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Judge Schnoopy posted:Not because of tax brackets but this is becoming more of a reality than a lot of people think. Not for those making 60k+, but those at the 30 - 40k range qualify for a lot of state benefits and insurance discounts and school grants / loan payment deferrals. Bumping up from 40k to 50k with a family of 4 can easily be a wash in monthly usable income, and there's some tipping point in there where a small raise can cost more than the raise earns. Yeah. The benefits tiering that was setup to win the "War on Poverty" is pretty much keeping people in an endless cycle of poverty because at some point, you need to get a raise of about 20k to be able to make more actual income after paying the cost of the benefits you no longer receive. And lemme tell you, employers love jumping peoples' pay by 50+%. It happens allll the time! 
Arsten fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Jun 2, 2016 |
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Jun 2, 2016 14:14
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Judge Schnoopy posted:Not because of tax brackets but this is becoming more of a reality than a lot of people think. Not for those making 60k+, but those at the 30 - 40k range qualify for a lot of state benefits and insurance discounts and school grants / loan payment deferrals. Bumping up from 40k to 50k with a family of 4 can easily be a wash in monthly usable income, and there's some tipping point in there where a small raise can cost more than the raise earns. You're also assuming people actually know about these programs and make use of them, though.
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Jun 2, 2016 14:35
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Inspector_666 posted:You're also assuming people actually know about these programs and make use of them, though. Edit: I misread who you were quoting. People below the poverty line have good knowledge. People in that weird limbo area... Not as much. </edit> People below the poverty line often do have fairly good knowledge of the programs available. Cultural capital can be weird, if you're poor, you might not have any friends or family who can help you fill out a college application, but you probably know a few people who can help you make sense of your SNAP application.
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Jun 2, 2016 14:55
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Japanese Dating Sim posted:So I'm sure a lot of this is old hat for many of you, and I also know that Powershell in a Month of Lunches is pretty much the gold standard for learning Powershell, but yesterday was pretty slow and I watched a few sessions of Microsoft's MVA course "Getting Started with PowerShell 3.0 Jump Start" and was really impressed. The Powershell creator also looks exactly what you'd think a higher-up engineer at MS would look like
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Jun 2, 2016 14:59
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Not really the same thing, but I know a few of my friends haven't filed homestead exemptions on their houses for property tax. Trying to tell them to do so without being all in their business is an awkward line.Inspector_666 posted:The Powershell creator also looks exactly what you'd think a higher-up engineer at MS would look like As a bonus, if you turn this (and probably any MVA thing) down to 50% speed, they sound like very tech-savvy stoners. I happened to try that right when Jeffrey Snover made some comment about Kierkegaard's dizziness of freedom. Japanese Dating Sim fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Jun 2, 2016 |
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Jun 2, 2016 14:59
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adorai posted:I think he is referring to welfare benefits. Vulture Culture posted:A lot of government benefits are determined based on your income bracket. For example, a small raise may bump you above 400% of the federal poverty level so you no longer qualify for ACA insurance subsidies. There are other losses and downsides aside from just those on welfare and benefit programs. Tax deductions, exemptions and credits sometimes have an income cap and a pretty steep phase-out structure, and the way the IRS sets their phase-outs is loving stupid. Example: For single filers with an adjusted gross income of $20,001 to $30,750, the Retirement Savings Contributions Credit refunds you 10% of your total retirement contributions (401k/IRA) for the year up to a maximum of $2000. That's a $200 credit on your refund. If you were at $30,750 and took full advantage of the credit in 2015, but had a wildly successful year and your AGI skyrockets to $30,751 for 2016, you are no longer eligible for the credit and will pay $200 more on your tax bill for having earned an extra dollar. Granted, I've never heard of someone getting a $1 raise, but multiply that effect across a lot of other deductions and credits and it can quickly add up. I think that's what most people are talking about when they say "I got a raise and lost money".
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Jun 2, 2016 15:54
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Arsten posted:Yeah. The benefits tiering that was setup to win the "War on Poverty" is pretty much keeping people in an endless cycle of poverty because at some point, you need to get a raise of about 20k to be able to make more actual income after paying the cost of the benefits you no longer receive. And lemme tell you, employers love jumping peoples' pay by 50+%. It happens allll the time! Not really, most programs are set up specifically to avoid this effect. Food stamps, EITC, housing assistance, and other benefits phase out gradually with income increases so the increase in take home pay from additional income is reduced but rarely actually negative. The glaring exceptions are PPACA credits, and there is a lot wrong with that law, and disability payments, which are a somewhat different beast altogether.
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Jun 2, 2016 16:01
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Cenodoxus posted:I think that's what most people are talking about when they say "I got a raise and lost money". I wish you were right. Maybe you just interact with more knowledgeable people but my experience is that they're referring to tax brackets and worry that a raise will push them over into the next one.
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Jun 2, 2016 16:38
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Not really, most programs are set up specifically to avoid this effect. Food stamps, EITC, housing assistance, and other benefits phase out gradually with income increases so the increase in take home pay from additional income is reduced but rarely actually negative. The glaring exceptions are PPACA credits, and there is a lot wrong with that law, and disability payments, which are a somewhat different beast altogether. The phase outs aren't actually "gradual" because it's tiered based on FPL(1) with the reductions beinglarge steps instead of a progressive reduction. For instance, going from $27,500 to $33,000 a year, while a $5,500 increase in income makes you ineligible for Medicaid, causes a 50% reduction in your SNAP (of, about $100 a month), and housing assistance, depending on which state you are in, will generally drop by 30-50% as well. The tier? You went from 250% to 300% of FPL(1), which is one of the largest drops in the tiering structure - mainly because the federal reimbursements to the states for most of these programs have a hard shelf at this level, too. And that's without going into the insurance you now have to buy. The problem? Going from 250% one year to 300% the next year is easy if you are doing many of the jobs that low income earners tend to be in, as it's a $2.50/hr raise, which you can get just by jumping jobs - depending on your field and experience. Sometimes wait staff can do that simply because they happened to be busier that year. Dr. Arbitrary posted:I wish you were right. Maybe you just interact with more knowledgeable people but my experience is that they're referring to tax brackets and worry that a raise will push them over into the next one. In my experience, the people talking tax brackets make over $40-50,000 a year. Everyone under that talks heavily about all of the programs they are a member of and follow the salary guidelines extremely closely.
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Jun 2, 2016 17:34
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So I was reading Jeffrey Snover's blog (which hasn't been updated in two years) due to my watching the Powershell MVA thing he did. His last post was pretty strange to me, but I'm wondering how common it might be and/or relatable for some of you.quote:We all have ten jobs and our only true job is to figure out which nine we can fail at and not get fired.
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Jun 2, 2016 17:51
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Tab8715 posted:How so? You're also assuming that a reference's personal contact info won't change in 10 years. The *cough-linkedin-cough* comment is pretty much on the nose here, but consider that LinkedIn started in 2002, only really caught on recently, and my resume stretches back a lot longer than that.
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Jun 2, 2016 18:32
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Japanese Dating Sim posted:So I was reading Jeffrey Snover's blog (which hasn't been updated in two years) due to my watching the Powershell MVA thing he did. His last post was pretty strange to me, but I'm wondering how common it might be and/or relatable for some of you.
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Jun 2, 2016 18:32
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Cenodoxus posted:Example:
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Jun 2, 2016 18:33
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CrazyLittle posted:Hahahhahaha $30k... retirement... hooo boy haha ha hahha.... heh. Your moderator icon is FANTASTIC
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Jun 2, 2016 18:43
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I guess me giving my 2 weeks notice was interpreted as "Ask Josh to build a prototype of every drat programming project we've been tasked with that we are taking too long to even start". My biggest mistake here is quickly becoming letting anyone know how fluent I am in web development. Side note, does anyone know of an easy to configure monitoring tool that does sound alarms on poo poo like high disk space or a process not running? These guys are trying to reinvent the wheel asking me to build a custom monitoring "command center" from the ground up when I think the simple solution is a nagios plugin. Sepist fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jun 2, 2016 |
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Jun 2, 2016 21:09
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Sepist posted:I guess me giving my 2 weeks notice was interpreted as "Ask Josh to build a prototype of every drat programming project we've been tasked with that we are taking too long to even start". My biggest mistake here is quickly becoming letting anyone know how fluent I am in web development. Free or what? SolarWinds does this but it's expensive. Datadog does it too and that's inexpensive.
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Jun 2, 2016 21:16
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Free, they can't justify another paid monitoring tool when they give so much money to NetScout / SevOne / Splunk
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Jun 2, 2016 21:17
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http://www.spiceworks.com/free-network-monitoring-management-software/ "free" if your time is worth nothing.
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Jun 2, 2016 21:20
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GreenNight posted:http://www.spiceworks.com/free-network-monitoring-management-software/ If you have the time I'd recommend Nagios.
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Jun 2, 2016 21:25
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Zabbix is on my list of things to look at that aren't Nagios but I have little experience with using/configuring it.
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Jun 2, 2016 21:29
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BaseballPCHiker posted:If you have the time I'd recommend Nagios. That's a terrible thing to recommend. Nagios needs to loving die already. (I say this as a guy who wrote plugins for Netsaint)
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Jun 2, 2016 22:48
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Passed Network+ today! 
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Jun 3, 2016 00:31
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Jun 3, 2016 00:31
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Alright it's been a month at my new job and now I'm running into frustrations fighting against inertial "we've never done anything that way" poo poo. Particularly creating gold images for machines and pushing that out instead of doing everything by hand. There was a mini pilot project started before I arrived about replacing a ton of ancient xp machines with new HP thin clients. Great! I offered to help out and took it upon myself to research them and I put together a little demonstration where I capture a gold image with the AS400 terminal installed, everything locked down etc. and push it out to an arbitrary number of other machines. The write filter prevents anybody from changing anything, if it ever breaks no problem just reboot it and it reverts to my gold image. Except the incumbent IT guy didn't like it because he thinks it's too slow/complicated/insecure. He particularly didn't like the way windows credentials were going to be handled. No problem, your rationale makes no sense but here are 4 alternatives, all of which are unacceptable for ridiculous contradictory reasons. After an hour of discussion the only conclusion must be to never use a gold image and just do 200-300 machines manually, the way things have always been done. His justification for his opinions is that he is a pentester that has broken into lovely WEP wifi networks with Aircrack and knows a lot about security (he disables windows firewall on everything because "It's crap") I'm feeling pretty frustrated with the resistance I am getting towards absolutely every question I have about existing practices and infrastructure, suggestion I make regarding problems faced and I try to offer help for on-going projects. Am I being overzealous too soon after arriving? If I didn't push for work that I could do I'd literally be sitting at my desk with nothing to do.
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Jun 3, 2016 00:33
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Methanar posted:Alright it's been a month at my new job and now I'm running into frustrations fighting against inertial "we've never done anything that way" poo poo. Particularly creating gold images for machines and pushing that out instead of doing everything by hand. Do you not have a boss you can articulate your reasons for wanting this to? This shouldn't be 'incumbent IT guy's' decision. This is a major process change. Explain the why, what issue it solves and get the boss to mandate it.
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Jun 3, 2016 00:40
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DigitalMocking posted:Do you not have a boss you can articulate your reasons for wanting this to? This shouldn't be 'incumbent IT guy's' decision. This is a major process change. Explain the why, what issue it solves and get the boss to mandate it. Furthermore, provide hard ROI numbers. 1 machine install by hand takes X time. x * 200-300 adds up pretty quick in man hours. Then suggest factoring in ongoing support (identical images reduces support costs greatly) and the ability to test and roll out identical images in the same time to take into account improvements and changes to the system image and that upfront ROI becomes even more promising. Make peace with the fact that Mr Incumbent is hell bent on protecting his little empire and is simply threatened.
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Jun 3, 2016 00:44
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I don't know how well this will go over here, but with any new job unless you're being hired to "architect sweeping changes", take some time to learn the lay of the land a bit before pushing too hard to do things your way even if your way is clearly better. Maybe the incumbent is insecure and sucks. But maybe he's tried to make his own changes and gotten chewed out or something and has decided to take a more conservative approach. Whatever the case is, it's generally a good idea not to make a ton of waves and put people on the defensive right away. You never know, that crappy incumbent might end up being your boss next month. Get to know the landscape and show that you're competent and reliable. Gain their trust, and sweeping changes will come, grasshopper.
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Jun 3, 2016 00:54
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Yeah, as much as it sucks to have a clearly better way of doing things there's a lot to be said for not being That Guy who wants to change everything. It can't hurt to sit back and observe for a bit because for all you know this guy might have tried all this before and got strangled by bureaucracy and decision making that moves at the speed of continental drift. But if you're presenting a well thought out project and can demonstrate that it's a step forward and you still get met with complete apathy/attempts to sink the idea and the company doesn't care that your job is going to be manually touching 300 devices instead of doing more productive things with your time then it's unlikely to be a place you're staying at for long, because you don't want to become comfortable in that sort of environment.
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Jun 3, 2016 00:58
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DigitalMocking posted:Do you not have a boss you can articulate your reasons for wanting this to? This shouldn't be 'incumbent IT guy's' decision. This is a major process change. Explain the why, what issue it solves and get the boss to mandate it. My boss, the IT projects manager, is not privileged to having any admin credentials to the network. Those belong to the incumbent. When I asked WTF it was hushed down and I got the sense that I shouldn't ask about it again. That pilot project with the thin clients isn't actually my project but just one of the dozen things sitting in limbo with the incumbent that has been around for 15 years that I offered to help with. Going to my boss and antagonizing a situation where I'm obviously unwelcome where he probably doesn't have the authority to act on it anyway seems like a bad idea. . I've just been idle this whole week because I had finished the first steps of my own assigned project to get this place off of icewarp and onto Office 365. To take it further than what I've got is big endeavor and needs to be properly discussed, the meeting where I will lay out what needs to be done and what the costs, risks, and benefits and some perceptions of mine (this place is not even remotely close to being mature enough to properly handle ADFS) isn't until Monday. I was just really disappointed/shocked at how hostile offers of help had been received
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Jun 3, 2016 01:04
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What a load of poo poo. I'm sorry your company culture sucks rear end.
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Jun 3, 2016 01:10
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I guess it really depends on a lot of factors. When they hired you, was automation and modern process a big part of the interview? If they hired you to help bring them up to speed with contemporary process, you might have some weight to say "Why did you even hire me?" If you're expected to just to follow the steps, then use this time to find a better job. Do you really want to learn how to repeatedly image machines really fast?
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Jun 3, 2016 01:11
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:When they hired you, was automation and modern process a big part of the interview? I didn't really have anything you would call an interview. But yes this was the entire and exclusive purpose of my on-boarding.
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Jun 3, 2016 01:15
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Well that loving sucks
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Jun 3, 2016 01:15
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Collect paycheck, go home
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Jun 3, 2016 01:22
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go3 posted:Collect paycheck, go home It's actually really really hard to do nothing. I go to the bathroom multiple times a day, go for walks, eat lots, make lots of cups of tea, go around meeting people in the office and asking how they like Office 365 and if they would like any specific features or functionality out of it.
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Jun 3, 2016 01:29
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I managed to do nothing at work for a while under similar circumstances and then the crippling fear of stagnating set in.
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Jun 3, 2016 01:34
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Install the awful app on your phone.
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Jun 3, 2016 01:39
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go3 posted:Collect paycheck, go home This. I too was a little frustrated earlier in my career where I was under the thumb of senior admins who had a monopoly on all the access. Its not worth it. Do what you have the power to do and leave everything else to the folks who have the access to do it. Methanar posted:It's actually really really hard to do nothing. I go to the bathroom multiple times a day, go for walks, eat lots, make lots of cups of tea, go around meeting people in the office and asking how they like Office 365 and if they would like any specific features or functionality out of it. Its actually really easy.
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Jun 3, 2016 01:43
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There is a very real possibility there is a reason they aren't wanting to do it your way. If you've been there only a month and are a lower level technician, you've done your duty to suggest the improvement. edit: I am interpreting "incumbent" to mean "senior".
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Jun 3, 2016 02:05
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Methanar posted:It's actually really really hard to do nothing. I go to the bathroom multiple times a day, go for walks, eat lots, make lots of cups of tea, go around meeting people in the office and asking how they like Office 365 and if they would like any specific features or functionality out of it. Sounds like someone needs to develop a crippling WoW addiction
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Jun 3, 2016 02:12
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