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> I have worked for my present company for about 10 months. I do not
> have a technical writing degree, but I do have a college degree
> (B.A.,liberal arts). I work at home and thus do not have direct
> supervision (the home office is in another state). I live in
> Washington Sate. I write internal end user documentation (software).
> This includes using Word and FrontPage to create printed and
> intranet/Web docs. I make $10 an hour. Am I underpaid?
Dear Anonymous,
Yes, you are being underpaid, but I caution you as to how you go about
getting a raise. I would not recommend the "DEMAND more money" option.
Especially depending on your circumstances.
I did my first tech writing job 5 years ago for $6.50/hour. Both my
employer and I admitted up front that I was being underpaid. However,
that wasn't the issue. My employer was starting into a new area of
software development and didn't want to risk hiring a high-priced
writer for a project that might fail. I needed experience to get into
the Tech Writing field. The situation suited us both quite well *at the
time*. He got cheap documentation and I got experience.
After 10 months when the project was done, I had no trouble at all
getting a job elsewhere at a much more reasonable wage. In fact, the
first employer made a counter offer to try to get me to stay for future
projects. And it was a very good counter offer. (I took the job with
the second company because of location in a more convenient city.)
Since then, I have used my first employer as a reference for other jobs
and he has always given me a glowing recommendation. In fact, I just
started a new job 2 months ago and he told my present company, "I'd
hire him again if I could."
In other words, don't burn your bridges at your current company. As I
have found, a little experience and a good reference can more than make
up for any current monetary deficiencies.
Scott
sbrowne -at- unicomp -dot- net
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"Writing is like Prostitution. First you do it for
the love of it, then you do it for a few friends,
and finally, you do it for the money." -Moliere
