Prs to be making me less broke? Financial Follies

[Dids]

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One of my friends in HS started working part-time at Safeway as soon as it was legal to do so. He passed the checker test and became a full-time employee with > 1.5 yrs experience pretty much the day he graduated, and got bumped up to $12-14/hr. That's like $26-27K, and this was in 1985...I don't think Safeway is at the top of the pay scale.


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Actually most supermarkets have unions and make good $$$.

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Not in Texas they don't. I made $6/hr. Everybody did.

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Are you talking East Bumfuck where your folks live, or Houston?

Even in scenic Pullberg, checking was a nice, union job. I assume this explains the one lady i dealt with who didn't understand hte concept of pyrex and was very careful with my nice "glass" bowl.

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One of my friends in HS started working part-time at Safeway as soon as it was legal to do so. He passed the checker test and became a full-time employee with > 1.5 yrs experience pretty much the day he graduated, and got bumped up to $12-14/hr. That's like $26-27K, and this was in 1985...I don't think Safeway is at the top of the pay scale.


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Actually most supermarkets have unions and make good $$$.

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Not in Texas they don't. I made $6/hr. Everybody did.

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As a checker?

[tuq]

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One of my friends in HS started working part-time at Safeway as soon as it was legal to do so. He passed the checker test and became a full-time employee with > 1.5 yrs experience pretty much the day he graduated, and got bumped up to $12-14/hr. That's like $26-27K, and this was in 1985...I don't think Safeway is at the top of the pay scale.


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Actually most supermarkets have unions and make good $$$.

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Yeah, this is why they hate Wal-Mart cutting into their market share. Labor is by far the #1 controllable expense in the grocery business, but it's so costly that the profit margin is typically a razor-thin 1%. Wal-Mart pays their people roughly half the wage, don't provide benefits for most, and as a result can lower their prices and still make $$$.

BTW I was in the industry for nearly ten years, from sophomore year in HS and beyond. When I left all my Sr. people were making around $13.50 + benefits + overtime, but it typically takes a long while to get there. Most HS students back in the day were lucky to be making $6/hr. In short, as of 1998 the Sr. folks were still only clearing about $28-30K + benefits.

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I knew plenty of people that managed to do that, or better. Most of them did so by working towards it in high school. A smaller percentage just by family connections.

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I've never met anyone who did that.

Anyone who managed to work IN HIGH SCHOOL toward a 35k a year job on graduation from high school might as well have hit the lottery. Especially going back a decade or more ago.

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These aren't retards who worked at mcdonalds.

I know a guy who got his first professional programming job at 16. I know several people who joined businesses in menial positions as kids and got real jobs in the firms after high school. I even know a few people that started their own businesses straight out of high school and succeeded. Even in 1991 35k wasn't that hard to make.

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Disagree. These are all rare exceptions. The lower on the social scale you start from, the rarer they get, too.

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I don't see your point at all. Had I wanted, I could've kept my job and made about $30K annually. Not the same as $35K in '86, but still a respectable job without a degree. Had I started a couple years earlier, I probably could've taken a job full time their right out of HS for $45K.

The point is, people don't just get handed good paying jobs because they know someone. (Well, sometimes maybe).


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LOLs. Yup.

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There's usually a lot more to "knowing someone." Is there some luck involved? Sure, but it's usually luck derived from putting yourself in a particular situation anyway.

Also, as a side note, programming nerds and web designers used to be able to pull good bank right out of HS. Decently skilled painters and carpenters can also get solid work right of HS.

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I never said such things can't or don't happen. I think you guys are merely taking exceptional cases and extrapolating too far with them. These things make good stories precisely because they are so unusual.

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You make your own opportunities.

1. Get job
2. Do it better than all the retards
3. Opportunities present themselves

Whenever I find an employee who stands out I make it my mission to do everything I can for them. Many other people operate the same way.

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It's pretty common for people to largely build their businesses on treating people as expenses, not assets, and just using them up till they burn out, are driven to quit, or find a better opportunity. It would be nice if hard work paying off was something one could expect from low level jobs, but it's not. You're basically completely disposable and might as well be a stapler or a pair of scissors. You're "below the line," and that includes the line of consciousness.

That said, any job is better than none.

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Yes there is a whole category of jobs that where this is the norm. There are plenty that treat good people as assets too. I prefer to think the best people are assets and the rest are pretty interchangeable.

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That's quite fair and practical. The truth is, there's no reason for many jobs to nurture employees or let them develop or express any of their potential besides being a reasonably acceptable cog in an anonymous machine. Not that there's anything wrong with that; hey, it's a living. And those jobs are of course all concentrated at the low end, especially when having no inexperience isn't a barrier.

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I knew plenty of people that managed to do that, or better. Most of them did so by working towards it in high school. A smaller percentage just by family connections.

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I've never met anyone who did that.

Anyone who managed to work IN HIGH SCHOOL toward a 35k a year job on graduation from high school might as well have hit the lottery. Especially going back a decade or more ago.

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These aren't retards who worked at mcdonalds.

I know a guy who got his first professional programming job at 16. I know several people who joined businesses in menial positions as kids and got real jobs in the firms after high school. I even know a few people that started their own businesses straight out of high school and succeeded. Even in 1991 35k wasn't that hard to make.

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Disagree. These are all rare exceptions. The lower on the social scale you start from, the rarer they get, too.

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Seriously this dude has gone mad. 35k easy to come by? The average male 18-25 does not make 35K a year in 2007, let alone 1991. LMAO.

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I knew plenty of people that managed to do that, or better. Most of them did so by working towards it in high school. A smaller percentage just by family connections.

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I've never met anyone who did that.

Anyone who managed to work IN HIGH SCHOOL toward a 35k a year job on graduation from high school might as well have hit the lottery. Especially going back a decade or more ago.

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Or, he spent his free time from age 14 working for free to gain experience.

I was cutting over HP 3000's to IBM Main frames, stacking card readers and mounting tapes in my spare time while people like you where playing video games.

Go figure.



edit: check that...I meant "playing video games and learning long useless words"

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Okay so you learned a trade. You made it sound like you strolled into a 35K/year job in 1986 cause you were a hard worker. Finding a 35k/year job out of high school is pretty damn hard in 2007.

Also, just read this thread. Jesus, density FTW.

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Exactly. And even harder in 1986.

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I knew plenty of people that managed to do that, or better. Most of them did so by working towards it in high school. A smaller percentage just by family connections.

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I've never met anyone who did that.

Anyone who managed to work IN HIGH SCHOOL toward a 35k a year job on graduation from high school might as well have hit the lottery. Especially going back a decade or more ago.

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] One of my friends in HS started working part-time at Safeway as soon as it was legal to do so. He passed the checker test and became a full-time employee with > 1.5 yrs experience pretty much the day he graduated, and got bumped up to $12-14/hr. That's like $26-27K, and this was in 1985...I don't think Safeway is at the top of the pay scale.

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Believe it or not, those jobs are VERY sought after, depending where you live. Nowhere near easy to get.

[prohornblower]

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One of my friends in HS started working part-time at Safeway as soon as it was legal to do so. He passed the checker test and became a full-time employee with > 1.5 yrs experience pretty much the day he graduated, and got bumped up to $12-14/hr. That's like $26-27K, and this was in 1985...I don't think Safeway is at the top of the pay scale.


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Actually most supermarkets have unions and make good $$$.

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Not in Texas they don't. I made $6/hr. Everybody did.

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Dude, I got hired at Albertson's in Houston checking groceries at 18 in '97 for $6.50. Non-union. I worked weekends through my first 3 years of college, and by the time I left in 2000, was making $10.10/hr...$11.10/hr. on Sundays. (I worked 8 Sat. and 8 Sun.). Non-union.

What part of East Texas do you live in?...sorry, I mean, In what part of East Texas do you live?