What's my job worth?

Day 579, 04:01 • Published in USA USA • by mjdiv

(Editor's Note: Original article was published Feb. '09, reprinted/edited for newer players).

Where should I work? The job that pays the most, of course - right?

Not necessarily.

There are more things to consider when applying for a job than simply what the pay is. Many people only apply for the highest paying jobs, but another important factor is the quality of the company. No matter what company you work for, you lose a certain amount of wellness every day you work. The higher the Q (number of stars) a company has, the higher the quality of products they make, but also more wellness reduced from the workers. For example, if you work for a Q1 company, you only lose 1 wellness each day you work. But if you work for a Q5 company, you lose 5 wellness each day. New players should only work for Q1 companies until their skills are enough that they can afford to buy higher quality food.

As a rule of thumb, you can subtract 2 USD (or 0.03 gold) x Q of company from your salary to determine what your true earnings are. For example, if you only know the pay of the company, which would you work for;

Company A: 20 USD/day.
Company B: 15 USD/day.

Most would say Company A. But let's look a little closer at these 2 companies:
Company A: 20 USD/day, a Q5 company.
Company B: 15 USD/day, a Q1 company.

Let's plug in the above formula to find out what your real "take home" pay would be:
Company A: 20 (pay) - (2 x 5 (Q5 company)) = 10 USD/day (true earnings).
Company B: 15 (pay) - (2 x 1 (Q1 company)) = 13 USD/day (true earnings).

As you can see, you would "take home" more pay working for the Q1 company after buying food to keep your wellness up.

There also are more benefits than meet the eye for many employers. Few employers base their wages on employees having high wellness, because they would lose money if they paid high wages to people with low wellness. Low wellness means low productivity. If you have high wellness, many employers won't mind paying you more! There are also many employers (such as myself) who reward their employees with bonuses for maintaining high wellness and just pay a regular wage to those who don't have high wellness. Some employers also have benefits of giving food or gifts to their employees. PM your employer and ask about these benefits that you won't see on the job listing page before you press the "quit" button or apply for that job. You may be surprised at the results you can accomplish just talking to your employer!

Before you go to work each day, look at the news! If there's a war game or an actual war going on with your country, then fight! Your employer doesn't mind if you fight before you go to work - trust me 😃. Working at 40% wellness, you only produce 40% of what your potential is. If you fight and go down to 30%, then use a hospital to heal (if you use a Q5 hospital), you'll be up to 80% wellness and be twice as productive - your employer will be happy! Also, higher wellness means more damage you will do in battle the next time! For more on maintaining high wellness, read Which Button Do I Press First?.

Remember, log in for at least 5 minutes EVERY DAY to hit the Work and Train buttons and buy food. If there's a war game or a real war, take another 5 minutes to fight so you can rank up and get high wellness. If you have high wellness and report to work each day, your employer will be glad to have you there. Have fun and enjoy another day in eRepublik!