[BC] Making engineering pay

[Craig Bowman]

Y'all please stay the hell out of Michigan.  I will not get out of bed 
for $50.00 and hour.  For good clients I charge $65 an hour and for the 
random callers I charge $75 when I can get to them.  The guy who works 
on my boat charges $85.  I am seriously considering raising my rates to 
that level.  There are some stations which will not pay my rates and 
good for them, I need a break every now and then.

Craig Bowman
Durand, MI

Dana Puopolo wrote:
> I left Boston for L.A. in 1999. At the time, rates were $40.00 - 50.00 per
> hour for contract work. Very few had retainers; you got paid for the gours you
> worked. 
>
> It's now mid 2006, more then 7 years later. Guess what rates are here now? 
> $40.00 - $50.00 per hour!!
>
> Why?
>
> Undercutting, that's why. There are simply too many contractors here! 
> Many of them work full time, and have a station or two (or five!) on the side.
> As a result, rates have been depressed for over a decade. I'll bet this
> happens lots of other places too. Consolidation has hurt too. Generally
> speaking, none of the clusters use contractors whatsoever.
>
> I simply can not make a living here in Boston doing contracting full time. I
> have to leave. It's difficult to compete against someone who doesn't need the
> money to live on, who uses his employer's tools, test equipment and office
> supplies, and who has group health insurance for his family provided by his
> employer. 
>
> Someone (I believe it was Mike Mc) was lamenting that there were no full time
> engineering contracting firms in his market to help with vacation coverage and
> major projects that happen from time to time. Problem is, as a contractor, I
> can't wait around waiting for a few bones to be thrown my way! It's the day to
> day stuff that keeps local engineering contractors solvent. I have a mortgage
> to pay too! Mike also remarked that most every full time engineer in his
> market did a station or two on the side. If y'all WANT someone to be available
> to back you up in the middle of the night, then YOU have to make sure there's
> enough work for them to survive BETWEEN times!  And yes, that might actually
> involve YOU giving up a few gravy bucks from your pocket. See, YOUR gravy $$
> is a contractor's bread, butter and meat!
>
> Give me a chance to earn a living and I'll be there. Take it all for
> yourselves and I won't!
>
> It's that simple.
>
> -D
>
>
> ------ Original Message ------
> Received: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 01:41:32 PM EDT
> From: Robert Meuser <Robertm at broadcast.net>
> To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
> Subject: Re: [BC] Making engineering pay
>
> Radio as a hobby can be fun. It removes one from day to day stress and permits
>
> doing only the projects that please them.  That being said, if the person
> doing 
> this is doing it at depressed rates, he is driving the overall market down. If
>
> the person is doing this part time work as a few hours for a decent wage, then
>
> that is a whole different discussion. For contract part time work you should
> be 
> asking at the very least $40 per hour and more like $50-70 or a set number of
>
> hours for a monthly fee. If one is setting the floor for the market, it is a 
> disservice to all.
>
> R
>
> Wade Giddens wrote:
>   
>> I've known of at least on radio station engineer who did it as a second 
>> job.  He made his living at his main job and did broadcast engineering 
>> on the side.  He was good at diagnosing and fixing equipment problems.  
>> I know of several people who worked in radio (not engineering) full-time 
>> in the past, who now work another main job and work in radio on the side.
>>
>>     
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