Topics of Systems Administration
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
Somehow they enforced a non-compete years after you worked there, but didn't care that you were working for another company while working for them seems suspect.
I was able to work for one company in a continuous capacity (unable to change roles) while there (not the bank, the place with the non-compete) because they had accepted it during the hiring process and it was exempted from the non-compete ahead of time. I was unable to take any work in the country for the duration of the non-compete, but they could not stop me working in another country (no non-compete can do that, ever) so I worked in Spain, if you recall.
Non-competes don't cross industry lines. If it's bank to bank, that might make sense. Things like bank to manufacturing, or bank to logistics don't.
I mean I guess anything is possible, but why would you accept employment from somewhere that wouldn't allow you to work after that?
Because legally, as you said, a non-compete will have an industry and distance limit. But they decided that they didn't like the legal limits and with that much money, the courts do little to stop them. As an individual, I couldn't afford to lose my house and pay an attorney for a decade to win a spiritual victory. I had taken a job in another state in a slightly different industry and they went to the company and told them that they'd sue me and my employer if they hired me. They were happy to lose the case, because just bringing them to court was all that mattered. That's the thing about US law, suing an employer is generally enough to stop employment, there's zero need for the case to be legitimate.
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
Somehow they enforced a non-compete years after you worked there, but didn't care that you were working for another company while working for them seems suspect.
I was able to work for one company in a continuous capacity (unable to change roles) while there (not the bank, the place with the non-compete) because they had accepted it during the hiring process and it was exempted from the non-compete ahead of time. I was unable to take any work in the country for the duration of the non-compete, but they could not stop me working in another country (no non-compete can do that, ever) so I worked in Spain, if you recall.
Non-competes don't cross industry lines. If it's bank to bank, that might make sense. Things like bank to manufacturing, or bank to logistics don't.
Well, tell that to the courts. Because they do cross industry lines at times. As I was told by my attorney.... in court I'd win, but not until after a decade of fighting and we'd have to pay attorneys all that time and be unemployable. In the end, we were expected to win big, but my kids would grow up destitute while we fought the non-compete.
As my employer said at the time "You can't bag groceries in Oregon", that was their policy. No job, of any sort, anywhere in the country. Their policy was that they were a "US business" and "all US business" was a competitor. Clearly that doesn't work in court, but the number of people who had won against them were.... very few. Famously, two just did a few months ago. But it's taken that long.
So while you can say that non-competes have whatever limits, when you are talking companies of this size and resources, the courts are a bit fungible and what is legal or not becomes a question of who can afford to make it so.
To me it's hard to believe that the company would spend millions in legal feels to prevent you from working at a company that has nothing to do with them. What did they gain from that?
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
You specifically said in another place that "feel dirty for having stayed that long". That really makes it sound like you had a choice even though you were contracted through someone else for IBM teaching at Lockheed?
That's an unrelated (by job, related by location) time when I took a contract at Lockheed and it was the shittiest place on earth when you worked inside and saw how they operated. My teaching Lockheed staff and my time working at Lockheed weren't connected.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
To me it's hard to believe that the company would spend millions in legal feels to prevent you from working at a company that has nothing to do with them. What did they gain from that?
This is where you have to understand hedge funds. Mathematically it made perfect business sense. You are thinking of it from a "Scott's value" perspective, but that didn't matter to them at all. What mattered was that they'd become famous as a shitty place to work and couldn't hire new people, and everyone working there wanted to leave. If they let me leave (for a lot more money) they had two problems - one was that I'd been chosen for the outside role when several people higher than me in the company had been turned down which looked really bad for them internally; and second that it meant that their stories that they told that we were the highest paid place and that people couldn't get better work elsewhere would be broken. Keeping their staff afraid was worth billions and billions to them because if the IT team fled, they'd be out of business (finance runs on tech.) So MY value to them was meaningless and small, but the risk of me taking another job that paid better and treated me better was enormous - worth essentially any amount of money or risk to stop.
Likewise, someone that sat in the office directly next to me also took an outside job and the same thing happened to him about a month before. But he backed down and asked to stay so that he'd keep his paycheck. I, instead, fled to Europe and took a job that they couldn't touch (and then they settled the non-compete with a payout once they knew I would be able to fund the lawsuit.) But it was nothing to do with me, everyone was treated the same because threatening a few people scared everyone.
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
To me it's hard to believe that the company would spend millions in legal feels to prevent you from working at a company that has nothing to do with them. What did they gain from that?
This is where you have to understand hedge funds. Mathematically it made perfect business sense. You are thinking of it from a "Scott's value" perspective, but that didn't matter to them at all. What mattered was that they'd become famous as a shitty place to work and couldn't hire new people, and everyone working there wanted to leave. If they let me leave (for a lot more money) they had two problems - one was that I'd been chosen for the outside role when several people higher than me in the company had been turned down which looked really bad for them internally; and second that it meant that their stories that they told that we were the highest paid place and that people couldn't get better work elsewhere would be broken. Keeping their staff afraid was worth billions and billions to them because if the IT team fled, they'd be out of business (finance runs on tech.) So MY value to them was meaningless and small, but the risk of me taking another job that paid better and treated me better was enormous - worth essentially any amount of money or risk to stop.
Likewise, someone that sat in the office directly next to me also took an outside job and the same thing happened to him about a month before. But he backed down and asked to stay so that he'd keep his paycheck. I, instead, fled to Europe and took a job that they couldn't touch (and then they settled the non-compete with a payout once they knew I would be able to fund the lawsuit.) But it was nothing to do with me, everyone was treated the same because threatening a few people scared everyone.
Is this bridgewater?
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$400K per year doesn't sound impossible to me. It's roughly the same as outsourcing it at $200 per hour full time.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
but why would you accept employment from somewhere that wouldn't allow you to work after that?
The big picture here is... I made a mistake taking that job. That's really the gist of it. I screwed up and I got burned. In the long run, I'm happy with how things played out, but that job was hell and everything surrounding it was hell. I was wooed by the high salary and promises that they made, which were all lies. It was a pure evil place that I thought was going to boost my career and I lost sight of what mattered. It wasn't ALL bad, but nearly so. I learned a ton from my time there, but all "what not to do" and "why those things are bad."
In hindsight, I had little way to know that they'd do something outside the law to try to destroy my life to make an example of me for other people. How would I have figured that out? But the writing was on the wall early and I should have known things were wrong earlier and never gotten into that situation. HOW they screwed me is inconsequential, that they were going to was pretty evident pretty early.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
To me it's hard to believe that the company would spend millions in legal feels to prevent you from working at a company that has nothing to do with them. What did they gain from that?
This is where you have to understand hedge funds. Mathematically it made perfect business sense. You are thinking of it from a "Scott's value" perspective, but that didn't matter to them at all. What mattered was that they'd become famous as a shitty place to work and couldn't hire new people, and everyone working there wanted to leave. If they let me leave (for a lot more money) they had two problems - one was that I'd been chosen for the outside role when several people higher than me in the company had been turned down which looked really bad for them internally; and second that it meant that their stories that they told that we were the highest paid place and that people couldn't get better work elsewhere would be broken. Keeping their staff afraid was worth billions and billions to them because if the IT team fled, they'd be out of business (finance runs on tech.) So MY value to them was meaningless and small, but the risk of me taking another job that paid better and treated me better was enormous - worth essentially any amount of money or risk to stop.
Likewise, someone that sat in the office directly next to me also took an outside job and the same thing happened to him about a month before. But he backed down and asked to stay so that he'd keep his paycheck. I, instead, fled to Europe and took a job that they couldn't touch (and then they settled the non-compete with a payout once they knew I would be able to fund the lawsuit.) But it was nothing to do with me, everyone was treated the same because threatening a few people scared everyone.
Is this bridgewater?
Maybe, definitely a CT based hedge fund (HF Row is in CT)
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
To me it's hard to believe that the company would spend millions in legal feels to prevent you from working at a company that has nothing to do with them. What did they gain from that?
This is where you have to understand hedge funds. Mathematically it made perfect business sense. You are thinking of it from a "Scott's value" perspective, but that didn't matter to them at all. What mattered was that they'd become famous as a shitty place to work and couldn't hire new people, and everyone working there wanted to leave. If they let me leave (for a lot more money) they had two problems - one was that I'd been chosen for the outside role when several people higher than me in the company had been turned down which looked really bad for them internally; and second that it meant that their stories that they told that we were the highest paid place and that people couldn't get better work elsewhere would be broken. Keeping their staff afraid was worth billions and billions to them because if the IT team fled, they'd be out of business (finance runs on tech.) So MY value to them was meaningless and small, but the risk of me taking another job that paid better and treated me better was enormous - worth essentially any amount of money or risk to stop.
Likewise, someone that sat in the office directly next to me also took an outside job and the same thing happened to him about a month before. But he backed down and asked to stay so that he'd keep his paycheck. I, instead, fled to Europe and took a job that they couldn't touch (and then they settled the non-compete with a payout once they knew I would be able to fund the lawsuit.) But it was nothing to do with me, everyone was treated the same because threatening a few people scared everyone.
Is this bridgewater?
Maybe, definitely a CT based hedge fund (HF Row is in CT)
If it's them, anything I can find shows less than a billion in revenue?
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@Pete-S said in Topics of Systems Administration:
$400K per year doesn't sound impossible to me. It's roughly the same as outsourcing it at $200 per hour full time.
Right, it's rare, but very real. And obviously at $400K you essentially always expect that that person is way, way more than 40 hours a week, and like always on call. $200/hr adds up fast when you push people to 60-80 hours a week
$400K for being able to dictate location, hours, their whole life's focus, it's not that much for an extremely skilled person in any core field. It's a great salary, but within reason.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
To me it's hard to believe that the company would spend millions in legal feels to prevent you from working at a company that has nothing to do with them. What did they gain from that?
This is where you have to understand hedge funds. Mathematically it made perfect business sense. You are thinking of it from a "Scott's value" perspective, but that didn't matter to them at all. What mattered was that they'd become famous as a shitty place to work and couldn't hire new people, and everyone working there wanted to leave. If they let me leave (for a lot more money) they had two problems - one was that I'd been chosen for the outside role when several people higher than me in the company had been turned down which looked really bad for them internally; and second that it meant that their stories that they told that we were the highest paid place and that people couldn't get better work elsewhere would be broken. Keeping their staff afraid was worth billions and billions to them because if the IT team fled, they'd be out of business (finance runs on tech.) So MY value to them was meaningless and small, but the risk of me taking another job that paid better and treated me better was enormous - worth essentially any amount of money or risk to stop.
Likewise, someone that sat in the office directly next to me also took an outside job and the same thing happened to him about a month before. But he backed down and asked to stay so that he'd keep his paycheck. I, instead, fled to Europe and took a job that they couldn't touch (and then they settled the non-compete with a payout once they knew I would be able to fund the lawsuit.) But it was nothing to do with me, everyone was treated the same because threatening a few people scared everyone.
Is this bridgewater?
Maybe, definitely a CT based hedge fund (HF Row is in CT)
If it's them, anything I can find shows less than a billion in revenue?
Not sure what you mean, everyone on HF Row is worth many billions.
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@Pete-S said in Topics of Systems Administration:
$400K per year doesn't sound impossible to me. It's roughly the same as outsourcing it at $200 per hour full time.
Similarly, I know MSP Techs who own their own businesses who make crazy salaries. Don't know anyone making $400K that way (not as a working tech at least, I've heard of owners of big firms making a lot, but that's completely different) but I know MSP Techs getting close to $300K (because they are the owner and do all the pieces themselves and so keep all the overhead themselves.) They work 80 hours a week to do it, billing as close to 40 as they can, and doing all their marketing, billing, accounting, etc. with the other 40 hours. You get some really skilled people (generalists, mostly) doing this and burning the candle at both ends to make crazy salaries too. If you wanted to have someone like that switch to being an employee and not getting the freedom to set their own hours and the freedom of owning the company, you'd have to boost their pay enough for them to like the deal.
Im' not suggesting anyone push themselves that hard, but if you are the kind that does, there are multiple paths to that kind of salary and jobs that leverage that have to compete with money and benefits against alternative options.
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@Pete-S said in Topics of Systems Administration:
$400K per year doesn't sound impossible to me. It's roughly the same as outsourcing it at $200 per hour full time.
I don't think anyone is saying it's not. I'm saying the only people I've seen making that ($500k+) are like L5/L6 at larger tech companies. Even companies like Snap (Snapchat) pay over that, but they're all developers and architects. Not straight SAs.
Highest I've interviewed for was around 260 at GitHub, but again it was a developer role and not anywhere near L5/6.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
and there are times where you are working 3 full time jobs for 3 different companies.
Another example you should bring up that seems impossible, lol, is in 2004 - 2005. During this time I was working three full time jobs. Who, how and why?
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I worked for MS / Dell / Veritas (this is one job, the three hired me jointly for a project that they were doing together) at a major grocery store chain. It was a huge engineering project and I was actually brought in on three projects with the same group, one engagement right after another. This kept me pretty busy, but was entirely a night time project (outside of a few meetings and planning sessions.) I worked overnights because that's when the company was slowest and least impacted by my work. So this was the big job paying the bills, but was completely at night (and a lot of travel.)
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I worked for a K12 school running their IT and teaching some classes. This, hopefully obviously, was during the day not at night. This was a volunteer arrangement, I was not paid. I talk about this a lot in how volunteer jobs can do wonders for your career (it was this position, not the big MS / Dell engineering gig that Wall St. used to pick me for my next role in 2006.) This was full time during school hours and I'd work here straight from returning from the nighttime job. My wife taught at the school so we got to spend the day together this way as well (she taught 8th grade.)
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I worked at NTG. Because I was a volunteer at the K12 school during this era, I was able to have an office there and there was no demands that I be 100% focused on the school (especially as I wasn't needed every moment), so I continued my consulting work with NTG. Technically the K12 was through NTG, and NTG donated the equipment that they used (as did Time Warner / Spectrum now, for the Internet.)
I'd sleep in the afternoons. I was in my 20s and it did wonders for advancing quickly and we didn't have kids. It was the right time to do crazy work like this.
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@stacksofplates said in Topics of Systems Administration:
I'm saying the only people I've seen making that ($500k+) are like L5/L6 at larger tech companies.
I've never seen an SA hit the $500K mark. Not without stepping into management. Close, but not quite to that point. I expect that some do, but that's beyond what I've seen.
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@scottalanmiller just post your resume.
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FORK THIS THREAD!
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@scottalanmiller said in Topics of Systems Administration:
As my employer said at the time "You can't bag groceries in Oregon", that was their policy. No job, of any sort, anywhere in the country. Their policy was that they were a "US business" and "all US business" was a competitor. Clearly that doesn't work in court, but the number of people who had won against them were.... very few. Famously, two just did a few months ago. But it's taken that long.
Wow that is totally illegal and would never even stand up in court. Hell you could probably represent yourself in such a scenario and still win.
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I can almost guarantee they would not go after you if you went to another industry
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No way that is holding up in court. No way that takes 10 years to win. Maybe 10 weeks?
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This thread went to hell in handbasket.
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@VoIP_n00b said in Topics of Systems Administration:
@scottalanmiller just post your resume.
And SSN, Birthdate and mothers maiden name.
