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As I have posted before, I am still at my current job, which I started at the end of April.
For a quick recap, my job is basically being a manager for a bunch of independent contractors remotely, and I started out as a temp at $12/hr, but now I have been an employee since October. I get benefits, health insurance etc, but I still only make $13/hr.
Now as you can imagine, $13/hr is not a livable wage in Chicago. As a result, I am going to be turning 26 in under two weeks but I still live at home and commute via train into the city. I have been given **** for still living in the suburbs by my co-workers, but these co-workers are also living very financially unstable lives. For example, one of my co-workers lamented how he had $13 left in his bank account to last one more day before we got paid (and lord knows if he has any savings), while another girl, who is 29, said she remembers when she had perfect credit at 24 but now she expects she'll never be able to buy a house thanks to the debt etc she's built up because "I haven't ever had a livable wage in my life".
It would be one thing if this job was an admitted "beginner's job", something akin to an internship, or working fast food/retail, you know something that is definitely thought of as "work there until you finish your degree/get experience then move on", but it really isn't. I guarantee the other departments around us assume we have a "normal" wage - assuming they themselves aren't also getting screwed- and our manager said there's talks of flying out those that work in local offices to our main office for workshops etc - seems a bit excessive for us not even getting paid a livable wage imo. Hell we had a co-worker who was on salary making $40k/yr (she started like 1.5 years ago when the department was only like 3 total people) and when she got a new job my boss and his boss offered her even more to stay but she declined....so they took a coworker of mine and gave her the exact same job but she makes like $14/hr doing it now.
Now my current plan is applying to jobs, while continuing to accrue more experience (I assume when/if I hit the 1 year mark that would definitely open up more job opportunities), or eventually get a raise to a livable wage. We are having "performance reviews" in February, and our manager told us with those there is a potential to get a raise, but the general sentiment/guesses from my co-workers seems to be AT BEST maybe up to $15/hr.
Now the reason I have posted this, is because I've been trying to think if there's any "gameplans" to getting more pay sooner than later. The way I was raised, it was the "don't complain, just show your abilities/talents/hard work etc and you will be rewarded", but I've also heard of people somewhat aggressively confronting higher ups about the pay issue. For example, if I were to go into the performance review and they go "oh congrats, we have decided to give you a dollar more per hour" is there any time to be like "give me $20/hr or I'm quitting"? I don't have a backup job or anything but I'm sure a temp agency could get me another office job for equal or better pay if necessary. Or I've even made private jokes to some of my closest co-workers that we should look at strike laws....
[snip]
For example, if I were to go into the performance review and they go "oh congrats, we have decided to give you a dollar more per hour" is there any time to be like "give me $20/hr or I'm quitting"? I don't have a backup job or anything but I'm sure a temp agency could get me another office job for equal or better pay if necessary. Or I've even made private jokes to some of my closest co-workers that we should look at strike laws....
Thanks!
Check with a temp agency and ask what's available, keeping in mind that temp work doesn't pay benefits and usually isn't long-term.
You can ask for $20 an hour, but you'd better not be bluffing.
What is the typical starting salary for your position elsewhere? If it's a lot higher I would talk to your supervisor/manager about it, but you have only been a perm employee for 3 months. Do you have experience in this field prior to this position? If not, you might need to stick it out until you get more experience. Otherwise if pay is higher elsewhere for the same type of job and you do have experience I would ask for more money or continue to look elsewhere. Paying to commute in on a train doesn't make sense at $13 hr.
You don't say what kind of education was required for your job. I would consider looking at acquiring more skills. And I don't necessarily mean 4 years of college. Is there some trade you could do such as an electrician. Or get a 2 year degree or cert in a healthcare field, MRI technician for instance. It looks like the field you are in doesn't pay very much, or if it did the pay is declining if they can get replace someone who was making $40K/yr with $14/hr.
If you've learned enough to be able to do the job well in under 1 year without prior related experience, it also means you are easy for them to replace with someone else making $13/hr. If you're still getting better each week than the week before they're underpaying -- you won't change that, you just need to leave. Your leaving may make things better for the coworkers that stayed, but that's how it goes.
Just look for stuff that you think you could be good at and you think you could pitch your skills and experience as related to. Don't stress about staying in the precise job title or whatever. Talk to your friends and acquaintances; better hit rate than public job boards.
Last edited by ALackOfCreativity; 01-08-2017 at 06:47 PM..
I've definitely learned to currently go about my current method of looking for other jobs in the meantime, and don't do any "confronting" about pay etc.
I personally have a bachelor's in an unrelated field (Criminology), and most of the people I work with are in the same boat, although their degrees are really "bad" a la a ton of creative writing/musical theatre kind of degrees. Unfortunately 99.9% of jobs within my major are either A) cop (not interested in being one of those) or b) need at least two years experience, which either comes from being a cop first or else just doing a more general office kind of thing with the option to get more specialized later a la being an investigator for a company. I have been searching for various jobs in business operations, compliance specialists etc
It is true that my job isn't like a STEM thing, but it is challenging having to manage all of these ICs as well as get all the various tasks done in a timely manner. I think my biggest issue is that if this was considered a lot more of a "low level" job it would make sense for it to be something you just use for experience (which I am doing) but it honestly seems to be in my opinion to have way too much gravitas to be getting paid as little as we do. I mean some ICs in the orientation we give ask questions like "how do we become one of you guys" but they don't realize they'd make like half as much as they were contracted for if they were instead "promoted" to manager.
First jobs tend to be low-paying until you get to that magic 2 years of experience mark.
Most of us had a second part-time job in the evenings or on weekends to supplement for a few years. I guess people don't do that anymore?
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