Last week I was listening to a podcast where the hosts were talking about how much of a taboo it is to openly discuss your salary. They spent the episode making some really interesting points about the secrecy and shame associated with money, but one thing I found interesting is that neither of them took the leap to disclose how much they earn. This isn’t a criticism. For all I know, they could be really open about their income with those they know in person. But it got me thinking about how few conversations we see online about income and career progression. Sure, people talk about it, people scream “we need to talk about money!” from the top of their lungs but few people say “this is exactly how much I have earned throughout my career.”
Now that I’m no longer in full-time employment, I figured I’d do just that. I’ve also taken this opportunity to talk about the obstacles I’ve encountered throughout my career and my struggle to progress as an employee. I’ve tried to keep this piece balanced and have deliberately withheld any scandal or drama. As much as I’d love to air some of the shadiness I’ve experienced over the years, I also want an easy life and don’t want to be sued for defamation.
I hope you find this in some way interesting or helpful. If you’d like to slide into my DMs to tell me your salary (particularly helpful if you work in digital marketing or the media) that would be incredible. You can email me on jennisarahhill@gmail.com.
Paper round
£5 – £13 a week on average
At 13, I got myself a weekly paper round. I’m pretty sure I delivered around 100 papers a week. If I remember correctly, I earned between £5 – £13 a week, depending on how many promotional leaflets I had to put in each paper. I’d occasionally cover the paper rounds of friends who were on holiday, potentially doubling the amount I made.
I hated putting the leaflets in and I despised delivering the papers but Jesus Christ if I could have a paper round now, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d need more than £13 a week, mind you.
Every Christmas, my mum would buy me hundreds of cheap Christmas cards and we’d sit in front of the TV writing “Happy Christmas, from Jenni the paper girl!” in each one. I’d then knock on each door, hand the person a newspaper and a card, and I’d usually get a tip. Tips ranged from a single Werther’s Original placed in the palm of my hand to a tenner.
Checkout assistant @ supermarket
A little over minimum wage
Oh boy. Working in retail for seven years was a character building experience.
At the age of 16, I got a job as a checkout assistant in a supermarket. I’ve managed to dig up some old payslips and it seems I earned about £4.12 an hour to begin with. When I turned 18 it went up to £6.08 an hour. Sundays were the best day to work because I’d get time-and-a-half.
I mostly hated the job but every so often I’d be given more responsibility. The pay stayed the same, of course.
First I was ‘promoted’ to the self-checkouts. This was mint because it meant I could go and take a piss without having to raise my hand and ask for permission like a 12-year-old in a Geography lesson.
Next I was moved onto the cigarette kiosk and after that the customer service desk. Working on the kiosk on a Saturday night was my favourite because I was basically getting paid to read magazines and chat to my pals about who’d snogged who on the latest work night out. The customer service desk had its perks too. When they offered me the job, I was like: “Me? You trust me to solve people’s problems?” As it turned out, I was pretty good at solving people’s problems and it’s a damn shame I wasn’t paid more for it.
Writer and social media assistant @ online retailer
Minimum wage
In May 2013, at the age of 22, I landed a minimum wage job working for an online retailer. Basically, the place sold pet and reptile supplies and it was my job to write blog posts for the website and manage the social media accounts.
On the first day, my manager introduced me to the company’s Facebook page. He said: “If I had to sum our customers up, they’re a bunch of nerds. Imagine the comic book guy in The Simpsons and you’re sorted.”
One of my first Facebook posts saw me making up a Jeremy Kyle-inspired story about a colleague’s pet snake, Betty. Betty had laid five eggs but it wasn’t clear who the father was. A ‘paternity test’ revealed the father was a snake called Pete, but it later transpired that Pete had become a father once again – this time with Penelope from next door. The people loved it.
Pay rise – £16,000 a year
After three months in the job, the boss bumped my pay up to £16,000 a year and said he was really impressed with the work I’d been doing. I loved the job, had the freedom to be creative, and I felt trusted to do great work.
As time went on, my role became more and more varied and I learned far more in this job than I appreciated at the time.
Content Editor – £18,000 a year
In early 2014, my manager left the company. We’d become good friends and I was sad to see him go. I think the boss thought there was a risk I’d be next out the door so he increased my pay to £18,000 on the understanding that I’d take on aspects of my manager’s role.
I knew my manager had been earning £24,000, but I didn’t think I deserved as much as him because I was younger and had less experience. In hindsight, I absolutely deserved £24,000 because I was doing an amazing job and was one of the only people in that company who hadn’t yet had all their passion and enthusiasm drained out of them.
After a while, a new guy joined the company as my new manager. He and I didn’t get on at all and he’s one of the main reasons I decided to leave. I’d briefly dated a guy who worked for a trendy marketing agency in the city centre and the way he talked about it made it sound so much more exciting than where I worked. I wanted a piece of the action so I started sending speculative emails to agencies in the hope of getting a new job.
SEO copywriter @ advertising agency
£18,000 a year
For the uninitiated, SEO stands for search marketing optimisation. Basically, it involves optimising websites so that they rank as highly as possible in search engines. An SEO copywriter writes blog posts for businesses with SEO in mind.
A few weeks before I turned 24, I went for an interview at an advertising agency in the centre of Manchester. When the interviewer asked how much my boss at the time was paying me, I immediately told him the figure. He offered me the same amount and I took it. It didn’t cross my mind that I could negotiate and I figured if I worked really hard, I’d get a pay rise in future anyway.
The office looked like one of your cliche startups with astroturf and picnic benches in the break room. We had free beers on Friday afternoons and the company organised regular social events. It was a nice place to work but I quickly grew tired of my role and each day passed by so slowly.
I missed the freedom I had in my previous job and didn’t feel like I could be as creative. My work was heavily edited by my manager and this really dented my confidence. Sometimes the clients would edit my work too. One client left my manager a scathing note that said: “Please tell your copywriter to read Eats, Shoots and Leaves. She could do with improving her grammar!” I laughed at her suggestion before going home that evening and ordering the book off Amazon. I decided I was a shit writer and should probably get a job doing something else.
In hindsight, I’m grateful for this job because it really helped me improve as a writer. The downside is that it made me so scared of making mistakes that still to this day I spend too long trying to perfect pieces that are already good enough to go live.
SEO executive @ SEO agency
£20,000 a year
My next job was as an SEO executive at a much smaller agency. When I first started, there were only seven of us in total. While my previous job just involved writing 24/7, I was told this job would be much more varied and I’d be doing more technical elements of SEO as well as writing the occasional blog post.
Within days of starting the job, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. I’d jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I hated every second of it and I struggled to get the results my bosses wanted. My colleagues and I didn’t really get along and my only friend in the company got fired after a couple of months. He’d been finding the job difficult too and I knew that if I didn’t get out quickly, I’d be the next one for the chop. I’d suffered from migraines since I was 20 and the stress of this job made them worse. I worried so much about getting a migraine that the worry would cause a migraine and make it even harder to do my work. It was a vicious cycle.
The only thing I was good at in this job was writing blog posts. My boss said: “They’re great but you’ve got to write them faster. Susie writes each of hers in under half an hour.” Susie’s blog posts were shit and riddled with spelling mistakes but I decided to keep that observation to myself.
One Monday morning in January, I handed in my notice. After a week of silent treatment from the directors and my colleagues, I packed my things away. No one got out their seat to say goodbye to me or even look me in the eye. I remember walking towards the door and looking back to see them all still staring at their screens. I’d somehow survived four months in the job.
I was proud that I’d made such a bold decision and I felt like the most badass woman in the world, even though I was now unemployed and didn’t have the first idea what to do next.
Content executive @ digital marketing agency
£23,000 a year
After leaving the job as an SEO executive, I spent six weeks freelancing, blogging and being a lady of leisure, before landing a job as a content executive at another agency. Content executive is pretty much another way of saying ‘writer’.
I’d applied to work at this company three times in the past. I’d had a phone interview and two face-to-face interviews but had never been successful. So when I received an email from one of the managers to say they had a writing role available, I was delighted.
I loved the company from the beginning and my migraines became a thing of the past. Working hours were flexible, I had the freedom to come up with my own ideas, and I felt like a good writer again!
I became good friends with several of my colleagues, we’d go to the pub every Friday and I felt a real sense of community and belonging.
After a while, I started to long for more responsibility and more money, so I began doing extra work to try and catch the attention of more senior members of staff. But no matter what I tried, nothing seemed to work and I just couldn’t progress. I spent a lot of time doubting myself and my abilities and wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I’m not claiming to have been perfect and I certainly had my weaknesses, but I was conscientious, passionate and worked hard.
I’d pretty much lost all hope and tried to accept I’d probably be a content executive forever. But then at the start of this year, after three years with the company, I was offered a promotion.
Promoted to communications manager – £28,000 a year
With a fancy new job title and a £5,000 pay rise under my belt, I was really excited to come up with PR campaigns to promote the company I worked for and our clients.
The excitement soon died down when I realised my employers and I had different ideas as to what the role would entail.
My job still involved writing blog posts but this time I had the responsibility of scheduling social media posts too. I was fine with these tasks being part of my role but it left little time for all the planning and strategy that I believed should make up the bulk of my job. I sometimes felt more like a social and content executive rather than a communications manager.
A friend suggested I look for a job elsewhere. “You could go for a Head of Communications role,” she said. I laughed at the suggestion because I didn’t feel like I had enough to show for the time I’d spent as a comms manager.
When I learned that my job was at risk of redundancy, I figured it was probably time to give up and leave. I’d felt so passionate about the company and I really wanted to grow with it, but I couldn’t see a way to fix things. I read an article that said ‘you might love your job, but it doesn’t love you back,’ and that really resonated with me. I’d done the best I could.
I still feel sad about the whole thing. I still have a lot of self-doubt. I worry that I’ll never be as happy in future jobs as I was in my most recent one. But no job is perfect and I think the positive aspects of my job had me overlooking the negative aspects. Although this job didn’t lead to sleepless nights, panic attacks and migraines like the last one did, it still wasn’t right for me.
Why have I written this?
I guess I’ve written this because when it comes to careers, we tend to only see other people’s highlight reel. We see the promotions on LinkedIn, the birthday bottles of wine on Instagram, and the Christmas party piss-up photos on Facebook. We assume everyone else is killing it in their careers. We assume everyone else is fucking loaded. Maybe a lot of people are smashing targets and raking in the money, but I’ve found it really hard. A few days ago, a lass on Instagram assumed I was earning enough to be in a high tax bracket. I think that says it all.
I’d love it if we could have more open and honest conversations about the companies we work for but I appreciate this is hard to do. Even as I write this post, I’ve glossed over the worst bits of previous jobs because badmouthing old employers and old managers is a surefire way to come across as bitter and unprofessional.
I’m also aware that this is just my side of the story. If you asked my old boss what he thought of my work as an SEO Executive, he’d probably say I was a useless **** and dya know what? I’m not gonna lie, I was rubbish at what he wanted me to do. When I left that job, I spent weeks wondering whether I was cut out for the world of work at all. How did I keep coming up against all these obstacles while everyone else seemed to be sailing through their careers?
When we struggle at work or we fail at work or no matter how hard we try our employers just don’t get us, I think it’s easy for this to cloud our sense of self and leave us feeling inadequate.
We bend over backwards in an attempt to shape ourselves into what employers want us to be, but this will always be a very one-sided affair. How willing are business owners to shape company culture to suit members of staff? How willing are they to make changes that improve our working lives and enable us to progress? Of course, it’s impossible for employers to please everyone, but I think workers are repeatedly expected to fix issues outside of their control or put up with problems they’re well within their rights to complain about.
If you’re having a hard time at work, maybe it’s not you that needs to change.
