I dont care how bad the working conditions are. How low your pay is. If you agreed to work at that pay level then thats your problem. Not the company that hired you. And most of all it doesnt give you the right to steal from the company either. I've work construction almost my whole life. I've seen some BS things happen. But I never felt that I had to steal from them in order to justify me not getting paid what I wanted. If more people who just put their foot down and not hire on at ridiculously low wages these company would have no choice but to up their pay scale a little bit. The problem isnt really the company,.. its Americans in general. We enable them to control us. People agree and hire on for low wages and then do nothing but bitch about how sorry their pay is.

I was a foreman for my last company. I didnt hire anyone. The offfice would send me people and I decided if they would cut it on my crew or not. But their pay scale was set at the office when they hired on. Some of the guys would bitch to me not even 2 weeks after being hired saying they were not getting payed enough to do what I asked them. I would tell them,.. "Look dumb ass. You made your deal coming in the door. No one twisted your arm to take the pay they offered you. You agreed to work here for what they are paying you. Get off your ass and do your job or get off my job site".

In construction the pay wages are low for laborers here in Fla because there are so many immigrant workers who are willing to work twice as hard for half the pay they should be getting. Up north in Md/DC area the average laborer was paid $15hr and that was 10 yrs ago. Most laborers were black with a few white guys mixed in. I come here to Fla and laborers are lucky to make $8 - $9hr and the majority are Mexican or other spanish immigrants. Because there is a wealth of workers willing to work for low wages,.. companies have no reason to pay more.

Hurst

 

My sister owned a beauty salon chain in Miami. She would look at the employees and their eagerness to make more money. Once they became complacent and settled with the money they made.. bamm.. she'd get rid of them. Her thinking was if the person was too complacent with the wages.. the stuff is going out the door to make up for the $$$ their not asking for. She had hair stylists making 80K+ per year.

I agree with you.. everyplace has a system. You make your bed.. then have to lie in it. It doesnt give you the right to steal. The system can beat you down.. but thats your option to drive there and deal with it.

Lastly, those reading this.. never ever ever threaten your going to quit unless you get a higher wage. If you want more money.. do it in a politically correct way with your manager.. example.. "I'd like to see if there is something I can do to increase my wage with you".. vs "If you dont increase my wage 1.00 per hour.. i'm leaving" You get more with honey than vinegar.

Dave.. attaboy.. go get that paper..

Julio

 

Funny.. a buddy of mine worked at Best Buy service in Atlanta. They had a security guard at the door that went through all your stuff going in and out of the building including walking through a metal detector. Still they had losses over 100K per month.. it was all going out the docks.. case of misdirected attention. Warehouse, distribution, etc..

 

I just let go two guys yesterday and didn't feel bad about it.

You work hard and do what you are suppose to then you reap the benefits. You slack off and lie, well there's the door. Sadly neither can collect unemployment just yet as they weren't fired but removed from the site and work one day a week elsewhere.

Asset protection is such a joke. So many lawsuits waiting to happen. It's so funny you mention Sears, I had a funny experience last year x-mas shopping there.

 

Thats pretty much what I am doing now. I got laid off Jan 09. I graduate July 2012. Its been rough. But in the end I will have a potential to earn 4 times what I was making working in construction. And right now in the Tamp area construction and industry are at maybe 25% of what it was 4 years ago. Very few companies hiring and the ones that are know that they dont have to pay top wages. Anyone hiring on now will be at entry level wages,.. period. I'm doing what I should have done 20 yrs ago,.. but I was too stupid to figure it out. I'm too old and fat to work construction for another 20 yrs. It will end up killing me. Sitting in a nice cushy air conditioned office behind a terminal making $60 - $100k a year sounds a lot better than $40 - $50k a year breaking my back soaked in sweat in the Fla heat.

Hurst

 

As far as I'm concerned on the employment work ethic subject.Most employers hire people with an "ok" salary and a carrot on a stick per se about future pay increases/advancement.

When the increases don't come after hard work, the employees get disgruntled. When inflation goes up (which is yearly) and pay doesn't, the way they see it you are cutting pay. Therefore why should the work be any better as the years progress if the pay can't even keep up with inflation.




Sears hires LP at an even lower wage than Best Buy. Your wife is in a completely different position. She is a manager and/or district manager of LP. Retail store management gets compensated quite well. LP managers at Best Buy are around 40k, the same as Sears.... glassdoor.com will give you an idea of wage based on real time wages that people put in.

As far as theft is concerned. There's a police car at my store almost every day with another person getting jailed. What most people don't realize is that we don't stop people from stealing, we just call the cops and have them waiting outside for the person. .

People still get away with theft though, it's inevitable, and there's an accepted amount of loss in the budget of every retail store.

Employees steal, but I don't think it's nearly as bad at BB since we get such a good discount on products anyways. They've branded loyalty into the employees and give bonuses based on "shrink" to all the employees quarterly. That's what helps keep internal theft down as much as possible I think. Still almost half of all theft in our stores are from employees, since the retail theft is so low in contrast to most chains.

 

Internal theft is kept down to 50% of the thefts? Wow...cameras are looking the wrong way

 

I agree with the "back to school" frame of mind. However, this time it's my wife's turn. I went to school for welding about 16 years ago. It's her turn now....So, she and our daughter are going to Cortiva to become licensed massage therapists. I get free massages...AND I get happy endings from my wife!

 

I was looking at a Web Design contract this person wanted me to do. They wanted to pay me 8.50/hr for 4 hours to make their front web page. The economy isn't that bad that I need to do slave labor. But I understand what the OP said it's getting crazy out there with wages.





To explain in more detail, the shrink numbers include "lost in shipping" items as well as retail and employee theft. In the whole of things the internal "theft" and "lost" are in one category because it could be either way whereas the retail theft is much more obvious. Hard Drives, Media, and TV's are what get taken the most.

I caught a couple of girls trying to steal like 3 netbooks at once. I got a $50 gift card for the catch and they got a ride to the Pinellas County Jail

People are getting alot trickier now, trying to manipulate the bestbuy.com ordering system and calling in as "corporate" saying to just release a bestbuy.com order to them.

If all those people spent more time working and less time stealing they might actually make something of their lives

 

Dang. People are turning 8 dollars down?! I am so sad too... This publix paycheck is NOT cutting it... I want to try college too. I just need to actually go and do it!