Issue with job and hours - need suggestions

[Double J]

Hey guys,

 

For about 2 and a half months now, I've been working for a small start-up company. The company essentially consists of the owner (who I work directly under) and a few others who I think are working from different parts of the world.

 

Unfortunately, this job hasn't turned out to be what I expected. The owner failed to tell me, for example, that she'd be traveling 2-3 weeks each month. (She told me she'd have to travel, but not to this extent.) I haven't really learned anything from her, who promised me that the job would consist of on-the-job training and a whole bunch of other malarkey.

 

Over the course of these past few months, we've communicated mainly through e-mails. She's assigned menial projects that I work on from home, which haven't amounted to anything more than internet research. She finally assigned me to help her with something I've been wanting to do for quite some time; we'll see how that turns out.

 

If I had known this job would turn out this way, I would have never gone for it. I don't think you can have a more unstructured arrangement than this. I'm still waiting for her to give me an actual job description, which she has yet to do. Nothing with this job seems stable (I never know when I'll get paid.) The fact that it took her almost 2.5 months to get back to me after I applied for the position should have signaled a red flag, but I was oblivious to it at the time.

 

Anyways, I've realized that she hasn't been giving me enough work lately to even reach 10 weekly hours. Our original agreement was that I'd work 15 hours per week at the stated hourly rate; subsequently, she'd increase the hours to 20 after the first month.

 

It started off that way but lately my hours have taken a considerable dip.

 

Would I be justified in asking for a rate adjustment that would compensate for this reduction in weekly hours? She obviously hasn't stuck to our initial agreement, so why not?

[Double J]

Needed to bump this up.

 

Any comments/feedback?

[pianoguy]

Was your agreement oral or is it written down?

 

You can ask for anything you want, but she's not obligated to give you anything unless it's in the contract. With that in mind, I would demand the hours that you were promised first rather than a rate adjustment.

 

I take it you are paid hourly- you might try renegotiating so that you have salary, whereby your pay isn't dependent on hours.

 

You should also begin looking for another job. I would try to arrange a meeting with your boss and discuss how the job is not what you were originally anticipating.

[Caldus]

Lots of job settings out there are very unstructured. The fact is, many people in the business people just don't care. They come to work just to put in the hours and get paid and then go. They don't care how they are affecting other coworkers' experiences or if they are really doing anything with themselves for the company. This seems to be the case for almost every job setting I have ever been in in the past. I am one of those people who goes out of their way to fix problems, but unfortunately because of the nature of the program I work on, I am not really allowed to do even that a lot of the times (classified work is the reason).

 

The exception would be my last job, where there was more structure and where everyone seemed to be more motivated and gave me interesting assignments, but I think the motivation stemmed from having to be meet very tight deadlines (although they liked the job I'm sure, I know I did).

 

So I guess my point Double J is this ... there are going to be a lot of jobs out there that will most likely be the same (if not similar) as the one you are going through right now. If you are looking for more hours, why aren't you looking for a full time job? Are you still going to school or something? As far as the interesting assignments issue, you've just been assigned to something that seems more interesting to you. So what's the problem? Wait it out first.

 

Another thing too is this ... a lot of entry level jobs (or for any job during the first few months), things are going to be slow. It's just the way it is. It took a whole month before I even had a real desk to sit in. It took two weeks to even get a phone. It took two months to even get a real job assignment. It's just the way it is and you have to be patient unfortunately. Like you, I am still dying to do more challenging and interesting work at my job and it's been close to four months now. But I know it is for certain reasons in my case that has nothing to do with the job itself but because I have to deal with security clearances, etc.

 

So I say hang in there and give it a chance. And like a previous poster said, if things aren't improving in a few weeks, then demand more hours first before more pay.