PSA: Employment Opportunity

[rolanni]

For those of a clerical bent of mind, who live within commuting distance of Waterville, Maine. The pay's not great, but there is group health insurance. All info here

Comments

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

that's "clerical" as in "clerk" not "clerical" as in "clergy", yes?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Signs and portents imply that it is Sharon's soon-to-be-former job . . .

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

I suppose it says something about my state of mind that I read "clerical" in Sharon's post as "of or pertaining to clergy." That it was Sharon's former job never occurred to me until I followed the link.

Elen asks...

[(Anonymous)]

Do you feel that the job description is accurate?

Re: Elen asks...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Do I feel the job description is accurate?

. . .

Yes. The job description is accurate. It is not all-inclusive. I do not believe that the people who wrote the job description actually want what they're calling for, but! you -- general you -- would not be working for the people who wrote the job description. For the most part, you would be working for a very strong and basically adult group of faculty, with occasional blasts of lunacy and illogic introduced from college Admin.

[melita66.livejournal.com]

How many professors? Lessee, I count 15 in history and american studies. Did you ever get any work-study students to train?

I'm always amused by people who buy into the 'ivory tower' fairytale.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. I usually have a student worker during the Fall and the Spring. They help with errand running, photocopying, filing -- huge help; good workers.

How many professors varies...most of the work is generated by the department/program chairs (I served six program -- the newly configured job description only serves five).

The pay's not great?

[(Anonymous)]

If the pay isn't great it sounds to me that they are demanding a highly qualified person with many skills and offering said person the chance to work exhaustively for a remuneration rate that's effectively minimum wage. Or less. I know jobs with benefits are getting harder to come by but slave labor is still slave labor. Good luck to them in their candidate searches because it will, I suspect, be brought home to them very quickly in the process how much they are losing when you walk out the door for the last time. And how glad I am that you CAN walk out the door. Yay, BAEN, the savviest publisher in the business!

Anne in Virginia

Re: The pay's not great?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Well, now, not quite "minimum wage"! I think. Let's do arithmetic!

For 40 weeks out of the year, this job is 40 hours. My hiring wage was $12.50/hr (I managed to claw my way up to $14.25 in just under five years). So, $12.50 * 40 = $500 (before taxes, health insurance and, eventually, retirement). We'll just take taxes out. $500 * .33 = $165. $500 (165) = $335 takehome. $335 * 40 weeks = $13,400 takehome ($20,000 gross).

For 12 weeks out of the year, you get 15 hours/wk. 15 * $12.50 = $187.50 less $61.87 = $125.63 * 12 weeks = $1,507.56 takehome ($2,250 gross).

So, altogether that's...$22,250 gross or $14,907.56 takehome. More or less. Or! An average of $343.75/week gross; $230.31 net. Not bad for a girl whose husband works.

Um. Did I use the outloud voice?

Re: The pay's not great?

[(Anonymous)]

Appalling! Again I say, all honor to BAEN and its emancipation of the wage slave. And I hope you hum, perhaps not quite under your breath, that old beloved and evocative Johnny Paycheck classic "Take This Job And Shove It" as you stride out the door! I know Necessity Existed to make you have to put up with the day-job for so long, but how wonderful that Necessity has changed. To quote again, "Free at last, free at last..."

Anne in Virginia

Re: The pay's not great?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Sorry. Didn't finish.

Therefore! Using the Magic of Averaging, we find that the average hourly wage is! $8.59

Maine's minimum wage is $7.50.

So, you're a buck-eightyoh-nine to the good.

Re: The pay's not great?

[(Anonymous)]

Mmmm. Not exactly. $8.59 minus $7.50 is $1.09...ah, I see the correction just came in. That's why personally I do my checkbook in pencil and use all my fingers and toes. *g* It's also why I never envisioned myself on a career path leading to astronaut. I pilot vicariously, the most enjoyable way for me to go when I'm touring the Liaden Universe.

Anne in Virginia

Re: The pay's not great?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Publishers have been trading on the well-known fact that writers are innumerate since hot type turned cold.

Re: The pay's not great?

[(Anonymous)]

Publishers, as a general class, believe in higher math and creative accounting...for them. My old royalty statements from Dell and Bantam were real head scratchers, as in how did they get THAT for a total of royalties due and what 'n the hell are they using as a basis for their nasty little reserve against remainders and returns.

Anne in Virginia

Re: The pay's not great?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Royalty statements have actually gotten more transparent and informative. You needed a native guide and a philosopher to understand our old (1980's) Del Rey statements. The late 20th and early 21st century statements we've gotten from Meisha Merlin, Baen, and Ace have been logical and easy to parse.

Re: The pay's not great?

[(Anonymous)]

I am so glad to hear royalty statements are better now. In the 80s your recourse to the suspicion that you were being, in a word, cheated, was to hire a lawyer and demand a reconciliation to print. That was an expensive proposition indeed to prybar out of the publisher and usually the lawyer's fees for the exercise came out far ahead of any royalties regained. Only the mega-seller authors bothered or had the resources, just to try and keep the publisher at least minimally honest to contract, although their efforts did, I believe, help start the trend toward more transparent and informative contracts.

Anne in Virginia

Re: The pay's not great?

[mothadventures.livejournal.com]

That salary....makes purchasing a "transportable" carousel (like the one for sale here: http://www.fanelliamusements.com/equipment/chance%20merry%20go%20round.htm ) look like a more viable employment option.

At least when you sell carousel rides, you're making people happy for a while, instead of trying to meet impossible demands....

(I know, nowhere near as large or nice as Kate's carousel. But looks nice given the "load on a transport trailer" rule.)

Re: The pay's not great?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

The very first thing Kit Jimenez (my second self in second life) did, upon achieving ownership of SL "land," was install a public carousel. In SL, you can live on air. In RL, not so much...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

You were underpaid like whoa.

[saruby.livejournal.com]

I found it interesting that they prefer someone with at least some higher education, but plan to pay as if hiring a high school dropout. Nevertheless, in today's economy I can see the attraction, particularly if you have school-age children who need at least some supervision in the summer. But seriously, no one who paid for an education at Colby can afford to take this job.

Day Job Pay

[claire774.livejournal.com]

Isn't the pay bring in a net which is just above the poverty line? Scary.
C.

Day Job Pay

[claire774.livejournal.com]

Brain scrambled. Read: Doesn't the pay....etc. Too early in morning. Below poverty but has group health insurance which is worth something.
C.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank whatever you can quit.

Lauretta@ConstelaltionBooks

[ellenru.livejournal.com]

Wow, I hadn't realized it was that low. It puts my somewhat higher remuneration for my slightly specialized office assistant position(which is adequate for my single not outlandish lifestyle, but not fabulous) in a different perspective. Granted, I'm in Canada so I have a certain measure of healthcare and my office has a group plan as well that tops up things like dental and vision (which I use). But wow.

Payment

[claire774.livejournal.com]

I think the TV was telling me recently that a poverty is defined by an income of $20,000 for a family of four. I think that's gross pay. 60 minutes was telling me this evening that the percentage of homeless children in the US is now approaching 25% due to all the home forclosures: a million last year, a million this year. They did a piece on homeless children in the Orlando FL area. Truly awful. Of course relating this to line of work that means that all the pets from those families went to the pounds and animal shelters in the area. I know that in Las Vegas the Animal Foundation there has to put down around 40,000 pets a year. Best Friends has started transports of small dogs from Las Vegas to more prosperous cities where they can find homes. If my memory serves me (sometimes it doesn't) Las Vegas is one of the forclosure capitals of the US. And in the meantime the Rep Ryan (R) plan for fixing our economy wants to pretty well do away with Medicare and at the same time providing yet more tax cuts for the very wealthiest citizens. I just hope that some of the voting public is paying attention.

We are all very lucky if our kids and pets are fed every day, we have a home to live in, and job that pays for at least the minimum of what we need.

One has to admire those who are so creative that they can create jobs for themselves: Sharon and Steve. Even after many years of very hard work. Congratulations and a big Yay again. My daughter is one of those who created her own job. She...a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in NY taught herself to design web sites and has become something of a web site guruess in her area.

Good luck to us all.

C. Gus and the Gang.