Well I found something particularly interesting to burn on today. I am registered with a number of legal temp agencies in the greater Boston area, and I decided to give another one a shot this morning. After spending nearly $50.00 to fill my tank and park, I was told by a girl who seems at least a couple of years younger than me that my time as a licensed Massachusetts attorney is only worth $17.00 an hour. Now I never set out to make my millions practicing law. If you can believe it, I genuinely engaged the legal profession to help others. True story. But, with 180k in student loan debt, and factoring in commutation and living expenses, how can I possible manage to survive on $17.00 an hour? I was in all actuality making $15.00 an hour prior to starting college, and I would gladly take the $2.00 an hour pay cut now save the 180k in debt.
For those of you who can't be bothered with math, $17.00 an hour translates into almost 33k a year. Factor in paying for your own health insurance, and you have a whole lot less. Now to be fair, I was told by the nice girl I spoke with that these "entry level" review positions translate into good experience and often serve as entrées to better paying positions either through the agency or elsewhere in the private sector. While that may be true, this kind of exploitation gives "entry level" a whole new meaning. Now I will stop just shy of calling this attorney sweatshop labor, but I will, however, say that I have been starving as a student and digging myself into a massive hole for seven years. Isn't that enough suffering?
Out of all this there is a hint of silver lining. I managed to find out that temp positions are coming back after being entirely stagnant for the past year or so. Furthermore, this is usually a precursor to recovery. That piece of mind may have been worth my $50.00. However far off better times may be, we will though have to struggle with irreparably weakened wages. I should stress boys and girls, as much as it pains me to say it, that we are commodities. And, right now there are so many of us out of work, it makes GM's lots seem empty by comparison. Hopefully this 0% APR on our efforts won't last all that long...
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