Lowball offers

I started out making $13K/year in 2001. Full-time job.

But the most insulting job offer I got has been the only one I've turned down: Interviewed with an SE who loved me and said the job paid $X/hour, which wasn't a whole lot. We were all set to sign the papers when the ME said no, the job pays $X-3/hour. I was insulted and walked away.

I also got the last laugh: A week later I was offered a job that paid $X+5/hour.

 

Any time you hear "per hour," that's probably not a good thing. I mean this is an industry with college-educated professionals, not the Taco Bell.

 

Who can work on alphabet wages??

 

You asked for numbers and I gave them to you. I don't really care about the cheaper cost of living line that all these shops who try to lowball you use.

At a certain point, you still need to be able to provide for yourself and family if you have one.

 

The problem is someone will take this job and that low, insulting wage-benefit standard will remain.

It's the same problem with freelancers who take $25 or $50 for a long profile or feature and photos, only because they want to think of themselves as "a writer." It lowers the standard. An editor can turn down someone who asks for more because they know Schleppy McDickweed will do it for peanuts.

 

I interviewed for a gig laying out a regional magazine. They called and offered me the job, but I told them we'd have to talk salary and benefits. So I go back in and they lay out the pay, which was pretty bad, but not awful.

Then we got to the "benefits". The guy who ran the rag made his staff make a list of the "benefits" of working there. Things like, "we go out for drinks after work most Fridays".

I was mortified for the staff. And I walked out.

 

Well, once a month we have wacky tie day. That's a hoot, you betcha.

 

Actually, it's a pretty good thing when you think about it. It implies that you are eligible for overtime pay after 40 hours, as opposed to a set salary that you get whether you work 20 or (more likely) 60 hours a week. Now, whether or not you receive that OT pay is another story.

My first newspaper job, I made $285 a week (bumped to $293 after 3 months) in the mid 1990s in a low-cost of living town. It was implied that I was to work 40 hours, but, after figuring it out, it averaged to about 48. There was no OT, and the publisher implied that he could easily find someone else if there were complaints. There were opportunities to make a few extra bucks when the company put out advertising supplements ($7 for briefs, $15 for stories in which someone was interviewed).

My second job, I was offered $7.50 per hour, and I took it. I was told the job was a 50-60 hour a week job, and I told the editor upon my hiring that I would either get paid OT or not work it. I figured, compared to the first gig, that I would either get a raise from the OT pay, or a reduction in hours. Plus, I had done a good job with the first job, so I figured that if the second job bombed (it didn't), I still could refer to my first job in future resumes.

 

At a small chain with a couple weekly papers, I was the sports editor at one for five years, was really well known in the community, proficient, filled in for the boss on vacation, etc. I hadn't had a raise in about three years.

So, the editor of the other paper leaves. No one else internally is qualified or even interested. I go into the meeting, and publisher offers less than $50 a week more to take on more responsibility (supervising two young reporters at that), where I'd have to move to a much more expensive community. "But you're just learning" I was told.

I wasn't impressed and knew nobody would work for those wages, and nobody who had my experience. Eventually I talked the publisher up, but I'm still barely covering my expenses to make that move.

 

My first post-college job paid me the inflation-adjusted amount of $9.70 per hour.

I guess, in retrospect, it could have been worse. It was a more affordable time and they paid me OT...but it was still pretty remarkable how little I earned for what I did.

The popularity of this business does a lot to drive down wages for everyone involved in it. But we all knew that getting into it, I guess.

 

My first full-time newspaper job, the second guy in a two-man sports department at another one of those "small-town scrapbooks," I got hired in early 1996 for $16,000/year. Split shift because we were a p.m. M-F with a Saturday a.m. True, it was the middle of nowhere and didn't cost much. I think I rented my (huge) apartment for $325 a month. But I was pretty much doing everything. The other sports guy was an old-timer who dragged his feet on learning to use Quark. So I was writing and paginating every day. Longest 11 months of my life.

 

I'll always take hourly over salary. When you're on salary, they can abuse you. With hourly, the law is on your side.

And I also had a boss give me the "you're considered entry-level" bullshit after about nine years in the business. That's when I threatened to call a lawyer.