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invictustaylor said:
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Maybe you could have pulled this off in like 1980 with a couple roomates. But if you're paying rent for a one bedroom apartment, you couldn't afford rent, electricity, water, internet, phone, grocery, car insurance, etc, on 35 hours a week at 6.50
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This was early 2000s. I lived in a single bedroom "efficiency" apartment 10x10 bedroom with a 10x13 living room, the "kitchen" was inset in the hallway between the bedroom and living room. $420/month rent

average electric $50/month, internet water and gas included, prepaid cellphone with no data plan. Took the bus most places, grocery store was 2 blocks away.
 
Ajax11 said:
This was early 2000s. I lived in a single bedroom "efficiency" apartment 10x10 bedroom with a 10x13 living room, the "kitchen" was inset in the hallway between the bedroom and living room. $420/month rent

average electric $50/month, internet water and gas included, prepaid cellphone with no data plan. Took the bus most places, grocery store was 2 blocks away.
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Ajax11 said:
This was early 2000s. I lived in a single bedroom "efficiency" apartment 10x10 bedroom with a 10x13 living room, the "kitchen" was inset in the hallway between the bedroom and living room. $420/month rent

average electric $50/month, internet water and gas included, prepaid cellphone with no data plan. Took the bus most places, grocery store was 2 blocks away.
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Ok, so basically you lived in near poverty one pay check away from being a street person, and we are to believe nothing ever went wrong in life to cause any decrease in your monthly pay (i.e. hours cuts that every TM in the company suffers except for you apparently), or any unexpected bill ever came up. (i.e. had to go to the doctor, get blood work, etc)

35 hours a week at 6.50 is $910 for the month *before* taxes/health insurance/other deductions. After all of those you were probably looking at $800 take home net pay. (actually probably less, but let's just be generous) Also let's just say you are the most incredible TM in the company and were always guaranteed 35 hours a week.

So after your rent and electric (which seems way too low even in the most ghetto parts of the country) you would have $330 left over.

So what about food for the whole month? Let's assume you lived on rice, boxed food, canned food, etc. (basically the cheapest food from the grocery store) That would be at least $150 a month. Again, pretty unbelieveable but let's just say. So now you would have $180 left over for the whole month.

Ok so let's just assume the above is how you lived.

So, what happened if one week of the month you got 15 hours, the next you got 20, and the other two you got 35 hours? (and please, don't BS me and tell me it never happened. No TM will always get 35 hours every week of the year. Hell, I am a TL and even I have had hours cut) That would mean you just lost a little over $200 for the month. Guess what? You would no longer have enough money to pay the extremely limited bills noted above. You are now behind on your bills because you ran out of money and are on the street.

We are not even factoring in other expenses. What if you needed clothing, had to visit the doctor, needing cleaning supplies, etc? Don't tell me you had the money for it, because you simply wouldn't have it. Don't even pretend you had a car.

*Maybe* if you were on tons of welfare programs you could have pulled it off, but without a kid that is pretty unlikely. And if you want to say you had a kid, don't even get me started on how much they cost.

Honestly you sound like some of the teenagers at my store who sit around talking about how they can't wait to move out from mom and dads thanks to their new target job. They have no clue how much living on their own actually costs. I have a feeling you are actually a teenager/early 20's living at home under your parents health insurance plan and are trying to tell us who are much older than you with kids/family to support/actual medical problems that we should have no complaints. The fact you don't realize how incredibly ridiculous and unbelievable your "I made it on $6.50/hour living on my own" story sounds pretty much confirms my suspicions.

So don't sit around and tell us we should be doing great in life while you are living off of mom and dad who likely make $80,000 a year while you live all bills paid.
 
I know the economy is crappy, but come on guys, if you are complaining about the minimum wage you're being paid then please, for yourself and your family find another job. And if Target is your last resort for a job, then don't stay at bottom paygrade. Backroom, GSA, Perishable/Food Assistant, Pog, Flow, Brand team members, Starbucks, Food Ave., Bike Builder, Electronics, Produce/Meat, Cake Decorator, TPS, all pay more than minimum wage. Some two dollars more. I started at minimum wage (7.25), and in under two years I'm making over 12 dollars as a TM. I'm not saying it's great, but for me, a college kid, it's pretty good. Don't stay at salesfloor and cashier.

As far as unions go, yes, if there was one it would take away a lot of my motivation to work hard. I can only imagine what it would do to everyone else.
 
Then there are those of us who have been w/spot 10 yrs, did well as specialist, then attempted to move up after the specialists were eliminated. I interviewed several times for TL positions & was told my interview was good only to see it go to a kid with half the experience & work ethic. I have a degree (which leadership didn't know until I brought it in to show them) & it would translate well to my area but I'm also older & don't cut corners on my work. My last three ETLs were much younger but I always did my best to show them the ropes so they wouldn't get tripped up (new ETLs are at the mercy of the experienced at my store). The latest crop made jokes about me behind my back & brushed me off whenever I sought development for promotion so I decided to cut my losses & move to an area with less responsibility. I haven't stopped looking outside but my field is being subjected to serious attempts at outsourcing so I'm weighing options.
 
StateofTarget said:
Ok, so basically you lived in near poverty one pay check away from being a street person, and we are to believe nothing ever went wrong in life to cause any decrease in your monthly pay (i.e. hours cuts that every TM in the company suffers except for you apparently), or any unexpected bill ever came up. (i.e. had to go to the doctor, get blood work, etc)

35 hours a week at 6.50 is $910 for the month *before* taxes/health insurance/other deductions. After all of those you were probably looking at $800 take home net pay. (actually probably less, but let's just be generous) Also let's just say you are the most incredible TM in the company and were always guaranteed 35 hours a week.

So after your rent and electric (which seems way too low even in the most ghetto parts of the country) you would have $330 left over.

So what about food for the whole month? Let's assume you lived on rice, boxed food, canned food, etc. (basically the cheapest food from the grocery store) That would be at least $150 a month. Again, pretty unbelieveable but let's just say. So now you would have $180 left over for the whole month.

Ok so let's just assume the above is how you lived.

So, what happened if one week of the month you got 15 hours, the next you got 20, and the other two you got 35 hours? (and please, don't BS me and tell me it never happened. No TM will always get 35 hours every week of the year. Hell, I am a TL and even I have had hours cut) That would mean you just lost a little over $200 for the month. Guess what? You would no longer have enough money to pay the extremely limited bills noted above. You are now behind on your bills because you ran out of money and are on the street.

We are not even factoring in other expenses. What if you needed clothing, had to visit the doctor, needing cleaning supplies, etc? Don't tell me you had the money for it, because you simply wouldn't have it. Don't even pretend you had a car.

*Maybe* if you were on tons of welfare programs you could have pulled it off, but without a kid that is pretty unlikely. And if you want to say you had a kid, don't even get me started on how much they cost.

Honestly you sound like some of the teenagers at my store who sit around talking about how they can't wait to move out from mom and dads thanks to their new target job. They have no clue how much living on their own actually costs. I have a feeling you are actually a teenager/early 20's living at home under your parents health insurance plan and are trying to tell us who are much older than you with kids/family to support/actual medical problems that we should have no complaints. The fact you don't realize how incredibly ridiculous and unbelievable your "I made it on $6.50/hour living on my own" story sounds pretty much confirms my suspicions.

So don't sit around and tell us we should be doing great in life while you are living off of mom and dad who likely make $80,000 a year while you live all bills paid.
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This was at an A volume store and I was one of the 2 CA with closing availability, I worked 5 closing shifts a week mostly 5pm-close (back when closing meant 11pm-2am). I was never once late or called in so the GSTLs knew they could count on me.

I'm not going to say exactly what state, but it was in a northern city which had a population ~50k and 25k of that was a college. I lived on the opposite end of the city from the college and bus service was everywhere there, though the city was only about 4 miles from end to end. I had no health insurance and never once had to go to the hospital. It's amazing how much Mac & cheese / hotdogs you can eat when you need to. The original rent at the apartment was $400 but they raised it $20 when they added wireless internet the second year there.

I'm not saying that making $6.50 I had a great life. Yes if stuff had gone wrong I'd have been screwed, but I also could have gotten roommates and saved more money. I'm just saying it was 100% possible for me to be living on my own at 18 without help.


P.S. I just looked at the website for my old apartment managers, and there are currently 2 listings for single bedroom efficiencies for $420/month. One of those is even right next to campus.
 
It is true that Target mandatorily requires a Bachelor's Degree to become an ETL, they haven't yet change the policy on when/if they are going to require it for a TL position. I think it would be reasonable to require an AA (Associates of Arts or 2 year equivalent college time) for a TL position, but ONLY if they start offering Tuition Reiumbursement to ALL employees! Well, it COULD happen if the hourly employees in the stores and if our ENTIRE country's culture would Grow a Brain! Unions would do WORLDS of good for ALL people making between 7 and 20$/hour, i.e. all HOURLY employees. Yes, ALL hourly employees NEED to Unionize and if necessary NEED to S to get Target and ALL of Corporate American back on the sides of the AVERAGE person!
 
dek067 said:
i would be curious to see how this opinion varies based on length of time with the company rather than position. i am a tl. i'm not spouting a company line. i think they're getting too top heavy with management and too concerned with the political and shareholders' agendas to worry about selling stuff. our competition is getting more fierce, stealing our tricks that made us a stand out, now they are seeing more traffic. we do not have the same level of talent on the actual sales floor because we are cutting dept. specific positions and all that remains are elts checking their email offstage for hours on end. someone making 8 bucks is not going to work as hard as someone making 12, unless they're part of the dangling carrot management technique. you lose your experience to other retailers when the pay is the same but the benefits are not par and you can't take care of your family.for all the people whining that older people need to leave and let the young part timers have it, you ARE getting older. it doesn't take long for time to creep up or to have unforseen circumstances happen and you end up spending a decade at spot and becoming one of the dreaded old folks. it's not a wage issue, a benefit issue, a promotional issue, etc.; it's a culmination of these. your employees are getting hit from all directions and when the open door policy isn't really what it is supposed to be, they lose faith in their managers and lose faith in the company. we all know spot will screw us over for a dollar deep down inside, but when they wave that dollar around and smack you with it, it angers you.
i think the people who are here longer are seeing more of the downward trend of respect and organization ability and are plain old pissed off at what they see. some of them will leave. some of them will be termed. some are getting the "union" ideas planted, for better or for worse. target needs to tread carefully. they're no longer the publics eye candy and they are making mistakes with their workforce that will end up depleting their stores and leaving a sour taste with their guests. for me it has nothing to do with living beyond my means, it's more like, i've worked extremely hard, and want to retire one day. doesn't matter where. but i don't want to see my fellow tm screwed over or lied to. i don't want to be mistreated or disrespected because of my age, gender, race, degree abilities. i just want to come to work, do my job, and save the drama for party night.
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Well said.
 
of course you are missing something, the point of this is to make a statement, stop taking advantage of the little guy, stop NOT appreciating your employees who make less than 20$/hr.
 
I don't believe unions are perfect.
Never have have, never will be.
They will not make everything sunshine and lollypops.
They can't even promise that you will get a steady forty hours a week or decent raises.
What they can do is represent you.
Keep things from being taken away from you and stand up for you when you're being pushed down.
If they aren't doing what they are supposed to, you can vote out the people in charge and get new ones.
Something you can't do with the company.
Unions will also not protect you if you don't do your job.
The don't make you lazy (at least none of the ones I ever worked with did)
And the idea that one industry should have them while another shouldn't works only from above and not for the people trapped in the middle or on the bottom.
 
Wow, Juicedsoftball is way off base. No, you couldn't teach a 7 year old to do the job, because it's way too many components for a 7 year old to learn. Do I think they could learn how to operate a cash register, perhaps. But can they really learn how to have interpersonal communications with customers? I don't think so. Customer service is the most important aspect of Target employees, and a 7 year old could NOT fulfill hardly any of the skills required, so you are not giving Target employees 1/10th the credit they deserve, which is A-typical of Republicans and the convervative mentality. It might be funny to softball to pay 40k a year, but THAT is the LIVABLE wage. All corporations NEED to realize their employes, ESPECIALLY the lower paid ones are worth FAR more than they are paid! The only people who are against lower paid people from getting paid more are people WITHOUT A HEART! It's funny you have Republicans being AGAINST program to help the poor: food stamps, welfare, medicaid, etc, yet, they are ALSO against PAYING low income people MORE! So the only possible conclusion is that Republicans and Conservatives and Tea Party people are AWFUL people who LACK compassion, sympathy, ANY decency whatsoever! They care ONLY about Money, which is proof by Softballs longwinded explanation about sales which has NOTHING to do with PEOPLE and FAIRNESS!
 
Naters and JuicedSoftball you are NEITHER ONE "sensible" but rather completely selfish and uncaring people who don't have a heart or a brain if you don't realize PEOPLE are what matters NOT money, life NEEDS to be FAIRER and EVERY poll demonstrates that!
 
JuicedSoftball1 said:
Hate to break it you guys, the work we do I could train a 7 year old to do... The world is not fair and thats just how it is... The logic of paying everyone 40k a year is funny to me... Do you not realise Target has overhead? You do realise all of those daily sales isnt straight profit? Do you ever look at the AP tracking tool of how much items cost? Target loses money on some things that we sell and to make up for that it has to make it up on other things....

Lets take a box of storage totes Lets say there are 6 in there and they cost $10 each retail and target pays $7 each .. Meaning you sell all 6 you get $60. Take out the $42 in Target cost means without any other cost involved in this item its $18 bucks profit for this box.... Well you forget you have the guy at the DC who has to pull that item who makes $14 bucks an hour and the time it takes them to get it on the truck is probably I'd say 5 minutes of time. So thats another $1.15 of cost in that one item.. Well it takes your team another 10 minutes of payroll to unload it from truck, bowl it, push it. This employee is making $10 an hour. Meaning now your store has used another $1.68 of this items profit. If you happen to break 1 of those 6 which does tend to happen with these totes even after the chargeback process your still out another $5 bucks. So now the profit on that box is like $10.... Now you have to take out the cost of operating such as bags, land rent, electricity, paying the ETLs, cost of the cleaning crew, cost of gifts for your team, paying the people at corporate, and all the other cost that go into running a store. People dont think of these things when they think they are screwed with pay. Its a business they need to make money. Im sure if you owned your own store you would want to make as much as possible also.

Now onto the 40k a year thing... No good could ever come of that... If everyone made 40k inflation would go through the roof... It would just balance out with the cost of goods going up in price. That 15k car would turn into a 25k car, that $1 sweet tea at mcdonalds would go to $1.50. The movies would go from $24 a ticket to $50 a ticket =). If everyones take home pay went up in the country the supply of everything would be less meaning higher prices...

Also if people could make 40k a year working retail as a donkey less and less people would go to college and while your talent pool at Target would probably be much higher the stores would be much more picky in who they pick to work their meaning the people who really need to be working these jobs would be out of luck because more and more people would want this job so those who's talents would only normally be able to land them a retail or fast food job are now out of luck.

People need to learn to live within their means. My team lead spent half of last year as a team member and half as a team lead and he only made $22k last year and he was able to support him and his gf who is currently in school. We also live in a state with one of the highest cost of living. They got a roomate, they dont have cable, they dont go out and party ever weekend, he doesnt wear $100 dollar shoes, he shops in bulk. Not everyone is ment to drive a BMW, own a big house or go on vacations all the time... Work hard for what you want and in the meantime be smart with what you do have.
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^this!
 
Very well said "hatemyjob", these republican/conservative/TeaParty WholierThanThou people like JuicedSoftball and NatersTx who are WAY out of touch with the Polls which say 80% of the population feels like there is a HUGE INEQUALITY issues going on in the country, actually in the WORLD i.e. the Occupy 99% movement!
 
Ajax, you are ridiculous (to quote your comment) if you think that a UNION wouldn't be helpful, because IT WOULD! You are also REDICULOUS to this it's ok for people to make 6$ an hour! You can NOT live on that! Rent costs a MINIMUM of 700$/month MINIMUM, then there's Gas, Electric, Water, Sewer, Telephone, Trash, Taxes, FOOD, GAS (car), insurance, the list goes ON and ON, you are CRAZY if you think it's ok for employers to NOT offer their employees a REASONABLE wage, with DECENT benefits, etc.
 
No, rent is not $700/month MINIMUM everywhere as you point out:

Again, my old property manager has multiple places available for sub $500, and you only have to pay heat and electric.

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On that point I'm going to try and be done with this. I'm sorry I was able to live cheaply for years, I guess it truly is impossible to have done so.
 
Lets see, live within your means, meaning you have to miss every important family event, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, vacations because you have to work 3 jobs to pay the rent, food, clothing, transportation, insurance, gas, water, heat, electric, the list is ENLESS of bills and the pay is NOTHING. And to fail to take into consideration that management STOPS SO MANY employees from promoting, so your theory that people can become "middle class" by just working hard, for 10 YEARS! its complete bologna!
 
Ajax, if you want to live in the WORST part of town or in a POOR town or community, yes, you can get rent for 500$, it probably has mice or cochroaches etc but fine, we'll go with your 500$ rent, so you take your 7$/hr job and divide that into 500$ and you get 70 hours work to pay that EXCEPT that you are not taking into account that after all the PAYROLL DEDUCTIONS the 7.25$/hr employee is MAYBE making 5$/hr! that means 100 hours of work JUST to PAY the RENT! So ASSUMING your store is giving out 40 hours a week ALL year, which NEVER happens, you are spend almost 2/3 rds of your ENTIRE monthly income JUST to cover RENT! I don't even need to go on, because if I break down all the other expenses in life this person is going to be at ZERO dollars left after the NEXT bill I mention!
 
Lets just say this, when the lowest person in the company is making say maybe like $5,000 a year, and the CEO is making $25 MILLION...and that person making those millions takes away the things that help that low earner survive while living in poverty that is wrong. It saves the millionaire money and adds to his paycheck while making the other person suffer. THAT is what the problem is in this country. The ones making millions upon millions upon millions think nothing of taking from those of us making pennies struggling to get by, hoping that nothing goes wrong so that we don't end up on the streets, while THEY get to throw around extra money like it's nothing.
 
Well said Greatteam! You've got the RICH wanting to pay NO taxes, especially if it funds the poor who are homeless, without food, without any prospects in life. They want to get rid of food stamps, welfare, medicaid, assisted living, but what are the people making 7$/hour supposed to do? First off, we need to make 10$/hour the MINIMUM wage in this county. 2nd, we need an amendment that makes it MANDATORY that ALL employers give their employees COST OF LIVING increases! If not, you'll see employers continue to give their employees 5 cents or 10 cents or sometimes NO raise at all! You put in an entire YEAR of your life at a company, and they have the audacity to give their employees little to NO raise, yet the CEO's and officers and VP's get MILLIONS of dollars in Salary, and more in Bonuses and Deferred Compensation and the list goes ON and ON!
 
I guess I am considered poor like Ajax.
Now back on union topic.
I don't like unions, theyre like a church or bank. Take your $$ & they tell you what you can/can't do.
 
Ajax11 said:
No, rent is not $700/month MINIMUM everywhere as you point out:

Again, my old property manager has multiple places available for sub $500, and you only have to pay heat and electric.


On that point I'm going to try and be done with this. I'm sorry I was able to live cheaply for years, I guess it truly is impossible to have done so.
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Very true, I pay less than 700 a month, 640 to be more exact and that is a fairly nice 2 bedroom. You can get small 1 beds for 480-540 in town here and if you go to one of the smaller surrounding towns I have seen rent as low as 300

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Miguel said:
Naters and JuicedSoftball you are NEITHER ONE "sensible" but rather completely selfish and uncaring people who don't have a heart or a brain if you don't realize PEOPLE are what matters NOT money, life NEEDS to be FAIRER and EVERY poll demonstrates that!
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Wow. I don't know how to say this nicely so I'll just be blunt: life is NOT FAIR and never will be. You can't legislate or mandate fairness and all the unions in the world can NOT change that in the workplace. In fact Unions can remove fairness in the workplace. Is it fair if the harder worker is passed over for promotion because they have less seniority than the lazy @ss slacker? NO, but that is often what happens in Union shops. So much for your fairness.
 
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