Lads telling war stories about pulling in €1,000+ a week back in the good days

Was an entertaining thread.. Now it's just drivel.

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Can someone open a sub section in this thread just for coke 'n whore stories, before it dies a death?

Red_Wake

This thread's come full circle - started with begrudgery against the builders, and now it's turned on the IT lads.

Boombastic

Red_Wake wrote: »

This thread's come full circle - started with begrudgery against the builders, and now it's turned on the IT lads.

It all went haywire when the ham sandwiches were brought out :pac:

Duggys Housemate

dj jarvis wrote: »

Pottler wrote: »

I also like the "I'm qualified in IT now", yeah right whatever. What I bet you mean is you are a ham and eggs software developer/web developer or a "PC repair/support person" or a "Networks technician". Same as with the Buildings game, loads of "qualified people" who are ham and eggs. If you are a top notch programmer you are again, hens teeth and will be on mega bucks. I have a friend who is a Systems analyst for an American bank, top class lad. I can only dream of the money he makes and could always only dream of it no matter what I was/am on. Whats his biggest gripe? Can't get programmers -loads of "qualified" IT guys, feck all good programmers/ software writers/developers. Good ones can name their own price, as per usual, as per any field of endeavour. People who can write, re-write and troubleshoot Code can easily earn a grand a day - easily. €200 an hour as a call-in to fix somthing is no biggies, so if you're "In IT" and earning small money, you're either bad at it, or in the wrong bit of it, or like most things, just don't get it. I'm actually editing this now, because I bet there are code writes out there reading this and p1ssing themselves laughing at my naivety on their earnings, ie, €200 an hour?? I get that for ten minutes Pottler. I almost guarantee that that is the case, for some.

and without the skill of the lowly technician or network engineer, your pc that you do your super wizz kid programming on is just a useless lump of plastic - you can not do your job with out them

the amount of times i have gone into a coms room to repair something and the so called systems admin would wander in, and they would not have a clue how the infrastructure works - let alone fix it

next time a network goes down, ill say to the top notch programmer - you fix it , see how far he gets

I am a highly paid programmer. My arts student graduate brother could fix networks better than me. It's different skills.

One point, back on topic, as an app dev who used to work for Apple and Google i kept getting offers for work this and last year. Most offers we're high enough but none were earth shatteringly high, so I took multiple jobs. I am now burnt out, fatter, missing my social life and taking a month or two off.

So the guy whos earning €100k with three jobs, or 16 hour days and weekend work? You could make the bones of that working 7 days a week in retail. Work for Mikey D, then pubs at night, then something else at the weekend. Not too different than working 100 hours a week in construction. Not a life though.

Duggys Housemate

Btw saying 1000 a day for coding is common, outside maybe Finance where salaries are ridiculous is nonsense. Even if you get 200 an hour callout, and I have never seen that, that might be the only hour you get that day.

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Still waiting for the Coke'nWhore stories. Quick ........ before the lock clangs!

the keen edge

Pottler wrote: »

I helped wire a complete unit, from scratch in Cork on a sunday once, the subbie cleared 12k for getting it done with everyone paid and the job done to spec

I'm fascinated by this, are you talking about a shop unit, house unit or what?

djPSB

I hear similar stories now about lads in Oz..

'Tommy down the road is earning $4000 a week out in the mines in Australia'.

fasttalkerchat

djPSB wrote: »

I hear similar stories now about lads in Oz..

'Tommy down the road is earning $4000 a week out in the mines in Australia'.

It is true to some extent. I know a fella who was a retail supervisor. Went off to AUS and came home with £100k after 2 years. He worked 6 days a week running a few petrol stations.

Duggys Housemate

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

It is true to some extent. I know a fella who was a retail supervisor. Went off to AUS and came home with £100k after 2 years. He worked 6 days a week running a few petrol stations.

The australian dollar is at a historic high, for sure. They were used to earning six figure sums when that was small money by the standards of the Euro and Sterling, but the commodity boom has massively increased the price of their currency, its a safe haven, so they are rolling in it.

Pottler

the keen edge wrote: »

I'm fascinated by this, are you talking about a shop unit, house unit or what?

Commercial unit, warehouse and offices, including all the cat 5e, lighting, power outlets, fuseboards, boilers and water heaters, about 2500 sqm unit. A lot of work. No big deal on the money front really, pulled into Cork after a 3hr drive down at 8am, worked till 2 or 3 am, flat out no breaks and drove back up. Not somthing you'd like to do every day and tiring. The fact it was a Sunday didn't help. Did a fair few fairly intense jobs during the boom and did a lot of driving, somtimes 100-120k miles in a year just driving to jobs and back. Sat, sun, bank holidays and Paddys day were the busiest as places were closed and work could be done. Also you get paid a premium rate for being available on those days when normal(sane) people are off!
Still now you hear some mad stories from lads who you know are not just spoofers of what went on -one I do know personally about - the halted Conference center at Citywest, most of that was done at weekends for, err, technical reasons, and often on a saturday morning there would be a line of about 50 tippers going in to be loaded by several diggers. Those lads running plant were on very good money as well, ahem, apparently.
Despite the size of the boom, you'd meet the same few heads on every job, following each other around the country really - there was a limited number of men who were really in demand and got the best jobs and money. I don't think there is a boom era factory or warehouse or pharma plant in Ireland I personally didn't work on including the biggies like grange castle or Ringaskiddy. Even now the booms popped many of those same men are still flat out and still bumping into each other on jobs. It's funny who you meet on jobs these days and what they are doing - lads who were boomtime barons are back working tools and laughing about "losing the run of themselves". That often means the helicopter got reposessed.