Jason Mustian
A recent submission to the “Antiwork” subreddit highlights the extent to which misleading job advertisements can go, showing that it’s not only fast-food restaurant job applicants who are being duped.
The Redditor in question, an engineering graduate, responded to a job ad that specifically sought his qualifications and offered a $40,000 salary – a figure that’s already on the lower end for an engineer’s pay. Yet, during the interview, he found the proposed salary had somehow nosedived to just a touch above the federal minimum wage.
“Okay so I got an engineering degree, and I got a phone call for a $40,000 a year salary job. I thought, ‘Alright cool, finally got something,’” the Reddit user says. “Get to the interview today and during the interview, they said it’s a ‘contract that starts at $8 an hour for 9 months,’ and then after that, they ‘may consider the $40,000 a year, salaried.’”
TL;DR: They will not consider the $40,000 a year, salaried.
The OP explains:
Wat
Okay so I got an engineering degree, and I got a phone call for a $40,000 a year salary job. I thought, “Alright cool, finally got something.” Get to the interview today and during the interview they said it’s a “contract that starts at $8 an hour for 9 months,” and then after that they “may consider the $40,000 a year, salaried.”
They slipped up, because before discussing the pay they were telling me about a project that expect to last 8 maybe 9 months. 15 minutes later they told me it was a contract instead.
I asked, “So, is the contract only because of that project?” 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. I asked them, “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.”
The older guy snapped back at me, “Look son, I started off at $2 an hour washing shit off of chicken eggs, and” I cut him off here and snapped back, “So is me designing for your company worth only $6 more than washing shit off of chicken eggs?”
I was told to leave and that I wasn’t welcome on company property anymore.
I’m so fucking tired. Wife makes roughly $27,000 a year as a teacher, and the best I can find as an engineer is $8 an hour? We can’t afford shit. We both agreed to never have kids because of how expensive things are, nothing pays anything.
What the fuck we even supposed to do, what the fuck are we even living for at this point?
Getting on a bit of a mini-rant here. But realtor told MIL her mobile home (trailer home) is worth $250,000 and they want us to pay $45,000 as a down payment. MIL won’t budge because she doesn’t believe her daughter makes so little, even after we showed her the paystub. Cheapest apartment near us is roughly $1,400 a month in rent, and it looks like a crack house tbh.
I’m so frustrated at everything right now. 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?
While many in similar situations simply completed their interviews and then refused the job when offered, this engineer says they called out their interviewers immediately.
“I asked them, ‘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.’”
One of the interviewers, who was described as an “older guy,” shot back that he “started off at $2 an hour washing s–t off of chicken eggs.” This is a common type of out-of-touch, often Baby Boomer response to complaints about low wages people apparently they don’t understand the concept of inflation. If the interviewer had enjoyed that job in 1970, $2 an hour would be equivalent to being paid $14.33 an hour in 2022 — to wash s–t off of chicken eggs, which probably didn’t require an expensive college degree.
The Reddit poster also made a good point about the low rate of pay.
“‘So is me designing for your company worth only $6 more than washing shit off of chicken eggs?’” he asked them.
“I was told to leave and that I wasn’t welcome on company property anymore.”
The skyrocketing cost of living plaguing younger generations is also a factor not considered by chicken s–t egg washer guy, but it is on the mind of this engineer, who spent the rest of the post complaining that it seems impossible to find a way to live decently anymore.
“I’m so f—ing tired. My wife makes roughly $27,000 a year as a teacher, and the best I can find as an engineer is $8 an hour? We can’t afford shit. We both agreed to never have kids because of how expensive things are, nothing pays anything.”
The Redditor further says that even his mother-in-law doesn’t believe that her daughter makes just $27,000 a year (which is not an uncommonly low pay rate for new teachers in the U.S.) to the point that she won’t cut them a better deal on the $250,000 mobile home they were looking at.
“But the realtor told MIL her mobile home (trailer home) is worth $250,000 and they want us to pay $45,000 as a down payment. MIL won’t budge because she doesn’t believe her daughter makes so little, even after we showed her the paystub. The cheapest apartment near us is roughly $1,400 a month in rent, and it looks like a crack house tbh.”
Many commenters were sympathetic to the poster’s plight and expressed their admiration for their willingness to call out the interviewers there at the table.
Fellow engineers also chimed in to let them know that they should be seeking a far higher salary than $40,000.
A version of this article first appeared on DailyDot