Entry Level Pay

Are you saying you were offered $7.69 an hour in any recent amount of time or was this 15 or 20 years ago?

 

I started out at $7/hour (and got bumped to $7.50 :) in 2001.

 

buckweaver,
that was for a full-time job? not a part-time, help after school stringing some games type job?

I know this isn't a business you get into to get rich, but I'm amazed you were able to put a roof over your head for that $$

 

In the words of Dave Chapelle ... I'm rich beeeeotch!!!!!!

 

I wasn't. I lived with my parents.

EDIT: It was part-time status, full-time hours. Wasn't technically F/T, but it was a 35-40 hour job.

 

This is as good as place as any to vent...

Last paper where I worked, they were short-staffed when I found a better job. I felt bad about leaving them shorthanded, so I convinced my new employers-to-be to let me give the old paper three weeks' notice instead of the usual two.

So, the old paper asks me if I want to continue to help out even after I take my new job (not another newspaper, BTW). I say sure...not enthusiastic about this, but wanting to help out until they found another person to bring on board.

So I helped them out after I left...and was rewarded with $7/hour as a part-timer. This after making $27K as their ASE. I quit as soon as they found another staffer in sports. And they were pissed that I quit my part-time "job" with "no notice"...even though I told the SE that I'd be gone AS SOON as they had a new staffer in sports.

:

 

Sorry for the minor threadjack, but I need to tack on my rant to WI's...

In the year that I've been at my current shop, there's been a young woman (about 22 yrs. old) who has moved from pressroom stuffer to pressroom stuffer supervisor to - get this - circulation manager.

Because she's at the manager level, she's now making more money than I am.

I should mention that I have two journalism degrees, while she completed her GED last week.

 

Small-town paper bullshit.

My frustration was that I went out of my way to try to be a good guy and not leave them in the lurch...but I ended up parting with the organization on semi-bad terms anyway. I should have just given them two weeks' notice, period.

Cadet, that's horseshit about the scene at your paper. Anyone with a brain stem could be a circ manager at a podunk press. Of course it's an important job, but it doesn't require the skills and education that most news side jobs require. It'd be funny to see the GED queen try to do your job. I suspect you wouldn't find her job all that difficult.

 

Wow.

 

I just ripped my diploma off the wall and cleaned up a stain with it.

 

Eleven years ago. Lived with my parents, who took such great pity on me they didn't even charge me rent.

 

First full-time job was just under $24k. No complaints.