MessageScott Thile wrote: One thing we've got to keep in mind while looking at what appear to be low salaries when compared to private sector work is retirement, insurance, vacation time, holiday time etc... It took a while, but I now have 3 1/2 weeks of paid vacation time (and it's about to be 4). One of those weeks is just about to start--hurray! Hmm... maybe it has, come to think of it... That's another benefit. I' guess I'm being paid for this ;) I also get a week off between Christmas and New Years, and another 3 days off for Spring Break, plus 3 days off for Thanksgiving week, 3 Monday holidays, more sick days than I'll ever use, etc... and all of that is paid! I've heard that it costs the average University nearly twice our salary to actually employ us. I'm sure it varies, but I can well imagine that we would need to net nearly twice our salaries in a private practice to end up even. That's net, as in after car expenses, supplies, phone expenses, shop expenses, etc... You can't just look at your salary versus what you can put in your pocket after a day of tuning in the real World. Depending on the employee's contributions yes, it varies. But my total compensation value: leave, retirement, FICA match and all was only about 1 1/3 times my salary. A situation where the employer pays all the bennies is about 1.5 times the salary. Not double. To get yourself an extra month of paid vacation, just add one tuning a week. One tuning a week at 48 weeks is an extra 48 tunings at your fee. Sounds like paid vacation to me. At $52K for a piano tech, that's about 10 or 11 tunings a week. Add 5 more for benefits and one more for vacation. 16 or 17 tuning equivalents a week will match the total university compensation package including leave. If you want sick leave or more paid leave, add one more a week. Still a light week compared to university work. Then, you have far more tax advantages you didn't have as an employee. Your cell phone, your computer, your internet service, your mileage -- all that becomes pretax rather than post tax. Those expenses are deductible for the self employed but not for the employee and they are expenses that exist for both. And remember FICA is based on gross salary for the employee and net take home for the self employed. I can't imagine it would take twice the earnings to even it up, and certainly not twice the amount of work. The fellow who's been doing the interim work here after I left is interested in the job. Says he's tired of the road is his main reason. But he's also acknowledged since he's been working up there that it is far more work than he's been accustomed to and making $30K more with 10 weeks of vacation. Jeff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20080617/87bc1ebc/attachment-0001.html
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