So my friend Max has a pretty rough time with his job. He works in a role very similar to mine, doing similar work. There are a few key differences though:
- I work on many sites. Max works in-house on a single site, and is the only guy working on it.
- Its a pretty hard-core site, as far as the coding goes - many users, managing financial data.
- His boss believes he should feel blessed that he earns more than minimum wage.
Its funny (not in a haha way!) how perception is, but thats a whole other story.
Oh, and Max sure isn't worthless! He works harder than most people I know, and does an admirable job. But he's unappreciated and not respected. As, his boss said, "There's no way I'll ever pay someone your age more than 45,000." (Max is 22, and under the 40k mark).
Max finds himself in the unenviable position of being expected to work magic with both hands tied behind his back. For example, the webserver hosting that site went down last week for a couple of hours. (They had a catastrophic failure in their datacenter). Max was reamed for this downtime: something he had absolutely no control over, and had in fact been pointing out for a long time that they needed a decent level of hosting... not a $10/month budget hosting plan!
So, he's been applying for some other jobs recently, with positive results. Here's a couple of gems from interviews he has been shortlisted in:
- Email from one group: "As this is a junior position the salary will not be high - we are expecting to be offering $45k-$50k".
- Another group: "well its not a senior position so its going to be 50-55k"
(Emphasis is mine.)
Anyway, Max gave his 2 weeks notice today! He's been offered the first position, and called for a final interview with the second position. But you see, its not just the money - here's what Max said:
It was never about the money. Its what it represented.
I have to agree! I've worked for some good bosses and some bad bosses, and I tell you now; pay is far from the deciding factor in whether I enjoy my work or not!