Archived Minimum Wage

[commiecorvus]

I'm sorry but I saw member of the flow team working at the BK after they got off work with us then they would go to work at their third job so they could afford apartments that they shared with multiple family members.
I wouldn't have survived if my wife hadn't been a teacher and in a union.
You can't in some areas.

This young lady didn't.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/maria-fernandes_n_5732230.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

4 jobs? Yeah, well, Crystal Meth is expensive, and necessary to be "awake for five days". I'm all for hard work and whatnot, and do believe the minimum wage needs to be raised, but anyone working THAT hard is hitting the uppers. She was cruising for an extremely early death regardless.

Eh, being awake for five days does not require crystal meth. I've known many people that suffered from clinical insomnia that stayed awake that long frequently, they'd then sleep for a good 36 hours straight whenever they finally collapsed from exhaustion.

Of late I've had insomnia issues so this totally hits home but as to the work situation I once worked two jobs.
One day shift for a political campaign and a dinner shift at a restaurant.
I slept an hour between jobs and three hours a night, living on coffee and ate standing up.
The political job was six days a week because I believed in the candidate even though the pay was crap and I often worked extra shifts at the restaurant to actually pay the bills.

You can do amazing things when you're young, dumb and think you're invulnerable.

 

[RedMan]

Supposedly flow team gets paid more because it's more labor intensive and more important to operations... right, try removing the entire flow team and the store will still operate for a while, remove the ability to check out and your store is done. Cashiers have to keep an eye our for shoplifters, we stand at tills that have thousands and thousands of dollars in them, we have to make sure people aren't scamming us... I've worked nearly every job in the store and I think cashing is one of the more difficult and stressful jobs.

I have never been forced to go to the doctor because I threw out my back ringing up a guest. I have never fallen off a ladder ringing up a guest. I have never had a pallet dropped on my toe ringing up a guest. I have never had someone run into me with a flat bed ringing up a guest. Other than Black Friday I never had to work a zombie shift as a cashier. I missed so many more social engagements because of flow/overnight than I ever did on any other shift. Not knocking being a cashier at all as every job has its challenges but the physical toll that working flow takes on your body is far worse than anything anyone else in the store has to do. That is why they get paid more.

Um, we've had cashiers on LOA for back strains, torn rotator cuffs, broken foot (dropped a box of bags on her foot), lacerations from box cutters, biohazard exposure. Being a cashier is not all sweetness and butterflies.

 

[Unintended BM]

I started in 2010 and make less than a dollar more an hour. I think I got 66 cents all together over 4 years.

 

[Nauzhror]

Started at $7.40 in April 2013, was at $7.97, then min wage jumped to $8.15, so at that now. Though, yes, it is annoying that I basically lost my previous "raises" since now all new cashiers make the same pay as I do.

 

[Kompa]

Supposedly flow team gets paid more because it's more labor intensive and more important to operations... right, try removing the entire flow team and the store will still operate for a while, remove the ability to check out and your store is done. Cashiers have to keep an eye our for shoplifters, we stand at tills that have thousands and thousands of dollars in them, we have to make sure people aren't scamming us... I've worked nearly every job in the store and I think cashing is one of the more difficult and stressful jobs.

I have never been forced to go to the doctor because I threw out my back ringing up a guest. I have never fallen off a ladder ringing up a guest. I have never had a pallet dropped on my toe ringing up a guest. I have never had someone run into me with a flat bed ringing up a guest. Other than Black Friday I never had to work a zombie shift as a cashier. I missed so many more social engagements because of flow/overnight than I ever did on any other shift. Not knocking being a cashier at all as every job has its challenges but the physical toll that working flow takes on your body is far worse than anything anyone else in the store has to do. That is why they get paid more.

Um, we've had cashiers on LOA for back strains, torn rotator cuffs, broken foot (dropped a box of bags on her foot), lacerations from box cutters, biohazard exposure. Being a cashier is not all sweetness and butterflies.

lol u could make a show out of that

Extreme Checkout! Where cashiers go above and beyond the call of retail to make sure you get checked out. Will that be cash or credit

 

[Signkitty]

I'm sorry but I saw member of the flow team working at the BK after they got off work with us then they would go to work at their third job so they could afford apartments that they shared with multiple family members.
I wouldn't have survived if my wife hadn't been a teacher and in a union.
You can't in some areas.

This young lady didn't.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/maria-fernandes_n_5732230.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

4 jobs? Yeah, well, Crystal Meth is expensive, and necessary to be "awake for five days". I'm all for hard work and whatnot, and do believe the minimum wage needs to be raised, but anyone working THAT hard is hitting the uppers. She was cruising for an extremely early death regardless.

Eh, being awake for five days does not require crystal meth. I've known many people that suffered from clinical insomnia that stayed awake that long frequently, they'd then sleep for a good 36 hours straight whenever they finally collapsed from exhaustion.

Of late I've had insomnia issues so this totally hits home but as to the work situation I once worked two jobs.
One day shift for a political campaign and a dinner shift at a restaurant.
I slept an hour between jobs and three hours a night, living on coffee and ate standing up.
The political job was six days a week because I believed in the candidate even though the pay was crap and I often worked extra shifts at the restaurant to actually pay the bills.

You can do amazing things when you're young, dumb and think you're invulnerable.

You can do amazing things when your underpaid and desperate and need money to live.

When I worked three jobs I was miserable had no life other then work and sleep and it was definitely not good for my health. But thats what I had to do to keep myself afloat. I lost one of the jobs when I had to call out due to exhaustion, it was probably for the best but it hurt financially.

 

[Signkitty]

Oh and every job in the store has different challenges I have worked in almost every area and it depends on the day and the workload for that position during that shift.


It also depends on how much you care, everyday is an easy day if you don't care about doing your job well.

 

[daninnj]

4 jobs? Yeah, well, Crystal Meth is expensive, and necessary to be "awake for five days". I'm all for hard work and whatnot, and do believe the minimum wage needs to be raised, but anyone working THAT hard is hitting the uppers. She was cruising for an extremely early death regardless.

Well that's judgmental and offensive.

 

[tgtguy]

Supposedly flow team gets paid more because it's more labor intensive and more important to operations... right, try removing the entire flow team and the store will still operate for a while, remove the ability to check out and your store is done. Cashiers have to keep an eye our for shoplifters, we stand at tills that have thousands and thousands of dollars in them, we have to make sure people aren't scamming us... I've worked nearly every job in the store and I think cashing is one of the more difficult and stressful jobs.[/QUOTEYes

The merchandise that is being rang up by a cashier just doesn't magically fly in the store....its unloaded off of a truck....taken out of the box and placed on the shelf....the flow team is just as important as any other work center.

 

[JuicedSoftball1]

Oh and every job in the store has different challenges I have worked in almost every area and it depends on the day and the workload for that position during that shift.


It also depends on how much you care, everyday is an easy day if you don't care about doing your job well.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I was going to go into a rant about this last night but I was tired.

I will now though =)

I hated being a cashier, not because it was hard or physically demanding. I hated it because it was very boring and did not challenge me. You can talk about Red Card goals all day long but as long as your asking that is all you really can do. I was only really ever concerned with having a green cashier score for speed. Speed is life! or so they tell us! That was very easy to obtain.

Now try to push product in some of their push times now thats a challenge! I was one of the fastest pushers in a 70 million dollar green store and prided myself on beating timeline goals. You have to break a sweat and bust your butt to beat a lot of those timelines.

Back to his point though. There are countless employees who just do not care. If they do not care they could careless if the push time is 2 hours. They are going to take their sweet ass time and not break a sweat. I cant tell you the number of times I would put 2 people in a area that should take 4 hours to push for 1 person and I would give myself a 4 hour push area as well. I cant tell you how many times I would finish that 4 hour push time in 2 hours when they would take a total of 8 man hours to do the same amount of work. So you are right if you dont care flow is one of the easiest jobs. No guest to deal with. If you give it 100% like Target hopes you do they should get paid the most.

 

[Town Park Radio]

4 jobs? Yeah, well, Crystal Meth is expensive, and necessary to be "awake for five days". I'm all for hard work and whatnot, and do believe the minimum wage needs to be raised, but anyone working THAT hard is hitting the uppers. She was cruising for an extremely early death regardless.

Well that's judgmental and offensive.

What color is the sky in your world? It's not the same as this one the rest of us live on, clearly.

 

[daninnj]

How convenient for an article to come out today about her. The "awake for five days" was most likely hyperbole which you seemed to take literally: "But dreams rarely pay the rent. So Ms. Fernandes worked three jobs, at three Dunkin’ Donuts stores in northern New Jersey, shuttling from Newark to Linden to Harrison and back. She often slept in her car — two hours here, three hours there — and usually kept the engine running, ready in an instant to start all over again."

And you can survive on 2 hr or 3 hr naps as your only sleep. I have, plenty of times.

 

[Nauzhror]

What color is the sky in your world? It's not the same as this one the rest of us live on, clearly.

It appears it's only your sky that's the odd color. Most rational individuals do not decide that "hard-working" equates to "meth addict".

 

[mrknownothing]

What color is the sky in your world? It's not the same as this one the rest of us live on, clearly.

It appears it's only your sky that's the odd color. Most rational individuals do not decide that "hard-working" equates to "meth addict".

This. It's certainly possible to do all that work without drugs; it's just very difficult. It requires a great deal of dedication, though coffee helps too.

 

[daninnj]

She worked at Dunkin Donuts for crissakes! lol

 

[commiecorvus]

There are plenty of people out there working multiple jobs who aren't doing drugs to manage it.
They sleep an hour or two in between each sift and roll with the punches.
Unfortunately they are often the people causing car accidents when they fall asleep driving from one place to the other.
We have too many companies making money off the backs of people who are doing everything they can to survive.

 

[OopsChargeback]

I get $9.50 an hour for my work on flow team. It's above minimum wage and it's not even close to enough money. I get between 12 and 16 hours, 20 on a really good week. If I got 20 a week for a full year, I still get less than $10,000 a year before taxes. Less than $700 a month after taxes. I can't adequately help with rent on the tiny 1 bedroom apartment I share with my girlfriend. In fact, I wouldn't even be able to pay for rent myself here and I live in the cheapest apartments in the area. I'm getting more than "minimum" and it's not even a living wage. If I was paid "minimum" and lived alone I don't know how I'd deal.

I couldn't guess what the most important position at Target is, but I can tell you that what I'm being paid for the backbreaking work I do on Flow is obscenely small. I'd take another job if anywhere else was hiring. The few places that did give me an interview only had similar positions open that paid even less. Pffft.

 

[RedMan]

Do you really think you should be able to live well, working only 12 to 16 hours a week? I don't think anyone would expect that working 20 hours per week would be sustainable. That leaves a lot of daylight to pick up extra shifts in another work center or at another job.

 

[OopsChargeback]

Like I said, if I were able to pick up another job I would. However, I do think that it is not unreasonable to think that I should at least be able to pay rent with my job. Even if I were to consistently get 20 hours a week, I couldn't do that. Shit, even if I were to work a full 40 hours a week on my pay I couldn't; I live in the cheapest apartments in the area, and we have to make at least two and a half times the rent per month to live here. If I worked 40 hours a week on my pay I'd only make a hair more than 1.5 times my rent. If minimum wage is supposed to be the minimum it costs to live, I'm making less than that, though, as I've said, I'm making more than that arbitrary minimum amount.

No matter what, though, what Flow is paid at my store is not enough for the brutal work we do. The same could certainly be said for those working in every hourly position at my store.

In my particular situation, I live alright. I help out where I can with household expenses, and I'm lucky enough to have and live with a supportive and understanding girlfriend with a super baller job. But if I was making 20 hours, or even a full 40 hours, on my pay consistently, I'd be SOL in the housing department if I was living alone. That's not okay.

 

[Nauzhror]

Being SOL when working 20 hours seems okay to me. 40 however isn't. If you only work 20 hours at Target at my store it's because you only want 20 hours, if you want more you get cross-trained and pick up shifts to get near 40 every week if you can't get that many from your primary workcenter.