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I am young and do not have any knowledge of appropriate technical writing rates or contracts.
I have been working for the last year overseas for an aircraft manufacturer correcting the grammatical errors and attempting to sort out their engineering descriptions of the various aircraft systems. I like to think that my engineering technology degree is being put to use and that just any technical writer could not do the work. (Please humor me).
They wanted me to stay for another year at the same terms ($43,000/year + a place to live and bills + medical insurance). My new wife (Dec. 28, 2002) and I want to be together at least some of this first year of marriage. So I am going home to Texas.
We have negotiated that the job can be done remotely over the Internet. Their proposal is that they take my current salary and divide it in half (since it is now a part time position) and then divide it by the estimated number of pages of text (excluding tables and images) to come up with a rate of $13.64 per page. However, the quantity of work will not change and I am disagreeing with the cutting the salary in half part of the deal. They are choking on $27.28 per page.
Another factor: There is no schedule for periodic arrival of the documents; they will hit all at once when they come.
Again I am young and do not have much experience with contracts. Example: Last year I was verbally assured that the company car would be available for my use while I was here in the Czech Republic. The one time I needed to borrow the car I was told that it was not part of my contract and did not get to use the company car to pick my new mother-in-law up at the airport (public transportation in the Czech Republic is not that bad, just tiring with luggage after a long flight for a lady with bad knees).
So, the questions:
Can anyone help me with a sample contract for technical writing?
Can anyone help me with what salary or rate per page or per hour?
Thank you for your time, consideration and patients,
Carlton E. Daugherty
carltondaugherty -at- academicplanet -dot- com
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