I’ve registered for this forum because I’m trying to decide if I am just whiny, or if I am legitimately overworked/underpaid.
I’ve only been working creating for the web for about six-months, and so as a profession it is still very new to me-- so new that I am not even sure how my skill set is classified if I have to find another job doing what I am doing.
Where I am working:
Currently, I am working for a firm headed by a salesman who sells brochure-ware websites via the phone to a specific industry in the US, and pairs that with some “social media marketing” training for the clients. He is a great salesman and since starting with him six months ago I have done on the order of eighty 10-page websites for folks from CA and FL.
Mostly our sites operate on a templating framework that uses a PHP data file and customizing a set of images in photoshop.
My history:
While I have really only been working solely on websites since I started to work for this specific salesman, I have a long background in doing websites, doing one or two a year back into the 1990s. I have an MA (and most of a PhD) in English and have taught at several universities. Additionally, since starting to work at this place, I have learned enough PHP to implement our basic templating system and have gotten friendly enough with mysql to feel confident about installing/migrating the joomal, wordpress, and drupal sites I have occasionally had to create.
The history of the place:
When I started, there were three other people working in the production side: a professional programmer and two ladies with no real qualifications. Since then, these two folks left (on their own), and I have hired two more people who have some tech-support background and a kid out of college who can do just enough PS and html to make revisions to the websites. In late December, the programmer left, leaving me with finishing a Flash-based site and a couple of clients who need specific, non-template designs.
So, in addition to churning out template websites, overseeing these three staff members, hunting for another person with some graphic design skills, doing telephone email troubleshooting, I now have to press what tiny amount of Flash knowledge I have into service.
I am in BFE Texas, and I do this 40+hours a week (plus 5-7/wk hours spent on lynda.com) for 30K , on a 1099 (and have to be at work 8:30-5:30 and provide a computer and software).
I am almost to the point where I feel like I ought to simply fire the salesman, though, of course, he pays my paycheck.
So-- my question:
Is this a normal working situation?
If I had to find another job doing something similar, what would the job title be?
In your experience, are their generally opportunities in cities like Austin or San Antonio, TX where the work is less complex and the pay is better?
Should I just be grateful to have a job, as I don’t have the several years of experience that most of the jobs I have been looking at desire?
Sorry to write a novel on my first post, but I am kind of struggling and after a long career in the university, I can’t tell if it is just that my expectations are off a bit.