Slave wages or not?

[Melissa Lowery <melissa -dot- lowery -at- CAPITALONE -dot- COM>]

     Anonymous wrote:

     "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?"

     You have heard from the "Absolutely!!!" camp in spades, so I'll add
     the perspective of someone who has literally been there and done that.
     I worked for less than $10 an hour at my first technical writing job,
     but the circumstances provided me with a few key non-monetary benefits
     that some of you may not have considered.

     I was paid less than $10 an hour to write computer documentation for a
     small programming group on a university campus. They hired me even
     though I had no experience and they promised me that I would be given
     the freedom and time to learn on the job. In addition to my wages, I
     was provided with a graduate student tuition waiver and graduate
     student health benefits (which were only marginally beneficial). I
     worked at this job for three years. What I got out of it was a sizable
     student loan debt burden (I still had to take out loans to make ends
     meet), three years of real world writing experience, a rudimentary
     portfolio with a variety of samples, and a Masters degree in American
     Literature.

     Perhaps I came away with more than Anonymous is getting, but--and this
     is the really important point--the three years of real writing
     experience was invaluable when it came to finding my next job. When I
     was negotiating a salary range for my next job, I could and did
     command a much larger hourly wage based on my skill level and
     experience.

     My point is that, despite what any of us think, Anonymous has to
     decide whether $10 for this particular job is the right choice at this
     point in his/her career. I certainly would be the last person to
     advise someone to stay in a chronically underpaying job for too long
     (I think I may have), but I also think that sometimes there are other
     factors which make a low paying job a good decision at the BEGINNING
     of a career if there are no better opportunities to gain experience
     available.

     I also have to add that I lived on less than $10 an hour (plus some
     student loans) in a part of the country where the cost of living is
     fairly low. That, of course, affects whether this seems like a
     reasonable wage or not. Anonymous has to decide whether $10 can meet
     his/her expected standard of living for the time being. I would
     definitely advise Anonymous to consider this current position a
     temporary learning experience and to move on to better paying work as
     soon as is feasible.

     Would I ever work for $10 an hour again? Absolutely not! Am I glad
     that I did once under my specific circumstances? Absolutely! I'd be
     glad to discuss the situation offline with Anonymous or anyone else
     who is interested.

     Melissa Lowery
     melissa -dot- lowery -at- capitalone -dot- com