Summer Job

[Zephyrman]

So I'm Irish, and I'm going on a j1 (summer work visa) to Boston next May.

I'm starting to look for a job, and was wondering what you guys recommend...

The situation is that I'll be working for nine weeks, and then spending about three to four weeks travelling down to New York and then across the country to San Francisco and Las Vegas. So as you can imagine, I need a job that I can make enough money to cover my living expenses for the first couple of months, and then my travelling and entertainment (Vegas) expenses for the last couple of weeks.

Now I don't know what the minimum wage is in America, I gather it's $9 or so? I saw a furniture removal job which is 60 hours a week at $10-11 dollars an hour. But I've heard that bartending jobs and some waitressing jobs can give as much as $200+ tips in a single night...is that accurate?

By next summer I'll have a BA Honours Accounting Degree (hopefully), so an office job isn't out of the question, I'm not sure they'd take me on for only nine weeks though.

What do you think of all this, any suggestions?

 

[JimBob]

I don't have many good suggestions, but I would like to point out that our minimum wage is nowhere near $9, it's actually $5.85.

Anyway, if you get a job bartending at a good place, then you can make more than $200 on a good night. Some nights will be slower, or people won't tip as well, so it is quite possible that you will make nowhere near that sometimes, but on nights with a lot of people, and most of them tip well, I think you can easily make 200 bucks a night.

 

[Frozen_Quinn]

Minimum wage in boston is $8.25.

it's different in every state.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Dude, take 2 jobs. Bartending you can pull off just working Friday and Saturday nights. If all goes well, that's a total of hopefully at least 500 bucks for those 6 hours of your life. And for the rest of the week, any regular 9 to 5 is decent, although I'd say 60 hours is way too much work, especially something thats actually phsyical. You don't want to risk straining your back before Vegas etc.

 

[QuickDraw]

60 hours a week really isn't that bad if you don't have any other large activities on the days you work. thats also 20 hours of overtime a week which means he'd be making an extra $120 a week on top of the $600.

are you staying with family or do you have to rent out a room somewhere? if its the latter i would get in as many hours a week as possible because, at least where i live, a flat can become pretty expensive if you don't have anyone sharing the bill with you.

 

[Zephyrman]

The sixty hours a week wouldn't bother me that much, since it's five twelve hour shifts from what I gather, so I still have two days a week completely free. And besides that, I'm used to both physical work and long hours from my part time job that I have at the minute, and I'm in good condition for any job that requires heavy lifting etc.

Oh, I don't know the situation with overtime either... The job ad didn't mention whether it was a flat rate or whether overtime was available...

The only reason I don't think your idea would work Aeroblacktyl is that I don't have any bartending experience, so I don't know if anyone would take me on for just two days a week or something like that. It's a good idea that I had thought of before, but just didn't think it'd work out. I'm going to be spamming out resumes in the next week or two though so you never know what'll happen I guess! Ideally I'll get a nice book-keeping job with twenty or thirty hours and then bar work too.

The reason I want to make a nice bit of money isn't to cover rent and such, but to have money to spend later on when I'm travelling. There's about seven of us in the group going, so we'll be getting a student flat or something like that, and hopefully the rent will be negligible between seven of us.

Thanks for the info about the minimum wage Frozen_Quinn!

 

[Sunday]

Best_job_ever is a footy umpire. IDK what the situation if like in Ireland but in Aus we're strapped for AFl umpires, and it payes redicioulas amounts of money. Obviously thats quite situational but its my 2 cents.

 

[QuickDraw]

i am almost positive that it is illegal in most states to not pay workers for overtime hours, which is any time worked over 40 hours. 7 ppl in a flat would be pretty damn crowded but it would definitely make rent next to nil.