Salary tips : Work at Home Piece work

Hi, I have a question and I hope this is the right forum. I have an interview for tomorrow. It' s a work-at-home job (yes it' s a legit company) doing data entry. The job involves transferring info from hard copies to an online database.

All the woman on the phone told me was, that it' s 12 cents per "piece" (aka page), and that you must devote 30 hours a week to it.

I have researched the company, Harris Connect, and found them to be a group associated with educational institutions, creating alumni lists. I just have never heard of this whole "piece work" type of salary, and wonder how much I can expect to be paid. I' m guessing there has to be a minimum salary, by law. And while I' d rather work from home than commute, I also can' t afford to work for a pittance of say 5.15/hr.

So, does anyone have any insight/experience with either the company or the whole "piece work" situation? Somehow I don' t feel like driving 40 minutes, taking a typing test and having an interview, if I' m not going to be making any kind of living wage. I really need to know if I should bother going to the interview, or just cancelling.

This type of arrangement is not unusual. In a nutshell, you' re going to be paid for each "piece" of work you complete at the rate of 12 cents per page. Period. That' s all there is to it. You obligation is to devote 30 hours per week to the job and they' re going to pay you 12 cents per completed page. My bet is they have some idea of the number of pages that can be completed per hour, so there' s going to be some expectation on you to complete a minimum number of pages per hour, or per week. Obviously, the more pages you complete, the more you' ll earn.

Well that's the problem. I'm pretty sure it would have to be a set amount of papers per week. Otherwise they wouldn't just say it's exactly 30 hours per week. All they ask for is you to be able to type more than 65 words per minute. That doesn't exactly clue one in to how much time it would take to type each page.

Since you pick-up work once a week, it doesn't seem like you can do more. They just figure what the average person can get done, and that's it. If it takes you longer, you use more hours. If it takes you less time, the only thing you get "extra" of, is time. That doesn't work for me. Because I don't want to have to work a second job just to make ends meet.

This is all my assumptions of course. What I'm hoping is that someone who has done this kind of job can verify for sure. If they assume the average person can type 40 pages per hour, then that's only minimum wage. Not exactly a living wage.

If I were you, I' d go to the interview and ask some questions about what' s expected and how much reasonably efficient people earn doing this type of work. Guessing what the deal is just isn' t going to work at the moment. I think you own it to yourself to at least go to the interview.

Unless a "page" is 1 name, this is going to be a heck of a lot of work for a pretty small payout. Try printing out a standard sheet of paper with say 30 names and addresses and phones on it. Then see how long it would take you to type that into Word. Don' t worry about formatting since you' d be using some sort of database. Time it and see how long it would take you. If that' s what they mean by a "page", you' d have to do 50 of those an hour, every hour for 30 hours to make (before tax) $180. That' s a heck of a lot of typing.

You could make the same amount working minimum wage (or close to it) somewhere and get benefits (for a full time job), lunch, breaks, etc. and no carpel tunnel at the end either!

That's what I'm not sure of, what constitutes a page. As I said, it's a company that publishes Alumni directories for high schools and universities. So, 1 page may be like: Name, age, graduation date, and a small blurb about what the person is doing now. Theoretically, I guess 1 page could take less than a minute to type up, depending on the info included. Personally, I've never received an alumni questionaire from either my HS or College, so I don't know exactly how much detailed info is involved.

Try as I might to find information online, I have yet to come across any details, or anyone who has worked for Harris Connect, even though they're apparently a nationwide company. The rest of their advertised jobs seem to have fair compensation, so I would hope that would be the case here as well.

I think most data entry jobs, you're looking at 8-10 dollars an hour at least. But since this is work-at-home, I'm not sure what differences there could be. True that an employee would get to work from the comfort of their own home and not have to commute, nor have to dress-up, which lessens expenses. But at the same time, I would think it benefits the company not having to provide rented/owned space for data workers to occupy, much less paying for computer equipment, heat/ac, electricity, water/bathroom, break-room, etc.

So, where I could see it paying less because in gas money, wardrobe, commute time etc for the employee; there seem to be some definite benefits for the employer as well. I would hope as such, that they wouldn't nick-and-dime at-home workers.

Since there is a federal minimum wage, is there some kind of guarantee that this 'piece work' would pay at least some kind of minimum? I mean if it's say only 1000 pages a week, that averages out to $4.00 an hour, which is definitely far below the minimum wage. That couldn't be legal, could it?

I know that no one can provide 100% of the answers I'm seeking, I'm just hoping that someone has done a similar job and could tell me what to expect. I wish I'd had the time to ask about how many pages per week, but the woman on the phone was throwing so much info at me, I didn't get the chance. I know the best way would be to just show-up at the interview and ask.

But, for one thing, our weather is not going to be very good tomorrow, and the commute would be 40-45 minutes. Also, I can expect 1, if not 2, interviews, plus typing tests, etc. I'd rather not be wasting my time, much less my gas money heading out there tomorrow, if the job is not even going to provide a living wage. Would it be considered bad form if I happened to call up and ask what the pages-per-week would be? I'd love to have a decent-paying work-at-home job, but you know what they say about things that seem too good to be true. It kinda concerns me as well that I applied on thursday evening (online) and received a call friday morning, and they had plenty of time open for interviews the next business day. If this were such a great opportunity, wouldn't there be lots more interest than there seems to be?

The only one that can answer all this is the employer. You' re just going to have to ask them and ask to see a sample of what they would have you do. It could be that the pay will be less than minimum wage depending on how they hire you. If you' re not an "employee" but rather an independant contractor, minimum wage is not going to be an issue. Instead you' d be paid by the job or piece instead of by the hour.

Although it may not matter at this point, the only way you' re going to find the answers to the questions you have would be to go to the interview and ask! Since you won' t be a full-time employee, but working as an independent contractor, the federal minimum wage laws don' t apply. Since every college in the country puts out some kind of directory, or even multiple directories, how they get the raw information on a page is probably pretty standard. If you decided to go to the interview, I' m sure we' d all love to know how it went.

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Work at Home Piece work