Had a local accounting firm offer me a senior infrastructure management gig. Servers, network, storage, supporting 9 sites, backups, DR, whole thing. Sounded like normal IT grind, with plenty of long hours and nights/weekends. Plus act as 3rd level support. $30 ish K on salary. Let's say it was $30k even, and you only worked 2080 hours per year (51 weeks x 5 days x 8 hr). That's $14.42 per hour. At a more realistic 2550 hours, that's $11.76 per hour as you're salary. More you work, less you earn. Which sounds exactly like what Brad was offered.
First time in my life I did the "Thanks for applying, we'll be in touch" to someone offering me a job. I did ask them to repeat the number just be to sure. No one remotely qualified would take that job for that price. If someone did, it would only be to stay long enough to find a real job. Honestly, anyone accepting that salary should automatically disqualify them for the position. That's good but not stellar entry level help desk pay.
I never quite understood employers that wanted stellar employees for average wages. I'm quite mystified by wanting stellar or even ok employees for below market wages. I've only seen a handful of places that understood the concept of "If you want great people, you need to pay above market wages and not piss them off." Tended to be financial places, oddly enough.
Hell, the hours I worked at both the power plant and the water plant (as a skilled operator both places - so skilled-trade blue-collar stuff) ran 2500+ hours a year, at least, all of it rotating-12-hour-shiftwork. More, over the full course of each job. We were perpetually undermanned, though that was worse at the 3-people-per-shift water plant than at the 12+-people-per-shift power plant - even considering it was a dual unit plant, that's double the manning per shift, and someone could call in sick or take vacation on fairly short notice without it being a major issue. Still down 1-2 people most of the 8 years I was there. Water plant? We were down 1+ person in the 12-man Ops department for better than 5 years out of the 7 I was there; for more than 2 of those years, we were down THREE people (or an entire SHIFT) that had to be covered by people on their scheduled-off time. I figured it out shortly before I got my current job - by the time I hit my 7-year point, I'd gotten well over NINE years' working time on shift there.
And for that, the company practically CROWED about having brought us up to "industry-average" wages by the time I'd been there a year or two. While expecting industry-leading performance - and great morale, to boot!
They played games on the overtime-pay rules, as well, during the really bad snowstorm in... 2010? After the storm (which forced 2 Ops shifts (designated as "essential personnel" - we were required to come in regardless of what conditions might be like) to stay on site for THREE DAYS to keep the plant running without a glitch for the community, while the managers were snug at home the whole time), but before the paychecks were issued, they changed the rules so that we got paid a little over half of what the rules had stated at the time of the storm. Immediately after that pay period, they changed the rules back, as it affected their own pay if left in place. Strangely enough, Ops morale took a hit right around that time that it never really recovered from... It was like management just didn't give a damn about us, the department most directly responsible for the company having product to sell and make money off of.
There were people I worked with at both places who loved that crap, who soaked up all the overtime they could for as long as I knew them. One of the lead operators at the water plant practically was selfish about taking as much overtime as he could, though I have no idea how many hours that worked out to; he also took a ton of vacation. At the power plant, the overtime-hours leader was always John, one of the NRC-licensed operators. Overtime was apportioned by rotation (it was a union plant), but he NEVER turned it down, I think. I know that about two years before I left there, his overtime hour count for that year was 1100 hours. On top of 2200+ scheduled hours, and he saved an awful lot of vacation
