But instead you get to pay for your car, your gas, your insurance, your stress, your bad weather, your drink sloshing a mess into your floorboards because you have to slam the brakes due to Idiot McStupid driving while facetiming in front of you, your additional childcare costs during your commute, your extra laundry costs, your pets not getting attention all day, your lunch if you don't have time to make one to bring with you, your contribution to your highly-paid managers birthday gift card.

Basically title. I get paid $10 per hour. Things, especially food, have been really expensive and I just learned that my landlord is increasing my rent in May.

So yesterday I asked my boss if she'd consider a raise of $15, at the minimum $13. She knows how much I'm struggling. And I showed to her how much work I've done, even if I had to do overtime, and also completed tasks that were not part of my job description to justify the raise. She agreed that I'm a hard worker and thankful for all the work I'm doing.

But said that she can't give a raise because they're a small business (true) so cannot afford it. If they give every employee a raise then they'd have to increase product prices which will make customers go to more cheaper places, meaning the company will lose more money and eventually shutdown leaving all of us jobless. She instead gave me tips on how to budget more, most of what I've been doing/done already. She even had the gall to say that I can just do more overtime if I'm tight on money. So she can afford to pay overtime but not give raises?

That was a disappointing but an eye opening conversation. I really like my job but it's just so hard to live getting paid so little. I am job-hunting, have been actually, but no prospects yet. For now, I'm just going to do the minimal effort and not overdo myself.

Edit: Thanks everyone! And just tbf, I do understand how hard it is to run a small business. To be honest, despite a few complaints, I was mostly content with where I am. Things were manageable. Until well covid happened. I know my work place took quite a hit initially but we were able to stay afloat. It's just things are more expensive that it's barely manageable now. I wish I can say that I can survive with $10/h because again I like the job. But unfortunately things are different. There are other job options in my area. I've applied to maybe most of them but haven't had the luck. I am expanding my search so hopefully I will be able to find a new job soon.

on mobile, forgive formatting

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. - H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Well that hits hard. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been guilty of this. There is another excuse that doesn’t hold much water. Perspective is everything. Have a Blessed Be Happy Friday.

^ His email

v My response

Hi Jay! While I get the “motivational” idea behind this quote, I don’t actually like it that much. When you think about it, the average working citizen does NOT have the same number of hours in a day that these people did. People like them did not do their own shopping, their own cooking, their own chores, or most of the other responsibilities that the working class has to deal with in their day to day life, thus giving them more hours to dedicate to a successful living. Especially when people use this quote to relate to modern success stories. I have seen this quote used in favor of the Kardashians, the same family that some people DONATED to, to make one of them a billionaire, so no, I don’t like it when people tell me that I have no excuse not to be like them when I have the “same time in the day” that they do.

Some math:

The average adult needs 8 hours of sleep. 16 hour left

I work from 8-5, that’s 9 hours of my day at work. 7 hours left.

My commute is 15 minutes one way, and it takes me 30 minutes to get ready, so I get up at 7, and to cover anything that could happen last second at work, like last minute members, I usually get home at 5:30. 5 ½ hours left

I make my own dinner, prep, clean up and eating usually takes around 1 1/2 -2 hours. 4 hours left.

This part varies per person. Some people have kids, some people have school. I have school, and I am taking 7 credit hours, which means I should be doing 1 hour of homework per day. 3 hours left.

Exercise is important for a healthy lifestyle, most recommend an hour. 2 hours left.

We obviously have to get ready for bed, my shower and skincare/hygiene routine can take up to an hour, and my routine is quite simple compared to others. Let’s give that an hour, to account for some relaxation, which is vital to a low stress life. 1 hour left.

What do I do with my last hour? Do I do something I like, a hobby, a treat, watch an episode or two of my favorite show? Do I relax, read a book, go to bed early? That last dwindling hour of my day, I don’t want to think of fantastic, groundbreaking ideas, or think of how the world is awful and how I can try to fix it. I want to spend it with my family, who also works these long days, sometimes longer than I do. I’ll spare you the layout of a weekend when I work, which I work every Saturday because I miss hours in the workweek due to my bosses generously letting me take a few hours out of two days of the week to go to school.

I’m not trying to say it’s a bad quote, by any means, it's just a quote that needs more thought behind it. Thanks for reading my rant!

What do you guys think? He's a good guy and usually has his heart in the right place, but he's a middle aged white man who's been a CEO hopper for the past 25 years of his life. I just want people to understand that I don't have the time to do great things when i'm forced to work for a living.

Most companies don’t give a rats ass about you. I should have quit in 2 weeks instead of being a “good employee” and giving them notice. At least my new job pays double what I made before 🤷‍♂️

I have a boss who has been bullying the entire team since the day he started. Just very unapproachable, doesn’t accept anything other than “yes sir! Your ideas are flawless and make perfect sense!” Otherwise they get crazy aggressive and defensive.

Anyhow, they didn’t care much for me since I’ve been here a long time and I guess maybe they feel threatened. They gave me bad reviews, and started down the “getting a paper trail to put him on a PIP” tactic.

I’ve been a manager and I know all the signs and tactics leadership use. Though I’ve never weaponized a PIP just to get rid of someone I didn’t care for.

Anyhow—-I set a meeting with my bosses director. And I sat down and told him the situation. I kept it nice and short and I also have specific examples with dates, and told him I have emails. Screenshots (from our msoft teams messenger) -/dates and time stamps of events.

I also , most importantly, pointed to the company wide data that shows my performance and not only is it not “under performing” but I’m exceeding my goals by a significant amount , especially relative to my team.

I told him “if my boss, or this leadership chain doesn’t value what I bring to the table or doesn’t want me here for whatever reason, then instead of making up false accusations of underperformance that are verifiably untrue, offer me a severance package. I’ll transition my workload to whoever you want and you can cut me loose.”

And even though I’m 100% in the right and this boss is unethical in their behavior, the reality is, I’m the low man on the totem pole and the easiest one to get rid of to make the problem go away.

They haven’t made a decision yet. They said they had to go back to my boss and bring up this issue ——but I went in fully expecting to get fired for speaking out and standing up for myself.

And ultimately, I don’t regret it. I’d rather leave an extremely toxic environment than just try to play the game of trying to survive and suck up being bullied on a daily basis .

Seriously, telling them beforehand just puts a target on your back, and fair or not, it's harder to argue that any response they have is retaliation if you haven't actually done anything to retaliate against. It also gives them a chance to cover things up before any investigation that may occur, which protects them from punishment and prevents those harmed (i.e., you and your coworkers) from recovering any damages.

On the other hand, reporting them gives you some protection from retaliation, and chances are that they're violating the rights of coworkers as well, so they might not even know who reported them.

Of course there are exceptions to this, but they should be limited the rare cases where your employer/manager is actually a good person and they're new enough that they might not actually know better.

I am from Gen X. I want to be clear about something.
Majority of us get it.
Statistically, majority of us understand.
We may be "the forgotten" generation, but we didn't forget.
We know what you're going through.

I'm in management and I would hire ANY of you before I'd hire anyone from my generation.
I've worked with a lot of you.
I am god damned tired of the "these 'kids' don't wanna work" bullshit.
No. These "kids" don't wanna work for your bullshit slave wages.

I don't know why I am making this post other than I want you to know that you have an ally with grey hair.

Love you guys. You keep doing what you're doing because you're making change; change that needs to drastically happen.