I suspect most AT readers can recall their own shock when opening their first paycheck and discovering the share of earnings that were deducted. But this video has special charm, in part because the narrator, who may well be the dad, is so understanding of what lies ahead. This is an absolute classic.
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-WiscoDave
*****
My first payroll job was in 1977 at Columbus Photo Service developing film in Columbus, Georgia, making a whopping $2.35 an hour, 5 cents above minimum wage because I worked the night shift.
My first week, I put in 60 hours. Man, I was really looking forward to that $140 check which was more than I'd ever earned up to that point. My reaction was about the same as the youngster's in the video when I opened my first paycheck and saw that I had netted less than a hundred bucks. What the fuck.....
It got worse. A couple years after I got out of the army I went to work at Riverbank Army Ammunition Plant. My pay was on a sliding scale, depending on what job I was doing for the day. I eventually went to work doing set-up on a machine that installed rivets on the caps of cluster bomb units, one of the higher paying jobs on the production line, making $11.50 an hour and working a minimum of 87 hours a week - 13 hours a day (set-up work always entailed an hour more than production to get the machinery ready for the shift) 6 days a week and 9 on Sunday. I worked those hours for years. I was single at the time and declaring Single 0, so I was getting raped on taxes.
One week I only put in 60 hours due to line maintenance and my paycheck was only slightly less than it was if I had worked a full 87, and I'm talking something like a 25 dollar difference.
The last year I worked there, I had gotten married and declared Married 2, and got a huge raise on my paycheck. When I showed the difference on my first check to my set-up partner, he immediately dropped his tools and proposed marriage to every unmarried woman in the plant, no matter how ugly they were.
Boy, ya call it prepayment on all the chillins yous gonna make with all them hoes who is uglier than a monkey's behind. Welcome to the world, son.
ReplyDeletenot that long ago I was making $16/her with a 10% shift differential.
ReplyDeletethen some asshole in the front office has the bright idea to tell all the customers we have that we weren't making that much money on to go fuck themselves.
no "hey we need to renegotiate our prices" just tells them to screw.
so guess what? no customers...no work...no more 2nd shift..so I get laid off. both the guys that worked for me got laid off. the whole plant is on 32 hours a week taking fridays off. if I had to guess the place will probably be closed by the end of the year.
we had some good customers too. anyone got a ruger with an aluminum forend? precision rifle, AR556, or PC9? that handgaurd probably passed through my hands. just the raw tube..we extruded, cut to length, and brushed the ends. ruger did all the other machining.
I dropped off copy after copy of firearm news to the sales guys, telling them if we make these things for ruger, we can make them for other companies too...and no one was interested. they didn't know guns and didn't want to know guns. I have never seen a sales guy so uninterested in making a sale.
I could deal with taxes if they were low and the government spent the money on core essentials and didn't waste a penny on other crap. The UK government is absolutely out of control on pissing away other people's money on stuff that nobody asked for nobody wants and nobody needs. A few years back, this is what Labour governments did and people voted Conservative to put a stop to it. Now we have a Conservative government that is utterly financially incontinent and the only consolation is that Labour would have been even worse.
ReplyDeleteThis is another example of how the state services its citizens ("services" as in how a bull services a heifer). Hopefully another Trump voter was born at that moment.
ReplyDeleteI do not remember having that reaction as my parents discussed taxes with all of us as we grew up. Dinner was the time to discuss any and everything including politics and taxes so we were prepared for the real world. I applaud the dad in this video while I laughed my ass off at the young man’s reaction - bless his heart
ReplyDeleteCart and bottle boy at the local grocer in 1988.. guess it was 3-4 bucks an hour for minimum. Part-time hours, I was expecting like 60-70 dollars for my first check. Was about 15. Nearly flipped, stormed into the managers office demanding an explanation!
ReplyDelete"You see that $50 deduction? Thats your Union Dues, Kiddo"
... AND, thus I became anti-unions.
Actually talked to the shop steward about it. I was 14 frickin years old, and my history teacher had just covered how unions are voluntary.
Never did get that money back, never joined another union my entire life.
And liberals wonder how conservatives are made....
My cousin got his first big boy job at 27. His first pay check he called his bad in a panic saying they stole money from him. After an hour of explaining taxes and how his political positions required a high tax burden, he suddenly became very conservative overnight.
ReplyDeleteI've always felt that if people had to write a check for the taxes, rather than have them automatically deducted, there would be an immediate revolution.
ReplyDeleteB, that is exactly why payroll deduction was instituted in the first place. The mans name was Beardsley Ruml. It was during WWII to hide the massively increased tax burden. Read: The Greedy Hand by Amity Shlaes.
DeleteI've always looked at the net pay as what I was actually making. After forty years of gummint sanctioned extortion of my paychecks, my attitude now toward Social Security is that I have every intention of being mean enough and tough enough to live long enough to get my money back!
That was one of the best videos ever recorded, the look on that kids face was priceless....he better get used to it, cuz it only gets worse. i'm so glad i opted out of that whole tax scam years ago. i don't give a cent but i don't take a cent either....
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Holland, moved to the US at the age of 31.
DeleteWhen I opened my first paycheck my reaction was the absolute REVERSE of this young man's reaction: "I get to keep this much"?
Get used to it guys. Taxes will at least double or triple under Biden.
That is the funniest thing I have seen in awhile. Thanks
ReplyDelete