@DatZNasty lol so I found out today that the company does proctor the exam as well, or I can get a voucher to take the exam through
Comptia.
at them still allowing that to go on but they're snatching certs from people who they find out used VCEs. Take it through them. Trust, it behooves them that you pass.
No problem on the job opportunity. One of my other referrals landed the position. I really wish they opened up more spots, but my bad if you guys went out of your way, or if it was something you weren't expecting. I wasn't sure of your actual names either, so when my managers was going through a list of interviews, I wasn't exactly sure who was who
Man, I know nothing about the N.E or even if 90k Is a lot of money but am just down for a change if certain life circumstances weren't keeping me here.
To brehs who do the Contract stuff, when do you all tend to start applying for work to move to the next contract and do companies tend to give you enough time before hand to let you know if they will be renewing you?
Army/DOD you know when your contract is up because it's in the offer plus on your ID card. Even if they have a 5 yr contract, they may be all option years which means every Jan 31 or whatever the time period is, the Government can still put it up for rebid. When this happens, you just see your job listed on a bunch of different company's sistes, they're trying to mie resumes so when they bid for the contract they can say they have X number of qualified applicants already committed and in place to include 5 already working in the position or whatever. You can sign a letter of contingency with them ahead of time which just means you are agreeing to work for them if they do get it, if not then never mind. They'll all be calling you anyways. Or you can just ignore It because in most cases IT work for the Government falls under a class of contracts called SCA, which means your wage and benefits are Government mandated has to be at least this number, can be higher but no lower, and in that case incumbents have first rights of refusal so the spot continues to be yours if you want it.
Now what just happened to me and our contract here, which was not only such a **** boy move but literally illegal and we were going to all contact DOL but most just found different jobs, they let this company SNAP out of Virginia underbid the contract (for example say we have 20 employees at 50k, that's obviously $1,000,000 so anything they bid above that is there profit, well they come in and bid like $850,000) as if they were going to do the contract at a loss (which some companies do do just to get their feet wet in a new sector and location) then act like they didn't know it was SCA and they had to pay us X, so they got the contract changed to remove the SCA status, required MORE certs, made us salaried and not annually/hourly (only when it worked in their favor) AND then cut our pay over 20% instantly after calling all of us lying telling us their offer was right on par. #@*& it's over $15k less! IDK what the exact number they bid is but using the 1,000,000 example let's just say they bid the contract even or 1% profit because they know the Government just takes lowest bidder, if you do that then instead of 50 pay everyone 40, and then when they get mad and leave pay the new people 35, you got like 30% of contract value unaccounted for. Plus they work money for sending us to training, supplies, and OT into the contract and then don't extend it to us. Again, goes in someone's pockets.
In the case of Government contracting, it's more lucrative to be the project manager. Trust, that's where a lot of the swindled moneys are going. And you don't even have to be a subject matter expect. I have been on the same contract 9 yrs through like 6 different companies, never once was our PM an IT guy. It's usually just some bloke who knew someone and sole responsibility is pretty much approving timesheets. Easy money. The one for the SNAP job I just left was such a douche, in our first meeting he was like, "well it's still a lot of money.... not a lot of good jobs or other options here in Lawton... You can drive to OKC... I got a line of other people who'd be happy to take it," not even 2 months later all but like 3 of us out of 18 are gone and he's having to hire underqualified applicants which puts him in direct violation of the contract (COR is super chill and not busing them on it though because he could actually end the contract but he's just not going to let them win it again). Plus the customers, in this case the Army base, are upset because nobody knows anything and they don't have admin rights card because they aren't qualified so everything has to be submitted up as a ticket and thus takes forever.
I'm tired of it, had a few plugs to jump over to GS but not going to do it for anything less than a GS12, can't take that big of a cut. Want to get into this informatics grad degree and ride this 2 yrs out then jump into that