If the mass exodus from jobs known as The Great Resignation has taught us anything, it’s that people are more aware than ever as to what the world’s unenviable jobs are and how many underhanded tactics their bosses have been getting away with.
But in recent months, an increasing number of people have pointed out that a lot of the warning signs for this kind of treatment present themselves as early as the interview stage.
Whether we’re talking about HR jargon that accidentally reveals a company’s biggest flaws or evasiveness about how much a new employee stands to make by joining them, there’s a lot to be suspicious about.
And as one story of a frustrated engineer reveals, this can be true even when a company seems forthright about its salary offers.
When an engineer in Alabama saw a local listing that promised a $40,000 salary, he was relieved to finally find work after losing his last job to the pandemic.
But as he explained in a Reddit post , he learned in the interview that he would actually be offered a contract in which he’d $8 an hour for nine months. After that, they said he might be able to get a salaried position for $40,000 a year.
And since the interviewers had already revealed that they needed help on a project that would take eight to nine months before this contract was mentioned, he asked if he was only being hired to do this project.
In his words, “The two guys interviewing me looked at each other, and after about 2 seconds of silence one of them says, ‘No’ in a very off putting way.”
So while he had reason to be suspicious that he would simply be used and discarded, he made it clear that this would be a pretty insulting offer even if it was legitimate.
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As he put it, “Okay, so if I hired you for $8 an hour right now, to work at my company, could you live off of that? I’m worth $40,000 a year. I have experience, knowledge, and skills. You’re paying me for those things, not just the work that needs to be done. That’s not a negotiation.”
And when one of them said he used to clean chicken feces off eggs for $2 an hour, the engineer asked if his work was only worth six more dollars per hour than that to them.
This got him removed from the property, but it just confirmed his frustrations with life right now. Because between this offer and his wife’s teaching salary of $27,000, there’s no way for people in his area to afford even an apartment in an unsafe area.
And this was all but confirmed to him when even a trailer in his area costs $250,000 with a down payment of $45,000.
In his words, “I’m actually considering working at Burger King because they start off at $9 an hour here. What use was all these thousands of dollars of loans, if the best I can do is fast food?”
And when he reached out to the r/antiwork subreddit, the details of his life sounded so hard to believe that many figured his story must be fake.
For one thing, even $40,000 is considered a seriously low salary for an engineer. And while some could confirm trailer prices that high in their areas, the stated price seemed oddly high to many as well.
Still, there were no shortage of people willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and they recommended moving to a larger city like Huntsville or Birmingham where engineering jobs are more abundant and pay to scale.
As they saw it, anything he finds in those places must be better than the rinky-dink operation he was dealing with.
h/t: Reddit | WaterFidec
