Slave wages or not?

Subject: Slave wages or not?
From: Melissa Lowery <melissa -dot- lowery -at- CAPITALONE -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 10:40:31 -0500

Anonymous wrote:

"I have worked for my present company for about 10 months. I do not
have a technical writing degree, but I do have a college degree
(B.A.,liberal arts). I work at home and thus do not have direct
supervision (the home office is in another state). I live in
Washington Sate. I write internal end user documentation (software).
This includes using Word and FrontPage to create printed and
intranet/Web docs. I make $10 an hour. Am I underpaid?"

You have heard from the "Absolutely!!!" camp in spades, so I'll add
the perspective of someone who has literally been there and done that.
I worked for less than $10 an hour at my first technical writing job,
but the circumstances provided me with a few key non-monetary benefits
that some of you may not have considered.

I was paid less than $10 an hour to write computer documentation for a
small programming group on a university campus. They hired me even
though I had no experience and they promised me that I would be given
the freedom and time to learn on the job. In addition to my wages, I
was provided with a graduate student tuition waiver and graduate
student health benefits (which were only marginally beneficial). I
worked at this job for three years. What I got out of it was a sizable
student loan debt burden (I still had to take out loans to make ends
meet), three years of real world writing experience, a rudimentary
portfolio with a variety of samples, and a Masters degree in American
Literature.

Perhaps I came away with more than Anonymous is getting, but--and this
is the really important point--the three years of real writing
experience was invaluable when it came to finding my next job. When I
was negotiating a salary range for my next job, I could and did
command a much larger hourly wage based on my skill level and
experience.

My point is that, despite what any of us think, Anonymous has to
decide whether $10 for this particular job is the right choice at this
point in his/her career. I certainly would be the last person to
advise someone to stay in a chronically underpaying job for too long
(I think I may have), but I also think that sometimes there are other
factors which make a low paying job a good decision at the BEGINNING
of a career if there are no better opportunities to gain experience
available.

I also have to add that I lived on less than $10 an hour (plus some
student loans) in a part of the country where the cost of living is
fairly low. That, of course, affects whether this seems like a
reasonable wage or not. Anonymous has to decide whether $10 can meet
his/her expected standard of living for the time being. I would
definitely advise Anonymous to consider this current position a
temporary learning experience and to move on to better paying work as
soon as is feasible.

Would I ever work for $10 an hour again? Absolutely not! Am I glad
that I did once under my specific circumstances? Absolutely! I'd be
glad to discuss the situation offline with Anonymous or anyone else
who is interested.

Melissa Lowery
melissa -dot- lowery -at- capitalone -dot- com




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