14th March 2007, 06:09 PM
I take issue with illuminated's less than illuminated comments.
I am in charge of an archaeology unit. After graduating, I spent four years' digging itinerantly (earning, in my first job, £30 a week cash in hand); for the first couple of years this was discontinuous and much dole-interrupted employment (in those days UB for under-25s was £25 per week). This period as 'fieldworker' or 'site assistant' was followed by five years gradually climbing the slippery pole of archaeological career structure from supervisor to project officer, then eventually to my present role. In my present job I am paid much less than the BAJR recommended minimum for G7, I have to work 10 or 12 hours a day and many evenings and weekends, and have no pension. When I took this job, seven years ago, the salary was less than the current BAJR minimum for G4.
I don't want to start a Pythonesque cardboard box mill worker type of discussion but I am not alone in being in this situation, and to hear some ill-informed comment about 'pension grabbing high earning' senior managers who know nothing about fieldwork is quite frankly very irritating.
Incidentally I have yet to find any wine drinkable at £2.10. Obviously as senior management I exist purely on a diet of caviar and Chateau Lafitte so I wouldn't know about the bottom shelf at ASDA.
I am in charge of an archaeology unit. After graduating, I spent four years' digging itinerantly (earning, in my first job, £30 a week cash in hand); for the first couple of years this was discontinuous and much dole-interrupted employment (in those days UB for under-25s was £25 per week). This period as 'fieldworker' or 'site assistant' was followed by five years gradually climbing the slippery pole of archaeological career structure from supervisor to project officer, then eventually to my present role. In my present job I am paid much less than the BAJR recommended minimum for G7, I have to work 10 or 12 hours a day and many evenings and weekends, and have no pension. When I took this job, seven years ago, the salary was less than the current BAJR minimum for G4.
I don't want to start a Pythonesque cardboard box mill worker type of discussion but I am not alone in being in this situation, and to hear some ill-informed comment about 'pension grabbing high earning' senior managers who know nothing about fieldwork is quite frankly very irritating.
Incidentally I have yet to find any wine drinkable at £2.10. Obviously as senior management I exist purely on a diet of caviar and Chateau Lafitte so I wouldn't know about the bottom shelf at ASDA.