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--- On Tue, 3/16/10, Richard Melanson <rmelanson -at- spirecorp -dot- com> wrote:
> EXACTLY !!
> "Unfortunately, that would mostly improve prospects for
> techwriters in
> Korea, Taiwan, maybe Malaysia, the Philipeans."
Well, not entirely. I did manage to finally get a new job today - got sent a contract to sign by a recruiter. It's nowhere near as much money as I'd like or as I was getting in 2008, but its enough to pay the bills and allow one day a month for fun, as long as it's cheap fun. I probably shouldn't complain. I have been unemployed for 11 and a half months and have been surveying bridges in the area to see which ones offered the best coverage from rain.
But I had an extremely disagreeable experience when I got the news. Last week, before I had a phone interview last week, the recruiter asked me what would be my expected pay rate. I told him $30 an hour and he said that was within the acceptable range. Today when he called to tell me the client wanted me to start this month, he said that the client wasn't willing to pay that much and he screwed me down to $27 an hour.
I know it's a buyer's market today and I !#$@ well better get some kind of job because this is the last week of my unemployment eligibility, but I've never had anyone do something like this before. I have my suspicions. I know the TW market in Austin has gone to hell since the computer companies started imploding but this is ridiculous. This is the kind of pay I was getting 13 years when I first moved here.
I think we are finally leaning towards the beginning of turning a corner. In the last couple of months I have started seeing more signs of life in the TW market outside of Washington DC, which for a long time seemed to be the only place in the country still active. I have started seeing a significant number of "I saw your resume on the net and was wondering if you were still available" emails from recruiters. So maybe things are starting to pick up a little.
Anyway, this new gig is supposed to start next Monday. And I didn't have to move to Reston or Fairfax for it, so all things considered it's a positive.
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