[sly]

Just recently, i had no job

I called, I begged. Not even Mc Donalds wanted me.

I had this fuck-everything moment and sold a very big lie: I'm an expert in some vague B2B program. I was desperate for a job, I set dirty low standards.

A week ago I was called by company X, they told me they are in desperate need for people with experience in X. I was like fuck yeah, a job! In fact. They wanted me to start right that day.

I'm designing bio-tech equipment and illustrating them with flowcharts and stuff, my first assignment was to draft some sort of benziniolide-something reactor out of thin air while adhering to strict standards and protocols. All this for 11 dollar an hour.

The experience is great, the material is hard and challenging, I got a desk as big as my room, but still...I feel like getting 'used', the people there earn 100$+/hour and all they do is flirt around and brag about their new sportcar without actually doing anything.

I'm wondering, should I be whining about the low wage? Or be thankful for the experience? I realized that there are only 2 people capable of using the program in the company, the HR-manager is really pushing me to make more hours and expand my current activities to other IT-related activities.

When I saw the immense complexity of my work, I felt a sting of hopelessness and despair, to be honest, i have never seen anything like that, a bazillion valves, amperes,volt meters, hydraulic auto-cad systems, switches, temprature meters, locks, bouts, pipeline circuit, electeicity circuit all cropped on a single image.

 

[strawberryLola]

Reminds me of privilege. Some people have things handed to them while others have to work twice as hard to get where they want to be at.

You feel stuck from the hopelessness, despair and under-compensation.. OTH the job will pay your dues hopefully, only temporarily before the situation improves (through pay, mastery/logistics, and/or gaining more experience on your resume).

I'm in a similar boat. Low wage is like rape. I look at it as having some income in a standstill economy.

 

[bellisaurius]

Are you saying they hired you for this program, and you barely know it? If that's the case, you sure as hell better prove your worth first. A new employee who gets labeled a whiner can get dumped pretty quickly. Besides, you can't know how little someone does or doesn't do in two weeks, and remember, it's not how much work you do that determines pay, it's how much value you bring.

 

[sly]

Are you saying they hired you for this program, and you barely know it? If that's the case, you sure as hell better prove your worth first. A new employee who gets labeled a whiner can get dumped pretty quickly. Besides, you can't know how little someone does or doesn't do in two weeks, and remember, it's not how much work you do that determines pay, it's how much value you bring.

Lol, I initially subscribed for administrative work, but the shit I've been doing is only technical illustrations, converting engineering drawings or models into isometric or orthographic line art as 2-D illustrations for use in page based technical manuals. You can imagine the difficulty of that, especially for someone that barely knows anything about the program.

I'ts comparable to a difficult IQ-test, from 9 to 5 tackling every problem with creativity and finding alternative solutions to compensate for a lack of knowledge. I must say, the learning curve has never been so steep, and never have I been so mentally exhausted. The only thing that is bugging me is the compensation for the work I'm doing, drawing bio-chemical processes is worth 10x my current payrate.

I'm not voicing my complaints to anyone in real life, but there are these 'fuck-this' moments in which I just want to go away and work somewhere else cleaning toilets. The independence is nice, but the responsibility can really fuck up multi-million dollars worth of equipment if I'd use the wrong mathematical symbols for a proces.

 

[Staffan]

You could hold on to your job while looking for something else. It will look better in your resume when a future possible employer sees that you did get a job even in this economy, and a fairly advanced job at that. It may even convince them that you're worth more than 11 dollars an hour.

 

[sly]

You could hold on to your job while looking for something else. It will look better in your resume when a future possible employer sees that you did get a job even in this economy, and a fairly advanced job at that. It may even convince them that you're worth more than 11 dollars an hour.

mhm true.

very true