I started a new job working for an engineering firm a few months ago after being self employed for about 6 years. I have a very scattered set of skills due to being a job hopper for more pay across my entire marriage as I started at the bottom and was always trying to improve our financial situation. After having an excellent interview I worked exactly 7 days before I quit work.
Firstly, I was told that my pay was “so high” because of my expansive skills. He was offering me $23 an hour, when my last job as only an engineering drafter in the same area 6 years earlier had paid $29. I made it clear that I would sign on as a test period for both of us with the hopes that I could prove my worth and get a raise, because that wasn’t going to be enough for my family of 5. I expected closer to $30 and told him so to which he replied “it all depends on what you can do.”
I was being hired on to be the companies internal computer tech who would run their servers and networks, set up work stations, advise on tech upgrades, etc. this allowed him to save money from having to call in an outside company as he didn’t have one on the payroll.
I was also to be a surveying drafter for one of his in house surveyors, an engineering drafter for one of his in house engineers and his daughters personal tech/drafter for anything she was working on which could be building design, subdivision layouts, parking lot designs, concrete floor and structural designs… it was an insane work load. Luckily I’ve done all those things from Texas to south Florida.
After the first week of being at the firm I knocked out all of their backed up surveys, all of their engineering plats and had dug deeply into their structural design drawings and probably made that man $25k or more in my short time there. I also had full access to their work docket and the company was lined up with over 2 millions dollars of work on the next 4 months.
He brought me in his office that following Monday and praised me for knocking his socks off and proving that not only was I not lying about my wide skill set but he could tell I was actively thinking of how to do things better and saw the progress I was making when teaching his other drafters some tips and tricks I had picked up in AutoCAD Civil 3D over the years. He was so impressed, in fact, that he wanted me to take over and run the new office he had just rented and was trying to staff. As in, work at the office 20 minutes from my home on Monday, come back and work on Tuesday at the same location and then… drive 3 hours round trip for the rest of my time working for him.
I was floored. I was happy to be appreciated, happy to take on a management position as I’ve done that many time before also but traveling 3 hours a day on top of my work? Something like this happened before, it almost cost me a divorce and was one of the big reasons I started my own business. That also ended up taking over my life and the money wasn’t a lot better than working for someone else, I went back to work expecting less stress in an office than what I had been doing running a business.
I asked about a company vehicle, I asked about reimbursement for mileage, covering rent on an apartment and living near the job, basically covering every base that I could to figure out if the money was going to be worth it. His offer? A flat $2 raise, which at $25 an hour makes me the highest paid person on his payroll who didn’t hold a college degree. Not a penny more, cover my own gas, I’m not to be paid for the drive time. Just a flat $25 an hour and I eat the estimated $600+ a month in gas and maintenance, I don’t ask for the 60 hours of driving a month which was free overtime for him, I don’t even get standard US mileage coverage. Just go do it, that’s all you’re worth to me.
I said yes sir, shook his hand, went home and sent HR a kindly worded email describing how I no longer would be able to peruse a career with that firm.
I got my 1 paycheck a few weeks later and that was that. Back to my own business!
Edit* some grammar and stray letters caused by typing on my phone and fat fingers.
Edit** I now sell dice and table top role playing products that I have created and written. Yes I do hire editors to get rid of my ten mile long run on sentences in my books!