(no subject)

[wolffyluna]

So, people may remember me asking advice about whether to take a job at a [Food] company. I have an update! I am starting towards leaning towards not taking the job, just because a lot of my interactions have been throwing up what seems to me to be red flags

So, my last contact with the hiring manager was several weeks ago, and it was basically me saying "I'm interested in the job, but I want to see a contract before I absolutely say yes (read: please show me your hourly rates, number of hours you want me to work, and whether overtime is paid or not)"

Hiring Manager: "All good. I'm currently working with HR to get you a contract through [Main Company] because that will give you a better hourly rate, and I'll let you know when that happens."

Fast forward to this morning, and I get a surprise phonecall from a Mystery Company. I have to play a game of twenty questions to work out they are
calling on behalf of the food company. They want my email to send me the safety induction videos

...

I am surprised, and try and explain "...I was going to confirm whether I would take this job once I am shown the contract, why are you sending
me safety inductions?"

Them: "Oh, because you are a casual, you won't have a contract. Your pay will be about $X/hr."

So:

 a) this is how I find out I am a casual

b) through a random unexpected phonecall

c) where I am told what my salary rate will approximately be, from some random guy I don't know from Adam

And like, the several weeks of silence is weird, especially because this is a job they have a deadline to fill (it's for someone who is going on maternity leave). And it's even weirder that they are not proactively giving me my salary in writing.

I have no clue if my instincts are right here, but this seems to be a pile of weird communication problems, and I am double twitchy about basic information not being given proactively in writing. If it’s not in writing, it’s not real, and I am not taking salary information from a random over the phone.

Comments

[contrarianarchon]

That does indeed sound like a massive red flag, esp given the local labour-law incentive to class people as casual workers because casual workers have fewer rights.

~~The "must be in writing" thing is also very important but I feel more hypocritical about that because my current position was very hard to get details-in-writing about. Is unpaid internship though, so all I need out of them is a signature eventually on a piece of paper confirming that I did in fact work here for 8 weeks~~

There's also the intuition that all else being equal you don't want to work for wildly incompetent people who can't line up resources for your place of work, because they will be wildly incompetent and not line up resources for your place of work.

[chocochipbiscuit]

That info (especially their lack of followup and organization! No contract, nothing in writing!) gives me the mad heebie-jeebies!!! Hard pass from me too!

Congratulations on not walking into a potential shit storm!