A few days ago I noticed an online job advertisement in my city:
“Company Name LLC is looking for undergraduate students to work as Brand Ambassadors for large international organizations. Full-time or part-time contract available”
I send my CV and immediately, within two days, I enter the selection process, structured as follows:
- group interview in which one of the Company's managers tells the story of the company, how the work works and the payment methods (the participants ask the questions at the end)
- in the afternoon of the same day you will be contacted again for a second interview alone with the recruiter
During the group interview we are explained that the work is 100% flexible and we choose the days in which to work.
The job consists of standing inside a shopping center for all opening hours (from 10 to 13 hours), behind a pop-up stand representing a large non-profit organization (UNHCR, WWF, UNICEF, SaveTheChildren , etc.), and that our goal is to “convince people” to donate as much money as possible. For every person who donates money, we get a “bonus”, which, depending on the size of the donation, ranges from €30 to €100. We are not told anything else about the pay.
When the group interview ends, I am contacted for the second interview, the one alone with the recruiter. First I'm asked if I have any questions about the previous interview…followed by this conversation:
me: “hello, I just have one question: in addition to the bonuses for donations, would it be possible to have an indicative range of salary for part-time and full-time contracts?”
recruiter: “hello, uhm… there is no salary. For both contracts. All your earnings come from bonuses”
me: confused silence for a few seconds**
me: “excuse me, but in what sense? if in a whole day of work no one decides to donate does it mean that I don't earn anything?”
recruiter: “yes, exactly. …but you will see that during the training we will teach you techniques to convince people to give you their money”
Now. Even if that was the case, let's do some math:
working 13 hours a day + seven days a week, with no days off + assuming EVERY SINGLE DAY I am EXTREMELY LUCKY, to the point of having a daily bonus between 30€ and 50€ = I would be making between $900 and 1500€ a month.
900-1500€ a month is the HIGHEST SALARY THIS JOB CAN GUARANTEE in a GOOD AND EXTREMELY UNREALISTIC SCENARIO.
Now imagine a realistic salary on a part-time contract.
IMAGINE WAKING UP EVERYDAY, GOING TO WORK FOR 12 HOURS, NOT KNOWKING UNTIL THE END OF THE DAY IF YOU ARE GONNA BE LUCKY ENOUGH TO EARN SOMETHING. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
i ended up declining the offer.
workers of the world unite.