'What Kind Of $7 Per Hour Hack Am I?'

Big, big thanks to Paul Peters, who blogged, Twittered, and commented his way into our heart, or at least our brainspace. See, Peters works for the same company that posted this job, doing much of the same stuff. Peters, a former investigative reporter stateside, wrote on his personal blog about what it's like to work in Argentina for what some called "slave wages:" Since coming to Buenos Aires, I took a shot at continuing to do investigative journalism, and got a fiction piece published. Both of these paid about $0. I tried to sell several freelance pieces (even one about the crazy-ass jobs expats do in Buenos Aires) but got nowhere. So I had to get something. I applied for, and considered taking writing jobs that paid $700 per month, which is good in Argentina. I got turned down. Eventually I came across my current job then, the one that pays the alleged "slave wage" of $7 per hour.technically, $7 per hour is almost half what I made for similar work in the U.S. But $7 per hour translates into $26.6 Argentine pesos per hour, and things are a hell of a lot cheaper here. I live in the nicest apartment I've ever lived in, and for the first time without roommates to share the rent burden. I can go out to nice restaurants, buy a decent bottle of wine, and afford to work only 35 hours per week. With no commuting. So it's decent money overseas, which is kind of the point. Better money than other jobs ($700 a month is about $3.50 an hour). And we're glad Peters enjoys his work and thinks he's being paid fairly. That's all good stuff. But it still disturbs us that companies think this is the way to profitable writing. Discounting greed, fairness, and other moral notions entirely, do companies think that paying expats $7 an hour is sustainable in a way that paying local people local wages isn't? It must be, or these ads wouldn't appear, but it's a disturbing trend. And despite his optimism, Peters closes his post with a gloomier tack: I didn't get into journalism to write keyworded posts about traveling tips. I loved doing investigative work, feeling like I was making a difference, writing things that really effected people's lives, all that. But the fact is, like a whole lot of people I know, I just needed a damn job.

Fishbowl

'What Kind Of $7 Per Hour Hack Am I?'

Rachel Kaufman

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Rachel Kaufman