00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to this lively discussion on the Sierra Archeology Podcast episode None and right at the end of the the last segment as Chris was wrapping up Ken I saw you had your hand up. What do you have to to say about the topic as well. 00:13.35 Kenneth Aitchison It it was just to think about thinking about the business model as applied in the us and the Uk and there was speak colleagues in Germany where commercial archeology is new. The problem is that archaeologists have decided how much archeology should charge. And then once that becomes accepted and orthodox and accepted by clients. It's very difficult to change that charging model. It's archaeologists that have caused the problem in the none place by not starting off by not charging enough. 00:40.35 archpodnet 4 00:51.45 Kenneth Aitchison It's good to hear what Chris was saying about the possibility that there are some innovative new approaches coming out that might help to turn things around and that they're coming from archeology. So I think that was ah I really hope something positive that we had a last section on. 01:04.45 archpodnet Yeah I mean one of my one of my big things as ah as a very small business owner and I'm not even really tipping my toe into that market too much anymore I'm more focused on the outreach side of things. But for the last. 10 n years twelve years really to be honest since the ipad came out I've been looking for new ways to just save money within the model that we have because it's the only thing I could do right as a small business owner. You know I occasionally hire people. So I try to figure out. Well how can I provide more value. 01:29.10 Kenneth Aitchison M. 01:36.85 archpodnet Within this budget that like you said Kenneth the industry is basically set for me or the expectation has been set so how can I provide more value within that and one of the ways is just working more efficiently and having more of that. Profit so to speak come out of the fact that I have fewer expenses because I'm working more efficiently but I understand that that's really difficult for larger companies especially to do? Um, although maybe it's easier in some cases because a small change to them could mean ah a large change when you aggregate that out over over bigger numbers. But. Just don't see people thinking that way necessarily all the time. Um, you know perhaps they are in some cases but it just doesn't seem to be doesn't seem to be where it's going predominantly I'm not sure so all right. Well we're we're trying to wrap up this topic here, but it is an ongoing conversation that that we're having in this industry and we have been having in this industry Heather I know you were having some comments that you wanted to make to Chris I think on that last discussion. 02:34.92 Heather Yeah I I think yeah I totally agree that there needs to be some changes Wholesale changes. You know across our industry but also needs to be wholesale changes within those that are coming in and their expectations. And the way they look at work. Um, we have We can't I see a lot of discussions about people wanting to get paid and I see it. We hire I hire all the time I see people coming in and asking for um, really unrealistic amount of money. For um, a minimal job qualification so they want a position and they want to be in the field and they only strictly want to be doing field. That's what and I listen I would love to do that too. Although I don't know if my body would love it. But I would love to do it too. I Miss being in the fields as much as I used to be. 03:15.99 archpodnet Okay. 03:31.68 Heather Um, now I have a little bit more control I can do that. But it's it's still difficult to be able to get all the work done and and be in the field so people want to be in field because that's why they got into archeology to begin with. But then at the same time they want to stay at their station so to speak. But then they don't but but they want to get. 03:47.12 archpodnet Um. 03:51.42 Heather Higher and higher pay and in any business in any career you have to accept that either you want to stay. You're happy. We hear this all the time we in other careers where people are like they're given an opportunity to be a manager and make more money and they're like you know what I don't want to do that. That's not going to make me happy. 04:07.20 archpodnet Yeah. 04:10.79 Heather And so I'm happy with making a little less because I know that the increase in pay goes with the management which is more responsibility more responsibility means more pay. So if we have to start teaching I think in in universities. Um, and as an industry. Across the board. We have to start ah tutoring our you know those that are coming in and explaining Tim to them what that means if you want to make more money more money comes more responsibility and and you may not be able to just be digging the rest of your life. Um. Trust me as a fifty year old you don't want to be digging the rest of your life and so you have to look forward and you it's not just companies providing that career path. It's people willing to go on that career path and that that I think is it's got to be twofold. 04:46.62 archpodnet Um. 05:03.20 Heather Got be coming for the companies and asks be coming from the employees. 05:05.23 archpodnet Person just real quick here I think part of the part of the problem with the you know want to make more money and but you get more responsibility is the disproportionate amount of responsibility you get for the money right? like I'll never forget. You know being offered like a crew chief position and saying oh yeah, this is a 50% pay or fifty fifty cent 05:15.77 Heather E. 05:23.53 Heather I I'm talking. Yeah I'm talking more about management like management even out of the field people have to be willing that if yeah, sure. 05:24.39 archpodnet Pay raise and I'm like ¢50 so for like an extra four bucks a day you know, but but right, but here's the but here's the thing that starts at the field tech level right? So if you're going to start moving up in management and you start with that ¢50 pay raise. 05:42.86 Heather Well. 05:43.75 archpodnet Maybe it's even a dollar you know great I can buy an extra latte today but you know once you go from there then maybe project manager but to get project manager you've got to go spend $40000 on a degree that you're going to pay back for the next twenty five years and you're going to get you know, maybe a $5 raise for that. Maybe maybe. Probably less and then you know maybe in 1015 years you can become a pi in this in this industry that has a lot of competition for those type of jobs and it just doesn't seem like the the reward is is proportionate to the work and effort and and what you have to go through to get it. You know for a lot of people. 06:20.24 Heather For some companies. Yeah. 06:20.32 Christopher Dore And I would I would just add before bill jumps in here you know, um the the it's not so much about the money you know heather in your point about people and other industries giving up you know and promotions to a management position because they don't want the responsibility. You know those people at least get benefits right? where. 06:20.44 succinctbill Yeah, the the. 06:21.92 archpodnet So I don't know. Yeah. 06:37.23 Heather Ah, here. 06:39.41 Christopher Dore The people that we're largely talking about in archeology The the project hires aren't for the most part aren't getting benefits. They're not getting health benefits. They're not getting paid days off when they're Sick. It's those kind of equity things that yeah you have to start at the bottom and work your way up, but there's some you know ethical. Ah, moral things that that we need to be doing about those entry level people in our industry that aren't happening in under other industries and I would argue that that's why you know when we have None granted every year we are still having a problem hiring hundreds of of you know. 07:02.25 Heather 1 more. 07:18.80 Christopher Dore Ah, field tax for for across the industry and. 07:18.86 archpodnet You know. 07:20.70 Heather Where are they not getting sick time I mean there's labor laws that require sick time even as as needed I mean these are just these are things that we need to make sure that are this is just None example there that people in this industry the technicians need to understand they are the. As long as their state allows it I'll say in California if you work in California you have a right to sick days even as an as needed employee period. So. 07:46.76 succinctbill Yeah, the biggest thing about California too because I use that as a case study and you know I'm from idaho so things are going kind of crazy there too but real quick I was looking up online and I saw that there was a job posted for California Ma I don't know where it's at in California but. They're you know, putting 69 to $80000 a year for the salary and you know and somewhere like ah palo alto or san francisco that you can't even actually get a 1 ne-bedroom apartment and if you look at places like fresno you can. But I'm not sure if they're giving people $70000 to live in fresno and in a place like ah boise idaho I know they wouldn't be giving you anywhere close to that and rents are you know two thousand eighteen hundred dollars a month for like a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment and that's you know. 08:27.88 archpodnet Oh. 08:42.36 succinctbill Most folks finished college like I did with student loan debt and you know it's just I don't know if the salaries are out of control as much as it is just crm. Um can't make they can't pay people enough money I mean I wouldn't have made it as far as I did if I didn't have a partner the whole time and it wasn't a dual income house. 08:58.16 archpodnet Yeah, me too. 08:59.79 succinctbill And so I mean I think that that that at the very beginning is you know one of the biggest problems that I have with students because when they finish at cal they can go on to like anything I mean they just finished at cal they can go on and get a job anywhere in Silicon Valley making cash. And it's going to be hard for them to you know afford it even if they're working for Google or Amazon or anything else but they can put in that work transfer somewhere else doing hr or marketing or something else move to phoenix move to you know Boise idaho or something like that move to Nashville and make way. You know way more than they would proportionately for those places and be set and never need a masters never need to dig shovel probes like never need any of that stuff and so you know it's really hard for me, especially talking to students of color to encourage them to go on to Crm when I already know what. Is what's in front of them. What the pathway is. 09:55.61 archpodnet And to address the sick days thing and and other benefits I mean I've only worked barely in California for I mean 4 California companies most of my work has been. You know either in Nevada and before that in the southeastern United States and Northeasstern United States and different places. And you know my wife and I we worked together a lot on projects. We were only I think think I met her on my none project. So you know, but after about a year or so we started traveling together and we we were always on jobs that had you know, maybe the job was three weeks long maybe it was two weeks long maybe it was um four weeks long you know something like that. And there's a lot of companies at least you know this was ten years ago and laws change but there was a lot of companies at that time that when you work at that time. Sure maybe if I had gotten sick I would have been given some time off and I'll never forget getting food poisoning in New Mexico and I did get time off but that time wasn't paid. Um I didn't I wasn't asked to give my perdm back which was nice because we were staying in company housing but it was ah it was definitely not paid time off when I had to take like two days off for food poisoning I mean I couldn't do anything and ah I don't know if that was legal or not but it's being done. You know what? I mean right? right? But it's still being done whether it's not legal or not and. 11:05.39 Heather It's not legal. That's not legal. Yeah, it's not legal. Well. 11:11.10 archpodnet When people are only working for a few weeks or only working for a session. It's a lot easier for companies to do that because those people are in and then they're right out again and there's no, there's no real recourse for that or at least people don't think they have a recourse for that and if they do is it worth it when you're working for 1 company for two or three weeks to go you know, put up some. 11:28.42 Heather Sure. 11:30.53 archpodnet Class action lawsuit or or whatever it is to to take care of that. They're just going to keep doing it because they're always hiring these people you know from you know from anywhere in the country really and that don't even live in that state and and are not going to stay there and sue them for their bad labor practices. So it's tough. 11:44.82 Heather Well I think ah yeah I mean we still need to have it I mean obviously companies need to do the right thing but also like we said in our last podcast. There's a responsibility you shouldn't you know what companies should be doing the right thing. No matter what you shouldn't have to be watching your back but personal responsibility you have to do that. 12:00.40 archpodnet Mr. 12:04.67 Heather You're going to have to in order to protect yourself. This is a cruel world and people don't do what they're supposed to do across the board. Also employees. Don't do what they're supposed to do and so you have to in the only way to to control your world is to educate yourself and understand what your rights are and. Now I don't you know as far as and I just want to um, just explain a little further as far as sick time goes you accrue sick time based on how long that you've that you work but you accrue it immediately at least in California I can't speak for other states. So. Depending on how much time you've worked for that company. You have you are accruing sick time and other companies like mine ah allow more. But you at least have some sick time and that that's clear label ah labor law. 12:50.82 archpodnet So. 12:51.60 Andrew Kinkella And see actually for me what? ah what I'm a bit worried about is that young people, especially they won't know that stuff. It's like where do they go to get their career knowledge where do they learn about sick time you know where do they learn about like overtime. 12:59.38 Heather Um, me right right. 13:01.38 archpodnet Yeah, yeah. 13:08.64 Andrew Kinkella And where where do they learn when it's illegal or not like I find that that's something that we don't teach anyone ever you know? and and I just think it's so important. Absolutely we don't even touch it. 13:13.90 Heather I Think universities should be teaching them? Yeah, yeah. 13:18.55 archpodnet Or well the serum or podcast is a 300 hour course called theerra our podcast on you know the industry. That's true. That's true Ken it. that's that's right yeah 13:24.15 succinctbill Her I I teach that stuff too I teach it. 13:27.80 Andrew Kinkella Yeah, yeah, yeah, and bill man Bill and that's it and that's only half a joke. Unfortunately. 13:28.37 Heather Yes, thank you, Thank you? nope. 13:33.55 succinctbill Ah, what. 13:37.10 archpodnet Kenneth Kenneth go ahead. 13:40.50 Kenneth Aitchison Ah, just to come in with a tiny bit of perspective from from the Uk. We of course we're in a different situation where the we have even though it can be clunky. We have national health service. So there is always health care. Every single person is. Asked if they want to be contributing towards their own pension every single person in any working situation has sick leave every single person has paid holiday leave. So there's the kind of the under underpinning employment law is different and a little bit substantially more supportive. 14:17.17 archpodnet Okay. 14:18.76 Kenneth Aitchison In UK I just felt obliged to put this out as this would be a nice international podcast being listened to by people all around the world. 14:26.49 archpodnet It is indeed and and actually ah the None highest number of listeners that we typically have on this is from the Uk. So and that's a pretty pretty significant number. So hopefully hopefully there's benefit there on both sides as we are wrapping up this topic I just want to know you know. I want to give Ken and ah Chris a final chance to I guess sum up where where are we at where are we at now you gave this paper a few months ago are you planning on doing anything in this space continuing other papers expanding on this What are your? What are your guys's plans and and and maybe. Any final thoughts regarding these None topics Chris why don't you go ahead. 15:07.42 Christopher Dore Um, I mean labor is something. We're always interested in both Kenneth and I and our and the companies that we work for are you know, ah look at the industry and and the economics of the industry and so you know labor is really hot right now we're focused on it a little bit and but it never falls off of our of our our radar. 15:13.40 archpodnet Yeah. 15:26.98 Christopher Dore And on this particular paper I think we have kind of ah loose plans right now at least to write it up in some form both in the the Uk focused on the Uk a little bit more and then the us focused on the us a little bit more and there's also a big labor paper coming out in the. Archaeological record by a couple prominent people of which we they that somewhat led to to our paper. Um, because there's some big disagreements between the perspectives of of the ah of us and and the other group authors. So um, there's. 15:46.11 archpodnet Um. 15:50.88 Kenneth Aitchison Um, yeah. 16:01.20 Christopher Dore You know and industry is talking about it all the time. Ara it's a super hot topic withinacra they have a series of calls at the akra conference. So you know from if people are interested in kind of what the company and industry perspective is on these issues. Um, that's the place to to tune in but I guess there's a final concluding comment I mean there's. There's companies I think largely historically have misunderstood. They've had a very different perspective on project labor because then they never needed to invest in it because they ah they never had problems hiring anybody it was all there were always new people willing to come in and take a job. As needed and when people left the company. The companies thought that oh well, you know they went off to work for another company or they went off. They went back to school to work on that master's degree to get them in the career track and as it turns out this kind of new. More current fresh look at what we're we've been doing here indicates. No, you know that's not it at all the companies hire ah project labor. You know people generally write out of a bachelor's degree work them for you know whatever 3 to None ars work them hard. You know don't invest them there in a career path and those people get burned out and leave our discipline and that hurts everybody and so um, the you know, but but it's good. You know we we now have some new data. We now have a labor economics and a new market with with you know the the demand equation has changed. 17:12.99 archpodnet Right? right. 17:28.67 Christopher Dore And that's forced everybody on all sides to start paying more attention to labor labor relations investment in careers. Um, you know all the things that we care about and and that's that's good. That's good for all of it's good for the profession good for the discipline good for the industry. 17:43.21 archpodnet Absolutely. 17:44.42 Kenneth Aitchison Yes, and as as Chris says yeah, we're writing a couple of couple of short papers about this about exactly what we've just been talking about it. It has really opened a lot of people's eyes to the situation. Ah. As we go through as we went through the first year of the pandemic. There were more people working in commercial archeology in the uk than there ever had been before there was more money going into it. There was more profit um or surplus being generated so we are aware that we're in a completely different situation. We can't just assume that things will go suddenly go back to being 2019 again soon and so we're making sure that we're collecting the good information. Good data to let individuals employers policymakers make the right decisions as archaeology goes forward in. Yeah Uk. We're doing some work with fame federation of archaeological managers and employers thinking about developing a new model for costing archaeological projects and archaeological standard method of measurement to cost archeology the way that quantity surveyors would cost. 18:49.83 archpodnet M. 18:58.39 Kenneth Aitchison Other big projects and it has potential well early days. But I think it has potential to be able to recalibrate the kind of way that we charge for archaeological work that might then lead to some of the potential beneficial outcomes. But Chris was alluding to earlier. 19:16.78 archpodnet Okay, all right, Let me pause real quick here I'll cut this out is the pdf you guys sent me shareable can I put it in the show notes. So people can see it or would you rather I wait until something more official comes out. 19:34.70 archpodnet Can I Chris feel free to say no. 19:34.85 Christopher Dore I I don't I don. Yeah I don't know Kenneth what? What do you? I mean we've been. We've been circulating it right? I mean we circulated to you. We circulated with other people I think as long as it's I mean it's it's a conference paper right? It's on the record though. Yeah I mean it is what it is for when we did it and yeah. 19:35.62 Kenneth Aitchison But you learn. 19:45.71 Kenneth Aitchison Yeah, it it it yes, even though that's a few months ago and it's going to get polished up for these small publications. We've got coming up. Yeah, happy for that information to be shared more widely. 19:47.30 archpodnet Um, yeah to. 19:54.77 Christopher Dore And. 20:03.22 Kenneth Aitchison There will be a recording of the the conference presentation I hope with the questions that that the audience presented maybe not going to be coming out soon. Yeah, yeah, don't mind you sharing those those fairly raw that raw version. 20:10.89 archpodnet Okay. 20:19.85 archpodnet Ah, sounds good. Sounds good. Okay I just wanted to mention that on the wrap up here. Okay, coming back into it all right? Well I want to thank very much Kenneth and Christopher for coming on and talking about this this difficult. 20:22.11 Kenneth Aitchison That's fine. we we will we will make something more polished in due course but Rowe is fine. 20:38.75 archpodnet Topic It's um, it's always tough talking about career advancement and where we're going in in archaeology and you know on our last show we talked about personal Responsibility. We talked about taking care of yourself and that just extends to this career field now more than ever in both the US and the U k. It's important that if you don't feel like you're being I don't know if you feel like you don't have the career advancement where you're at or you're treated not being treated fairly or you know something is going on as we've been saying all along. There are lots of jobs out there. Depending on where you're working. You may have to travel for these. You may have to even uproot and and move somewhere to go to a region where there is more work because you might be thinking I'm in Central Iowa There's nothing here but you know and there might be stuff in Central Iowa Sorry Iowa I didn't mean to disparage you. But that being said, it's probably a pipeline passing straight through. But either way. 21:22.50 Andrew Kinkella Ha. 21:28.20 archpodnet Um, you know, speak up and and and look on shovel bums look on Facebook on archaea field texts there's a lot of people posting jobs there and archeology fieldwork as well and and go find something else and and you have the freedom and ability to move around right now and find a position that that you want to be in I mean. Don't just job hop all the time that also doesn't look very good also but you know go go where you can um this paper it was presented at a conference I've got a basically the conference presentation from from Kenneth and Chris and we'll include that in the show notes. And they are going to do some other stuff on this topic and and maybe we can have them back for that. Um, for that more expanded discussion at some point in a later date for our members if you're not a member of the rkg podcast network go to http://apodnet.comforward/membersit' None to join and continue this conversation. We are going have a bonus segment. Where the hosts of this show. We're going to wrap up this discussion just with our thoughts. Um as we let Kenneth and ah and Chris go and we're just going to have a ah quick little wrap up on that for the bonus segment. Otherwise again, thank you guys for coming on and we really appreciate the the work that went into this and. Just people thinking about this side of the industry. 22:41.22 Kenneth Aitchison Thank you for having us. 22:42.33 Christopher Dore Yeah, thank you Chris and everybody's. 22:45.93 archpodnet Okay, so I'm going to leave this recording going for a second I do a little statement that I put at the end of the outro where I say goodbye and then all of you guys can just say goodbye right after I say goodbye and I can separate all the tracks. So everybody just say goodbye out the same time after I do here we go. Thanks to everyone for joining me this week thanks also to the listeners for tuning in and we'll see you in the field goodbye. 23:10.40 Andrew Kinkella See you guys next time. 23:10.54 Heather Thanks for listening. 23:11.50 succinctbill Goodbye. 23:11.10 Christopher Dore Goodbye. 23:11.55 Kenneth Aitchison Goodbye. 23:13.79 archpodnet All right? perfect.