Anyone who thinks that the United States is in a recession clearly has never been to Grand Lake during the Fourth of July.
While my wife is working towards her nursing degree, I am working at a grocery store in Langley, Oklahoma to pay the bills. Langley is considered to be the gateway to Grand Lake which over the last few years has become the “it” spot for all the Tulsa people. (By turnpike, Tulsa is about one hour from Grand Lake.) It is quite the status symbol for the Tulsies to say, “Oh, we went to the lake this weekend. We have a house on Grand Lake.”
During this week, we do as much business as a Tulsa location but we do it with less than half the square footage and about one-third of the employees. While I don’t know the numbers, I know our dollar-to-man-hour ratio has to be the best in the company. Yeah, if any piddly-ass Reasor employee outside of Langley #6 has stumbled into this blog, you can suck it. Nobody works like a Langley Employee ‘cause in Langley the work don’t stop. But with so few employees, it means six-day workweeks and if my calculations are correct (and I like to think that they are), I’ll be pulling down about 56 hours of work this week that consists of nothing but butt holes and elbows. (Enjoy that imagery.) It is all go, no quit until the people head back to Tulsa on Sunday evening.
Let me tell you, it is a huge incentive to write comic books full time. I find myself taking less and less pride in my work. I am using the company for the paycheck the same way they treat me as just a nametag. I know I am less than a year away from being able to quit. And I made it through this weekend by thinking, “This is the last 4th that you HAVE to work.” I can continue to work after Amy gets a nursing job but instead I will choose to make the transfer to full time comic book author. Maybe I work one shift a week to give me some walking around money. Time will tell.
My attitude might be different if I was seeing a percentage of profit in my paycheck but, quite frankly, I get paid the same if we are crazy mad busy or if we have two customers all day. Its kind of one of those scenarios where they pay me a minimal wage so I give them a minimal effort.
Still, a Ryan Foley minimal effort is still better than 90% of employees working at the location. But I look around and I hear about all these record sales and record numbers… But I’m not seeing record wages or record number of employees.
Check this out: We found an old sale flyer dating around 1987. They had yellow onions priced at seven pounds for ninety-nine cents. In today’s marketplace, you can get a little more than a pound of onions for ninety-nine cents.
When I first started driving, around 1990, I drove a piece-o’-crap diesel Isuzu pick-up that was called a P’up for short. We called it “The Poop.” I could remember filling up and being pissed when I had to pay more than a dollar a gallon for diesel. I seem to recall starting out and diesel was around eighty-eight cents. Have you priced diesel lately? Here in Adair (one of the cheapest areas in the nation) diesel is around $4.50 a gallon.
So look at that. In twenty years, onions have increased seven fold. In eighteen years, even figuring conservatively, gas has increased over four fold. When I first started working at Reasor’s as a “Courtesy Clerk” back around 1991, minimum wage was $4.25 per hour. I was special. I made a whopping $4.30 an hour. Yeah, buddy! Big bucks. To maintain a relatively equal ration with the cost of inflation and such, based just off the increase of gas, minimum wage should be at a minimum of $17.00 an hour.
I don’t even make that with overtime. I don’t even think the head of my department makes that kind of money. And that can be frustrating.
I heard a stat lately that 90% of the wealth in this country is controlled by 10% of the population. And this weekend, I made the company all kinds of money… but I won’t see a bonus nickel in my paycheck. The big bonus was a few free cans of pop, which I don’t even drink since I gave up soft drinks.
I’m telling you, kids. Become financially independent if you can. Don’t be beholden to someone else for a paycheck. I know that is a difficult task to achieve. So if you can’t do that, work at something that you love. Love what you do and you will never work a day in your life.
I dread having to go to work everyday for a measly paycheck but I never get tired of writing comic books. And in 2009, if things hold true to form, I will make more money working in my “part time” comic book job than I do at my full time grocery job. How sweet is that?
And once Amy has a steady income, then everything becomes gravy… Do something you love everybody. That’s the sweetest experience in the world. Go thou and do likewise.
While my wife is working towards her nursing degree, I am working at a grocery store in Langley, Oklahoma to pay the bills. Langley is considered to be the gateway to Grand Lake which over the last few years has become the “it” spot for all the Tulsa people. (By turnpike, Tulsa is about one hour from Grand Lake.) It is quite the status symbol for the Tulsies to say, “Oh, we went to the lake this weekend. We have a house on Grand Lake.”
During this week, we do as much business as a Tulsa location but we do it with less than half the square footage and about one-third of the employees. While I don’t know the numbers, I know our dollar-to-man-hour ratio has to be the best in the company. Yeah, if any piddly-ass Reasor employee outside of Langley #6 has stumbled into this blog, you can suck it. Nobody works like a Langley Employee ‘cause in Langley the work don’t stop. But with so few employees, it means six-day workweeks and if my calculations are correct (and I like to think that they are), I’ll be pulling down about 56 hours of work this week that consists of nothing but butt holes and elbows. (Enjoy that imagery.) It is all go, no quit until the people head back to Tulsa on Sunday evening.
Let me tell you, it is a huge incentive to write comic books full time. I find myself taking less and less pride in my work. I am using the company for the paycheck the same way they treat me as just a nametag. I know I am less than a year away from being able to quit. And I made it through this weekend by thinking, “This is the last 4th that you HAVE to work.” I can continue to work after Amy gets a nursing job but instead I will choose to make the transfer to full time comic book author. Maybe I work one shift a week to give me some walking around money. Time will tell.
My attitude might be different if I was seeing a percentage of profit in my paycheck but, quite frankly, I get paid the same if we are crazy mad busy or if we have two customers all day. Its kind of one of those scenarios where they pay me a minimal wage so I give them a minimal effort.
Still, a Ryan Foley minimal effort is still better than 90% of employees working at the location. But I look around and I hear about all these record sales and record numbers… But I’m not seeing record wages or record number of employees.
Check this out: We found an old sale flyer dating around 1987. They had yellow onions priced at seven pounds for ninety-nine cents. In today’s marketplace, you can get a little more than a pound of onions for ninety-nine cents.
When I first started driving, around 1990, I drove a piece-o’-crap diesel Isuzu pick-up that was called a P’up for short. We called it “The Poop.” I could remember filling up and being pissed when I had to pay more than a dollar a gallon for diesel. I seem to recall starting out and diesel was around eighty-eight cents. Have you priced diesel lately? Here in Adair (one of the cheapest areas in the nation) diesel is around $4.50 a gallon.
So look at that. In twenty years, onions have increased seven fold. In eighteen years, even figuring conservatively, gas has increased over four fold. When I first started working at Reasor’s as a “Courtesy Clerk” back around 1991, minimum wage was $4.25 per hour. I was special. I made a whopping $4.30 an hour. Yeah, buddy! Big bucks. To maintain a relatively equal ration with the cost of inflation and such, based just off the increase of gas, minimum wage should be at a minimum of $17.00 an hour.
I don’t even make that with overtime. I don’t even think the head of my department makes that kind of money. And that can be frustrating.
I heard a stat lately that 90% of the wealth in this country is controlled by 10% of the population. And this weekend, I made the company all kinds of money… but I won’t see a bonus nickel in my paycheck. The big bonus was a few free cans of pop, which I don’t even drink since I gave up soft drinks.
I’m telling you, kids. Become financially independent if you can. Don’t be beholden to someone else for a paycheck. I know that is a difficult task to achieve. So if you can’t do that, work at something that you love. Love what you do and you will never work a day in your life.
I dread having to go to work everyday for a measly paycheck but I never get tired of writing comic books. And in 2009, if things hold true to form, I will make more money working in my “part time” comic book job than I do at my full time grocery job. How sweet is that?
And once Amy has a steady income, then everything becomes gravy… Do something you love everybody. That’s the sweetest experience in the world. Go thou and do likewise.
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