The Raise
Just Hope To Make More Than The New Guy
Annual raises confuse me. Let’s say you don’t have a job that could be a potential setting for a Leonardo DiCaprio movie. You’re not cutting big deals or drinking champagne. You’re just a regular employee that knows what you’re going to get when you come in day after day, year after year, and horrifying decade after horrifying decade. You know, a regular job.
The raises are always some low figure, just enough extra cash to remind you that you’re screwed. It might be presented to you as a good thing, and you might smile when you receive it, but you’re left feeling like you just ate a large bag of Doritos. Sure it was fun for a little bit, but now you’re stuffed without feeling full. You really should’ve had something else, like baked chicken or a career that paid well.
Raises confuse me because they’re never really a raise. Prices go up, eventually you get a slight raise that doesn’t match the new cost of living, then prices go up some more. Finally, a new person is hired in who makes what you make or a little bit more. Repeat. Why bother with raises at all? With that kind of business model, just spend the money on some “Now Hiring” signs and Dramamine.
Now let’s all go watch The Wolf Of Wall Street.
The meat department makes me want to become a vegetarian. No, it’s not because of the prices, although it should be. It’s because I’ve been on farms and those domesticated animals are nice. I’d rather eat meat from an animal that was trying to kill me, and by “me” I mean somebody else who ultimately killed it and then sold the meat. Farms could be terrifying places where hunters are running for their lives. You know, so I would feel better about it all.
This bit is brought to you by a place that did hire me even though I quit them the year before. They made the Yellow Pages for other countries that still used Yellow Pages, much to the utter shock of everyone I told. The Yellow Pages was thought to be long extinct. It was all fun and games until I quit on them once again. Apparently they were so upset by this that they moved to one of the countries that still used Yellow Pages.
This one was fun to write, mostly because it made no sense. But it would really make the process go faster if everyone told the truth. They are all based on actual candidates. Cottonwood is based on a couple of previous coworkers.
This is true. There’s always that one person who’s as calm as a cucumber, looks great, and is still working in their late seventies because they like it. I hope they attend my funeral.
This got a lot of attention. The world “maximum” is always presented with big smiles. What they seem to gloss over is that the smallest of things can also be a maximum.
“Get Hulu with ads” is a common joke online about lousy advice you get to save money. Obviously (I hope it’s obvious) getting Hulu with ads is not going to allow you to finance a house or pay rent. You might be able to buy something one of those ads is advertising, though.
They never mention the CEO. I think there’s a CEO who takes the standard raise and makes as much as his employees. That one guy, right? All of his employees are happy and don’t quit. I’ll look it up later. Everyone’s switching to his method, right? Right?
I’ve started at a couple of places when my boss is on vacation. It’s always awkward. At one of my jobs I arrived ten minutes early to find nobody there. An hour later and there was still nobody there. Everyone had the morning off. I spent most of the first day in the break room. It was actually a great job. The main people were insane, but the job itself was great. I designed ads and pretended to know what I was doing.
I can’t emphasize enough how dull these videos are.
Readers agreed with Cottonwood, but I do not. This takes me back to Philosophy 101 and Plato’s “The Republic”, where I learned that the Ideal State cannot exist. In order for the Ideal State to exist the Philosopher must rule, but the Philosopher does not want to rule. I think I got a C in Philosophy, so don’t ask me more about this “Ideal State” stuff, but I’m pretty sure that Tabby is the Philosopher. Track down a university professor for further details.
I don't recall whether the military paid cost of living adjustments. (If you wanted an actual raise, you did the work necessary to advance to the next paygrade.) I was more concerned with how much was deducted from my paycheck each month. I was on the G.I. Bill, so they deducted one hundred dollars a month for a year. That one I knew about. I was far less pleased upon learning that I was paying for my uniforms, one monthly deduction at a time. I never knew when those deductions stopped. Given my experience of the military, I would guess it was when screwing me over in that fashion got boring and they decided putting an extreme introvert in a customer service job would produce more giggles. Sometimes, instead of a raise, military personnel have money taken from them. A lower, as it were. We can add that to the other perks of military life. One hundred obnoxious roommates, cuisine with names that frequently include the word "sh!t," and the possibility, during the normal course of doing one's job, of being killed.
Cottonwood is definitely a keeper. I expect great things from him!