15 Dollars an Hour

[opas ride]

Another absolutely true story that happened to me a couple years ago on a road trip...Stopped at a MacDonald's to get a breakfast sandwich. Girl asked if she could help me and I said yes, I'll have an Sausage Egg Mcmuffin to go..She replied we don't have that sir..I insisted it was on the menu as I get one a few time a week...Again she said no, but we do have the Egg Mcmuffin with Sausage!!!!...True story!!!....Apparently the button on the cash register listed only the latter.....This is no joke.....Again, the youth of America are the ones that will lead our country in future.....Who is to blame, I don't know.....Ride safe

[shooter]

You get no argument from me on the importance of parents. Today with addition of so many single parents trying to make it on $10 Hr. Is it any wonder parents have to be working 60 - 80 hr work weeks and have little time to parent. Somebodies got to do the laundry
However, I was raised in a family that had 2 working parents working hard to pay the bills. I can't remember ever getting any help from them on my school work.
The one thing I did have going for me was the school system I attended and the teachers I had. They made sure my homework was done and I understood the work at hand. And this was at a time when the WW II baby boomers were in the schools, 34 in a class was the norm not the exception.
True my parents insisted I follow the "college prep" curriculum through high school that was their dream. Those teachers of the time had me so trained that I was bored for the first 2 years of Rutgers. It seemed like a review of my last 2 years of high school.
My last job was working in a school system upgrading to Windows 2000 and upgrading their entire systems. I worked on problem computers in class rooms. where I witnessed 1st grade teachers with PhD's pulling down $100,000 + a year supervising coloring book classes. The coloring books were bad enough but if I told you what was on those computers you'd understand my stand on why our kids are so dumb.

Bob both my parents worked and my wife and I both worked. My brother and I stayed by ourself in the afternoon a couple hours from about 10 on up. Neighbors kept an eye out. You can work and still raise your kids.

[jaygollner]

Is 1/2 a dozen new math?

I often ask people to give me half a handful, but only the wife knows to give me three when I do.

[junkyarddog]

I gave a kid a $2 bill for a dollar item one time and they called the cops on me for trying to pass counterfeit bills.

[edgeman55]

Who do you blame, the kids or the $60,000 a year teachers? Or maybe it's the over educated school administrators who pull down more than $100,000 a year. Who really didn't earn their pay the kid who probably never heard the terminology "half dozen" or the educator who was too busy teaching trigonometry (that I've never used since school) to teach basic day to day terminology.
As far as $15 hr goes; I retired 8 years ago and was starting to get a little bored so I went looking for a job more for entertainment and socializing then money. What I found was the nearest available jobs were 26 miles from my house. Which meant I would be burning almost 4 gallons of gas or about $15 (at the time) just to commute. That meant I would be working the first hour and a half for nothing. The second hour and a half paid the federal tax man and the third hour fed the state tax man. In the end I would be working 8 hours for 4 hours pay. So at the $ 10 hr they offered me meant my take home would be $40 a day or less than what I was paid for an hour on my last job. I decide my day was better spent working on my bike and surfing the web; sort of like what our teenagers do today. Unfortunately we really don't learn as much useful information on a computer as we think. Worse yet the kids today become so disillusioned they just don't care or see a future.
IMHO the real problem today stems from the average family earning $53 k a year.
To prove my point I'll use a car as an example. When I graduated and entered the workforce a nice car had a sticker price of about $2700.00 and I started out making $11,000 a year. The car cost only 25% of my income. Today with an average family income of $53 k it cost one half of a families annual income. That same example could be used for a pound of butter.
Not long ago the American worker was the highest paid worker in the world. Today we are in the twenties!! And it all feeds up.

Bob all well said.The middle class worker in this country has lost pace with everthing cost wise over the last 30 years.All the while CEO's pay has risen a 1000% over the floor worker.All capitolism has become is greed.Use to be a day when so called trickle down worked because the owners of large corperations looked at the long range and understood if you pay your workers a good livable wage they would buy there product.They took less profit and kept workers here in the good Ol USA.My wife who is 56 years old has been a Medical supervisor for 25 years and worked her way up the ladder the old fashion way with good work ethic.She was making around 70K a year and had 15 years with the hospital she was with.Well last year they walked in and she and 173 others were given notice,all the while the CEO of the hospital took his 900K salary and gave himself a 400K bonus for saving the hospital costs.She took 8 months to find a job as a receptionist for a small medical firm at 13,00 a hr.Only job she could find as she was told her age and what she use to make were problems.She is pulling down what I made 31 years ago in the Utility industry as a Tech.Like you I am retired and went to look for some work to stay busy and all I could find was a 11.00 a hr pay job at Home Depot.Would of been a 40 mile round trip to work.Hell I make more with my pension pay.As far as the dumb kids thing and our future is in there hands I know a lot of smart driven kids in our area who would like a bright future but they see there parents working two jobs and falling behind trying to keep a house and food on there plate.It can be fixed as the country has seen worse times years ago and my hope is some of these smart driven kids will help do it.I'll get off my soap box now.You guys can go back to your doom and gloom talk

[ths61]

Recently, I went to McDonald's and I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets.

I asked for a half dozen nuggets.

'We don't have half dozen nuggets,' said the teenager at the counter.

'You don't?' I replied.

'We only have six, nine, or twelve,' was the reply.

'So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?'

'That's right.'

So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets
(Unbelievable but sadly true...)
(Must have been the same one I asked for sweetener and she said they didn't have any, only Splenda and sugar.)
(And they think they are worth $15.00 per hour)

I once asked a female fast food worker where she kept her condiments. She gave me an immediate, curt, intense, nasty look as if I assaulted her and said nothing.

I then realized I had to rephrase the question with the terms "mustard, ketchup, relish, salt, pepper, etc.".

[ths61]

I gave a kid a $2 bill for a dollar item one time and they called the cops on me for trying to pass counterfeit bills.

Did the cops arrest you ?

[wjduke]

Did the cops arrest you ?

If they were in their 20's, I'd guess yes

[shooter]

Bob all well said.The middle class worker in this country has lost pace with everthing cost wise over the last 30 years.All the while CEO's pay has risen a 1000% over the floor worker.All capitolism has become is greed.Use to be a day when so called trickle down worked because the owners of large corperations looked at the long range and understood if you pay your workers a good livable wage they would buy there product.They took less profit and kept workers here in the good Ol USA.My wife who is 56 years old has been a Medical supervisor for 25 years and worked her way up the ladder the old fashion way with good work ethic.She was making around 70K a year and had 15 years with the hospital she was with.Well last year they walked in and she and 173 others were given notice,all the while the CEO of the hospital took his 900K salary and gave himself a 400K bonus for saving the hospital costs.She took 8 months to find a job as a receptionist for a small medical firm at 13,00 a hr.Only job she could find as she was told her age and what she use to make were problems.She is pulling down what I made 31 years ago in the Utility industry as a Tech.Like you I am retired and went to look for some work to stay busy and all I could find was a 11.00 a hr pay job at Home Depot.Would of been a 40 mile round trip to work.Hell I make more with my pension pay.As far as the dumb kids thing and our future is in there hands I know a lot of smart driven kids in our area who would like a bright future but they see there parents working two jobs and falling behind trying to keep a house and food on there plate.It can be fixed as the country has seen worse times years ago and my hope is some of these smart driven kids will help do it.I'll get off my soap box now.You guys can go back to your doom and gloom talk

Edgeman I agree with a lot of what you say especially the part about corporate execs. The part about both parents working and falling behind trying to keep a house going can be true also. But , more often than not a lot of those parents smoke and drink. They have three or four kids and can't afford one and are paying 20% interest on $15,000 in credit card debt. They make the minimum payment each month and will end up paying $30,000 interest on the $15,000. I'm not buying the poor me. If anything the poor and oppressed have more opportunities than I do. I wasnt born with a silver spoon. I worked for what I have just like my dad did. I married a good woman that worked hard also and we raised two great kids that had household chores and jobs when they got into college. My son worked three jobs and made the deans list every semester. Both kids graduated with no student loans. We come from middle class families. Nobody gave us anything. We worked for it. Everybody has their hand out now. I'm tired of other people throwing in the towel and jumping on the entitlement train. I've successfully run my family business for the last 27 years. When things got tough after 9/11 we worked more hours and cut our pay. Our employees never missed a check. There are choices that can help you through life. Most people aren't willing to lower their standards choosing instead to shift their burden to others. I'm tired of carrying others burdens. The load is just too heavy.

[valkmc]

It's funny that stories of kids like this are so popular and we never hear about the other side so here is one. I coach wrestlers at a large high school. Two of them will graduate with their AA degree one week before they graduate from high school. They take college level physics and math courses, practice 2.5 hours a night and compete in large wrestling tournament on weekends. One plans on being a Dr and the other is following his religion and plans on going to a thrid world country to honor the god he follows. On yea both worked part time at McDonalds last summer and I assure you they can make change with out a computer. There are lots of great kids doing what they are suppose to everyday they just don't get the attention the screw ups do.