Saturday 9 January 2016

Today I Learned


Today I Learned 



TIL that in the United States, more money is stolen by employers from employees each year than is stolen in robberies, burglaries, larcenies and auto thefts COMBINED. The most common victims of wage theft are low wage workers.

A State of Emergency was issued, and police went door to door telling people that they had to be off the roads in couple of hours or there was a $100 fine.

 A manager called the owner to inform him that we were closing up for the day, and he flat out refused for like 5 minutes until the manager finally stood up to him and said something like, "Listen, the police just told us to leave, nobody is allowed on the roads, so no customers are coming in today. Conditions are deteriorating and no one wants to get a ticket, so I'm closing up and sending everyone home," and they hung up. We all applauded.

This same company, btw, didn't pay overtime either. When I first started there, the boss was giving me the rundown about pay, hours, vacation time, and then at the end he goes, "and we don't do overtime." I thought he meant that they just wouldn't let people work that many hours. I only worked 7 hours a day, so if I went over a little bit, it didn't really matter. I worked mostly by myself at that job, in my own little room with little interaction with other employees.

Then, just for one week, a I had to go in early every day to help a coworker organize the whole office's paperwork. I worked between 9-10 hours each day that week. It was a super boring and tedious job. I made it to Friday and we were nearly done, when the coworker said how this was easily the worst thing they ever had to do, and I was like, "At least we'll get a few hours of overtime." She gave me this look like I said something stupid and she goes, "We don't get paid overtime." I was beyond confused at that point, then I found out that a bunch of people regularly worked 10 hour days, and a couple of other people even worked 12 hour days plus Saturdays, and they never received any overtime for the whole 15 or some odd years that they had been working there. These were all legal, documented, American workers.

When the boss was out, I would press them for more info. One person said they signed some document when they started that basically said they agreed to never receiving overtime, which I'm pretty sure wouldn't hold up legally. Some people were practically brainwashed into thinking that it either didn't amount to much more than they were already making, so they didn't really care, while others thought they would get fired if they complained or reported it.

I have no idea how that's been happening for so long, or why nobody has said anything. I quit shortly after that and told all those people to do the same, but as far as I know, they're all still there. Sorry for going so long. It just makes me sad thinking about how good, hard-working people who struggle to pay their phone bills have been getting screwed out of thousands of dollars.

Today I Learned 

I once had a boss explain that he didn't even draw a paycheck yet from the (his) relatively young company, and I should be grateful my check was only late.

Then he drove off in the company leased BMW 7 series.
He returned to find a handwritten letter of 'I fuckin quit', in pencil, on scrap paper, taped to his computer monitor.

3 months later, he threatened to call the cops if I didn't return the work laptop.... I told him which of his own desk drawers I had left it in 3 months prior (wiped clean of all my work, of course, as the critical bits, my actual work, was already on the network) pricks abound. Be a prick to them.

Today I Learned 

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

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