in for a government job, he went to the interview & got the job. The veteran has lost his nuts due to an IED. So the interviewer said, people here generally start at 9, but you can start at 10. Puzzled, the veteran asked, why do I get to start an hour late? The interviewer replied, when people come in on mornings they just scratch their nuts for an hour before getting any real work done.
 
RockerGuy said:
Lol, people here speak of the government as it being so hard.

My ex was in government & she said people don't answer their phones at 4pm. Getting ready to leave at 5.

While we're at it, ever heard the joke about the veteran going for a government job? Since it's a snowy day, I'll type it out.

A veteran went in for a government job, he went to the interview & got the job. The veteran has lost his nuts due to an IED. So the interviewer said, people here generally start at 9, but you can start at 10. Puzzled, the veteran asked, why do I get to start an hour late? The interviewer replied, when people come in on mornings they just scratch their nuts for an hour before getting any real work done.
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Ummm private sector is not government... I don't think anyone here is saying that government is hard work, just not as lucrative (base pay wise) as private. Can be hard to get in though.

In general:

PUBLIC sector is easier, pay is not as good but pension is usually better (but you pay big time into it, ~10% of gross per year for OMERS and OTPP, likely others to. Defined benefit pensions are still the norm, well funded (~10% of gross+match) and well run, little risk of it failing but if they do there is still the gov as the backstop.

Next easy is private monopoly or duopoly, lucrative but not much pressure to actually perform. Pension still good, you pay way less into it (last time I was there about 3 to 4% of gross). Some have switched to defined contribution plans some still have defined benefit. Lots of risk with defined benefit if the company fails (and takes the pension down with it), typically also poorly funded plan...

Hardest is full on private, generally better pay but much more competition. Performance really based on output. This is where we were commenting on above. Pension is anywhere from non-existent to decent but lots of funding questions when defined benefit (like above).

Lots of corner case exceptions to the above of course....
 
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shanekingsley said:
Hard work. Take initiative. Think outside the norm. Lifelong learning.
Take as many opportunities as possible - the value of networking cannot be underestimated.
Be nice to people and spend more time listening than talking.
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Of course this is pretty normal for anyone who wants to achieve something, and I would always shoot as high as I could get because my time is worth something and I want to afford a somewhat comfortable life.

But my response was to how the previous message was written

"I would encourage someone to think beyond private middle - as a generalization."

Something about this statement made me think the expectation was to be able to attain this private middle position without putting in the necessary experience. Maybe I misunderstood it, but my thought was this is not possible without starting out in a lower previous position first.
 
RockerGuy said:
Lol, people here speak of the government as it being so hard.

My ex was in government & she said people don't answer their phones at 4pm. Getting ready to leave at 5.

While we're at it, ever heard the joke about the veteran going for a government job? Since it's a snowy day, I'll type it out.

A veteran went in for a government job, he went to the interview & got the job. The veteran has lost his nuts due to an IED. So the interviewer said, people here generally start at 9, but you can start at 10. Puzzled, the veteran asked, why do I get to start an hour late? The interviewer replied, when people come in on mornings they just scratch their nuts for an hour before getting any real work done.
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No, it's not. But that doesn't mean that working privately, you cannot do the same. Isn't the goal of everyone, to work as low hours as possible for the highest yield, so one has time left to do other things in life?
 
RockerGuy said:
Lol, people here speak of the government as it being so hard.

My ex was in government & she said people don't answer their phones at 4pm. Getting ready to leave at 5.

While we're at it, ever heard the joke about the veteran going for a government job? Since it's a snowy day, I'll type it out.

A veteran went in for a government job, he went to the interview & got the job. The veteran has lost his nuts due to an IED. So the interviewer said, people here generally start at 9, but you can start at 10. Puzzled, the veteran asked, why do I get to start an hour late? The interviewer replied, when people come in on mornings they just scratch their nuts for an hour before getting any real work done.
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He says while posting at 10:30am... literally can't make it up...
 
sburns said:
Of course this is pretty normal for anyone who wants to achieve something, and I would always shoot as high as I could get because my time is worth something and I want to afford a somewhat comfortable life.

But my response was to how the previous message was written

"I would encourage someone to think beyond private middle - as a generalization."

Something about this statement made me think the expectation was to be able to attain this private middle position without putting in the necessary experience. Maybe I misunderstood it, but my thought was this is not possible without starting out in a lower previous position first.
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Sometimes education or something else allows us to skip a couple of steps. Starting out at the bottom is great for learning how it goes in the trenches, but isn't always necessary and the time I have spent abusing my body in those trenches could cause me problems down the road. So some trench work is good, but keep it brief and I would encourage them to think of their long term plan and exit strategy.

Back on topic - I'm getting some home reno's done and hopefully we start to see some cost benefits.
Maybe even some energy rebates.
 
fastar1 said:
E-health was just a plain old fashioned failed plan, but an expensive one. Panam games? An exec expensed bubble gum or something and a lynch mob formed. No scandal.

No, these are execs of public companies operating them like they're private and rewarding themselves nicely for for the effort.
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We still have the use of facilities to this day. What do we have from ehealth?
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