How much am i really worth?

• After a few years at the same gig, my first serious tech job out of college, i'm finally being considered for a serious raise. The problem is they want me to figure out what it should be, with a few caveats. which is to say... pile of snowflake details inside. Pretty much, they told me to go out and ask "some of my friends or people i know" what they're getting paid for comparable jobs... but i don't know anyone who has a job like this although i have friends in the field. I googled around, but once again it's a pretty all encompassing job compared to most of what i could find. I read stuff like http://ask.metafilter.com/111708/How-much-should-I-be-making-in-IT, but although a bit similar it doesn't seem comparable. The path to that guys job is similar to mine, including how it creeped in to encompassing more and more til i was doing everything, but it just doesn't seem quite like the same situation. I'm trying to not get too specific here, because although they openly told me to ask around, i still think it would be weird if i was directly identified. Not enough to anon post, but still, i like to keep a somewhat low profile. * I'm the only IT person at a medium sized company that has both an office and retail stores. i manage about 5 locations. * I do everything. Helpdesk, software support, point of sale systems management, networking and VPN, managing servers/backups. I order, configure, and install all the equipment including climbing around on a ladder and running cables through holes in the wall type stuff. Maintaining spares, disaster recovery plans, everything you can think of an IT department doing at a medium sized company entirely falls on me. The only thing i'm not 100% saddled with is employee training. * They are in no way the "how does IT make money" types, they completely understand it's a cost of doing business hing, and that it's mission critical. They know that they need these systems to make money. * I'm on call 24/7/365, and since i'm the only person this means i'm *really* on call those hours. There's contractors i can possibly call if i'm on vacation and something blows up, but they don't have the response time that i can provide/they sometimes need. I definitely think a big point here is that this is, and always has been a take home job. This has been really harsh/trying sometimes, but i'm young and aware this is fairly common in this field. * We heavily use several pieces of unusual/obscure software and hardware that i'm now very familiar with maintaining and knowing all of the bugs/quirks and general ins and outs. For all of these things, the only other option is to call a $$$$ contractor, or the dev/manufacturer who also charges major $$$ for support and often requires a contract to even pick up the phone and say more than "sign a support contract, sorry". I know how hard it is to find someone else to do this stuff, because i've had to track down someone to cover me when i was out of town, or needed more than one set of eyes and hands.(or had a really obscure problem, this is pretty google-proof stuff) * On that note, they've said several times when i was offered or interviewed for another job(which was lower level stuff, but on a run of a ladder instead of a shelf), that they would definitely want to hire me on as a contractor if i left for any reason. There is definitely a desire to have specifically me doing this job. * It's a manager level/"senior" position(and they refer to it as such), but no one reports to me. What i mean by this is that i attend the major meetings between all the management staff and speak at them in that fashion, report to only the most senior "managing the managers" type top people, etc. * To knock out all the "important info" mentioned in the previous thread needed to answer this question, i'll just reiterate some of it but all in once place. this is in the seattle area. My title is just a generic "Systems administrator". This is retail/food service company. I've been here for a bit more than 2 years, as i said below i didn't finish my college degree and have no certs, but i have a lot of on the job experience both with and outside of this place, mostly as a contractor for very small(like 5 employees) or home offices that i networked my way in to nabbing gigs at. I currently make about 22k a year(and it's hourly, so $20 an hour). I also only work about 20 hours a week, but that's what everyone involved agrees gets the job done. This is not, by any means a 40 hour a week job. Defining that is a bit awkward though since it's also on call. I think it makes more sense to define my yearly pay based on it being those hours consistently, as it has been for 2+ years, not as some hypothetical full time pay rate that will never happen. I definitely do a full time jobs worth of work especially when you factor in maintenance that can only be done outside of business hours, periodic systems upgrades at odd hours, etc. I often feel a bit shafted on this since on paper it's not a ton of hours, but the footprint it leaves on my life is pretty large. Both me and them agree this is way below what it should be, so fortunately that isn't the issue. But it started out at that level because i was straight out of school and it was my first job that didn't involve making coffee or flipping burgers. The problem, and why i even made this post is that i can't find anyone with a comparable job. Everyone who manages these types of systems(point of sale client/server stuff, mostly) is a contractor, or has years of experience(and i mean, 10+ years, not 2) working for the vendor(s) of the equipment or software and makes $$$$$ because they manage the systems for an entire large chain. The contractors who work on these types of systems charge >$100 an hour, but are also dealing with being contractors and often having their own office, travel time, etc. Plus, there's a lot more to this job than just managing those specific systems. It's also worth noting that i really really love this job. Both without any real context, and seeing the type of jobs my friends are doing in the same field and what downsides/restrictions/limitations they have even if they're making more money. Everyone i work with is awesome, there's great perks, i don't have any set hours and can come and go as i please as long as stuff is dealt with, the location is awesome and i have my own extremely isolated office/workspace, my commute is under 10 minutes on foot, i'm allowed to use the office/facilities for projects or contract work not related to the company, i could go on. I have very little interest in looking for another job simply because i love this one so much. I don't think i should take any huge hit because i love the place, but i would definitely rather have this job with these perks than another one that paid a bit more. It's just that i know people who are doing part time night server monitoring 4-5 days a week and making close to 50k. I've also been working on making some time to finish my network engineering degree and get some certs though, as i was on the path to do that when i got hired... So what should i say/do here? I know i'm going to get shafted if i don't present "my side" of this like i was asked to. But i'm pretty much floating in the middle of the ocean with no paddle.

• Answer:

  Here's a way I would slice it out: 1. Build a service catalog. break your support work into "easy to fix" "slightly harder to fix" "takes everything I have to figure it out" 2. The on-call needs to be billed as a monthly retainer just for having to keep your life on hold for them. That needs to be billed at 1500 dollars per month, have that 1500 retainer cover the "easy to fix" problems. For problems that fall into the other two categories, bill 60 dollars an hour over M-F 8-5, 90 dollars an hour for off-hours. 3. Establish core "office hours" at 35 dollars an hour, 10 hours a week, that's planning and admin time, not break-fix time. Then, start looking for another job. Use your admin and planning time to document the shit out of your environment, and find another college student to pass your legacy onto. Set them up with the same gig you have, because once you enter the professional world of IT, you will not have time to entertain these people's needs.