My dad is retired military and recently got a job at a local grocery store because he wanted to get back on a schedule. He did not need the money but wanted to see if he could actually live off of the money that they paid him. He made $12.50 which was the max that this store paid for his area and his first paycheck had 84 hours on it. His first paycheck barely covered his mortgage and he realized he had about 60$ left for two weeks for food and gas. He tried to make it last but unfortunately a few days later he was completely out of money.
The second paycheck came and after bills he had roughly $140 left. He said that he was hired as a a cashier but never saw a cash register. He stocked, unloaded the trucks, cleaned and even cut meat in the back. He was very confused as to why his job title said one thing, but he was constantly doing other things, including working in areas where the pay was different. (Cashiers got paid the least but he was working in areas that got paid more for only $12.50). Six weeks in and he decided it was best for him to quit as he wasn’t getting true breaks and his pay wasn’t worth working 40+ hours. He also got yelled at multiple times in front of others for not following ‘made up’ rules that seemed to differ manager to manager. He said that if this is how people have to work, then he understands why people quit or work multiple jobs and burn themselves out.
He is a retired Colonel, with 4 Master’s degrees, many leadership awards and 5 deployments. He also did 20 years Civil Service so 44 years of Gov service combined. He has led and managed more people than most and said that there is no way someone can work on that pay and actually live. Had it not been for his pensions and VA pay, he would’ve slowly gone into debt and fell behind financially. He said that he will never complain again when places don’t have employees as he understands why.
If only our politicians could go through something like this…