Why are Veeky Forums jobs/internships pay so fucking shite?

>Working on ground-breaking robotic medical device at SV startup
>Doing significant work using ROS, machining with my hands, PCB design
>Often have to work 65-70 hour weeks
>I'm getting paid $9 a fucking hour

Why is this allowed? Jimmy the fucking shift manager at mcdonalds makes twice what I do. Why is this allowed? I'm a mechanical engineering intern from Caltech. Can someone tell me why this is allowed?

I understand I am getting valuable experience, but what the fuck, why is my work worth $9 a fucking hour?

>Jimmy the fucking shift manager at mcdonalds makes twice what I do.
You are doing something meaningful and you have a future. Fuck off with your whining.

I understand, it's great, it's great - but there's a lot of shit I want to buy for myself (Vive compatible PC + Vive so I can do my own development w. unity) and I physically cannot buy SHIT because I get paid rent+food essentially.

>Vive compatible PC + Vive so I can do my own development w. unity
You're doing robotics in SV and you want to jump on the meme development wave with a $2000 pc and $600 meme-o-vision with memewands? Don't be an early adopter, user. VR will be MUCH better in two years, when you have income.

Personal interest dude, I just want to waifu

>Mech e from Caltech
>not interning at JPL
Fraud detected

Either this is your first job or not only is it your first job but it is also an intern position. Also, funny how you mention 'shift manager' because that is actually more relevant than you think.

Right now there is a pyramid and you are at the bottom of it. When you observe the wages of people in the real world you notice one trend: the closer you are to the money, the higher you are paid.

In your case your work has nothing to do with money and all with the 'product'. Sure, you make the company some money and that is why they pay you back. But you have a manager or someone who supervises you and odds are that person is not only involved with the product but also with some of the money, when it comes to directing you and the other people at your level. He gets paid more than you because he is closer to the money

Then your manager has a manager and odds are that manager works only with making business deals and directly with money and as such he is the most important person for the company and will get paid more.

So just climb the ladder and get closer to the money and stop whining.

Why the shift manager at Mc Donald's makes more money than you? Well, unlike you, Jimmy makes business decisions and his business decisions have a much bigger impact on the daily income of the company than your actions.

Basically:
If the direct worker performs well then he maybe works faster, saving the company like 5 bucks.

If the manager performs well then resources will be allocated efficiently and the job will get done faster and better than expected, probably earning the company thousands of dollars a day.

If the manager of the manager does well, knows how to deal with people and has a good eye for business and gets the company more and better deals then that guy is literally keeping the company afloat.

Jimmy is making business decisions, you are not. Welcome to the real world.

I'm not a fucking genius like Stephen Hawking or some shit, but i make ~$11 an hour working in a research lab under a genius chemist (I myself am working on a PhD in biochemistry).
Somehow, society has brainwashed scientists into thinking that we are privileged to be given the opportunity to share knowledge with humanity. In reality, 98% of society couldn't come up with this shit scientists do on a daily basis. My only rationalization for this phenomenon is that scientists themselves just don't give a fuck. In no other field do you see this shit; knowledge and intelligence are treated as a high-value commodity in business, economics, entertainment, etc.. Yet in science intelligence, knowledge, and most aggravatingly innovative ideas are treated as the status quo unfit for proper reward.

Hey look, it's the
>my field is the most important field in the world and we should be paid more
post!

If your work directly made money for your organization then you'd be making much more of it yourself.

Literally get an industry job in chemistry and start producing value for a corporation that you can grow in and come to call your own.

Capitalism thinks it's totally allowed, my friend.

This is a small company of literally

>intern
Lel
It's called labour demand. Experienced labour is more in demand. Interns are two dimes a dozen. Be glad you're getting paid at all.

If you are a small company with millions in funding then odds are you have a parent company or a key investor giving you all that money.

The advice still holds, get closer to the money and work hard. If you are at a small company then your input will be more relevant and odds are you will have an easier time than average growing your own position.

Stop whining.

There is no growing, it's a 4 month internship.

>at SV startup
>significant work
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHA pppfffffffffft

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA

get fucked, 9 bucks is way too much for your timewasting bs

you should be happy getting anything at all, here in the Netherlands most internships you will get nothing, nothing at all. Not even lunch or travel expenses.

>paid internship
>whines

You don't know what misery is.

How is one supposed to live when working 70 hours a week and living on their own if i should be lucky im getting paid? What the fuck

The answer is always to get another job.

It kind of is in this case. He's right, scientists really shouldn't be putting up with this shit and should develop a sense of self worth and community that allows them to move above being beholden to the people who actually profit from their work. If a bunch of hicks can form labor unions than some of the most intelligent people the world could surely at least share that attitude. I've talked with software developers at a bank about how they can demand better working conditions because higher ups know that good programmers can jump shit to places that will give them the freedom they want.

Kek, that's exactly what businesses want you to think so that can work you even harder.

People like you are the reason we are paid this low.

Why the fuck did you take an offer that low? That lowers the value for all engineering interns and the company will offer the same or lower next year. This is why even fucking cleaners have more saved up by 22 than us.

>Fuck off with your whining.
You sound like my wife:
"If you were a REAL man, you'd let me push you around and bully you!"

>why is my work worth $9 a fucking hour?
Market forces.
No matter how much intrinsic value your work creates, as long as labor supply exceeds demand, you'll be getting fucked.

get a fleshlight

tfw being both jimmy the night shift manager and getting paid 35 an hour 40h/week for graduate research

life is grate

Because you probably look like one of these CAL physics dorks and they know you have no other business type choices. If you are normal you would be an intern at PIMCO or JP Morgan. So why pay you more - what other options do you have?

I got offered $30/hr to take a software internship where I basically dicked around at a computer all day. Did you even try to negotiate or look elsewhere?

>gets paid
>still whines
Nigga i have a friend that works as much as you and gets the zero as a paycheck.
Shut up

>I understand I am getting valuable experience, but what the fuck, why is my work worth $9 a fucking hour?
Because you agreed to it.

that gook girl on the far right makes the gooks at my shit tier ucsd look like los angeles models.

>labor unions with any power post reagan
good luck with that, also, some years I read how there were too many scientists for laboratories to accomodate in America, maybe try moving in NZ.

omfg, is this what people I will study with will look like?? I want to do engineering or physics, but fuck this is depressing D:

Then suck it up and just do the work and learn what you can. They gave you an offer that was too low, but you accepted it, so why would they offer you more?

>MechE
Hahahah do people still study that? ChemE just about to finish DE here, making $15.80 an hour in Florida.

That's why capitalism needs a kick in the pants if you want it to hand out some of the goods. e.g Unions.
But good luck unionizing asperger level techie types.

But good luck

Topkek, I made more than that when I came out of a 1 year drafting program. Lets see how many chemicals you can make without pipes, pressure vessels, and pumps :^)

Because you cannot create value yet.

If you could (and you knew you could), you woul've made a deal with this company to accomplish x in y months for z budget, and no $ less, because you did and regulary do so with other clients. Until then, embrace the suck.

You haven't earned your boots and you're whining? Maybe Engineering isn't for you. Be glad it's a paid internship. There's people out there who are doing that amount of hours for free.

>15.80 an hour

I only have a GED and work as someone who calls people who owe money because they signed a loan. I make 20 dollars an hour.