The pay is on par with other entry-level/unskilled positions here, and the figures above are what they were advertising - I’m certain someone who was a good fit could easily negotiate upward. I know they also offer guaranteed raises at six months and a year, though to be fair, I’m not sure how much those would be.
> if it's like any farm I've ever worked at you'll be working at least twice as hard and twice as long
I called it a “farm”, but it’s definitely not what you’d normally think of when you hear the word. It’s some poultry houses and a couple of hay fields. The majority of the responsibilities for the job would be centered around making yourself available to check the birds multiple times per day.
Honestly… if I were single, I’d probably make a pitch to take the job while working remotely as a “day job.”
The experience that they have had trying to hire for the position at the comoens5 they are offering suggests that that is less true than you seem to think.
> I’d have to check, but as of last year our McDonalds was paying $14 / hour.
$14/hr is about $28k/year, which is $10k/year more than the cash pay of the job you are talking about. Sure, the house and allowed personal use of the truck adds some value, but especially for the house realistically less than the what the standalone rental value would be for the house otherwise, because the people taking a job paying $18k/year beyond rent wouldn't be renting a 3 bedroom farmhouse if it wasn't part of the compensation-in-lieu-of-wages of their job.
> Honestly… if I were single, I’d probably make a pitch to take the job while working remotely as a “day job.”
So, maybe their problem is advertising to people who need the pay of a primary job and not single remote-working tech workers looking for a side gig. (Certainly, the added value of the house would be less wasted on the latter group.)
Let's be generous and say room and board in a rural farmhouse and use of an old farm truck is worth an additional $1500, you would still make more money working 40 hours a week at my town's McDonalds, and if it's like any farm I've ever worked at you'll be working at least twice as hard and twice as long.
That's not a job, it's exploitation, right down to the "slave for use and maybe, if we decide, at some unspecified point you may get something nice from us!" sales pitch.