"Just be thankful you HAVE a job"

Prefacing note: Unless you've read through this thread this post will have little meaning.


One of my store managers picked me up to go to work today, this my last day of working the job I've discussed in this thread.

Somewhere admist our short-ride-to-work-conversation about me moving on I remarked to her, "If I were to keep doing this it will kill my spirit." She sat quiet for a moment as we were stopped for the train flying by.

She then said, "Good for you for knowing better."

Yes, finally, after giving it my all and hanging in there (and here in Ladysmith, WI) and hoping for the best I gave my notice two weeks ago, and today was my last day.

When I gave my notice my immediate manager was stunned. She actually had tears in her eyes as she wondered aloud how she would be able to replace me...myself, in her estimation, being very hard to replace. I did do my job well, even as menial as it was.

The new person starts tomorrow, at $7.25 an hour. She's a mid-forties woman with three kids. She will be required to lift 50 lbs. and get up and down off the floor with regularity (sure hope her back and knees are strong). She will be required to work swing shifts, including only 11 hr. breaks between shifts. She will be expected to be on call, at all times, if the need of her arises. She lives 25 miles away from work and is scheduled for only apx. 25 hrs. a week...you do the wage to gas cost assessment...along with this being NW WI where the weather in the winter is atrocious. It's not pretty how this may pan out.

My first advice to my boss was to hire a young, strong man that lives in town to do the job, and there was one who applied. Did she hire him? No.

Go figure.

But, as for me? I'm now unemployed, per my choice, and this doesn't shake me one bit. For being a woman who was left with an infant child by my husband 29 years ago I'd always lived in economic crisis. I will get through this, and I will find another job when I get where I'm going. You see, I'm also leaving the state of WI. I love this place, it's beatiful and clean, yet it's in other ways inhospitable.

At the end of my shift I sold my work shirts and fleece jacket to the manager I wrote of at the beginning of this post. That's $20 more in my pocket. I commented about how I didn't fully understand how my co-workers were so concerned about my "reckless" choices. She remarked about how people around these parts don't do "change" well, and she commeneded me on my spirit of adventure. Lol, adventure is my life's blood. It always has been.

It's much to a happy end for me that the most of comment I've heard from customers, acquaitances, and the few friends I've made here in a bit over two years is that I've given it my all and best try to make it here. For what it was worth for me spritually it was a soft place to land for a spell. But, now, it's over.

Now, in one week, I'll be grid hoppin' with Pi. It's near startling and amazingly wonderful how things can work out!

Then , in one month or so I'll, again (as I have been all along) be looking for earning a new living. I've just the right amount of intergrity and work ethic not to "mooch."

I may be putting my college education and experience to work, again. I may be working in a grocery store, again. I may restart my Personal Chef business, again.

Throughout it all I will be writing, this anew...and who knows what that might bring? I really don't (although I have hope), but I've the opportunity to give it a good go, now...now that I'm not caught unsunder a life sucking job wherein I know I'm being taken advantage of.

There's a certain, in the strictest use of the word, freedom that comes with releasing one's self from implied indenture.

"Just be thankful I have a job"?...pfht, I'm prepared to take my chances with possibilities, even if they amount to an unknown, rahter than to know I'm being worked at for my last drop of life's blood and spirit, all the while someone else is getting financial wealthier, at my cost. This I am unable to sit still for.

All day, during my last shift, this following song was queing in my head. It probably has no meaning for any other but myself, but with it I let go of something of my past...and, at this point, without a doubt, I AM moving forward--




[link to www.youtube.com]

What? Is that the new method of pay raise these days? I'm tellin' ya, it doesn't jive with the $50 bill being the new $20 bill...not by a long shot.

The new owners are right now making money hand over fist, and they can't give us who make it happen for them raises?


I hate when people count other peoples money for them. Do you know how much it costs to run a business? The overhead it takes? The taxes you pay? Plus they just bought the company, they could be a little cash poor right now. The owners are also feeling the $50 is the new $20 reality.

The economy sucks right now. Not all business owners are making lots of money.

go find a new job that will pay you what you think you are worth.

Cool tune. Thanks.

What? Is that the new method of pay raise these days? I'm tellin' ya, it doesn't jive with the $50 bill being the new $20 bill...not by a long shot.

The new owners are right now making money hand over fist, and they can't give us who make it happen for them raises?


I hate when people count other peoples money for them. Do you know how much it costs to run a business? The overhead it takes? The taxes you pay? Plus they just bought the company, they could be a little cash poor right now. The owners are also feeling the $50 is the new $20 reality.

The economy sucks right now. Not all business owners are making lots of money.


These grocers owned four stores (or more if their Liquor stores are included) before they bought the one I worked at, and another at the same time. Just one month ago they bought another...this bought, btw, before any of us were given the raises we were promised when they intially purchased the store.

No. These are not struggling business upstarters. They are, though, calculating business people. Buy stores, work people for min. wages while they carry the workload of 1.5 people (or more), this in turn creating more wealth base for themselves, and buy more stores. They are but one example of many like them, and these don't include those who have to struggle to make a go at working for themselves. The later does not beg for forgiveness for the rest of them in advantage taking positions.

You don't like how, what, and why I've written what I have on this thread? Too bad. I'm not an unfair person, at all. What I am is someone who sees the writing on the wall and can very well read it, with comprehension...

...ya know, perhaps I started this thread because in that given day I was pissed and was venting, but there's been a further point made on this thread (and other GLP threads)that goes beyond my own personal discontent.

The buck doesn't just stop with a 'sucky economy,' and there's more to what's happening than meets the eye. It's the monster called Capitalism, and it's been joined by its ruthless wife called Socialism. These two in bed together are producing the death of what could've otherwise been a great country of ongoing opportunity. A country that has every ways and means to support a population of people, and those people, in like, supporting the country.

There's not a single reason why this country HAS to be in the state it's in, this the antithesis of a win-win quality of life. The resources in this country- everything from human brilliance and backbone to fertile land and renewable energy sources - have been sublimated for the gain of a relative few.

The heart and soul of this country has been stuffed into a box and sealed shut by greedy and manipulative bastards who themselves have no heart and soul, no conscience, and they therefore have nothing to lose. Their nothing-to-lose bullshit comes at a high price for all the rest of us. A high pirce that amounts to the slow death of spirit we see all around us, everyday, day in and day out. It's seen in our family members, our friends, our neighbors, and yes, in the customer at the store on the other side of the counter who's dead tired, worn out by struggle, and worried about their and their childrean's future's.

And THIS, the slow death of human spirit, IS the be all and end all of what's going on undercover, where we're getting royally fucked. It's what's written between the lines of the writing on the wall. And I'm not the only one who sees and comprehends this.




go find a new job that will pay you what you think you are worth.


I didn't quit my job just to sit on my backside and bellyache. I will be finding another job after I relocate.

In the meantime, if I or others have something to say about this thread's subject matter...might that be okay with you? Hmmm?

Some of us still have enough spirit left to fight the beasts. Not to speak up and express ourselves is just as good as rolling over and playing dead before we're already gone.

WOW! Now that was very well said, my darl'in

you should be thankful you are a wage slave. Your subsistence wages will continue unil you realize that your working wages are designed to only keep you alive to work another day.