[TRENCHES] Thursday, December 6, 2012 - HR
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
HR
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/hr
Minimum Wage
AnonymousI am really sick of hearing about testers whining about making a dollar above minimum wage and having to work 50+ hours a week. QQ More.
You think you deserve more than that because you had to sign a contract saying you won’t tell anyone about the game details because you’re some kind of spy? $10.50 an hour x50 a week is too low for you? Let me tell you my story. I’m a Pilot. I have a Masters in Aviation Education and flight school was another 2 years. I made $8.75 an hour working as a pilot. 75 cents LESS than minimum wage.
How is that legal? Because my wage is $17.50/hr but I only get paid for time when the engine is running. If I’m doing paperwork, flight planning, pre-flight checking the plane, or refueling, I’m not getting paid. On a good day, I work 8am to midnight and get paid for 8 hours.
On a bad day, if weather is bad and a flight is delayed, I work 8am to 6pm and get paid for an hour or two. $8.75 is the best case, where my schedule is booked and I am working back to back flights. If I have an hour in between I don’t get paid. Days when I worked full time and made less than $40 were typical.
Then one day I was working so hard I had to skip breakfast, then work though lunch, I passed out for a few seconds from low blood sugar. I lost my medical certificate so I can’t fly anymore. I was let go with no unemployment, no severance, and huge debts. I never had medical insurance because the company says I only “worked” 18 hours a week, so I can’t even afford the medical tests to prove that it won’t happen again.
All I want to do is get back to work at my dull, minimum wage job, where the most exciting thing ever is when your co-pilot passed out for a few seconds. So you guys can stop complaining about your $500 a week, and poor job security. Because I was making $300 and had even less security. Recent posts sound like a bunch of spoiled babies.
Posts
If someone had told you the grim reality of your work day before you qualified up for you dream job, would you think twice about doing it? If you still went ahead and did it anyway, then I agree that you might have less cause to complain about the shocking truth when you're hit by it.
I'm not especially supportive of the fact that he passed out due to low blood sugar. If you're responsible for people's lives in your job, you need to make sure you're in a fit state to have that responsibility. If you need food, you need to take the 10 minutes to actually have something to eat. If the people above you get pissed, so be it. If you get fired, that's awful, but still preferable to killing people due to your actions or inaction.
It's not unreasonable to want to be able to do a 40 hour work week where you're paid a living wage for your work, and people who complain about not getting that are not "spoiled babies."
This is my reaction, followed by "Where is the minimum wage $9.50/hr and where are testers making $10.50/hr"?
And then never fly regional airlines again.
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Someone literally read this story and thought, "You're being a whining bitch, try living MY life." Somewhere.
Honestly, whoever submitted this got boned, but taking it out on people who may have been less boned is not the answer, and is not helpful. I'm sure there are testers out there who signed up for "we'll give you work if we have it" that made way less money than you working like 2 hours a week. This isn't a contest of who can be boned more, it's sharing stories of experience in the industry, which are both enlightening and potentially amusing.
While this submission was enlightening regarding a different industry, it came across exactly as the thing it was ranting against (it was just a whiny "I got it bad" story). Had it been framed differently, ("this is how things are in this other industry, you are not alone!"), it would have been a much better read.
Sounds like he would be perfect for any flight sim games.
Skid, I honestly couldn't have put it better if I had a month to type it out.
In the marines, we had our certain designated 'story-times' where we engaged in good natured bitching; most of it was just about passing the time and cracking jokes.
You know, camaraderie.
Every so often, we'd have a senior enlisted man or an officer chime in with some horror story of combat in a hell-hole half-way around the world. We'd sit there thinking, 'this is the toughest human being I will ever meet.'
Invariably, the story would wind to a close and the silence would be deafening. But the punchline was always there, something like, "and that's when I realized I had pissed my pants."
Because, you know ...
Camaraderie.
Bug report
Issue number:0001
Issue type: Defect
Summary: Airplane keeps crashing after take off.
Response: Working as intended you are a shitty pilot.
Resolution: Fire bad pilot working as bug tester.
Guilty. The hours, pay, and demands of residency have made my pretty dull to a fair number of the complaints, but I know plenty of people who had it worse than that. Like my parents, who are both MDs and were residents before the duty hour restrictions went into place. 120 hours work-weeks were common, and dad tells a story of how he went 6 straight months without a single day off. Then I stopped whining.
Don't you realise how little sense that makes? Don't stop whining! Just because someone has it shittier than you does not make your conditions less shitty.
"Well, my job involves being stabbed in the face over and over for 12 hours, but this other guy has to do it for 13, so it's not that bad"
A terrible job is still a terrible job, and you should stand up for yourself and say that it isn't okay. Minimum wage in the US isn't really livable. 50 hour normal work weeks are crushing. People without the ability to get health care, dental, vacation time, sick leave, and all those other things are getting screwed and just because someone else might have it slightly worse does NOT make it okay. Indeed, if you stood up for the rights of everyone who has it bad, it would get better for everyone. People who think like this story-writer are perpetuating their own exploitation.
I can only imagine that the Trenches guys posted this story to ask people to rip into it as the self-destructive, selfish waste of prose that it is.
Yes, you are correct.
I joined the marines ironically.
My sham has been exposed.
The point is that this submitter came in here and accused everyone of just coming on here to post about how shitty their job is, called it crying, and then posted about how shitty their job is.
We're not telling the submitter to stop crying, we're telling them to stop accusing people of crying and then being by far the closest thing to crying we've had so far.
I think there's a big difference between the two, I guess your mileage may vary.
The point is way over there to the left of where you were aiming.
I am also really disappointed at the terrible judgement of the editors with this one. They should never have published this piece of shit, unless their goal was to have people rip into it.
Also, Mr. or Ms. ex-pilot: stop complaining here and lawyer up. Assuming you were working in the USA, the labor practices you described are blatantly illegal. You are entitled under federal law to be paid for every hour worked, whether or not the engine is running. There is no exemption for airline employees in the federal law, and the same probably applies to whatever state you reside in as well.
This is actually a pro-tip for anyone: if you are doing work for your employer, you should be getting paid. Hourly employees earn their hourly wage for every hour worked. Salaried employees should have a clear and limited job description, and should not be compelled to perform any job duties beyond the scope of that description without additional compensation.
I think that may have actually been the idea. At least I hope so.
I hadn't considered this angle, but i kind of hope it's true!
Its comical; like if a third world country was complaining about the space program of another third world country because the latter has taller ladders (and are thus "closer" to outer space).
I'm not completely sure of all the labor laws in every state, but the working conditions and compensation regime sound completely illegal on the face of it. However I know a lot of companies skirt labor laws by not officially hiring people, but have their workers as contract labor. While some rights are not vacatible (that is you can't sign them away, such as speech [except in certain circumstances such as an NDA]) there is a whole host of other things you can sign away that may end up destroying you. The amount of hours you work, what "counts" as work, liability, and rate of pay are usually the biggest, and it sounds here like this is what happened.
At the very least he should consult with a lawyer or a public interest group to see if any his rights have been violated and what recourse he has.
Also this is one thing I enjoy about The Trenches: Everytime I start to feel overwhelmed by my job, and start to think about how bad I have it, another "Tale" is posted that makes me grateful for the position I have. Its not great (pay is way to low for the amount of responsibilities I'm given, and there are no benefits since I'm contract labor), but I work pretty fixed hours in an office environment, and my boss and coworkers are friendly and pleasant, no one looks over my shoulder like I'm a convict, and there is room for career growth. Perspective is nice.