Mouse writes,
I love your blog and several other HR blogs I read but I sure do wish there was something out there that focused more on the issues that face people who are applying for the minimum wage type gigs. Some of the advices that you, EHRL, and AAM give translates but a lot of it doesn’t.
I told Mouse that I really understand her perspective but I’m not sure that hourly people read career advice blogs. I think they’re too busy working or hustling for work. Mouse responds,
You’d be surprised how many hourly schomoes read blogs like this. Some of us are hourly admin, many made the transition from customer service (food and retail) to office work, many are seeking to do so. Almost all of the people I know in meatspace who look for blogs like this are hourly schmoes.
Okay, now I’m interested. Are you an hourly schmoe? Please identify yourself — and if you’re game, please tell me what you like about career blogs and what really sucks.
I come from a family where no one works in a cubicle. Most are hourly workers. Many are unemployed. I’m passionate about writing an interesting and relevant blog, so I want to represent your voices and interests.
Hit me up in the comments, please!
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Are you a “schmo” if you are hourly, and something else if you are not? Just asking.
I am a schmo, of sorts. I am a therapist who gets paid an hourly rate for face to face time with clients. I do not get paid for the time that I do paperwork, go to meetings, make phone calls and consult with colleagues about cases. All the extra stuff often takes more time than seeing the clients. And, in case you are wondering, the Hollywood myth about the therapist driving a Maserati is just that, a myth. Therapists generally make significantly less money than teachers.
Most of my clients (or their parents, since my clients are mostly children and adolescents) are hourly schmoes. They work their butts off, mostly for shit jobs with no benefits. They are feeling the economic crisis and the health care crisis every minute of their lives. Although the kids can get Medicaid, often their parents cannot. The children suffer immensely when their parents have health issues but do not get treatment because of no insurance.
If I hear one more conservative tell me that health care is not a right, you have to earn it, I will puke. No one can tell me that these schmoes are not “earning” it.
paralegals (the career I’m studying for right now) are supposed to be non-exempt hourly schmoes (YEAH BAYBEEEE! Overtime!)
I started subscribing to this blog sometime in December. At the time, I was working as a temp and as a cashier in a bookstore. Both were hourly. In July I quit the bookstore because the temping turned full time, and in September I got hired onto the place I was temping.
I subscribed to tons of career oriented blogs then, and had job listings coming into my google reader. It was madness. All while I was making 12.50 temping and 8.50 as a cashier.
Oh, and I liked career blogs because I felt like it was motivating me to the other side (aka salaried work). It helped me to look at those job postings and apply. I didn’t like how little of it applied to my position then, though. There are very few blogs (Waiter Rant is one that I can think of, and he no longer waits) that apply to the hourly work.
I also started subscribing to Not Always Right which is a blog that focuses on stupid things that customers say. To my knowledge, that’s as close as hourly people get.
i want to hear more about the meatspace.
I technically get paid as though I’m salaried, but I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be hourly. Either way, I found these kinds of blogs interesting long before I got my current job (as a Customer Service Rep/Agent at an insurance agency). I would agree that hourly people probably make up a large portion of your audience – whether it is because they are interested in moving into salaried positions and are looking for tips, or if it’s just because they find the topic interesting in general.
**Is the singular form schmoe or schmo? I think it’s schmo, but it looks so dumb so I’m using schmoe.***
@BZTat I’m pretty upset that you’re not driving a Maserati. Also, teachers are paid poorly so it’s sad that you are part of our healthcare system in America and you’re getting screwed. F–k those stupid people who say healthcare isn’t a right. PS — My friend, Jenn Barnes, writes a blog about being a CASA. You might like it — also, she has CATS. http://casagal.wordpress.com/
@Jenn Speak of the devil! Lawyers bill by the hour. Are they hourly schmoes, too?
@Used Yeah! Glad you read the blog when you were an hourly schmo. I have no idea how you can work two jobs and manage a Google reader! I’m glad this blog inspired you. So I’ve got inspiration going for Punk Rock HR. I wonder what else I can be doing?
@col Meatspace? I got your meatspace right here, baby. That’s my Jerz Shore voice.
@Becky Thanks for that insight. So we’ve got inspiration, a desire to move into salaried positions, and just general career advice. Hmmm… maybe a blog post on the difference between hourly v. salary, and why your company probably gets it wrong, is in my future.
I’ve at times been acutely aware that lots of what I write only applies to certain types of jobs. For me, it’s because I don’t feel nearly as equipped to advise on, say, retail or restaurant employment. For instance, I’m always telling people not to try to apply in person — but I don’t think that applies at all to those two industries.
I think Kerry at Clue Wagon has done a lot of hiring for hourly jobs, however, and may be a good place to look.
I come from a long line of “schmoes” – my parents didn’t finish high-school – they worked their asses off their entire lives to make sure their children were able to get an education. I completed graduate school and have managed to stay employed with a “reasonable” hourly wage. One of the things I’ve learned is that when it comes to work or career, our socialization and education systems just re-enforce conformity – our schools are essentially “schmoe factories.”
I follow career blogs because I don’t want to retire as a “schmoe.” And, I want my children to have a choice between entrepreneurship and being employed. It has to start somewhere.
My hourly hiring has been almost all related to either admin office positions or airlines (my most recent job was as head of HR for an airline that no longer exists). I’m qualified to tell people what I thought of candidates for those jobs…but not for retail, restaurant, etc. I’ve worked retail and restaurants, but as an hourly schmo myself, not as an HR person.
I think part of the reason there’s a lack of advice for people in those fields is because they don’t always have an HR person. The managers do the hiring in a lot of cases, and those managers are too busy managing to start blogs. It’s we desk-dwellers who start blogs, because we’re already sitting down in front of a computer most of the time anyway.
Mouse, you should start a blog. I’ve seen you around, and you’re funny, and clearly there’s a need for advice for hourly types.
I’ve always been an hourly schmo. I get that we’re talking “stages” of career/pay, but I can’t relate since I’ve no expeirence with it.
Beats the crap out of being salaried. My company has always paid everyone from the receptionist to the CEO on an hourly basis. We just think it’s the right thing to do.
I read this blog because I find Laurie’s postings so interesting in the grand scheme of things, not just in the career world. Also because her cat and my cat are Twitter Twins. I am not looking for a job, nor am I in the HR field. I do, however, find this blog inspiring as I move towards self employment and as I look back over my various employment experiences in the past.
@Laurie–WordPress’s spell check gigs me on schmoe, but not schmo, so I am thinking the latter may be correct. At least according to WordPress. So are you a schmo if you aren’t hourly? Oh, and if you can find a way to “monetize my awsomeness” I’d probably want a Toyota Truck instead of a Maserati, but I would settle for either!
@Allison I almost forgot that Amanda Hite @ http://talentrevolution.net is a good resource for hourly workers, too. Just because you’re a working schmo doesn’t mean that you can’t own your career. Amanda gets that.
@Joe It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?
@Kerry I agree. Mouse is a strong writer and funny as all getup. Her tweets are great, too. MOUSE YOU MUST BLOG.
@H.Aria I remember thinking that I wanted to be paid hourly — until I had to withhold my own taxes. Now I say, “I want to be paid hourly, and I want someone else to do the paperwork.”
@BZ Thank goodness Scrub & Brew are twitter twins. That’s the best thing to happen in my life in a very long time!
I’ve been a mostly hourly-schmoe my whole working career. For ten years I worked as an administrative assistant, or in some sort of administrative support role, and was salaried only once during that time.
After the last contract job, and during the whole “let’s move halfway back across the country for my husband’s job” adventure, I took the job I could find at the time, which is a minimum wage position in a pharmacy in what I have affectionately referred to as “East Jesus, Texas.” And yes, I hate it, but it’s a job. Sometimes you have to take what you have to take, especially when job markets in general for administrative positions are so tough.
I would wager when I finally enter the office world again, it will be as an hourly employee. In most of my experience, admins are not salaried except at very high levels. Again, just my experiences, your actual mileage may vary.
I read your blog for multiple reasons, mainly because it gives me perspective. How am I supposed to work for something better if I don’t understand the thought processes that get you there?
Are we using “hourly” as a euphemism for “low class” or “entry level” or describing a pay practice (non-exempt)? The classic “salary” position: you get paid $X/month and get the job done, and we don’t care how many hours or days you happen to spend doing it; is on the way out. Many traditionally “exempt” jobs are looking a lot more like traditional assembly line “non-exempt”: time recording, rigid controls on behavior, plethora of rules about vacation, sick time, etc. without the benefit of OT. And as a result, folks are kicking back (not much, because in these times, any job is a good job).. Is time spent on that crackberry at 2AM compensable? Is someone doing software development really “admin, mgr, or prof”, or is it just a 21st century version of chasing the shuttle and fixing broken threads in a power loom.
@KellyO Thank you, that’s awesome. I’m glad you read my blog because you contribute so much. I really do appreciate it because your insight is so pitch perfect!
@Jim I’m using hourly worker as a euphemism for someone who is paid hourly. All good existential questions, my friend.
I’m an hourly HR schmoe. I don’t have cubicle because I tore the walls down. The crap part of it is the two other people in my department who do the exact same thing I do are salary. I don’t get it. And that is just one reason why I read your blog : )
I’m a salaried joe schmoe. That means I get the key to the executive crapper. Woo-freaking-Hoo!!
I do blog just not about this. I have a catchall absolutely no focus blog (blogging no-nos 101 FTW). Although you guys are making me think I should. I’ve never been a hiring manager, but I have advised a manager or two in the restaurant world when I was a shift leader so I guess I might have some insight.
I’m job hunting myself (my experiment in self employment seems to have run it’s course) and hoping to NOT go back to food service but at this point it’s whomever hires me first (hit all the local fast food restaurants yesterday, they were all out of applications). So if nothing else, I’ve collected a crapload of hilarious job ads from Sacramento Craigslist.
Fair warning though, when if/when I get something up and running, I’ll be harassing you guys.
MOUSE WE WILL BE YOUR BIGGEST CHAMPIONS! DO IT!
I’m an hourly schmo and will be probably for some time. I’m also in HR which is why I read career blogs religiously. I like to keep up with trends and feel like I’m not alone. I’m also technically an HR Generalist but my company is uber sensative about Exempt vs Non-Exempt so almost everyone is Non-Exempt.
I think you’d be surprised how many hourly schmoe’s there are out there reading career and HR blogs.