San Francisco subway janitor makes 270k.

Wow!!!! That's a lot of $6 spicy Italians.

Yeah all the idiots who are appalled wouldnt last one hour doing his job. Let alone 7 days a week.

terpnation wrote:

Good on him for gaming the system and working long hours.

Op would rather the worker apologize for not being a CEO.

He is the ultimate capitalist. Work your ass off, volunteer for overtime and EARN a fat pay check. More power to him. Better than some loser that works the minimum hours necessary, takes long lunch breaks, smoke breaks and goofs off the entire shift.

Don't hate. Frisco ain't cheap.

High standards wrote:

That just barely qualifies him to post on LetsRun. I wonder if he meets the 14:30 5k PR standard

He spends all day + overtime on his feet, every day. Probably gets a ton of walking miles in and there might be a cardio component to mopping. I looked him up on athlinks and couldn't find anything - maybe a secret talent?

He is making so much money because he is being paid time and one-half and double time for overtime. It would be much cheaper for SF to hire another janitor.

Blah Blah. wrote:

He is making so much money because he is being paid time and one-half and double time for overtime. It would be much cheaper for SF to hire another janitor.

There is no guarantee that overtime will decrease just because there is another janitor. Janitors take vacation or sick leave and this 270k person can still be the main guy accepting the call to cover those guys while the new guy just decides that he would rather work his shift.

And I'm sure this janitor is hiding all of his money in the Cayman Islands and his children and grand children will inherit his vast fortune.

Blah Blah. wrote:

He is making so much money because he is being paid time and one-half and double time for overtime. It would be much cheaper for SF to hire another janitor.

Gotta factor in the bennies. Might be cheaper as is.

There is NO DOUBT that when ONE guy is doing $270k worth of work (even with overtime) that the city is doing better than hiring more people. That is the work of 3 people and so saving bennies for 2 people.

The problem is the city isn't trying to get ONE guy to do the work, they just post the extra hours and whoever takes them takes them. Pretty much they are thinking they will be spreading the extra 2 jobs over 4-8 people ALL who will be getting bennies and not saving any.

At that point, hiring another person makes sense from one point of view since they can plan for their vacations and save a little. The reason they DON"T is because no one can live in SF on what they pay a janitor on regular time. That means the janitors would keep leaving and they would always be short handed and have much less responsible workers. By spreading overtime around, all the janitors can make say 120% of the base salary (an amount they can live on) by working an extra 5 hours a week.

"He is making so much money because he is being paid time and one-half and double time for overtime. It would be much cheaper for SF to hire another janitor.

Gotta factor in the bennies. Might be cheaper as is."

Uhhhh wrote:

Bazillion hours a week wrote:

The article says the guy signs up for almost every OT shift available. He is working like a bazillion hours a week to get that pay. I bet he does the work of 3 employees which means BART isn't really over paying by a ton except whatever the overtime differential actually is.

Even if he was doing the work of 3 employees, do you think 90k/year is anywhere close to appropriate market compensation for a janitor?

That's why I mentioned the overtime differential. His base may be closer to 60 or 75. If the overtime is time and a half or better because of hazard hours and stuff like that he could easily triple his income with the hours he is pulling.

Also what the other poster mentioned about health benefit expenses is real. BART may not be saving much if they need 3 employees to replace him and they have to cover the benes for all those people.

What the hell do you know about his job skills? It's hard work and he works an insane amount of hours, so good for him.

Just because it doesn't require an education, doesn't make him undeserving of that kind of pay.

The underlying article that I read said that he made $235k in salary and $270k in salary and benefits. The article said that his $235k included overtime that was more than 4 time greater than his base comp. Dividing $235k by 5 yields $47k per year in base comp. Apparently, the benefits package is worth $35k. Assuming that his benefits did not increase as a result of his overtime (not sure that is right - it could be that benefits include matching to a retirement account or contributions that are tied to a pension plan) - the cost of a single janitor totals $82k. So, worst case scenario, they could have employed three janitors for what it cost them to employ just one, and still had money to cover overtime here or there should someone call in sick or go on vacation.

Most posters are missing the point here - this isn't about whether the janitor is doing something wrong, it is about whether the city is being wasteful with its citizens' money. These are real dollars paid over by real people. The city has a duty to use that money wisely.

but how many hours does he work? it is a lot, but actual difficult work, unlike most high-paying jobs where you sit around all the time, and he is making a lot more by working all those extra hours.

Too bad not all jobs have such s clear correlation between effort and pay. I've tried to sell my employer on letting me take over other's responsibilities in exchange for 50% of their pay. Seems like a win win. I'm underutilized and fill capacity, they save money. The reality is managers want as many people under them as possible to justify their existence. They only cut heads when forced and then use the implicit threat of further cuts as a means to get people to do more work for the same or less pay.

Tis true wrote:

Wall Street hedge fund managers steal that much every 15 minutes or so (several "earn" @ $2 billion per year).

But let's focus on the working man as the problem.

Good thinking.

This ^^^^^^^^^

and he still can't afford to own a home in the city.

F that wrote:

is doing pretty damn good for someone with literally zero job skills.

If he had literally (or even figuratively) zero job skills he wouldn't be making $270k/yr, brother.

This crap again. Is the city being wasteful when provides subsides for a new Walmart or professional sport stadium or is just when it pays a living wage and benefits for public employee's ???

I moved into an inner city neighborhood that was just on the cusp of gentrification about 10 years ago. In about five years, lots went from $250k to $500k. Average home price went from $325k to $560k. Most everything that is new or newly renovated/expanded is now $900k to $1 mil+. Since then, the neighborhood is full of government employees who are stinking rich on overtime pay. Janitors, cops, bus drivers, meter readers, etc. have all piled into my neighborhood. They are pretty sensible about their money and most go for Land Rover Sport or a BMW 5 series. But it is sad how they have pushed out the lawyers, accountants and managers who could not keep up with the property tax bills.

And scene.

Come on people. This guy is a complete anomaly. Most government employees get paid lousy money with moderately decent benefits to do jobs that are somewhere between insanely boring to extremely dangerous (and boring).