G'day to y'all, dear r/antiwork. I have a long, multi-part story of the injustices I faced at my 4 year long place of work. I'm posting part 1 below.
I traveled to the US with aspirations of making it big in the land of opportunities. Hollywood helped form that opinion, along with experiences of other “successful” international students who are now CEOs of multi billion dollar businesses. Not that I was gonna make it that big, but at least I could enjoy things like work life balance, work satisfaction, good pay, etc. – or so I thought!
My journey started in 2015 as an international student (M, 24 then) who went to a great US school to study the Master of Architecture degree. Great learning experience, but finding a job was a challenge in an employer-driven market in the year 2017. My F1 OPT (work authorization) was coming to an end and finally in December 2017, an opportunity opened up in one of the greatest American cities with a history of modern architecture dating back to at least a 100 years. I was thrilled!
It was a small firm (6 employees) led by a woman belonging to a minority community, where all the employees were women. My interview went well, and I was offered the position of “Project Architect” right out of school!
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I did not have experience in the American architecture industry, so, I politely brought up that the $52k salary sounds good for a fresh graduate, but, I do not feel confident or possess the abilities described in the job description for the project architect position. She said that the salary and the position is tentative and I will receive a performance evaluation at the end of three months when we can revisit the title and the salary.
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I noted that the office expects employees to work for 45-50 hours per week, and overtime would be paid to employees working more than 40 hours. I asked, that since the position was hourly, how many hours was I supposed to work to make sure I get paid a salary of $52k. I was told that $52k was for a 50 hour work week.
Architecture back then wasn't a STEM designated degree and so I had one year of work authorization from my school as opposed to the three years for STEM designated courses.
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I asked if they would be willing to sponsor my application for the H1B visa (worker visa) in March so that if it does get selected in a randomized lottery for 80,000 visas from ~300,000 applications, they would be required to bear the costs (a typical $2k processing fees + $2k in attorney fees expense that US companies are required to bear for their international employees) and help me get my visa. The owner inquired about the process and fees and agreed to consider this at the end of my 3 month probation period.
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I reiterated my lack of confidence/ skills required for the high position and associated salary, and the owner said that shouldn't be a problem and can be revisited later.
My work started in an unimpressive/ lackluster office space, but I quickly made friends with my coworkers. The learning curve was high but everyone helped me come up to speed. Good people, but the projects were very few. I started to pick up the skills of an entry level position but there werent any projects of significant amount of work for me to show my project handling skills. Whatever, but I started doing some good work being a quick learner – or so I thought…
At the 2.5 month mark, I reminded my boss about the performance review and the upcoming deadline for the H1B visa. After a couple times of reminding her, she arranged for a review. I was prepared for a conversation about my performance. I didn't think i was doing bad or anything just that I wasn't being asked to take up any project architect level responsibilities. I was like there's three scenarios that may occur –
- She would be happy with what I'm doing and go ahead with my H1b.
- She would express how I need to be taking up more project architect level responsibilities, but not alter my salary or position.
- She would express her reading of my abilities and lower my position, but not lower my salary any lower than $50k. Worst case scenario, $48k!
I mean, she came across as someone who was reasonable, and wouldn't turn on her words! In fact, she didn't come across as a woman who would squeeze an employee who had nowhere to go! – or so I thought….
- In my performance review, she expressed that I was inadequate for filling in the role of a project architect and that she'll have to revisit my title and pay me a salary commensurate with the title “Intern Architect”.
I was taken aback! I was still listening.
She said she was hoping to hire a project architect level staff and that I was more of an entry level candidate. I said, I made it crystal clear that I wouldn't be able to take on the responsibiliy during my interview and had asked her to give me a realistic title/ salary and build up from there. She nodded. I asked her if she's made up her mind, to which she said, “There's no reason to doubt that”.
- I asked what would the impact be to my salary, to which she answered “your new salary will be commensurate with your intern title, at $40,000. I was in utter shock. $12,000 lower salary with a demotion to an intern level position was something I had never even thought about!
I asked if there was any room for negotiation, and she said she'll go as high as $42,490.68. Wow!
It was already tough to find a job back then, and I had no time to look for another job, convince them to sponsor my h1b and hope to get this done in such a short amount of time. I mean we were already in March 2018, and h1b applications were due at the end of the month!
- My hands were tied. I accepted the revised offer. She 'graciously' told me, that she'd happily apply for my H1b visa but only pay the required half of the fees for processing ($2,000), if it gets selected. I was to bring my own attorney and pay them out of my own pocket – with a paycheck that looked like shit going forward. I thanked her, left the room and sat at my desk.
She celebrated her first two victories that night with an expensive wine, I'm told. (Imagined)
P.S.
Let me know if you'd like to read further and I'll start typing out part 2.