23rd February 2010, 04:45 PM
Quote Sith "Ask any engineer and they'll tell you that although they have a better career structure and prospects later on, they are still badly paid cannon fodder at the start."
My partner is an engineer, who started work after finishing uni with no "field experience" in engineering. His starting salary was ?10,000 more than I can expect to earn as a site assistant even with over two years experience, and thats assuming I have work all year round. While I can see that my university course was much less intense than his, his first promotion, and consequently a pay rise, came after less than two years of work, and he can expect annual pay rises on top of twice yearly bonus payments, for the foreseeable future, making what I can earn in archaeology look like small change, and my forecast earnings during my working life laughable.
Having said that, I've now been out of work since summer 2009, and am trying to get back out in the field. I've been temping in an office for the last few months on minimum wage, and I would be tempted to accept a job which paid less than my last archaeological job. However, the discussion here is if there should be any pay cuts at all, which would leave many site assistants struggling to live. I visited a mortgage advisor a few months ago, before I was laid off, who laughed at me when I told her I was an archaeologist. Guess I won't be buying a house anytime soon.
On the previous thread of health and safety, and how far site assistants are expected to go to get the job done, I have worked on sites before where we are expected to work in similar situations, and pressured if the supervisor wants the job done anyway. If you don't feel safe in any situation, do something about it. We all sign the Health and Safety sheet before starting a job, we all need to be aware of any dangers on site, and do something to make it safer. Feeling pushed into doing something without the safety of the situation being considered is always wrong.
My partner is an engineer, who started work after finishing uni with no "field experience" in engineering. His starting salary was ?10,000 more than I can expect to earn as a site assistant even with over two years experience, and thats assuming I have work all year round. While I can see that my university course was much less intense than his, his first promotion, and consequently a pay rise, came after less than two years of work, and he can expect annual pay rises on top of twice yearly bonus payments, for the foreseeable future, making what I can earn in archaeology look like small change, and my forecast earnings during my working life laughable.
Having said that, I've now been out of work since summer 2009, and am trying to get back out in the field. I've been temping in an office for the last few months on minimum wage, and I would be tempted to accept a job which paid less than my last archaeological job. However, the discussion here is if there should be any pay cuts at all, which would leave many site assistants struggling to live. I visited a mortgage advisor a few months ago, before I was laid off, who laughed at me when I told her I was an archaeologist. Guess I won't be buying a house anytime soon.
On the previous thread of health and safety, and how far site assistants are expected to go to get the job done, I have worked on sites before where we are expected to work in similar situations, and pressured if the supervisor wants the job done anyway. If you don't feel safe in any situation, do something about it. We all sign the Health and Safety sheet before starting a job, we all need to be aware of any dangers on site, and do something to make it safer. Feeling pushed into doing something without the safety of the situation being considered is always wrong.