Alright, here’s what’s gonna happen, I’m gonna start out with a story from my job, talk about minimum wage and why kids don’t work today, then end with a gripe.
Foreseeable consequences are not unintended.
So I was busing tables for my $1.50 an hour, you know just watering and cutting bread, when this kid, and when I say kid, I mean a guy who was 23 and had never had a job, who was simultaneously well groomed and unkempt walks in. I thought to myself, “Oh God, fine I’ll water you and cut, whatever.” So I continue on and water him and all that. He was rude to me and the server who I’m friends with so I didn’t like this kid, but fine again, whatever. So as the night picked up, I passed by his table a few times until eventually he drops this line on his parents, “As long as we have a middle class in america we can’t have equality.” Now I had to water and cut bread so I didn’t hear more. But this made me so angry that it almost ruined my night, a night which already had a lot going wrong recently.
Alright, story time’s over, now it’s time to talk about the minimum wage. Now this is already a loaded topic so I’m not going to step into what is so intricate about it, but instead I’ll cut right to the meat of my argument. It’s not the only reason why kids can’t get jobs now. Much of the refusal to hire kids is due to the following two reasons:
- Kids are now less willing to work and are thus less reliable workers who employers are willing to hire
- And kids provide a whole slew of issues, to the point where even if they are willing to work, they are not allowed to work in certain places
But let’s break both of these down. Amongst kids there is a lot of pressure to not only socialize, but also to play structured sports, to the point where they have no time to spare between homework and extracurriculars. The extracurriculars are mostly used by parents earlier in the kid’s life to signal their wealth. These extracurriculars tend to then continue later into the kid’s life until we have the current situation. But what about the liability issues? Well, they primarily start around the following two laws “kids under 16 may not work with food” and “kids under 16 may not handle cash.” I don’t know if these are federal or state, but it meant that until I was 16 I couldn’t get an actual job. There are also safety issues which mean that kids can’t be involved with heavier labor like landscaping unless they get expensive medical testing. This renders most jobs unavailable for kids.
Now onto the gripe. I don’t earn $1.50 an hour on my actual paycheck, instead it’s $5.50 an hour plus tips. But the payroll tax is so utterly fucked, to the point where out of every $5.50 I never see $4. That’s $4 which goes to the fedgov and not me. Fuck payroll and income taxes together. Anyway, y’all let me know if you have any stories of your own.
1983, the city I lived in had the highest unemployment in the US (for a city over 50K, IIRC). I got an afterschool job at a Ponderosa Steak House for $3.35/hr, and felt like I had won the lottery…second week on the job, one of the full timers has a temper tantrum, starts whipping things around the back room, and stomps out in a huff/gets fired.
I think he ended up living in his old beater car for a while. WTF do people think sometimes?
I worked for a few years as a dishwasher on weekends while I was in high school and college. This was for minimum wage in Virginia, which was $4.25/hr at the time. After several years without a raise, I asked my boss for one., He refused, saying that washing dishes was something anyone could do, and plenty of people were looking for work. I quit and tried to find other work, but had no skills beyond washing dishes, so finding even an entry level job sucked. I eventually swallowed my pride and went back to work washing dishes at the same place, but it sure motivated me to acquire a marketable skill when I wasn’t at work.
I worked in a kitchen when I was 14, so I figured the restriction on working with food is a state restriction rather than federal. Here are the federal regs on child enployment in food service. Looking through, younger children are allowed to work in food service, but they have a variety of restrictions. I’m guessing that, if there isn’t an applicable state reg, that employers didn’t want to deal with certifying to OSHA that you weren’t doing anything on the restricted list.
that employers didn’t want to deal with certifying to OSHA that you weren’t doing anything on the restricted list.
Ah yes, the good ole ‘guilty until proven innocent’ tactic of government regulation.
When my oldest got her first job in fast food, they paid her just above minimum wage, which is what her skills were worth. With her complete lack of experience and no skills, she did not deserve $15 an hour.
My first argument about minimum wage increases is that most people want to get what they pay for. Like, it’s ingrained in their psyche. So if they are forced to pay $15 an hour for a worker, that worker better be older and have experience and skills. Nobody is going to take a chance on a kid, or a disabled person, or a person on probation, for $15 an hour.
My second argument is that big KKKorporations can handle increases in expenses. Walmart, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc. have a lot of options to absorb those costs. But the little mom and pop cafe down the street doesn’t have those options. They will just close. So if you want fewer small businesses and more big ones, by all means, increase the minimum wage.
And the big stores have the resources to covert to more automated systems to provide services if the cost of human labor goes too high, so even they may well get rid of people while remaining in business.
Jimmy Johns is looking to automate more of their shit since the minimum wage hike in cities like Chicago.
Freaky fast.
“The Freaky Fast 1000 will replace store associates at selected (urban) locations”
And there goes my desire for a Gargantua. Thanks.
*downs remaining beer*
My favorite, predictable back-and-forth with min. wage is pretty much the same as with Obamacare:
“Minimum wage laws/the ACA insurance requirements hurt small businesses most because they’re the ones least able to afford compliance.”
“Well if they can’t give their workers a living wage/can’t give their workers access to health care they obviously aren’t good enough at business.”
“Wait, but I thought that corporations are evil? Now you’re saying that they’re better than local businesses because they can afford to pay workers well/give them benefits?”
At this point I either get spluttering, hemming and hawing, or some sort of an argument along the lines that large corporations are a necessary evil because it’s impossible to start small businesses anymore and therefore the government has to force corporations to take care of employees since they have no other employment choices. And they say that as if there’s a causal chain in that statement.
Oh yes. Remy had a song about that.
Working 1 to 5!
That’s why I purposefully use Walmart and the local coffee shop in my argument. All those big evil corporations get an advantage in the form of local competitors going out of business. Epic cognitive dissonance.
Of all the stupid tripe they spew the one about ‘not deserving to be in business’ riles me up the most.
The profound ignorance of this thinking is too much.
Gosh, mr. “I’m too busy with my AP Bio homework to walk the dog”, this is a nice, long rant.
I like your spirit.
Uh… Uh… Shut Up!!
Quick question. Listen to this and tell me if you like it.
When I first started looking for jobs I tried at the local K-Mart which was ‘hiring’, but was told not to bother to apply. I did anyway and never heard back.
Used my connections to get a min wage job in a not-quite daycare program during the summer. My next job was doing landscaping for the local parks, surprisingly stiff competition for any landscaping jobs in the private sector. It really sucks having no skills. Get to college or learn a trade kids.
YES.
If naught else, it will be something you can rely on, even if you do end up in college (might even help pay for college!). And, if it is something in building trades/repair/etc – you can use it to your own benefit instead of paying someone else.
Learn a trade.
I approve this message.
It isn’t for everyone, some people are better fit for college, but I think I would have potentially been better off going that route. But it is also looked down upon, my wife wouldn’t marry me until I got my Masters for example.
At the very least, I hope she sucked your dick till then
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
Yeah, that’s a massive, MASSIVE red flag. Why in God’s name would you have married her after that?!
Golden vagina?
(was that over the line?)
HERE?! You cannot even see the line yet.
Haha.
She’s from India, people without masters are destined to poverty, electricians, mechanics, etc. all live in shanty towns. On top of that her family would not have approved. To be honest it was really good for me and my career to get it anyway.
You’ll spend more time in becoming a journeyman Electrician than you will in medical school, and the pay is almost as good.
That being said having a woman who has high expectations for you can be a good thing.
^^This. I will never have to pay an electrician, ever again.
Bah, wires are just electricity pipes. I think most people don’t grasp the whole lock-out/tag-out philosophy though.
When I was 14 I got hired as help for my older brother’s catering business for $5 per hour cash. I even had a tux and having a job boosted my self esteem and my outlook on life. Seems like for all the complaints about jobs the ones that don’t have to have one (be it by birth or by government) are stunted and less happy then I(we) will ever be.
My first job (and only minimum wage post) was $5.15/hr as a desktop support Intern. I went around installing software patches before they automated that process.
You entitled shitlord you.
It was no more skilled than bussing tables or cutting grass.
What? My next job was on a call center making $12.32/hr calming down aggrieved Xerox employees who’d just spent forty-five minutes on the phone with the dumbest English-speakers in Mumbai.
I’m not a personable person, but it was a job requirement, so I still regard it as a mark of pride that I maintained a calm and reasonable tone with every caller at that job.
You mean you were a robot. I’m surprised.
There’s a difference between calm and robotic. Callers reached my phose agitated or angry, andif I couldn’t solve the issue they at least went away with a clear idea of what needed to happen next and confidence that it would get fixed.
Would you rather have the calm guy who gives you helpful, correct information – or the guy with an accent thick enough to stop artillery shells who got the job because he “speaks English” and is cheaper?
I never had a customer complaint or a negative review of work output.
If the last two paragraphs sound bitter, it’s only because they laid off the US desk. We cleared 3-5x as many tickets per agent per day than the Indian desk, and had a higher rate of both problem resolution and caller satisfaction – but we were the ones let go.
*hugs*
Before working at my current job, I used to be a shift manager for Jimmy Johns and while I didn’t necessarily see it as a long term career, it did teach me some valuable things about managing people and work ethic. One of the oddest things about being a shift manager was dealing with mine and the younger generation. The younger generation (usually right out of high school) were the ones who came in and busted their ass and took pride in their jobs despite getting paid minimum wage (and eventually a little more). They (mostly) never complained and would always work as much as possible to save money for the school year. The ones who were my age ( mid 20’s) where the worst fucking employees I’ve ever had, especially the ones with a college degree. I know that generalization isn’t very libertarian, so take my anecdotal views with a grain of salt.
The ones who were the same age as me would always complain and felt they were entitled to much more even though they accepted the job knowing damn well what the pay was and the requirements to perform the job. But yet a lot of them where angry which I sort understood. I mean think about it, you went to college being told that you would make all sorts of money but graduated (usually in debt) and have to work at a sandwich shop for minimum wage or something slightly above. Their anger towards the owner was stupid and fruitless because who they should really be angry at was themselves for not learning a skill that translated into having a comfortable existence, but their anger should also be directed at the school for not preparing them for the rigors of the world post-university.
In their distorted minds, raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars or more would rectify their decision to take on so much debt for a degree that isn’t very useful for them. But they never thing about the second order affects such as the owner cutting hours to make a profit and prices rising thus negating the effects of the artificial wage hike.
I mean think about it, you went to college being told that you would make all sorts of money but graduated (usually in debt) and have to work at a sandwich shop for minimum wage or something slightly above. Their anger towards the owner was stupid and fruitless because who they should really be angry at was themselves for not learning a skill that translated into having a comfortable existence, but their anger should also be directed at the school for not preparing them for the rigors of the world post-university.
Pretty much it in a nutshell, IMO. My college drop-out dad, who worked as a painter before starting a small painting business of his own, drilled into my head from as long as I have memories: go to college and get educated so you don’t have to work in the trades. Every other parent was telling their kids the same thing. I got a degree that was arguably a lot more practical than some, and while I graduated with a lot more knowledge than I started with (not all of which was totally useless), I didn’t have much more in the way of practical qualifications than I did when I finished high school to be perfectly honest. If I’d wanted to work a menial labor job for minimum wage with no prospects for advancement, I could have saved 20 grand and 4 years of my life and just done it when I was 18. (and let’s take a quick sidebar here to acknowledge that while there can be dignity in a shitty job, there is a 0% that you will advance beyond that level without a substantial investment in education and credentials, which is supposed to be what your college education as for in the first place). It’s a piss off when you find out that the advice you were inundated with during your entire formative years when you were too young and stupid to have possibly know any better by your parents, family, teachers, school counselors, pastors, TV, print media and the internet was mostly hokum.
As you say though, the anger is misdirected. It’s not Starbucks’ fault that you aren’t getting paid like a mid-career investment banker when you’re doing a job that a decently behaved chimp could do. The frustration is understandable, but not the direction of the blame. Opportunity cost is a cunt.
A lot of this should be on the student and their parents. True that the higher education scam is scummy, but a lot of people loaded themselves up with tuition debt and housing/dining fees, all the while not thinking about what their next step was going to be. They were grown ass adults and should have the capacity to plan.
Kill federal student loans with a knife to the jugular, and this problem evaporates.
Most 18 year olds are fucking retarded, and no where near grown ass adults. Hell, most of them go into college thinking they want to do one thing and come out with a completely different degree. That we expect them to graduate from high school knowing exactly what they want to do with their lives AND throw gobs of money at them to pursue that, is one of the more insane things we do as a society.
A friend is a VP at a big electric company, became a VP at 50. He interviews college graduates (STEM types) and most of them think they should be VP’s in ten years.
The naiivete isn’t bothersome, it’s the entitled attitude coupled with their belief that they AREN’T naiive that is bothersome.
Worry not. Hard work will get you a lot further and provide a lot more life satisfaction than almost anything else you can do in life. People who rant and rave about the Middle Class and become Champagne Socialists are empty, miserable husks. You have a lot to take pride in. Laziness is a depletion of the human spirit.
^^^
+1
My parents always try to instill in me the value of hard work. No matter where you are in life whether you’re a janitor, someone executive in a C-Suite, doctor, retail worker, etc, you work your ass off and do your best. If you can’t be excellent in at a job that pays minimum wage, you aren’t going to be excellent when you get a job that pays a lot more.
My brother taught me that when I was a teen. It’s like Hawkeye and Trapper did in the book M*A*S*H. When you start a new job, absolutely bust your ass off at first. Your employer will be impressed and will always think of you in those terms. Then, after a suitable amount of time, you can slow down a little bit and and enjoy yourself without it being noticed.
Off topic…..a guy on Reddit turned Bill Nye into a grease spot
What is this pbs.twimg link you guys have? I’m fire walled from it here.
It’s the public boadcasting system at time warner images, of course it’s blocked
/lying through my teeth.
twitter pictures….do regular twitter links work for you?
Nope, barred from social media here.
^^In same boat of blockage^^
You guys are missing out on everything. Those links are like Girls Gone Wild to the 9/11th power times a trillion.
Dang it, I’m going to have to alot some Glib time when I get off work. I’ll even be close to my bunk.
I’d love to see that whole thread. That was absolutely brutal and completely, entirely true.
Here is the AMA.
Ouch.
Not sure why he included this: “You are to science what Betsy DeVos is to education. Perhaps worse; your fraud has spanned decades. Hers only a few months.”
I noticed that too. Betsy DeVos never claimed that she was a teacher.
His critique is not that Bill nye is a buffoon who misrepresents the state of scientific knowledge. Rather he is arguing that Bill Nye lacks the qualifications to pontificate on science.
Which is stupid, since you don’t need credentials to do science or study it.
you don’t need credentials to do science or study it
Not necessarily, but in the absence of the credentials you should have at least a demonstrated depth of knowledge about a particular field of study, especially when it relies to a large extent on specialized knowledge. A non-expert is a non-expert.
The comparison was crowbarred in there so hard that it can only be seen as an attempt to signal to everyone that he’s not one of those icky conservative yokel critics, but simply a straight shooting lefty with integrity.
There’s also a bit too much focus on credentialism for my own liking.
It’s Reddit, where the fedora wearing weirdos think we’re always a week away from the socons establishing a theocracy and making them all go to church on Sunday. DeVos is typically run up as one of those evil Christfag theocrats in their circles.
What do you have against fedoras?
Because 90% of the time it either makes you look like a douchebag, or you are a douchebag?
I have never been hip or trendy, nor have I claimed to be. I have, however, worn a Fedora since the last two years of college.
Come to think of it, I should look about getting a new one, this one is getting a little battered.
This explains much.
I get it now. Your poor choice in fashion explains your poor choice in pizza
Only to people who draw weak assumptions based upon collective generalizations.
Or Canadians, who used up their memory on types of snow and poutine.
Conflicted on whether to join in mocking Canadians or the guy who wears a fedora
Stay out of this Say’n, we know your judgement is faulty.
http://www.borsalino.com/en/home
Fair. I can’t really argue with that
Pictured: UCS
Well, you certainly proved you aren’t a douchebag.
That’s not a fedora, that’s a trilby.
Here – this is the Exact hat model for all you overeager curiousity-seekers.
Titor – I post here. Under a handle that starts “Uncivil”.
I think that about says it all.
Linking to the picture of your hat did not help your case
Italian undertaker?
Nor does indicating you know the difference between a trilby and a fedora.
You know what hat needs a legitimate comeback? The Ascot. Perfectly good working man’s hat.
You go an run with that, Titor, I’d look awful in one.
Hats are stupid.
You just have to find the one that suits you, Brochetta.
I hated hats when the only kind available were what Canukistanis called ‘Touques’. Now I have something that keeps the sun, rain and snow off my head.
Good on ya UCS, that hat just spiced you up a bit.
I’m in the fedora club too. They’re just haters because they look stupid when they put one on. Only a real man can pull that off.
No, real men wear stetsons. Or military berets.
Straw boaters need to make a comeback.
I have all my hair – no need for a hat.
homburg or GTFO
I think he prefers ubuntus.
I thought Nye was busy hosting a tranny show these days. Is he still playing the science guy character?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtJFb_P2j48
My parents only let me have a job in the summer, “School is your job the rest of the year, get good grades.” So my first job between freshman and sophomore year of high school (15 years old, ~2003) was in a greenhouse. I made $5.50/hr and it seemed a pretty fair wage considering my job was a joy. Watering, transplanting, pruning, dead-heading, and some very basic clerking in the shop.
Occasionally we had a landscaping job where I made time and a half–$8.25/hr! Such riches!
Grow shop owner experience? You need a sales/product tester I’m your bacon.
I wish, bacon-magic, I wish. Maybe one day when the state gets its head out of its ass… I would love to do that for a living. To this day my two favorite jobs were working in a greenhouse and working in a coffee shop.
We can product test together! *high-five*
*high-tens*
You’re testing the product for free, I see.
And? Actually I’m sober all day at work. You haven’t experienced the inebriated bacon-magic yet.
“Cafe Amsterdam”
One of the most fun parts of my job is handing out product test samples to friends.
I’ll be your friend forevah and evah. You can call me George.
If you find yourself in Portland, hit me up. I’ll have you covered.
Illinois here. I’ll be your pen pal til then.
Same here, Whenever I’m working I’ll eat three tables worth of bread doused with red pepper. Also the staff dinners are one of the biggest perks of the job.
My dad was that way, too, but as we weren’t exactly flush with cash I persuaded him to let me work during the week when I was 15 in 1994. It wasn’t that hard a sell because he was definitely of the school that says hard work never killed anyone and it’s a lesson best learned young. The deal was that I could work anywhere that would hire me and spend my money on whatever I want provided that my grades didn’t suffer and I still kept up with my very modest household chores.
I wound up making $4.75 scooping ice cream downtown. Got to take home as much ice cream and toppings as I could fit in a pint container, the closing supervisor would get a six-pack from his friend bartending next door in exchange for a milkshake and split it with me, and I learned valuable lessons about nitrous oxide. Also made some useful connections in the LSD market.
To the OP’s point, I was making minimum wage at the time. Jobs like that are the very definition of unskilled labor, and they really don’t even benefit much from experience. At the time, there was a veritable army of teenagers who needed pocket money and weren’t going to get it from their parents, so small businesses operating on narrow profit margins, i.e. most of the businesses in my tourist trap town, were able to find staff and survive. The kids got experience being an adult, ideally a decent reference, and some decent money to show for it. The business owners got affordable staff, letting them price gew-gaws and crapola at prices that would attract buyers while still being able to afford the exorbitant rents charged by the city.
Now, if you jack the minimum wage up to $15, as was just recently defeated here, you don’t even get the robots took our jerbs scenario because none of the businesses paying minimum wage can afford that. What you get is a business environment where only large chains or upscale, pricey retail and restaurants can survive. They don’t hire the people that the minimum wage is allegedly supposed to help.
My parents in 1975: “Study hard and get good grades so you don’t have to work shitty menial jobs. And you’re paying rent when you turn 18 – unless you’re going to college. And we’re not paying a dime for you to go to college.”
From what I understand, this was pretty much how all schools operated prior to WWII – nearly every 8th grader assumed this very same thing without having to be told. Then school guidance counselors came along and destroyed all guidance.
My folks left it up to me to figure out how I’m going to finance my adult life, and they made sure I knew it when I was 12 that I was responsible for myself at 18. So I socked away 80% of gift money for the future, worked 16-20 hours a week since age 15 – walked or biked to work 90% of the time. I still didn’t know what kind of occupation I was cut out for at 18, so I went to community college to figure it out. After I figured it out, I looked for a part-time job in a related field. Took me longer to graduate college as I had to weigh the time commitments for work against the college schedule.
Granted, I lived in an urban area and went to local schools, but my parents didn’t have the money and we lived in a working-class neighborhood where opportunities were less numerous. But if you were willing, you could find the opportunities. It’s somewhat a chicken-egg question: any neighborhood no matter how run-down seems to have enough opportunities to match the number of people willing to put in the effort, although I can imagine a kid in a rural area might have to drive 15 miles to get a part-time job or drive 30 miles to a junior college or trade school. My mom lives in a rural area now so I know a few things about kids getting those rural opportunities and the lack of social pressures on rural kids makes up for the additional time pressures of travel, etc. I suppose in a poverty-stricken neighborhood the obvious opportunities are gang-related but one can certainly find other opportunities if one is willing to look hard enough.
The wife was raised the same way, but since we both make good money she doesn’t want educational opportunities to be limited for the kid with trying to hold down a part-time job. Since we have the money, I get it. To an extent. The kid handles her money well and actually wants to work despite mom’s mild discouragement, but this is mostly because the kid has friends that work (parents don’t make as much) and prefers their company over her friends that don’t work – she can see the better, more mature attitudes of the kids who work versus the kids that are given everything. It’s a little worrisome that she wants to pursue a Fine Arts degree, but she at least knows she’s going to have to minor in something useful – I credit that to other adults she’s met who pursued similar degrees, which is due to the non-school extracurricular activities where she met them.
My parents in 1975: “Study hard and get good grades so you don’t have to work shitty menial jobs. And you’re paying rent when you turn 18 – unless you’re going to college. And we’re not paying a dime for you to go to college.”
To my childhood self, that sounds awful. To present-day me, I would kill baby seals for that kind of upbringing. My folks were not the tough-love types, which is why five of the six of us kids stayed at the house well past age 18. I’m embarrassed to even mention it now, but hey – maybe someone reading this is a parent on the fence about kicking kids out of the nest, and to them I say: Do. It.
I started working summers at age 12. Mostly for my father’s equipment business where I did the landscaping, inventoried equipment, cleaned, and generally did things that an OSHA inspector would have heart palpitations over. By 16, I was a delivery driver for him until I decided I needed to work for someone else, so I chose to clean bathrooms and sweep up at Busch Gardens.
Summers during college were invariably spent working for him or a construction company as a laborer until I moved out to Calizuela and got an engineering job.
I cannot tolerate people who won’t work.
Same age and same scenario.. Man was I happy when I finally got my first job not working for my dad. Not only did I get money, but I actually only needed to work hard and not work hardest so he could show no favortisem.
These stories all sound like we’re writing to penthouse forum. Can’t wait to see Sugarfree’s first experience.
Probably clean-up guy at a low-rent brothel.
Fluffer for barnyard porn?
Fits well enough in an article on a low paying bottom end job. Navy SEAL talks about search and rescue missions for Bergdahl:
SEAL’s team got fucked up good. Dog killed. I loved how the lying cunts in the media tried to muddy the water and pretend that no one was actually hurt just because of Bergdahl’s actions. And now his lawyers are still pushing for him to get healthcare.
The only healthcare that traitor should get is from the coroner.
The story that gets me are people who get laid off/fired/whatever from a white collar office-type job and think it’s beneath them to take anything else while they’re unemployed. When I was laid off when the construction business, and thus the construction equipment rental business, tanked in 2008, I worked as a fucking security guard for a year. I was a college graduate working with people who had a high school diploma at best if they hadn’t dropped out, which many had. So what? You do what you have to do.
Amen. I can’t stand the mentality of, “I can’t take this job because I’m obviously more qualified/etc and it’s beneath me!” Ok, fine, but don’t whinge at me while you look for so-called “suitable” work.
Working at a job that isn’t necessarily your cup of tea is still better than not working at all. I don’t understand how that’s even a thing.
I’d shovel shit 10 hours a day, if I had to to support my family.
I have a job that I enjoy and pays well. For the most part what I do is not too difficult. Every now and then though, something will go wrong that I have to fix in an area and environment that makes me wish I was shoveling shit.
I may have wished that over the course of a couple of wars…
A-Fucking-Man
When I first met my now wife, I was working a full time (paid) internship and on the weekends would work the bar shift at Jimmy Johns in Wicker Park to save some money. It was exhausting as fuck but my now father in law said something to me when he heard what I was doing, “If you and daughter ever decided to get married, I know that she will never starve.”
That was the nicest compliment that anyone has ever given me.
Ha.
When my wife and I decided to get married, my father in law told me, “Thank god. Now she’s your problem.”
When I made up my mind that I was gonna marry that girl, I remembered the very first thing I learned about her: “For best results, inflate to 45 PSI”
*standing ovation*
Pfft. Time to get a divorce and upgrade. I just have to wipe mine down with silicone cleaner once a week and spray out her pussy with a power washer.
-1 anal
Shoveling shit actually pays pretty well. Since most people won’t do it. I met a septic guy who loved his job a couple of years ago, said it was good part and he didn’t mind the smell at all.
He at least does something valuable.
It’s this unhealthy sense of entitlement that creates this notion that there are jobs nobler than others.
By the same token, a lot of employers won’t even consider college grads for that type of job because they expect they’ll bail as soon as they find something better. The dropouts aren’t going anywhere.
Chipwooder, who were you working for in the rental biz? If you don’t mind me asking?
RSC, back when they still existed. Started at the store in Foley right after it opened, moved over to Pensacola after about a year. Wished I could have stayed at Foley because the manager in Pensacola was a dunce. Foley was never going to be sustainable long-term though. After all the beach condo jobs dried up, the location kind of withered away and closed up around 2010.
I tried to get another job in the industry – thought I had a job with Neff in 2011 but it didn’t work out – but gave up on it. I liked the business but hated being a salesman.
Sales for the national chains sucks. It’s a race to the bottom price on every call. I don’t do that. Can I keep you in mind if I start expanding into the Richmond market?
I’m open to anything, but I’ll be very honest with you – I’m a lousy salesman 🙂 As I said below, I did OK working inside on the counter because I’m courteous and helpful and you don’t have to be pushy because people who come in already have a need. Going out and cold calling? Not my thing. Hated doing it and wasn’t successful at it, but I kept trying because that’s where the money was.
I’ve also been out of the business for 9 years now, which probably doesn’t help.
I find problems and rent solutions. I don’t compete and sell like the nationals. In fact, I find their sales process absurd. I stay out of their pet markets like lifts and loaders because they do stupid things like rent at 2% of acquisition cost on a monthly basis.
Maybe we should talk in person sometime. Let me know, I’m headed to an appointment right now so I won’t be able to comment for a while.
Sure. Like I said, I’m not looking for anything at the moment but I’m not planning on doing this job for the rest of my life.
And you’re exactly right about the race to the bottom – 95% of my sales calls generated a response of “Well, if I can get this lift for $200 cheaper from NES, why should I rent from you?” The big accounts could get those rock-bottom prices, but of course since I was the new trainee I didn’t get those accounts. I got the little independent operators who didn’t give a shit about our supposedly superior service and newer, better fleet. All they cared about was the bottom line – rightly so, of course.
Chasing price into the cellar is not selling – it’s whoring.
We talked about this the other day, selling is about about becoming a valuable resource for your customer. As Scruffy says above, trying to compete with whores is silly. There are always niche opportunities where service and knowledge pay.
By “liking the business” I mean I liked playing around with equipment and visiting job sites. A large-scale construction project is a helluva thing to witness up close. I hated the actual process of selling, at least outside sales. Wasn’t as bad when I did inside (I kind of did both) and people were coming to me with a need.
That’s doesn’t bother me so much. The more money you make, the more specialized your skills, the tougher it is to find similar employment. And why not get some of that unemployment money back? Take a menial job and you don’t collect it.
The truth is, most of those white-collar workers laid off are happy to take cash-paying menial jobs, it’s those jobs that require a W-2, etc. that become a problem.
That’s just bizarre to me. When I got laid off I took a small vacation (using the PTO cash out) then hit the pavement looking for work in the two fields I had experience in while keeping an eye on anything entry level and local for when I ran out of severance. Gas station attendant down the street in a low crime neighborhood was the best looking fallback. Meanwhile I know someone who got a nice white collar job right out of college, decided they didn’t like it, quit and lived with his older sister (single mom) for over half a year before getting another white collar job that he seems to like. A big part of it seems to be that many of these folks don’t really have to do much to support themselves. Rent is either small or not an issue. No major health issues. All they really have to do is cut down on food and booze and they can get by for a couple years without doing anything. If they live with family then even less cuts in personal spending habits are necessary.
I did this once. I spent most my yoof saving all my money and not doing anything fun. Then I spent a “gap year” getting rip roaring drunk literally everyday, playing video games and being depressed. But I paid my own way, isn’t that what libertarianism is all about?
I mean a guy who was 23 and had never had a job, who was simultaneously well groomed and unkempt walks in…He was rude to me and the server….he drops this line on his parents, “As long as we have a middle class in america we can’t have equality.”
Please tell me his mother backhanded him at that point.
I hate to say this. But, I’m really starting to think we’re facing a generation that didn’t get hit enough when they were children.
Ah yes, the Bender Bending Rodriguez school of parenting.
Look, it’s not like I didn’t hate to say it or anything. But, what exactly do you do when your orphans start start talking back and sassing you? You let them get too out of hand and they start threatening to unionize.
You offer the sassy ones the possibility of becoming orphan wranglers themselves when they grow up.
Note that Vinnie (the author above) is almost all the way there. 🙂
I just smother them with a pillow. Same with those that have passed their expiration date.
WASTEFUL! You are supposed to human traffic them! Do you even libertarian, bro?
I just find the muffled screams soothing.
*has sad to see waste when I have no orphans to labor the grease vats*
Have you considered contacting the premier orphan supplier around, Adorphan?
*perks up at the prospects of a sale*
Good day to you, your streakiness, I hear you may be interested in hiring some child labor.
J.i.MB Talent Conglomerate has a wide range of orphan labor available and payment plans that will (probably) not break the bank.
*hands Jesse a 1oz silver piece*
Let’s make a deal.
Agree, but it doesn’t have to be physical, positive and negative reinforcement works if you apply it right. Whether it be a spanking or a timeout (each case may vary, my twin brother you had to beat it out of him…I was in the stern disapproval turned me into jelly category) discipline is lacking nowadays. I don’t believe it’s just cultural shift/government interference either, a lot of it is time allotted to child upbringing and passing the buck on responsibility.
wut?
There are two bacon-magics? Where is my fainting couch?
Fraternal. Polar opposite. He’s skinny as a rail and dark complected. Let’s nickname him Eggy McEggbert.
Eggs and bacon. Love it
Yes, it’s not physical punishment so much as just basic discipline. I mean, small children sometimes do need a swat on the butt to get the point across, but that’s as far as spankings got in my house. I’ve always been close to mom and dad, but they never forgot (or let me forget)that they were my parents, not my pals. That’s why I strive for with my kids – we’re friends too, but at the end of the day I’m still their father first.
I mentioned in a conversation the other day that I was raised in a time and place where spanking misbehaving kids (and occasionally giving them the belt) was normal and accepted. Not only that, but I really couldn’t say I ever got a spanking I didn’t deserve, and probably deserved more than I got.
There was a distinct generational divide on the reactions. People older than, say, 40 just nodded and laughed (and some of the younger ones). But a lot of the young ‘uns looked horrified.
#metoo
Get off my lawn!
my twin brother you had to beat it out of him
Go on…
Poor guy would be mortified at the Glibbening that happens here daily. He’s more conservative.
Well that’s not useful for my nefarious purposes.
I had a job at 14. I broke child labor laws by working too much, and they got fined a few thousand dollars. They still kept me on payroll because even at that age I had proven I was a good enough employee to justify it. I also argued against the minimum wage hike to 7.15 an hour when I was only making 5 and was pissed off when it passed. I ended up working at that job for 7 straight years.
I may be the anti-millennial, but we aren’t all self-entitled shitheads.
Right after I passed my get out of High school test (CHSPE) my Mom took me to Jolley Roger for lunch, she thought it would be fun to fill out applications to work there.
Turns out she wrote “give this kid a job” on her’s, and I started washing dishes for 3.35$/ hr. in 1979
Thats like making $12/hr these days.
at age ten in 1997 I was make 2.25 per gallon of blueberries picked. I could pick about 8 gallons in a day. The season was about a month long, starting in late May. I had the best fireworks out of all my friends because I usually blew up the several hundred dollars I made.
I also worked grape vineyards from about that age on. That was unpaid labor however. Grandpa was kind of a tight ass.
My first paychecks went to a kyshyo shadow awd r/c car that I broke the 2nd day.
Albums. Lots and lots of albums.
^^^
I freaking forgot about that…jeez i’m old. (cassettes and cd’s so not that old)
I bought Pokemon yellow edition with my first paycheck. Totally worth it.
So if you want fewer small businesses and more big ones, by all means, increase the minimum wage.
“Ya gots a problum wit dat?” sez SEIU organizer.
My first job was running my own summer landscaping biz starting from the age of 10 and through 13 using lamppost flyers and knocking on any door without a no trespassing/solicitation. That job ruled. I mowed lawns for $5-10 a pop. The most brutal ones were lots grown up waist high with weeds due to neglect. It was so satisfying to hoard all that money up into a roll. Duck the minimum wage.
Props to my dad too. My lawnmower was fished out of the trash and restored by him.
I did quite a bit of that around age 13 or 14. I would just walk around town and knock on doors. If there was a grandma looking vehicle in the driveway and the yard needed mowed, I couled almost always me 20 bucks for just a few hours of work.
I definitely landscaped at a rate way below the minimum wage and am damn glad I did it.
*SEIU goon shows up on Pomp’s doorstep*
First job? Worked as a dishwasher at the tender age of 15. It was at a nearby university, during the summer classes. Lots of free food and a chance to hang out with my buddies from high school. $3.25/hr
Second job? Computer programmer at an insurance company. Making $4/hr. I didn’t last long there as my interests started going more towards partying ‘n’ girls ‘n’ fast cars.
Third job – warehouse and clothing prep for a major retail chain. It was a great way to score weed from the older employees. I think it was $3.85hr but had the misfortune of having to join a union, and pay union dues which seriously ate into my meager, after-school hours paycheck.
First job was a paper route when I was 10 or 11, remember those? Get up early on the weekend, grab a bag, and load it up with papers that have to be delivered by a certain time. Dad was usually willing to help with the Sunday papers, as they were about 5 times as big as the weekday ones. You had to find people to cover for you when you were going to be out of town, and had to do it every day. To add to the fun, it was piece work, and you had to collect the cash from all of the people yourself. You would usually get some decent tips around the holidays, and nothing was ever taken out in taxes.
After that was a high school job at McDonald’s at minimum wage. Getting that first paycheck, after I had figured out what it would be ($4.75 * 10 hours, I’m getting $47.50 for my training period), and seeing that huge bite that taxes took out of it. That store had a manager who would hire hot teenagers and nail them once they turned 18, and had an attractive female assistant manager who got caught sleeping with a 16 year old guy. The rest of us were confused as to the choice in guy, and wondered why it wasn’t any of us. I also learned that the McDonald’s I worked at went through a literal ton of fries every five days (50+ 40 lb boxes on every truck).
Had a paper route too. Lol.
The paper boy where I used to live was a mid-40’s woman who did her rounds in a V8 Dodge Ram. At the rates they pay, I have absolutely no idea how she cleared a red cent after paying for the gas.
She did it through volume?
Way back when – age 10-12 – I was a paper route substitute for my best friend. It’s a lot of work for little return. At least I got to borrow his bicycle which had the extra (nerdy!) baskets to haul extra papers.
I had a paper route, as well. It also was in the glory days of having to collect. I learned a lot from that job, particularly how shitty customers who try to dodge their bill.
Funny, I spent part of the morning leaning on a customer who doesn’t seem to take my invoices seriously enough. Go figure.
Threaten him with a hockey stick.
Lol. Actually, I just told him I’ll hold onto his next shipment until the check – the one that I was assured was going out two weeks ago – gets here.
Hockey stick would be more fun!
I did learn to correlate the terrible tippers to those who handed out terrible things at Halloween, and the good tippers as the houses to go to. Person who tips a dime on Christmas and Easter… she hands out pennies on Halloween. Person who tips $1.10 every two weeks, they’re going to hand out the good candy on Halloween.
What’s that in 2017 dollars?
Double it up for 2017 dollars. Of course, the bill for the delivery came to $3.90, so that’s why you would get those two tip amounts the most.
Obligatory – “TWO….DOLLARS!”
https://www.google.ca/amp/www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/news/louis-cks-movie-premiere-canceled-advance-ny-times-story-1056585
Is Louis CK next?
U a Canadian, Winston?
Guilty as charged eh.
Accusations floating around publicly for years. All these people cancelling on him now knew, but kept associating with him. How do they pretend to be outraged now? I’m wasting my breath, I know.
Also Spacey’s revoked International Emmy would have been for “cross[ing] cultural boundaries to touch humanity”
https://www.google.ca/amp/people.com/tv/kevin-spaceys-international-emmy-founders-award-revoked-amid-allegations/amp/
Several people here bitched about Jeremy Piven’s new show but who knows how long it will last…
Found a doc about a guy who had the skin disease I linked to in the Morning Lynx. If ever you need some inspiration, watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wg8EtF5SJI
Alabama Judge Roy Moore, he of the Ten Commandments and gay marriages controversies, is being accused of chasing teenage girls in the late ’70’s (which would put him in his early 30’s). One claims she was 14 at the time, though nothing non-consensual took place.
He’s an asshole, wouldn’t be surprising at all.
If there’s grass on the field…
If she is old enough to go to the store by herself….
She’s too old for Old Man With Candy’s candy?
The end of that quip is …she’s old enough to get bread.
It is too old for OMWC?
Any evidence beyond “she says”?
I know allegations are all in vogue thease days, but I’m still a due process kind of guy.
Of course not, and the guy is a big target for the left. Who the hell knows. Wouldn’t surprise me, but the anger the main accuser seems to have over a sexual advance when she had gone to his house multiple times isn’t that believable to me:
Even if you aren’t lying, he probably doesn’t.
This is disgusting.
I would be concerned about the Dems picking up the seat but then I see what the Congressional Reps are up to…
Two thoughts:
I simply cannot overcome my apathy at the thought that the Dems may take over the House. The Repubs have been so fucking useless, I just don’t care. I know, a Dem-controlled house would be a bigger threat to what I care about, but like I said, I just can’t find single, solitary fuck to give.
The Dems and the establishment Repubs both hate Moore with equal passion. They would all love to knock him out of the race. I can’t help but suspect a dirty trick in the works here, which could come from either or both. Entirely possible, of course, that he did what he is accused of, and the accusation itself is probably enough to knock him out of contention, if not out of the nomination.
The round of unsubstantiated sexual harassment claims against Trump netted the Dems exactly nothing, but if this knocks Moore out, I would expect to see a lot more #MeTooing directed at candidates ,with much of that (as with Trump) orchestrated by their opponents.
FIFY.
Pretty much everyone hates Moore, except for his base in Alabama (and he’s got quite a base in Alabama). He’s an asshole religious socon to the highest level that wants to control every aspect of our lives. Whether or not this accusation is true (and I’m not saying either way), I hope it knocks him out of the race. Anyone would be better.
This. I’m not on board with anyone who wants to (re)criminalize homosexuality.
Pence is certainly looking wise. Sounds like if you’re a guy who has any ambition at all, you’d better keep a bodycam running at all times.
Washing dishes at Dion’s Pizza for 6.50 an hour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dion%27s
The one pictured is the actual one I worked at.
When I was in high school and college, I had a string of minimum wage jobs in construction, farm/ranch, and maintenance/custodial.
What I learned was that I better have excellent grades so I would never, ever have to do that kind of work again.
Most of those jobs were in my small hometown, and Pater Dean had talked to some of his buddies to get me the jobs. I later learned that he had intentionally gotten me the worst jobs he could, so I would learn the lesson I did.
Well based on these minimum wages I’m starting to get a complete idea of how ancient many of you are.
You haven’t worked until you’ve worked for $3.35/hour.
Hear him!
Luxury! You were lucky to have that! We only got paid in dirt clods and whippings….
It mainly just makes me realize just how bad inflation is.
^THis^
Wife recently watched a Perry Mason marathon (her favorite show) and I was marveling at the small amounts of money the characters were killing each other over until I looked up an inflation calculator and ran the numbers.
Hell, I had to run the inflation numbers for the girlfriend after we watched the Founder.
I realized how bad it was when I saw reports about the late 2000s that needed to adjust for inflation and present the current amount.
Titor, I made a comment yesterday in the afternoon links referring to you as a ‘bad character’ and I said that you speak ‘Canadian’ and therefore we need a translator to gauge what you are saying. Those comments were meant in jest. In case people thought otherwise (which some did)
Shit.
*puts gloves back on*
It’s ok, I know you still like me, Just Say’n-chan.
JT is a fucking smart person, that’s why I like him.
Even if Canadian, they can’t be all bad, some I assume,are good people
Oh, it’s just so grand, picking on the skid, innit? You think you’re mighty skookum, don’t you? I’m not no goddamn stubble jumper, you fucking degen. I’ll give you the ol’ right-left lad if you keep chirping me.
(Ok now I’m just stealing slang from the other side of the country that I’ve never used)
That fucking Letterkenny kills me.
The one thing they don’t get right on that show is how hard it is to understand when they’re missing half their teeth and drunk.
#metoo Vinnie, #metoo
My first job was at McD’s in ’73 or ’74 for a buck sixty-five.
I took a circuitous route to becoming an engineer. Married at 19 with two kids right away. I worked as a printer full-time (and had perpetually ink-stained hands) before moving up to pre-press productions (no ink). When my second was born, my wife stopped working. I took a night job at Godfather’s Pizza. I worked 60 to 70 hours a week for 20 straight months. After I quit the pizza business, I lost my printing job in ’82. I said fuck it, and my wife and I both signed up for college. We borrowed the max allowable on student loans ($10k each), then spend a decade paying the two loans off.
It’s takes all my energy to not scream at the 20-somethings that bitch about minimum wage jobs.
It helps when your shitty generation doesn’t keep pushing through policies that make the above difficult to match even if one wanted to.
The job interview at Godfather’s was interesting. The manage looked at my application and said he couldn’t match the wages of my printing job so why did I want to quit and work at his joint. I said I wasn’t quitting the other job. I had a new baby at home and needed more money. He put me to work the next weekend.
So you have no energy left for the 20-somethings bitching about their school loans?
The good news is that no one has complained about students loans in my physical presence. Otherwise, I would be locked up for beating them to death.
By 18 I had: Worked on a cattle farm, mostly hauling and stacking square bales, Worked on a sweet potato/beet/tomato farm/ fried chicken and boudin restaurant, Hardware store. Every one of those jobs taught me a lot about the value of hard work and the satisfaction of earned dollars.
The most valuable lesson I learned was managing my own money wisely instead of squandering it on instant gratification nonsense. Then I joined the Navy. That was really dumb. Then I went to college. That was not dumb.
If I could go back and do it all again knowing what I know now I would GED out of High School at 16, graduate college at 20, avoid the awful girlfriends I wasted time and money on, Not join the service, be much less of an asshole to people, save my money scrupulously and…well…knowing what I know now put every penny of it into Apple and Microsoft stock. I would be king of the world. I would still be retired but still doing everything I do now only with more money, which I probably wouldn’t even spend.
I have to say that I am very satisfied in my current life.
man, now I want some boudin. Hard to find around here.
Never heard of it but I’m going to try some soon.
WORD!!!!!
And that word is “Brooks”
*clicks over from Amazon*
Huh?
First job: I was 14 and came home durring rhe summer from San Diego. I have some family there and when I got back my stepdad said he wanted to delay a new hire since the summer was slow. So I worked at his stores and the people he eventually sold them to until I was 20. He saw that he was going to get killed by Amazon around 2002 so he went back to real estate and has been there ever since. I was initially paid $20/week– if he remembered he was supposed to pay me. Turns out I like to eat.
Second job: Wal-Mart. For 9 months I worked minimum wage full time as a “full time student”. Which in Flagstaff going rate was about 8/hr. Naturally, I worked the gun counter. The local ammosexuals liked me. Turns out the experience I had at the family business drove me to do something most wally world employees dont do: learn about the things they are selling. Eventually I, got a job at the jail that paid $13.77/hr because by then I met a girl and was responsible to someone besides me. And the rest as they say is history.
Minimun wage laws take away the incentive to better youself. They take away the incentive to work for what you want. We all know what they really do but on a personal level, they ultimately just gratify the people that dont know any better nor have any desire to want to know better.
“drove me to do something most wally world employees dont do: learn about the things they are selling.”
Academy Sporting goods – guy working in the fishing dept: Me – “Sir, could you show me where the catfish pliers are?”
Him – “What? What are catfish pliers?” Me – “This is louisiana and you work in the fishing department. You dont know what…you know what…never mind.”
jAcademy Sporting Goods – guy working the gun counter: Me – “Do you have a Marlin 1894 back there? I am trying to mount a scope on one and I want to make sure the holes on this base match up correctly.” Him – “Marlin doesnt make a model 1894”
Me – *blank stare* “Ok, thank you.”
*The mount did match up and this weekend, finally after many delays, I will be taking the rifle to my brother’s. We are gonna bang the hell out of some 218 Bee ammo, cook on the pit like fiends and hopefully bag a hog or two.*
My son works at a local sporting goods place as is a fiend about product knowledge. I actually feel a little sorry for the unwary customer who asks “what do you recommend for…” He’s gonna be there for awhile and he’s gonna end up spending way more than he thought.
He’ll get the proper stuff, though 😉
Heh. My son could give a dissertation on soccer cleats. I just sorta zone out when he gets going.
my first job (12) was cleaning patent leather shoes in a shoe repair shop (still smell the fumes today), and wrapping repaired shoes in brown paper, & tagging them for pickup. buffing/cleaning required using a modular machine with rotating brushes and belt sanding and other gizmos probably built in the 1920s. an older italian guy with 3 fingers on one hand pointed at it, then at me, and go, ‘be a carful’. that was the extent of the training program.
my second job (14) was working in the bag room of a country club. we cleaned clubs, shoes, put bags into their designated lockers/shelves. we also had to park and recharge all the carts, and do assorte`pkd other menial tasks. the “big show”, the dream-job we aspired to, was driving the big tractor-esque machine that picked balls off the driving range. why? because we never got to do it. One day we got to do it. It sucked and we never wanted to do it again. the most common instructions we were given were, “hurry up” and “shut up”.
my third job (16-18 off and on) was in retail…starting in the stock room/basement doing inventory, pulling crates out of trucks, shelving stuff, moving pallets around, occasionally tasked with locating some item that computers said we had but which no one could find. eventually i graduated to doing work on the retail floor. this often involved following old ladies around and preventing them from shoplifting. “front, call extension 99” was what you said on the store PA when said shoplifter was heading for the front door
my jobs in college were all working in microbreweries. either in the brewing operations, or occasionally bar-backing. a lot of similarities with previous gigs: inventory, cleaning, stocking, hosing out big kettles. i’d fill in for waitstaff or bartenders when they called sick. we were given an empty pony-keg and allowed to fill it up once a month. if this sounds like a college dream job, it was.
i think the fact that most kids don’t work these sorts of bullshit ‘beginner’ jobs anymore is a serious problem. the % of kids 16-20 who work part-time jobs went from ~50-60% in 1990 to 15-20% today. i’m too lazy to dig up the BLS stats, but trust me, its true.
worse: the main drop has been with ‘middle class’ kids. interestingly, it used to be higher-income people who made their kids work more often. it used to that above-average income households had a higher-percent of kids who worked part-time. now that’s reversed: the lower income groups have 20-30% working, but the middle-class/richer kids are like 10% or less.
this means your average college kid has no idea what its like to be given a job and expected to do it well, quietly, without constant oversight, and not expect any praise or rewards for it. its a serious problem.
In high school, one of my buddies worked at the local country club. He worked nights because his job was making sure the course got watered, so he spent the night driving around in a golf cart moving sprinklers and stuff.
By the middle of the summer, this had devolved into a half dozen school kids bombing around the golf course in carts, drinking and smoking pot. He was the only one who got paid, which seemed unfair.
this is how i lost the job @ the golf course. we flipped the gas-powered cart (the ‘greenskeeper cart’) in a bunker. we were drinking flasks of booze and smoking cigars we found in people’s bags. good times.
We had three or four gas carts that we took the governors off of. You could probably go 40 in those. Another kid rolled one of them into one of the lakes. Dragging it out of there was no picnic.
Hah! I had the same kind of country club job but I *liked* driving the range cart. I could put my headphones on and listen to music out there.
Also, for the big tournaments like the member-guest, we’d rake in the tips. My wage was only $4.25 so my paycheck was around $150 a week, but I’d come out of those tournaments with maybe $300 or more in tips. Plus, sometimes they’d leave unopened beers in the carts – heady stuff for a high school kid!
the one we had was ancient and vibrated so hard you’d have back pain for an hour afterward. it also was hot as fuck (you were basically sitting on top of a small engine) and it stank of gas-fumes/smoked oil. and sometimes caddies would fuck with you by hitting balls out there while you were trying to get done, forcing you to chase the few dozen balls they were hitting into the corners of the range. if they had some brand-new john deere machine, it would have been pleasant.
oh, i also forgot 3 summers doing college pro painting (while also doing hours @ the retail gig). AND a job i had parking cars. which i’d rank the worst*, because there is nothing shittier than working a job where you basically sit in one spot and wait to do the same thing over and over. which is why i think most people (should) hate cashier gigs.
(*the small upside was that 20% of the cars were pretty pimp. but the thrill of parking a ferrari wears off pretty quick)
I’d be terrified that I’d damage it in some way. I worked at a law firm as a summer job in college – it was a small firm with more lawyers than clerical staff so I handled the mail, maintained the library, and served as a courier. One day the managing partner had me take his Jaguar into the dealership to be serviced. I’ve never driven more carefully in my life. It was nerve-wracking.
when you park cars all day, you become an expert in 1st-gear-driving. so stalling it or jerking it around was generally not a problem. usually it was the lack of visibility and not knowing where the corners are. Testarossas are also insanely wide.
I may have a worse job then the car parking one. For a brief time I worked at an inventory company. Your entire job was to use a little hand held scanner to scan a UPC, then enter the quantity of that item on the shelf. It was part time, intermittent work, usually taking place when retail places were closed. It paid twice what the fast food job did, and that’s why I took it. The most frightening part was that you had to pass a test (RACIST!) in order to work there. It showed pictures of shelves with items on them, and you had to put how many of the item were on the shelf (such as showing cans two high, four across, and five deep). The hiring manager pulled me aside (I was 18… maybe 19 at this time), and asked why I was there, as I had gotten all of the questions right in under the allotted time.
that is grim.
a one-shot gig i had for a while … i was interning at a music school (it wasn’t really a job: it was part of a HS program where we interned for a few months somewhere)… and they had a major flood on like my 3rd day there. Instead of teaching music theory to kids, i ended up in their damp basement pulling out boxes of stuff and inventorying what was damaged for their insurance claim. i ended up getting seriously sick from being exposed to mold 12 hours a day.
+1 Bigotry of low expectations
Damn, those figures are a head shaker.
yeah. in case no one believes me,
https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2011/schools_out/images/cps_employment_population_ratio.png
i got them roughly right from memory. see the huge gap between ’16-24′ and ’16-19′? that’s because the 20-24 numbers skew it so much higher. the real ‘youth’ employment is 16-20. and see how it drops off a cliff starting around 1995. its under 30% as recently as 2012, and that # is misleading because they re-categorized things that qualified as employment, so that its not just W2 reporting, they also now include on-campus jobs that college kids do. basically padding the #s
i’ve read a bit about this over the years, and there’s a variety of explanations other than simply ‘rich parents discourage it’ and ‘min-wage laws and regulations’ make hiring youth less and less economically sensible…but those things are still a huge portion of it nevertheless. and as i said – its particularly bad among the kids of the wealthy, who used to actually be the majority of the ‘youth employed’. its a sea-change in terms of ‘culture’. A common feature of being wealthy was instilling some sort of work-ethic in the next generation. it used to be that the higher percent of kids with ‘summer jobs’ were in rich communities. that culture has basically vanished.
Wow. When I was in high school, I was kind of the oddball because I only worked steady jobs during the summer – my mom didn’t want me working during the school year, thought it would detract from my studies. Most of the people I knew worked part-time during the school year.
It’s academia driven. Used to be admissions LIKED kids that had part-time jobs on occasion, now dat’s raciss.
Rich parents still don’t want to pay the extortionate tuition and fees of colleges, so to increase the odds of a white kid getting some scholarship money they need better grades, they need to take AP college credit courses in high school, they need extracurriculars, etc. Working puts kids at a disadvantage, as fucked up as that is.
First job was picking golf balls out of course water traps for $0.05 a ball. I made over $120, and got a great infection on my elbow from the duck shit waters.
Paperboy from 11-14 with the same experience as Nephilium. Plus I learned the important lesson that Doberman’s can become your friend but never turn your back on a small, yappy ghetto dog. I gave up the paper route for HS sports.
Just before turning 16 (1976) I hired on at the local Baskin Robbins for less than the minimum wage. I earned my way up to being one of the night shift managers so gained leadership and basic accounting and ordering experience. The franchise owner was a great employer and trusted us with even making the bank deposits. Worked there until I left for college. The job had two perks. The first being the ice cream each shift and the second was handling all that cash. It was the rare week when I didn’t find at least one silver coin and the rare month when I didn’t find an old silver certificate. One time I got an entire roll of silver quarters at the bank. Swapping the clad coins for silver at face value was a great deal.
In college I was a janitor for three years. It was not a bad job for a college student and the older guys on the crew were interesting. One of the calmest and quietest always was smoking a pipe. Once he got to know I was in ROTC and heading for active duty he would subtly drop leadership and infantry lessons into some conversations. It wasn’t until my last day there I found out he was decorated with the Navy Cross during WWII and the Silver Star in the Korean War.
When my kids were in high school it damn hard to get them interested in working which struck me as insane. I had been earning money since I was young because it helped me gain independence.
Plus I learned the important lesson that Doberman’s can become your friend
On my route, one of the customers had two Rhodesian Ridgebacks. They were never anyone’s friend, and terrified me. They came from lion-killing stock, and looked and acted like it. Forty years later, and I can still see those dogs plain as day, losing their minds behind a chain link fence in their bloodlust to run me down and dismember me.
Good times, good times.
An ex girlfriend had a Rhodesian Ridgeback.
That dog scared me. It was like 80 lbs of muscle and teeth. The first time I went over to her house, my gf and I were cooking our dinner, and the dog was bothering me with her investigations of what I was doing. So I told her firmly to sit down. She sat and then bared her teeth like she was about to rip my throat off. My gf heard me stop in mid sentence and turned around then told me not to be scared. “She’s smiling at you.”
And she was right. That dog had learned how to smile like a human. Whenever the dog knew I was unhappy with her, she’d smile to let me know it was OK, and that she’d be a good girl. And every time, I damn near soiled my drawers because the reptilian part of my brain was screaming “ohshityou’redeaddeaddead!”.
Lovely dog, and perfect for a single mom living out in the country with an ex boyfriend who had a habit of showing up at her place after he had steeled himself with some liquid courage.
Sadly, she had to be put down. She had a heart attack and then started to have really bad seizures. By then we had long since broken up but were still keeping in touch (it was amicable) and I admit I was heartbroken at the news.
But that was after she finally taught the boyfriend that he was no longer in the pack.
One of my dogs is, we suspect, part Rhodie. She’s reddish-brown, about 80 pounds, and has a strip of fur down her back that isn’t the reverse grain but is thicker and slightly curled, as if it’s a watered-down version that didn’t quite get all the way over. She’s very bossy and needy, but sure enough if you yell at her or are obviously angry with her she’ll bare her teeth and duck her head down. That’s like the sign that she gets it and we should take it down a notch.
Only time I have ever been bitten by a dog was on that paper route, stupid little dust mop Shih Tzu ran around my ankles yapping before it jumped up and bit me on the knee. It looked more like a snakebite then a dog bite. Only other dog that gave chase along the route was a Husky. He would bark and chase you right up to the edge of his yard.
I used to mow lawns and babysit in my early teens. My first job working for someone else was at a country club – did some caddying, some work with the carts in the barn (gassing them/charging the electrics, washing them), drove the range cart while people aimed at me nonstop. Worked at Papa John’s after that answering phones and hanging fliers on doorknobs. After that, a couple of different supermarkets (Food Lion and Winn-Dixie) as a bagger and in the produce section. I bounced around a lot, got bored in any one job and they all paid right around minimum wage ($4.25 at that time).
My first job was in construction. My brother in law’s brother hired me to go around as his lackey because he was a GC at the time. I was 13 or 14 but they made me well above minimum wage – whatever that was in 1985. BUT what I gained in dollars I lost in self-esteem. Man could construction workers belittle you. I’d like to see today’s snowflakes take that kind of licking in their safe spaces. And guess what? I survived! I even got some really fun stories out of it.
Soon after I worked in a hardware store who soon after hiring seemed to forget about me since no one EVER told me what specifically my job was. I ended up roaming around the aisles pretending to be something I was not.
they PAID me above MW.
pretending to be something I was not.
Ahead of your time, weren’t you.
Pretty much.
My first job was in construction.
So guys, apparently Rufus is in the mob…
Was there any doubt?
I was the sorta guy the mobster would pull me over and probably say ‘this isn’t for you kid. No one wear Ralph Lauren around here.’
You believe these fuckin’ Blue Jays?
*sits up straight, tugs collar*
Yes, sir, Mr. Rufus, sir!
I did the gopher/lackey bit for my brother too. He’s 10 years older than me and was in HVAC. It was interesting, but he was a terrible boss, so I quit.
My first real job was as a courtesy clerk at Safeway when I was 15. Made minimum wage for 3 months and then it started going up. Made cashier in six months and was making over $10 an hour by the time I quit high school after my junior year. Wasted a year in community college and then Strayer for programming, which I realized I sucked at. I turned 18 and got my real estate license – interesting side-bar there. In the real estate class I took prior to the exam, two of my classmates were the starting defensive tackles for the Redskins. They were preparing for life after football.
I did real estate for 5 years and then quit. Too many people who work in real estate are lower than pond scum. I actually started working as an assistant manager at Q-Zar which was a laser tag place. I got that gig because I was a regular and they had new management coming in and they were cleaning out all the old employees. Made $6.50/hour on salary! Love/hated that job. Once we would close up for the night, we would let the regulars in and play laser tag into the wee hours of the morning. After about a year at that job I realized that the owners of the franchise were crooked and that the business was going to fail so I quit.
My roommate got me an interview at his company where he was the helpdesk lead. They needed an entry-level body to help them upgrade their email clients. I had no experience, but enough knowledge as a computer enthusiast to bullshit my way through the interview and get the job. That was 20 years ago. Been working in IT ever since. I’m about ready for a career change.
Bishop of Bath and Wells: [Blackadder has blackmailed the Bishop with a nude painting of him with Percy] Never, in all my years, have I encountered such cruel and foul-minded perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the church?
Blackadder: No, I could never get used to the underwear.
The guy in the cube next to me from the east coast (New York I think) just admitted he’s terrified of guns.
In case anyone missed it, this is Arizona.
I suggested he move.
Admit it, you had a gun broken down form cleaning at your desk on your lunch break.
I remember when I first moved to Yuma, how surprising it was to see the gun lockers at the public library.
A gun will just lay there until acted upon.
There’s no reason to be afraid of them – but watch out for the person behind the trigger.
Because people who haven’t been around guns and have been taught that they’re bad think they’re basically unexploded ordnance. They’re pretty much old antipersonnel mines that may or may not go off at any time. If they can even explain in broad detail how a gun works they’ve still got a superstitious fear that if they get near the gun or touch the gun it will fire, killing them or a bystander.
Why did he move here? Its not like AZ and guns aren’t known to be fond of one another.
AZ has always been gun friendly. When I was a young un’ I would sling a weapon across my back and ride my bike to the desert to shoot or hunt and nobody thought twice about it. Of course “the desert” was much closer back then. (Sadly recalls the hill where I killed my first Cous Whitetail has been a subdivision since the 1990’s.)
But I must admit I could be an ass right back to an ass. While I was in the university I would clean small game in the common kitchen and prepare it for dinner. One ass from Ohio complained to the Resident about that. The Resident spoke with me and stated I wasn’t breaking a rule but to be more considerate. I was, after that I would wait for Ohio to start cooking to go in to clean my game and to speak loudly with others about the hunt. At the end of the semester Mr Ohio found a new place to live.
Did you offer to bring him to the range?
When a person uses the term terrified I assume that they are not in control of their emotions regarding that particular subject. If he is truly terrified of guns I would not want him anywhere near the trigger of one.
Start off by exposing him to a training simulade – no working mechanism.
Don’t put it in his hand, just put the fake gun on the table until he stops squirming. them move by slow stages until he overcomes this phobia – but do not let him near ammunition until he’s at least normal.
Yeah Im not getting fired just to convert the piss ant in the next cube over.
You’re not supposed to do it at work.
Hire Rufus. he’ll (politely) nab the guy and deprogram him in some remote location.
I thought OMWC was the resident kidnapping expert?
This guy is at least 20. Way to old for OMWC.
If the guy is old enough to be working the next cube over, OMWC’s techniques aren’t any good, so we go the the admitted mobster.
I’m guessing Vhyrus’s coworker is larger then OMWC usual targets.
Fair points
Rufus is in a gang?
*imagines riding on a moose over the tundra in the Maple Bottom Hoser Gang*
What the hell? When I lived there seeing a person with a gun on their hip was as common as pig tracks. Don’t y’all still do that?
I personally do it, so yes.
Maybe I dont know how common pig tracks are. Still common.
is he like the Buzzfeed “Try Guys” that discovered they’re all low-T?
I think the best job I had was at a local car dealer when I was in high school. I was the lot kid, which pretty much meant taking care of the used cars on the lot (cleaning, light mech, etc). It was a high-end European dealership, though, so there were always cool cars around. They also used to have me fly to different places and bring cars back. Being 17 years old and driving Volvos, Porsches, Benz, BMWs, Jags and Saabs all over was a blast. I was lucky as hell.
My first “real” job after college was as an editorial assistant with a publishing company in LA. They put out trade magazines for mostly auto-related industries – school buses, car rental, fleet leasing, etc. They used to get press cars from the automakers. A lot of them were run of the mill – Impalas, Tauruses, things like that – but some of them were sweet, like an Infiniti Q45 or a Jaguar XK8 convertible. The execs would get them for a week or two, then the worker bees would get them for a night or two. I got pulled over once not long after I took the job in that damned Jaguar for going 60 in a 45. The car had no plates or registration, just a letter from Jaguar in the glove compartment that they were lending the car to this publishing company for the specified dates. I was a peon so I didn’t even have a business card, and I hadn’t yet gotten a CA driver’s license, and I was 22 and dressed like a derelict. They held me for hours until they could track down my boss to verify that I hadn’t stolen the car.
Haha! I carried a letter from my boss at all times with his work and home number on it, for when I would get pulled over. It happened with some regularity – a punk kid in a nice Volvo or BMW in the middle of Kansas tended to attract law enforcement attention.
I didn’t realize you two were black.
Worse. Italian/Scottish.
Is that a cannoli in your kilt or you just looking at q’s link?
Interesting! Much more unusual than my own Italian/Irish/English mixture.
Irish/Scottish/German and a lil’ bit o’ Dutch.
A little German in there as well.
A good old-fashioned mutt!
It really shows how great America is when we start proudly talking about our Muttness. I’ve had Europeans laugh at me when I tell them my heritage…you don’t get those mixes there.
Irish/Scottish/German and a lil’ bit o’ Welsh. Everyone knows Welsh is better than Dutch!
Ha! I’d bet you but we know you won’t pay up.
Oh, yeah!?
Don’t make me repeat myself…that’d be double-dutch.
Did they give you the ticket? My guess is yes.
Oh hell yeah. Expensive one, too, over $200 if I remember correctly.
Could have been worse – the company had an Acura NSX for a couple of days for a photo shoot. I couldn’t drive it because I never drove a manual before, but one of the guys I worked with managed to wheedle the keys for a trip down to AM/PM. On the way back, we went the back way into the parking lot for our building. It was a little access road – no other outlet but the parking lot, no speed limit signs, maybe a quarter mile long. He opened it up on that road for a few seconds just for fun, got up to maybe 70 before hitting the brakes. That car was LOUD. We park, and are standing around admiring it for a minute when a motorcycle cop rolls up. ARRESTED my co-worker for reckless driving. I think he managed to work it down to a regular ticket but it was expensive as hell. That cop was a dick – there’s no way he actually saw us because there was no one else on that access road, though he lied and said he had. I figured he had just heard the engine from the main street.
Since I played a lot of golf as a youth, I was able to get my first job weekends and summers at the local course at age 16. I was sub-minimum wage (I think minimum was $3 then but under 18 could be lower) until I turned 18 two years later, and then got 50 cent to $1 per hour raises when I worked there during the summers while home from college. It was a great arrangement, doing physical labor outdoors for six years, back when fitness came easy. I ended up with a STEM/business degree, a desk job and a nice career, but now as I close in on retirement I find an appeal in “getting back to the land” and picking up where I left off in my greenskeeping days. Also I have heard the course I started working on is going up for sale…I’ve given a lot of thought to whether I could swing it financially as a course owner knowing I could put in a lot of sweat equity. The problem is that for the most part the game of golf is in a decline.
My first father in law did exactly that: retired from a high paying job and took a full time job as a groundskeeper on a golf course. The other groundskeeper he worked with was a retired accountant. After years of harrowing work the peace and quiet of the course and the simple mowing of grass was good for him. After a year at that he looked ten years younger.
Jesus Christ, I still don’t get how the guy who wrote Kingdom Come now writes crap like this.
I mean, when you just hire social justice hacks to write comics, I expect them to be bad. Because they’re hacks. But Waid was actually a pretty good writer, but he’s somehow managed to completely nosedive into almost the same level of idiocy. It’s like social justice politics in older men is equivalent to early onset Alzheimer’s.
It’s like social justice politics
in older menis equivalent to early onset Alzheimer’s.Growing up and through college I had just about every job possible in a resort town and as the son/stepson of a builder/restaurant owner. Ice cream shop, go cart track, water-park, construction, restaurant, hotel clerk and others.
First job was as a pissant junior accountant making $57 week. First assignment was to take inventory in the roasted nut room at a Whitman Chocolates factory. All you could eat too.
But I still love nuts.
Kevin Spacey would like to have a word with you.
STEVE SMITH HAS NUTS YOU’LL LOVE
craziest moment was having a dude yell at me in the bad milk room at the dairy distributor for laughing when the pump broke and the sour dairy started overflowing the tank. hey, it was a room tiled floor to walls so washing it out wasn’t an issue. shit was funny.
i made $4/hour at age 12 cleaning trash out of the man-made lakes in a condo community. the HOA paid me under the table so it was $4 cold hard cash, no taxes.
best job ever was a laborer for the plumbers and steamfitters local. my dad’s friend was the foreman and got me the job. i worked my ass off. best group of guys. the lunch time shit talk was hilarious.
now i’m surrounded by low-t betas who don’t like guns, sports, kids, or women. it’s not hell, hell at least would be exciting.
Don’t like women as in they don’t like talk about attractive ones because they pretend it’s beneath them, but in reality they’re just bitter about going home to fat harpy wives?
neutered, i’m assuming. and not in a cool Unsullied way where they’re laser focused on soldiery to compensate.
My first job was working in a small computer company in the early 90s. I did all kinds of stuff, but mostly helping with filing and refurbishing (and then testing) laser printer toner cartridges. I got paid $5 an hour cash.
My first “legitimate” job was after school at a small grocery store in 11th and 12th grade. Got paid minimum wage plus the occasional tip for helping customers with their groceries. All kinds of weird rules for that one (like we could load the empty cardboard boxes into the compactor, but nobody under 18 was allowed to actually touch the button to turn it on). Loved that job, mostly because I was 16-18 and the guys and gals that worked in the deli would give us food.
My first job was a junior staffer at a Boy Scout camp. I think the pay was like $2.25/hr (I’m pretty sure they violated all kinds of labor laws). Got to muck stalls, prep food, teach merit badges, work in the camp store, etc. AND stare at the smoking hot 19 year old lifeguard in her red one piece every day.
Then I got to return to my privileged life and not work the other 44 weeks of the year. I like to think it taught me something about hard work though.
Via Insty, only trained professionals, like law enforcement, should be allowed to possess firearms. Isn’t that what lefty types always say?
a unit chief in the F.B.I.’s international terrorism section
If they can get rolled by amateurs, imagine what professionals would do to those knuckleheads.
Oh yes, you have to be pretty self-controlled not to fall for the old honeypot.
The misspelled ‘hookers’.
“Boss, that hooker stole my service weapon and $20 cash from my wallet!”
“No, she took your service weapon, $60 in cash, and let’s say a $6,000 Rolex. You’re welcome.”
I was a rink rat growing up. Two brothers also played, and we were in different age groups, so I’d be at the arena from 7 in the morning until evening. My first job was being an open skate attendant when I was 12. I got to wear the yellow jacket, skate around and tell people when to switch directions on the ice. No pay, but I was able to skate all day and got all the Blow-Pops and Coke I wanted. It led to actual work with money sweeping up tape in the locker rooms.
Am I pissing off the locker room attendants by always depositing my tape in the garbage?
You monster!
YES
Politico’s nauseating story on Moore accusations and Washington GOP’er responses:
They know there will never be proof because we’re talking about a 40 year old accusation that Moore tried to get into a 14 year old girl’s pants. They write as if its unreasonable to be skeptical or give Moore the benefit of the doubt.
At least they allowed for the possibility of the accusations being false. McCain, naturally, didn’t even do that much.
Trying to get into a 14 yo girls pants and a 14 yo girl thinking someone is trying to get in her pants are two very different things. Of course the truth is probably closer to ‘she’s lying’.
my grandma was married and gave birth at 14 to my aunt. i’m seeing a modern standard applied to an era with vastly different societal norms.
My great-great grandmother was 15 when she married a 35 year old man…..who was also her first cousin. Hey, it was rural Georgia in 1879 – EVERYBODY WAS DOING IT BACK THEN!!!
This explains a lot.
Well, the allegations involve getting into a state of semi-undress and touching and whatnot, it’s not just “he wuz skeevin on me”.
And it’s not one someone, but several.
The allegations about the 14 y-o are the only ones that are really bad, though, as the other allegations are that he tried to/did date 16-18 y-o’s but never advanced beyond the holding hands/kissing stage (he being in his late 20s/early 30s in all these stories – with age of consent being 16). There’s a clear pattern that he liked them young (the article I read said he finally married a 24 y-o when he was in his late 30s), but whether he’s a criminal pervert or just a man of his time (two of the 16-18 y-o’s had their mothers say they wouldn’t mind if they married him) rests entirely on the veracity of a single accusation.
In January 2016 John Bell Edwards, a progressive democrat (socialist) was elected governor of Louisiana because uptight jerks were outraged that David Vitter (stellar voting record) couldn’t keep his pants zipped (nothing to do with the job). Now those same idiots are complaining about Edwards socialist policies – higher taxes, higher spending, increased state fees etc etc.