Re: Salaries: Kill this stupid topic

[Joel Turnipseed <JTurnipseed -at- DATAWORKSMPLS -dot- COM>]

Actually, I know quite a bit about U.S. salaries, having worked with my
grandfather for many years: he's a labor economist. My mother owns a
mortgage company. I know what people make. Almost no one, in any
profession, makes 100K a year. The figures on mean and median incomes
that I quoted are those for Minnesota, on average a higher-income state
than most. Sure, a few tech writers and programmers and other
high-demand contract workers make 100K+. Very few do.

It's perfectly legitimate, and quite interesting, to know what one
should be charging for one's services. But one must also be reasonable.
For instance, I once wrote a feature article for GQ. I got paid a lot of
money. Several months salary (yours or mine). Should I now judge my
rates on this? Should other writers compare what they get per word (at,
say, the local newspaper)?

What makes a topic stupid? Any of the following (all or most of which
have been met by this thread):

stupid, adj. -- 1. unintelligent, slow-witted, foolish. 2. typical of
stupid persons. 3. uninteresting or boring. 4. in a state of stupor or
lethargy. 5. obtuse; lacking in sensibility.

-----Original Message-----
From: John Posada [mailto:posada -at- faxsav -dot- com]
Sent: June 10, 1998 1:18 PM
To: 'Joel Turnipseed'
Subject: RE: Salaries: Kill this stupid topic


Joel...(or whoever you really are)

Perhaps you should flame a thread you have more knowledge about.

I've been a contractor tech writer for about 5 years, and yes, I DO make

100k. Sometimes a little less (92k) and sometimes a little more (112k)
(My
first gig as a contract tech writer brought me in at 92k), and no, I'm
NOT
a manager, and no, didn't require outrageous skills.

55 and 85 is not outrageous, though granted, 85 is on the high end of
the
scale.

Can we talk about something more useful? Sure, but don't state something
as
fact based your apparently limited exposure to the field

Can we kill this stupid topic? Obviously a 25-35/hr contract rate does
not mean 100K/year. If we look at our respective states' labor figures,
we'd find something like 17/hr median and 19/hr mean incomes. Add

John Posada, Technical Writer (and proud of the title)
The world's premier Internet fax service company: The FaxSav Global
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My opinions are mine, and neither you nor my company can take credit for

them.

  "One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good
poem,
see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable
words.", Goethe
  "Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader
will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will

certainly misunderstand them.", John Ruskin