Ultimer

Is urban planning in demand? I am pretty tired of searching for cash paying jobs so I thought that getting some kind of degree would be a good thing but God, it's so hard to make a proper choice considering the amount of money and time that will be invested in education. I am really afraid of making a mistake

Darth Lefty 

I'd say pick medical / healthcare because we blow a lot of money on those, and don't show any serious push to change that

Choose something from the upper left

DiabloScott

I get to expense my mileage, and the rate is more than it costs me to drive, so I don't mind... in fact it might justify buying a newer car one of these days if reliability becomes a concern.

Gresp15C

See if someone in your city planning office would be willing to chat with you about this. They either hire urban planners, or do so through consulting companies. Either way they might have an idea of the kind of degree required for a job like that. Most notably, do you need a civil engineering degree? A law degree?

Related story, a relative of mine wanted to move up in a government agency related to environmental protection, and noticed that 100% of the people above her level had law degrees. So she went to law school.

With that said, civil engineering is probably not a bad field to be in, probably has its ups and downs with the cycle of the construction industry.

Also, look at job openings and see what the requirements are.

MAK

I've skimmed the responses but haven't really seen a detailed view from the management perspective. They have job requirements that are reasonable and directly related to the job.

Let's say that you have two employees who must occasionally travel to clients and/or work sites fifteen miles away. One employee drives and reaches their destination in thirty minutes or less. The other rides a bike and takes an hour to reach the same destination. Foul weather will extend the time traveling more for the cyclist than for the driver. The driver may also be able to use a highway while the cyclist may be restricted to a less direct route adding more of a time difference. The bottom line...one employee takes twice as long (or more) to do the same work as the other. You're the manager. Which employee is more productive?

In America, those using personal cars usually get reimbursed for on the job use of their personal vehicle (IRS mileage costs, etc.). This may be different in Cyprus. Those suggesting that the company buy or provide a car are ridiculous. That means that if I want a new car I should just get a job delivering pizzas and I'm set. Again, ridiculous.

DiabloScott

Lots of companies provide pool cars for people who do a lot of business travelling, and personal cars as a bonus are pretty popular for the C-wing folks. There are plenty of reasons this makes sense financially and logistically, but if it's not already in place it won't happen.

Gresp15C

Indeed it all comes down to the specific financials of the business, and relative bargaining power. For instance right now there's a huge group of workers who have pretty much declared that they will continue working remotely after the pandemic ends. They are in some of the highest paid occupations, such as computer programmers. I used to do some driving to off site business meetings. Those are now all done online.

The IRS mileage rate is about 60 cents per mile right now. So if you can operate a car for less than 60 cents per mile, you come out ahead. In a way, this is a good thing because it encourages companies and individuals to choose more efficient cars. On the other hand, it contributes to the car culture. However, I think that in some occupations, companies are figuring out how to accommodate a new culture -- embrace change!

I-Like-To-Bike

Who/What are the "C-wing folks"?

RubeRad

The term I'm more familiar with is 'C-Suite', meaning CEO, CTO, CFO, CIO, etc.

MAK

I agree with your last statement. Honestly, no sarcasm...please educate me...Can you give me some examples of companies with pools of cars? Regarding making sense financially, the initial expenditure, maintenance and costs for gas, etc. would only be feasible for huge companies that probably only have income that exceeds the GNP of all of Cyprus. I was also going to ask what a c-wing person is. Google says it's a swept wing Star Wars starfighter. Did you in fact mean c-suite as pointed out above? If so, the OP wasn't applying for a CEO etc. job so your c-wing/c-suite comment is moot.

Be safe

RubeRad

Well my sister works for Toyota's marketing department in TX, and she can basically borrow a car whenever she feels like it. Or maybe she has to reserve somewhat in advance, but basically it's like a free rental car program.

I remember on NYPD blue all the detective cars came from a pool.

But I think, rather than a pool, where people could get a different car every day, it's more common for an employee to be assigned a company-owned vehicle (and gas card), either a fancy car as a perk for an executive, or a work truck for a mobile blue collar worker, or a sedan for a traveling salesman, and they would typically drive it home every night.

DiabloScott

Yeah, C-Wing, C-Suite, same thing, but company car perqs can apply quite a bit lower down the org chart than that. My last company had about 200 people at my office, and about 5 pool cars. The guys in the mail room took care of maintaining the cars and reserving them. Whenever we needed to make a local business trip we'd just reserve a car, log the mileage, and the expense would get billed to a job. It was one way the company could make sure every vehicle was properly insured too; and gas cards came with the keys. It was very common for me to ride my bike to the office, pick up a company car, and drive to a jobsite. If we didn't get a pool car in time, we were expected to use our own car (got billed the same but the expense was reimbursed) or make arrangements, and in a drastic case that could include rentals or Ubers. It made financial sense because those 5 cars were probably used four times a week each and brought in $100/day each or more, and they had our company logo on the door. If there were some kind of accident in a company car, it was an entirely corporate insurance event. If an accident happens in a personal car on company business, it gets a lot messier. Also it was a way of promoting public transit to work - if you took the bus but then found yourself needing a car for an emergency, they'd lend you a pool car for free... they promoted this idea to new hires.

The company I was with before that was much smaller but had a similar program. And my current company doesn't offer pool cars, but we bill higher than the Feds allow for mileage so that's kind of a perq for car owners. I don't remember anybody telling me it was a requirement, it was just expected that I would POV my business trips a couple times a week.

I'm not making any judgements one way or the other on how companies manage this business cost, just letting you know that it's pretty common.

Here is previous company's pool car parking area:

Drearocks

Good for you for sticking with your values!! Haha that is funny that you passed them in traffic, I would have gotten a chuckle as I passed them in traffic everyday!

Juan Foote

This was in the mid-ish 90's. The area that I lived in was 7 miles from work. About half of that distance was through neighborhoods that knew well from when I was a kid. Superb way to travel, wide neighborhood avenues through what (at that time) were still nice middle class areas. The last half-ish of the ride was up Hwy 19/41 then known at Tara Blvd. There was a big break down lane then and only two lanes of travel. The moment I turned onto the Hwy I was riding past cars to my left. It was a pretty good ride as well, the biggest issue being debris. The last mile, however, was sheer terror as I had to ride in a travel lane of a very busy road.
Some years later they widened 19/41 by taking the break down lane. There is no where to ride there now unless you are in a travel lane. No thank you. Drivers over in that county will run your butt down just because of various reason...

I did the commute that way for several years. Only had one serious altercation and it was totally avoidable based on the way I acted. Apparently hanging a bird in front of baby momma inside the window of a clapped out Ford pickup is a great way to get the redneck to try and kill you with it.

MilkyFloor

The road to the job place is one of the main factors that I was thinking about when I was looking for the vacancy