I don't agree with alot of people's views here. I grew up poor, started in manufacturing fresh out of high school, worked hard, got promotions and got my employer to pay for my degree and now make 6 figures. In the end you have to work hard and take care of yourself. No laws should be passed to increase minimum wage, if you want to make 25 an hour go out and get it and do the hard work.
Anyways, I love reading about managers here that are ass hats. I'll never forget I worked for this one guy, such a prick. I ran a small group of 4 people and he would always tell me work then to the bone, they should be exhausted every night they go home. Fuck that. So he didn't like I wasnt good little lap dog and for that he held me back. I finally got another job after waiting 5 years internally, got me to about 75k. That ass hole tried to keep me back from that job and said I was a shitty employee all because I wasn't his bitch and he knew he wasn't going to be able to replace me with another person as the was a hiring freeze. He was trying to take money out of my family and my kids mouths, I wanted to kill him, what kind of jerk does that to a father of 5? Fast forward a couple of years and they made that tool the plant manager even knowing how much of a snake he was with a hr file as thick as the bible. That's when I decided to leave my company after 25 years (business was also very bad and I knew the doors were going to be closing). Well 10 months after I left the doors closed, and corporate gave him a cushy training job, making like 175k. To this day it still pisses me off!