Thursday, May 26, 2011

Summer Money Issues

I get paid ($450/week) for working in my lab over the summer. As you all know, I was hoping I'd be able to lead some tours as well, mostly for my own personal development. However, I've found out that I'm going to get paid for that as well, and there lies the problem... . I'm already working in my lab for forty hours, so any work I do outside that means that I'd be working overtime. The way it apparently works is that my lab and the tour guide people split the cost of the overtime. The tour guide people are happy with it, but my supervisor isn't and I feel a bit bad about it because he was there first as it were. Also, of course, my first priority this summer is to work in lab.

I'm not hugely concerned about the money/overtime, but still. My professor has offered to reduce my work-week in lab to 38 hours, but I don't really like that idea. Firstly, I think it makes it seem like I'm slacking off a bit (even though I'll actually be working for way more than 38 hours/week). Secondly, each tour is one hour and fifteen minutes, so that actually means that I'd only be able to do one tour and I'd be getting paid less overall (lab pays $11.25/hour apparently). Not a huge difference, but probably $100 or so over the summer.

I'm in touch with the tour guiding people trying to see if it's possible for me to do that on a volunteer basis or not be paid the overtime so fingers crossed for that! I'm just frustrated by this whole thing because it is my thing to sort out, but I feel like I'm hitting dead ends everywhere, I don't really care about getting paid for the tour guiding thing (obviously that would be nice, but that's not why I'm doing it and the pay isn't that incredible) and the whole getting paid aspect is appearing to add a lot of difficulty! Anyway, fingers crossed for being able to do the tour guiding thing on a volunteer basis!

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