all right
uh what kind of um
besides your besides your salary what's what's the most the thing that you would consider to be most important as a benefit
yeah
well i guess uh
i i i'm kind of in uh in an unusual situation probably for this particular topic because i'm self-employed
oh
uh
have you ever worked for a large organization
but yes i have worked i've worked for TI and i've worked for LTV
oh okay
uh and i suppose that uh
so far as benefits are concerned the most important
to uh me today would probably be uh something to do with retirement benefits
okay
at at this point in my life though i'm i'm i'm a little older probably than you know than the typical new employee would be anyway uh
uh-huh
in you know in my younger days i i was interested in what's the vacation policy
and then as i matured a little bit you know i was more interested in what are the insurance benefits you know
yeah
but uh so i i you know i guess it from my point of view it depends on
uh you know on
where you are in life as to what's most important
yeah probably because you said retirement and that really has not even occurred to me once
and uh
yeah
yeah uh you know if you're not uh if you haven't haven't looked forward to you know what are you going to do when you retire
uh-huh
when you get to the point where you're looking forward to it then it gets to be important because you've got to do some planning for it uh you know especially if the company is not doing it for you
yeah that's true
that's true
and uh
there are you know there are companies that do and there companies that don't you know that don't have good retirement plans
uh-huh
uh
i guess uh the companies that participate in the 401K type plans where you know you have the the uh option of contributing to uh to a retirement plan
uh-huh
and uh maybe even the company does some kind of a matching program for that that's those are good programs uh
yeah
i i i'm a CPA so i look at you know i get to see a lot of these uh a lot of different programs and things and along that line
uh-huh
and uh i like to see where the company makes those makes benefits available at least to the employees
uh-huh
so that they can pick and chose what they like uh
you know there they've got one that they call a cafeteria plan i don't know whether you're familiar with that or not
no what is that
and uh essentially the cafeteria plans are programs where
the company makes available a a different uh uh different packages of benefits you you know you can pick the kind of insurance you want and the kind of dental coverage and the kind of vacation policy you want an
and all of these different things and you pick the ones that you want as long as the total cost to the company essentially the total cost to the company
fits you know within their guidelines so every employee gets the same dollar amount of benefits
but they can pick them from different whatever is most important to them
um no i hadn't heard of that
so you can uh so you can get you know you can get the insurance plan that's important to you and somebody else can get the vacation plan that's important to them
and the company winds up paying the same you know the same amount for each one
um
is that something that you should change from year to year
uh i believe that you can that you can change well maybe not from year to year but at least you can change periodically
uh as to you know as to to get the stuff that's more important to you yeah that's uh something that the uh that the federal government you know put into uh you know into the IRS regulations as uh as
that sounds like it might be a really good idea
uh deductions uh allowable deductions for companies they put those in oh four of five years ago uh you know the the different insurance companies and things started promoting those plans
uh-huh
uh-huh
and uh i i think there you know it's a pretty good option to have
of course the 401K 401K is is a good you know it's a good savings vehicle
yeah
so uh
anyway uh
what kind of plans are you are you in now are what have you been in before
well
i think of uh you mean as far as retirement
well as so far as benefit packages indicate in total
i think the the most important thing for me right now is is really the medical coverage
uh-huh
uh
yeah
i am in uh
in uh involved in a four 401K but i'm uh contributing such a such a small amount right now
yeah
just to go ahead and have the account open because uh
yeah
uh
i just let's see i've been with this company for about three months and before that
uh we were
we're we're still in the process of trying to catch up
yeah i understand that yeah
we were we were way behind financially and so haven't really uh quite managed to catch up yet
yeah so
exactly and we're also trying to buy a house which complicates matters even further
right yeah it's and it's uh it it's uh uh a hassle trying to to uh
uh put your money all in the right in the savings you know in the right pockets i guess it would be a way to say it
yeah
you know to get everything do you have children and so so they i guess the uh
no
no that would complicate things even more
yeah the yeah the medical insurance would really be a lot more important if you had uh if you had children i guess if you're of child bearing age then it's important too you know because
yeah
yeah that's probably
you know because you got to have uh at least have the coverage in case that your in case you have another child or have a child
uh-huh yeah that's true
and uh
you want to have that coverage
so anyway uh
but what else
well there's lets see what other
yeah uh i guess uh what what kind of typical vacation
programs uh vacation plans do do the companies have that you've worked for
uh so far as when you get vacation and how much
it seems like everybody has it used to be that they used to give like two weeks a year and now they give one week after the first six months
uh-huh
yeah it's i have not uh i have not seen vacation policies you know written in about seven years so i'm not real sure how they're how they're changing what they're doing now
most most of the time now they do the first week after the first six months so that if somebody really needs that time
yeah
yeah
they can go ahead and use it then or they can just wait the full year and then have two
yeah but uh yeah that's a good deal
so it work it would work either way
yeah how what do you what do you find that that they're uh when they change from two weeks to three weeks is it five years or ten years or
probably five years i think
yeah uh
or seven
uh that's kind of far away
yeah
so that's uh that's a that's a bit of a a wait to get i know that uh
in the past i've worked for companies you know where they they had a pretty good uh pretty good plan uh vacation policy you know you got you got the two weeks the first year and then they went up
okay um
i've got another call coming in
oh is that yours okay well and it's been nice talking to you
okay all right bye bye
okay thanks
