New Contract

So. The new contract came through, with an "effective salary" of $70K [$35K part time], however, this means that my actual salary will be $66K [$33K part time] because they take out ACC and paid time off and KiwiSaver. Even though my Kiwisaver allocation is ALSO taken out of my actual salary, they include it in my "effective salary" because "the University" contributes 3% of my part time salary to Kiwisaver as a 'match.'

Rant 1: It isn't actually coming from the University. It is coming out of MY SALARY. Effectively, I am paying for my own match. Same with my paid time off. And ACC.

And of course, they charge the project overheads for my salary ON TOP OF THAT. So, I pay for my own time off, my Kiwisaver match, my ACC contributions, etc. What exactly do the overheads give me, and how much are they?

Rant 2: The overheads are 33% (they say they take 25%, but THEY CHARGE OVERHEADS ON THE OVERHEADS). So. I realize $33K for a part time salary, but my project is charged $46,666 to have me. Those overheads do not pay for the Uni's Kiwisaver match for me. They do not pay for the Uni's ACC contributions on my salary. They do not pay for my paid time off. They, apparently, pay for:

1.  electricity for my 5 year old computer, in an office shared with 6 other people employed full time. 
2. Travel agents who do a terrible job (I have to do their job for them, choose all the bookings, flights, accommodation, etc. that I want, and then they dilly dally and wait so long that I have to choose a SECOND option each time)
3. contracts people who mess up EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME
4. secretaries, janitors, groundskeeper, IT people salaries (I do not have a problem with this; they do an AMAZING job, for very little money)
5. lining the Chancellor/VC's coffers with gold
6. Making the University "profitable"

Nonsense. Education shouldn't be a business, yet...here we are. 

Suddenly Unemployed!

Yikes. I've now been unemployed for over a week.

My boss is way overloaded, and simply...forgot to chase up the University about renewing my 1 year contract, which ended on 30 June. Of course, in previous years, she didn't have to. The people in charge of my contract have always prompted both of us about this, in time for her to tell them to renew it. However, last August, the contracting organisation changed from Uniservices to the University, and OF COURSE the University effed it up. Of course.

My boss and I had chatted between January - May about renewing, and she had indicated in our project budget that she intended on giving me a raise from $62,500 to $70,000 (half time, so actual salary changes from $32,250 to $35K). So I thought that all was fine and dandy.

However, on 1 July, I got an email from the University to let them know what leave I had taken, because they needed to pay out the balance. I of course responded with a "please let the balances roll over to my new contract" and found out that my contract hadn't been sorted.

In previous years, my new contract has been late, but they have kept paying me while they were sorting it, so I didn't have a clue that that was not the case this time.

Once again, we pay massive overheads for the University to NOT DO THEIR JOB.

The saga continues.

Yesterday, I get an email from the contracts office with a contract to sign, however, it does not reflect any raises at all, and certainly not the majorly increased salary that my boss and I chatted about. I rejected it and sent it to my boss with a note about the salary issue. She said she is looking into it.

One may think that I'd be desperate to have a contract and I'd take anything, but I'm mindful that the gain I'd get from that salary increase would be much more than I'm losing each day by not having a contract. I have the luxury of time, especially because my leave was paid out. 

Whatever. Part of me is actually just hoping it doesn't get renewed at all and I can move on to a different organisation.