Lowball offers

At my last stop, I had an EA constantly complaining that she was hourly while everyone else (all like four of us) were salaried. I explained to her -- repeatedly -- that she should be happy because she knew she only had to work 40 hours, and anything over that was OT, while us salaried folk were getting the same pay even if we worked 60, which we usually did. She was pretty clueless about the business, so it's probably a good thing for all involved that she left.

 

My first job was for a small weekly paper in northwest Iowa. I was hired in the fall of 1991 for (if I remember right) $13,000 a year. Yeah, sounds low, but ... I lived one block from work, my rent was $170 for the back half of house and the rent included free cable TV (with HBO) and heat, and benefits included vacation, health (including dental and vision) and a 401k. The cost of living in the town was also very low.
I was there four years before heading east. Loved it there, but had to move for family reasons.

 

My first job out of college (still my only job out of college) had a tightwad GM who was notorious for pinching pennies. Half our operating system was run on pirated software. They started me off at $8.10 an hour and paid 20 cents a mile. I had interviewed at another paper, about the same size, that was in the same neighborhood as far as pay. I figured it was the going rate. Worked out to about $17,000 my first full year. This was in 1998.
The alternative was waiting tables, and I did NOT want to do that, so I took the job. Bird in the hand and all that. My first two annual cost of living raises were 30 cents an hour. The tightwad finally retired a couple years later and I got a $2 an hour raise. It felt like hitting the lottery.
Looking back, I don't know how I survived those first couple years. I was lucky to have a P.O.S. car that ran well and was paid for, otherwise I'd have starved to death. I also have a feeling the SE got off the phone with me after the interview and started cackling that he got me so cheap.

 

Some of these things remind me about my first gig. I got offered 20k to work as a SE for a small rag. I got to still live in my college town and share the rent with some roomies and had a serviceable car, so it was fine for a few months until I got down my layout skills, photog skills, and wrote some home run stories.

The only problem was, the employer never gave me a contract, so nothing was in writing. I didn't know any better since it was my first gig, so I just went a long with it. I also wasn't really thinking about long term, but whatever. So they told me the gig paid $10 an hour. As it turned out, I was salary, based on $10 an hour. So in the first week when I was hitting 50-60 hours, I was only getting paid for 40. So I asked the editor to give me a few less pages per week. Thankfully she did, but the space was so little I was filling them in 35 hours of work (doing it well too). Yet, I didn't get paid for 40 hours. I got paid for 35.

So in back to back weeks, I worked somewhere around 85-90 hours, and was only getting paid for 80. I called them out on it and they said I was salary. So I asked them why I only got paid for 35 when they didn't give me enough work to do (I even worked on some upcoming tabs to reach the 35 hours). They tiptoed around the question and obviously just wanted to pay me as little as possible. Since I never had the contract there was nothing I could do. Once I made enough to pay off my rent and pay for a few nights at the bar, I gave them my two weeks.

They were pissed.

 

Any time you hear "salary," grab your socks. That means you're going to be working 70-80 hours a week.

 

Didn't you have a copy of a paystub, or anything like that?

 

Yeah, but it didn't say how much they were supposed to pay me, just how much they did pay me.

 

I would have held onto that 35 hour paystub. The next time you worked 50and they only paid you 40, I would have told them about how they considered you hourly for that 35 hour week.

Either way, sounds like they tried to screw you. One thing I always have done when I'm hired is to get a letter from my new employer stating that I'm hired, the start date, and the pay rate.

Years ago, a paper had offered me a job at a higher pay rate. When I told a trusted coworker who had previously worked there, he told me that the paper always paid employees the high rate for 2-3 weeks, then cut their salary over some perceived mistake. Needless to say, I didn't take the job.

 

not necessarily true. i had all my people on salary and they generally worked 35-45 hours a week unless there was something big like elections and they also rarely worked weekends. and if i felt like they'd gone over and above with long hours or a couple of saturdays in a row, i'd throw them a freebie day off. this was at a small daily.

 

Exception, not the rule.

I'll take hourly over salary, every day, for the reasons stated above.

 

I had a great boss like that at a mag where I worked.

 

Have done both the salary and hourly gigs, and their success depends on the fairness of the employer and your ability to manage your time. Also, starting low (I did, at near-minimum wage) does not mean you can't reach a sustainable amount. Once you've moved a couple of times, I've found that current salary is not as important in negotiations.