Low Pay, High Expectations: Businesses taking advantage of desperate workers.
People, or should I say entrepreneurs, don't fear God. I am saying this because I fail to understand why an adult would give another adult a demanding job and say that they would only pay 13 dollars a month for it. I mean, do you think I can work for you from Monday to Saturday and receive only $13 a month?
Perhaps you still don't understand. You stated that I would receive 6 - 7 pieces of content to publish on Facebook at intervals. I understand you stressed that I will not be writing the content myself, but it will be sent to me.
Yeah, that's cool. Based on the description, I will publish all the content one after the other at 1 pm, 2:30 pm, 4 pm, 6 pm, 7 pm and 9 PM and the seventh at 12: 30 AM. I understand that this allows for maximum exposure of the content, ensuring the readers have the best possible chance to engage with it.
That's not even a problem. Had it been all I had to do was publish the content at those times, there would be no complaints. However, regardless of the fact that I agreed to do the job initially, I thought that waking up at exactly 12:30 AM would be impossible. Even so, I was still willing to give it a shot, but I knew it would be a major challenge to wake up at precisely 12:30 every night.
As you mentioned, most of your clients are out of the country, and their time zone differs from ours.
As I said earlier, publishing content wasn't a problem at all.
In addition to the job description you gave me earlier, you asked me to interact with other businesses on the page.
Did you not think that interacting would require a lot of my time? I'm concerned that my time would be better spent on other tasks. Is interacting with other businesses a requirement, or just something you suggest? How much time do you expect me to spend on it? These were questions I kept asking the man.
According to what you said, I would need to interact with other businesses on the page before and after publishing the content.
Consequently, if I am to publish a content by 1 PM I must start interacting for about 10-15 minutes before and after.
The same thing would happen for the rest of the day during those periods when I'm expected to publish content. I know it's a way to build a connection with the audience and gauge their interest in the content I'm about to publish.
The job is demanding as you see, yet you chose to pay me $13 at the end of the month, and you expect me to work 6 times in a week for that amount?
I wondered if they felt I was desperately needing a job and would accept whatever I got.
The truth is, desperate people are always ready to work with whatever is thrown at them. Desperate people are those who have no choice.
At first, I accepted the job despite the small amount of money the business owner intended to pay me.
In my mind, I felt I should just do it and take the job as a side hustle. The thought didn't last long because I couldn't continue the next day.
All the content and time tags were sent to me the day I resumed working at the company.
Even though I had other jobs I was handling aside from that, I still made sure to do all that I had to do.
As I was finishing up for the day, I expressed my concern about the job taking up so much time and the salary being so low. The job was demanding, so I guess they must have thought I was desperate for work.
I calculated the least amount I earn from Hive in a week. Based on my calculations and estimations, the least amount I earn on Hive in a week is 10 dollars.
In Naira, Nigeria's currency, that's about N7000 in a week.
Let's assume it's just N7000 I earn in a week. This means in four weeks which makes a month I earn roughly N30,000 from the Hive blockchain.
However, the fact remains that there are weeks I earn more than $10 a week.
Interestingly, sometimes I go a day or two without publishing a post on Hive.
Now tell me, if you were in my shoes, would you take a demanding job that requires your time from Monday - Saturday only to be paid something around $13 monthly?
At my last job, I was a gym instructor and my salary was N30000 for a month. It seemed manageable at first, but I soon realized it was not so. After some time, I realized that the salary was not nearly enough to cover my living expenses.
Out of N30,000, about N12,000 is used for my monthly transportation cost. I didn't even bother with money for lunch because, at that time, I had a target. I needed to save money for the apartment I needed to rent.
What became so annoying at that time was how the manager intentionally looked for something I didn't do correctly to deduct my salary.
I found it funny that during the first month of working for the company, there was nothing like a salary reduction. In a surprising turn, it began in the second month.
And I thought to myself, this salary they are paying isn't enough for me to feed myself in the first place. I am only managing. How then do they expect me to cope when they start reducing my salary?
Even though I had planned initially to keep the job for a year, I had to change my mind. And guess what? After my third month at the job, I left.
It is not right for entrepreneurs to use their employers and pay them chicken feed. I am currently working as an editor for a news site, where I work from Monday through Sunday. My salary is not high, but I am managing it. The amount I receive from Hive allows me to pay my bills and still do a few things for myself.
I'm grateful I am not at that point in my life where I have no choice. I am thankful that I am able to do more than just the bare minimum, and having Hive as a source of income is the key to that.
I know that with time, everything will get better and my finance will be more stable financially. That's the goal.
Finally, speaking of Hive, I hope the bear market ends soon.