Inspired by the Holiday Bonus thread, I thought it was time to try and get some feedback on a predicament of mine. If you'd be so kind...Some of you may have a similar predicament.

I work primarily for two firms, one is a Foodservice Consultancy in Oakland where I have been for almost 3 years. I do a considerable amount of custom design and production work for high-end restaurant kitchens throughout the United States and abroad. If ever there were a *star* kitchen designer, this is the guy. (Fortunately & Unfortunately for me...)

The other is at a traditional small arch firm in San Francisco doing residential and some light comm/retail work. I coordinate and produce the majority of their CD's and do a fair bit of design to boot. Some permit expediting also.

Though my fondness of and affinity for architecture has grown immeasurably in my time at the arch firm, I took the position as a subsidy for my kitchen design job which has never been more than a 3 day/wk gig. The arch firm had a need for drafting help and I'm a vectorworks-monkey (thanks to kitchen-guy) so I started picking up more and more hours with them. Although I mostly enjoy working with them and they've offered to take me on full time, with 10 years of Chef experience behind me, my longer-term goals are rooted in kitchen and hospitality design.

On to my predicament;

I've received two raises from kitchen-guy, the first at 20% and the second at 15%. I've been slowly working towards a full-time position, but mind-you, this is a very small firm and I believe that there is a maximum amount of $$ that he can shell out for an independent contractor like me. That being said, I think I've pretty much hit that cap and the only way financially for me to develop much further would be through some sort of profit-sharing and or incentive based bonuses. I think he bills my time to clients at a less-than-market rate, though I don't know why.

My current rate after the 15% increase would approximate that of a Junior-Intermediate Designer, though I receive NO benefits, and NO sick time and NO vacation and I pay MAD taxes because I'm an independent contractor. (Yeah and I'd like to maybe save a little, maybe buy a new suit, maybe go out and eat at one of the fancy restaraunts I work on, etc...but I'm not greedy, that's not it. Life is just plain expensive.)

I'm beginning also to take on more Project Management responsibilities including meeting with clients on my own, etc etc, but I have no idea how best to propose any kind of profit sharing for this type of situation.

Any of you have similar experience in working from being a part-time independent contractor into an associate with incentive based pay? How do some of the moderate sized firms figure out profit-sharing and bonuses?

Sorry for the ramble...but I've been wrestling with this for a while, and I know it's a unique situation, but not without compare I'm sure.

It may sound like I've been flaking by not having taken a full-time position yet, but the potential value of my continuing to engage with kitchen-guy is quite high. At least that's what I tell myself each and every time I get another full-time offer with benefits/vacay/etc that I turn down in favor of my 3 day per week gig designing $170K wine rooms for restaurant owners.

So...I'm in the driver's seat here because if I don't bring it up every couple of weeks, it won't get brought up on its own. I received both of my raises by asking for them and I've planted the seed for some type of profit sharing to which he seems quite amenable, but again, how?

Any and all advice and suggestions would be warmly appreciated...or rambling tales of your own similar travails.

Cheers.

ml