Company car choice these days.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Your strategy is 'Want 37k, ask for 50k'. I'm sure in the unlikely case that discussions progress as far as them sealing a deal at 25% less than what he originally asked for, they will already be well impressed with the tough negotiaton and deal-making skills of their new sales dude.

[Cavcraft]

 

 

 

 

[cms206]

Something that says "I'm doing well, but don't want to show off too much" - surely a case for the Citroen XM?

[Cavcraft]

Actually if I had a choice I'd defo go for an MG6. That way I wouldn't have to worry about comedy build quality or depreciation.

[gtd2000]

Actually if I had a choice I'd defo go for an MG6. That way I wouldn't have to worry about comedy build quality or depreciation.

 

LOL - great point

[gtd2000]

From my own experience when negotiating a rate, I normally just give my previous remuneration rates and take it from there.

 

If somebody is contacting you, then you are in the stronger position.

 

If you are reaching out to them for a job then you need to research the acceptable rates for that function.

 

An old GF of mine that is in medical sales (pharms) brings in at least 45k a year I beleive...then again she is a stunner and would probably make sales on that alone!

 

Do you look good in a skirt? - it might help

 

When I first started making good money (£35K p.a. + Mitsubishi Shogun - 16 years ago) I thought I had secured a great deal for myself. A few months later I found out that some of my colleagues were actually on £45~50k for the same level of responsibility (we were all Engineers). After that revelation, I referred back to one of my favourite authors at school and remembered "Knowledge is Power".

 

I don't think an overall wage of £50k is unrealistic - especially down South, however, I'm out of touch with the market since the economy slid off the plank...

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Your strategy is 'Want 37k, ask for 50k'. I'm sure in the unlikely case that discussions progress as far as them sealing a deal at 25% less than what he originally asked for, they will already be well impressed with the tough negotiaton and deal-making skills of their new sales dude.

 

Why not? Customers always like thinking they got a good discount/deal.

[Albert Ross]

Here's a thought.... See if they'd buy you a classic... something like an E type, or a "Vicarage" Mk2 Jag... Imagine a fully rebuilt engine and box, a rebuilt axle, all the interior sorted, no road tax. OR.... Austin 3 litre, Armstrong Siddeley Lancaster, Merc 126 S-Class, Coleman Milne Grosvenor, and you could ask a mate to drive you places, and sit in the back feeling important and getting pissed.

Maybe not though.

[Guest]

Just ask for minimum wage, that's what it's there for.

[AnthonyG]

Average salary in private sector - £24K

Average salary in public sector - £26K (this includes Royal Bank of Scotland/Lloyds Bank employees ATM). This was in The Times last week.

 

So you could say anything on the upside of 24K is good BUT thats all meaningless really - you need to look at average wages in your selected career/experience for a decent comparison, look at ads for jobs similar to yours or ring up another headhunter (not the one who's giving you the job) and have a quick chat with a experienced recruiter.

 

Personally I would say outside of the Sarf East, 30k for a single person allows a pretty good lifestyle, if you don't go mad on the credit and don't have a stupid mortgage.

 

As for negotiating If I wanted ( say) 37 I'd ask for 42 or so, not 50, thats just being silly and implies you are a bit of a dreamer - they might just put the phone down on you. Unless it is some sort of sector of sales where being a cocky dreamer is part of the job spec, dodgy telecoms firms/media sales etc!

[fiatdaft]

Just send him this email and claim your 50k,win.

 

[RoadworkUK]

I'm evidently on a piss-poor salary if this thread is anything to go by. I'm soon to be under a 75% mortgage too.

 

But on the other hand, at least I don't have a fucking company car any more.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I just LOL'd my knackers off at that thing of FD's.

[RoadworkUK]

As did I. Reminded me of this.

 

[Guest]

I'd love to know where this public sector joint is where the average person gets £26K, that's more than the boss of my boss gets. I spend a lot of time working out how much everybody earns from their payscales, because it gives me something to drink myself into the gutter over.

[Des]

Having had a bit of a think I doubt I'll go for the job, just can't see myself going back to that kind of shit after a decade of freedom.

Thank for all the comments, and may I propose Luxobarges_Are_Us as Autoshite's Chief Employment Advisor.

I don't need to earn much, lucky to have bought house at the right time, never done credit and live a very modest life compared to most around me, so self employed and taking it easy is probably a better option than high earning stress and frustration early grave insanity and clogging up the grumpy thread. I'll listen to what they say, and see if the car is a Skoda.

[Mr Lobster]

self employed and taking it easy is probably a better option than high earning stress and frustration early grave insanity and clogging up the grumpy thread.

 

^ This.

[M'coli]

Aye, gaun yirsel. This public sector v private sector nonsense is spin, architected to skew things so that, basically, the NHS can be privatised.

 

Put it this way - I'm in the midst of a career change and on the lookout for a way into engineering after 10+ years as a forensic scientist. Private sector graduate engineers earn more than I was getting after 10 or so years of public sector progression, helping to lock up/exonerate the country's nasty bastards/innocent bastards.

 

Let's turn the argument on its head - why is it right that the private sector is so badly shafted by their employers?

[Pete-M]

It's all bollocks.

 

Private Sector (Outside London)

Unskilled but half decent at your job (that anyone with half a brain can do) you're gonna get £7 an hour.

Unskilled but good at your job you're gonna get £10 an hour.

Skilled you'll get more if you're good.

 

Public Sector.

Droid £17k.

Unskilled £17k

Then it's all "pay grade" bullshit.

 

If you're the Labour council leader for Liverpool you can get elected in, told to make cuts, and then double your wage to £195k a year and hire four 'advisers" to work full time on an hourly rate that's larger than yours, blow a million quid in a year on cab fares. Then cry that "There's no money because of the cuts".

 

Oh, for a good company car with cheap tax and mega mpgs, Skoda Superb 2.0 TDi SE Plus.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

self employed and taking it easy is probably a better option than high earning stress and frustration early grave insanity and clogging up the grumpy thread.

 

^ This.

 

I'm onboard with that, too.

[Guest]

To be fair on the whole pay grade thing, the whole thing doesn't allow your wage to keep going up forever, it only takes 4-5 years before you're earning the maximum possible for your grade, which is usually about £2K more than the starting wage (which is usually pitifully low for the type of job). It's basically a tool for making sure they didn't have to pay much for the people who got fed up and left before the first year. It's all been frozen for a few years anyway. They rejigged the grades for where I was and I was shunted down to the top of a lower grade, meaning I was doing specialist debt recovery on a whopping £15K (if I was a new starter, I'd have been on £13K or so and it'd have taken 5 years to be earning that much).

 

Luckily, I managed to transfer myself back into the heady heights of a £17K job as the last person had been strongarmed into voluntary early retirement (it's cheaper to cajole people into going "voluntarily" by making their job harder or more unpleasant) and it was cheaper short-term to transfer me into their old position than make me redundant. I'm actually under-qualified for the job as ideally they expect people in this position to have some kind of law qualification (preferably degree-level, on 17K!!) and I only get by on a patchwork of past experience, guesswork and lies. Yet I am personally responsible for some companies being closed down forever, people being turfed out of their homes via bankruptcy and hundreds of horrible - often unfair - CCJs.

 

I am actually trying to be self-employed as I doubt my job will exist much longer, probably be outsourced to Poland (that's where a lot of finance stuff is going on account of the legal allowances made for personal details to be transferred through the EU). I doubt I'll earn anywhere near what I get now, but at least I can go to the toilet more than twice a day without anyone saying owt. The new office will have ID cards and they are going to be monitoring both our movement through the building and how many cups of coffee we help ourselves to. Lovely stuff!

[Albert Ross]

Get 6 cups at a time,. but keep them warm with one of those microwaveable "foot warmers" you see punted out on QVC....... Then piss into the empty cups.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Wow, Hirst, that sounds like a lovely* workplace! From my (admittedly limited) experience of the public sector, it is not typical at all- neither in working environment (although, of course, office politics are not uncommon) nor salaries. The other day, I saw an ad for an admin-type job with Rutland Council...Salary Banding: 18-21k. "Essential experience: Some experience of working in an office environment", "Desirable skills": "Knowledge of Microsoft Excel". I have a friend who works for the PTE managing a team of people who visit schools and talk to kids about public transport- his employees are on 24k, for a job that requires little in the way of expertise, qualifications or skills (well, apart from being able to speak clearly and not being a paedophile/child hater). At the same time, of course, there are people with PhDs on 'flexible' (read 'zero-hours') contracts doing tutorials at unis for 17 pounds an hour, 5 hours a week, 7 months a year.

 

I am actually trying to be self-employed as I doubt my job will exist much longer, probably be outsourced to Poland (that's where a lot of finance stuff is going on account of the legal allowances made for personal details to be transferred through the EU).

 

Because, as said above, public sector remuneration policies are completely random and the council/college/fire brigade up the road could pay double of what you're earning, I'd check out and see whether there's anything vaguely similar available with any other public employer. Moving away from such a nasty place means that, no matter where you go, your new working environment will seem like heaven!

 

With the type of salaries they are currently paying, they are going to be in for a nasty surprise if they try that stunt. Poland isn't India or China...They'll have to pay the employees 11k or so, and, after adding the extra layer of bureaucracy and administration and project management, there won't be any savings left. Of course, there is no guarantee that it all happens in order to save taxpayer money- a lot of contractors and consultants can make serious money on this, and then even more as they review it, find that the savings haven't been worthwhile, and bring it back in-house!

[Hertz]

My new company car is a shitetastic 1.6 Diesel Mondeo. I was really worried about it's ability to pull skin off rice puddings but apart from when pulling away from junctions in 2nd and bugger all happening it's really very good. Very cheap tax as it only gives off 114 co2's or whatever they are.

[gtd2000]

Well my last company car was also a Diesel, not sure about the tax bracket as Uncle Sam doesn't seem to be interested in such perks - you have to drive is the basic mentality.

 

Sounds good to me.

 

God knows what the CO2 ratings were

 

 

Personally, I think these US trucks are heaps of shit.....but free is always good.

[eddyramrod]

Well my last company car was also a Diesel, not sure about the tax bracket as Uncle Sam doesn't seem to be interested in such perks - you have to drive is the basic mentality.

 

Sounds good to me.

 

God knows what the CO2 ratings were

 

 

Personally, I think these US trucks are heaps of shit.....but free is always good.

 

I'm coming to work where you work! That's what I call a company car! I had one of these (Dodge Ram, in case anyone doesn't recognise it) on rental for a fortnight, and loved it. Can't please everyone eh? But I do think that one needs bigger wheels.

[DSdriver]

 

Tesco School of Parking?

[Taff]

BMW 120d worked for me, though it depends what you need to cart about. ugly car, but i always reasoned that I couldn't see it from the drivers seat.

 

decent pay? depends what you do, I still hope for a day when I can earn £50k a month for dossing on the sofa and farting occasionally

[Guest]

At that call centre I used to work you could have a VW Golf or a VW Golf as a company car.

 

My boss drove his VW Golf into a tree. He loved it that much.

[gtd2000]

I'm coming to work where you work! That's what I call a company car! I had one of these (Dodge Ram, in case anyone doesn't recognise it) on rental for a fortnight, and loved it. Can't please everyone eh? But I do think that one needs bigger wheels.

 

The wheels do give a some-what comedy look indeed

 

You'll just have to get a job with a very large German energy company

 

I've had most of the Yank trucks from the latter part of the past 5 years or so.

 

None of which I'd actually want to own if I'm honest but they are acceptable when paid for by the company of course

 

You'd really need to make one decent truck out of the various bit and pieces.

 

 

 

At one point in 2007, while working in Oregon I had been through the various Dodge RAM trucks (Hemis and Diesels) Ford F150's and Chevy Silverado.

 

At the time the Dodge diesel was by far the most powerful engine, with shit seats, the GM the best built and most comfortable but somewhat gutless and the Ford the most handsome but built like a bag o' shite.

 

I also had a KIA Sportage 2.7L V6 as a general run around - it could outdrag the F150 no sweat - infact it felt like a sportscar by comparison!

 

I'd take the Sportage over any of them - that's probably saying something about Yank trucks right there