Hey guys, I have a career question.
I've been working in a small shop building race cars and stuff like that. It is a very small business that relies mostly on my boss working his ass off to create new products and sell a lot of outsourced stuff. All that merchandise is what keeps the business afloat, and it's all out of my hands. He also brings in clients who want work done to their cars.
My job is unique in that I am the only employee. I play many roles, from janitor to product packaging, but primarily designing new products (like the roll cages, roll bars, and currently a dual oil cooler kit (for the C5 diff and trans fluids)), and, production work, where I build the things I've designed. And not just build them, but build the things to build them, and create the documentation, after having done all the research to produce them.
I don't really have a reference point whether what I do is really a lot, or if it's on par with others... in terms of pay, experience, and abilities. Some days I'm looking at a screen most of the day, some days I'm sending bars through machines that cut and bend them. I of course make those programs, run the machines, and problem solve when errors arise. And I have to check all my work, literally my own quality assurance checker.
Again I don't mean to gloat or anything if it sounds like that. I'm getting to my point.
With 10 years experience in fabrication overall, at 30 years old, I make $30/h. Nobody I've met, except my boss, has said "wow that's a lot" or "that sounds about right." It also doesn't help that I live right outside Los Angeles with a high cost of living.
To give my boss some credit, he picked my up 3 years ago when my last job dumped me and decided to build an entire other business around me. He was already making and selling racecar parts, but he heard I was available, and he went and got us a shop. Then he progressively filled it with equipment (some Harbor Freight, some name brand stuff). He admired my attention to detail and many skills. And I was pretty cheap then.
I do have my own problems though. My attention to detail often far exceeds into tasks that don't require it... meaning I take too long to do things that shouldn't. I have dozed off into my own world and lost track of time. I don't listen all the time and think my idea/route is better. I don't communicate often enough, such as when I find a problem with something, and proceed to fix it instead of telling him, so he can make the call on how to approach it. I have gotten better about these issues, but hey nobody's perfect.
Anyway my question is about a potentially new job. And it's a rather specific new job.
You may know the company Singer Vehicle Design, the one who restores/modifies Porsches. Well they have grown into a new warehouse that is coincidentally in the city I grew up in. With their ever increasing orders and new building, they're hiring. Many positions. One is called "Fabricator III" which I seem to be qualified for. I mean, on paper I check their boxes, and in reality, I think I'm the detail-oriented type of person that they would be looking for.
Their listing says the pay is based on skillset, ranging from $20-$28/h. I kinda would have assumed a "level 3" (if that's what that is) would be paid more, but whatever. A car worth over seven figures is handled by people making a marginally livable wage is this county. Go figure.
But... wouldn't you? Want to go to that interview and try to see if you fit in there? If you are worthy enough to belong there? To be surrounded by other craftsmen and learn from them? To be a part of an internationally recognized group of bespoke individuals responsible for building incredible machines?
What if you made it past the first interview, and you were offered the job?
Would you leave the small company? Leave the relative freedom to create your own designs and actually be thanked by the owners of the cars upon building them their own roll cage? I think that's something special that I may never see within the sea of others of a larger company.
But I'm also just not seen by most anyone at this small place.
I don't know. I want to feel special, like anyone else. And I want to be happy and grow into a career I belong in. I want to make lots of money and have a house to call home, and raise a child one day. I sure as hell can't afford to do any of that now.
I know other people are able to achieve greater financial success by changing jobs often, but I'm just not that kind of person.. I prefer to be loyal, aka stubborn, and make something work. But I don't like that my girlfriend thinks I will blindly follow my current boss wherever he goes and be content with that. My boss wants the company to grow and he wants to increase my pay as we grow, so there's that incentive, but I can't help to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side.
What would you do?
Thank you, kind internet strangers/e30 enthusiasts for reading my rant.
I've been working in a small shop building race cars and stuff like that. It is a very small business that relies mostly on my boss working his ass off to create new products and sell a lot of outsourced stuff. All that merchandise is what keeps the business afloat, and it's all out of my hands. He also brings in clients who want work done to their cars.
My job is unique in that I am the only employee. I play many roles, from janitor to product packaging, but primarily designing new products (like the roll cages, roll bars, and currently a dual oil cooler kit (for the C5 diff and trans fluids)), and, production work, where I build the things I've designed. And not just build them, but build the things to build them, and create the documentation, after having done all the research to produce them.
I don't really have a reference point whether what I do is really a lot, or if it's on par with others... in terms of pay, experience, and abilities. Some days I'm looking at a screen most of the day, some days I'm sending bars through machines that cut and bend them. I of course make those programs, run the machines, and problem solve when errors arise. And I have to check all my work, literally my own quality assurance checker.
Again I don't mean to gloat or anything if it sounds like that. I'm getting to my point.
With 10 years experience in fabrication overall, at 30 years old, I make $30/h. Nobody I've met, except my boss, has said "wow that's a lot" or "that sounds about right." It also doesn't help that I live right outside Los Angeles with a high cost of living.
To give my boss some credit, he picked my up 3 years ago when my last job dumped me and decided to build an entire other business around me. He was already making and selling racecar parts, but he heard I was available, and he went and got us a shop. Then he progressively filled it with equipment (some Harbor Freight, some name brand stuff). He admired my attention to detail and many skills. And I was pretty cheap then.
I do have my own problems though. My attention to detail often far exceeds into tasks that don't require it... meaning I take too long to do things that shouldn't. I have dozed off into my own world and lost track of time. I don't listen all the time and think my idea/route is better. I don't communicate often enough, such as when I find a problem with something, and proceed to fix it instead of telling him, so he can make the call on how to approach it. I have gotten better about these issues, but hey nobody's perfect.
Anyway my question is about a potentially new job. And it's a rather specific new job.
You may know the company Singer Vehicle Design, the one who restores/modifies Porsches. Well they have grown into a new warehouse that is coincidentally in the city I grew up in. With their ever increasing orders and new building, they're hiring. Many positions. One is called "Fabricator III" which I seem to be qualified for. I mean, on paper I check their boxes, and in reality, I think I'm the detail-oriented type of person that they would be looking for.
Their listing says the pay is based on skillset, ranging from $20-$28/h. I kinda would have assumed a "level 3" (if that's what that is) would be paid more, but whatever. A car worth over seven figures is handled by people making a marginally livable wage is this county. Go figure.
But... wouldn't you? Want to go to that interview and try to see if you fit in there? If you are worthy enough to belong there? To be surrounded by other craftsmen and learn from them? To be a part of an internationally recognized group of bespoke individuals responsible for building incredible machines?
What if you made it past the first interview, and you were offered the job?
Would you leave the small company? Leave the relative freedom to create your own designs and actually be thanked by the owners of the cars upon building them their own roll cage? I think that's something special that I may never see within the sea of others of a larger company.
But I'm also just not seen by most anyone at this small place.
I don't know. I want to feel special, like anyone else. And I want to be happy and grow into a career I belong in. I want to make lots of money and have a house to call home, and raise a child one day. I sure as hell can't afford to do any of that now.
I know other people are able to achieve greater financial success by changing jobs often, but I'm just not that kind of person.. I prefer to be loyal, aka stubborn, and make something work. But I don't like that my girlfriend thinks I will blindly follow my current boss wherever he goes and be content with that. My boss wants the company to grow and he wants to increase my pay as we grow, so there's that incentive, but I can't help to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side.
What would you do?
Thank you, kind internet strangers/e30 enthusiasts for reading my rant.
Comment