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There is a popular reddit forum titled "antiwork" that describes itself as "A subreddit for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles." It's been kind of a controversial sub because of the name and political goals, but there was a big deal made in the end of January 2022 when one of the moderators of the antiwork sub did a bad interview with Fox News and embarrassed many in that community. In the fallout of that interview, there was a lot of drama and infighting in the sub which led to moderators locking it down so no new content could be posted. It was closed. A new subreddit was created titled, "Work Reform" which describes itself as "a movement fighting for a good quality of life for everyone who sells their labor." I captured one of the early comments on this sub, which I believe does a good job capturing the motive for the movement, why there was a split from antiwork, and explains the frustrations people face in the workforce: "The antiwork subreddit logo was a stick figure laying down, symbolizing laziness. How many of you talked about how great the antiwork sub was to someone, only to immediately have to clarify, 'Oh it's not actually about quitting your job and not working. It's about pushing for basic workers' rights and calling out bad employers'? The biggest appeal of antiwork to a lot of us was that far too many of us have had similar personal experiences with shitty/illegal work practices that you only tolerated for survival purposes such as: -Wage theft: the most common form of theft in the United States, which increased during the pandemic. Commonly done via timecard manipulation and skimming tips. Did you fellow Americans know that if you're a tipped employee and your hourly wage + tips is less than the standard employee federal minimum wage (or more in some states), then your boss is supposed to pay you the difference (Https:/www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips) -Hourly employee hell: Deliberately low hours per week so your employer doesn't have to pay benefits and/or overtime, despite having the money and ability to do so. So then you work multiple jobs, none of which will give in to the other over scheduling conflicts or even pay attention to your requested days on or off. One may finally offer more hours for you to quit the other one and increase your availability, only to never do it after you uphold your end of the deal. Or worse, you agree but then they manipulate your timesheets. And of course, there's always shitty customers that managers will side with no matter what, thus encouraging said shitty behavior to continue and grow even worse. -Low-mid salaried employee hell: So you escaped hourly hell. It may not be a huge salary, but at least you don't have to predict your paycheck amount when deciding what groceries to buy. Welcome to a different hell now. No mandatory overtime pay means you're going way over 40 hours a week. You're now doing the work of 3+ employees so that the owner gets their money's worth out of you. Your boss also doesn't comprehend the difference between free time and availability, so you better be able to come in 24/7/365. Say goodbye to your holidays, because your boss wants them off more than he wants you to have them off. Hope you're not married with a kid, because you now get home after they're asleep and leave for work before they wake up. Every employees fuck up is also magically your fault too because 'you should have known better' -Job application hell: r/recruitinghell already exists, because the concept is already normalized and joked about. Uploading and sending your resume just to have to type it all in again. Needing 4+ years prior experience for entry level jobs. Needing 10+ years experience and all sorts of certs for an office job when half of the current employees don't even meet the requirements themselves according to LinkedIn. Internships not counting as work experience when you interned at the same company you're applying for. Job postings that lie about pay. Job postings that hide the pay and then get mad at you for making sure you're not about to relocate for a pay cut. Interviewers asking you about your weekends and your 5 year plans, when in reality they want to see if you go to church or if you may become pregnant in the near future. Jobs that say "we'll be in touch" only to never contact you again and leave the job position unfilled. Fake job postings to try to trick you into a cashier check scam or an MLM ( hence why r/antimlm exists too). Fake job postings that were meant to support an internal promotion the entire time. You apply nonstop, yet somehow it's entirely your fault for not finding something every single time. -Work conditions hell: As if long hours, shitty pay, and shitty people weren't bad enough, a lack of basic regard for your health and safety is also prevalent. You think being sick means that you can go home and avoid infecting others? You think scheduling a day off for a doctor's appointment months in advance means you're actually getting that day off? You think your workplace fire suppression systems and eye wash stations are properly inspected and will actually work if needed? You think that your company getting fined for a hazard was the same moment that they became aware of the safety issue? Just like how OSHA exists because people couldn't do the right thing the first time, Unions are similar in that regard. I've seen both good and bad unions, but to many it's their only hope for change. Don't want to worry about your subordinates unionizing? Rather than paying hundreds per person per day to a company to spread anti-union propaganda, have a decent enough work environment so your employees won't feel a need to fight for their rights by unionizing in the first place. And that BARELY scratches the surface on any of the bullshit. Then there's also gig economy hell, internship hell, legal ways to pay sub-minimum wage to minors and disabled workers, legal ways to discriminate with hiring practices, corporations against Work From Home solely for power/real estate purposes, lack of overall accountability on issues, and so much more. According to FRED, (fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE) peak unemployment in 2019 before the pandemic was 4%, and as of December 2021 it was 3.9%. If your workplace is still struggling to find employees then that's your workplace's fault. Saying 'NoBoDy WaNtS To WoRk AnYmOrE' or 'ThE GoVeRnMeNt Is PaYiNg PeOpLe To StAy HoMe' is a pathetic cop out of an excuse used to preach to the people who have outsourced their critical thinking skills in order to support what they wanted to believe in the first place. Take a wild guess which types of jobs are less likely to be eligible for unemployment benefits in the first place. These are the sorts of issues that antiwork meant to me and to many others. We now have a new sub with a more mature and more accurate name, and I'm embracing it because way too fucking many of you will read this one day and say to yourself 'I've had one/all of these hypothetical examples happen to me, and also have other examples that many seem to relate to as well.'" Things I don't like about the antiwork sub is some of the extreme positions which are very dramatic and unrealistic, or irrelevant to the cause. Some posts describe things that employers are doing which are blatantly illegal in a "what should I do" scenario or other instances that are too obvious like, of course you should call police or you have an easy legal action case, duh. However, I do understand that in many cases there are circumstances where people are being abused at work and they can't really fight against it in legal action because they don't have the time or means to pursue that course. Many employers get away with bad behaviors because of this. In some instances, a labor board is a free option that can blow the whistle on illegal practices and fine employers. What I do like about this sub is the spotlight it shines on shared, negative experiences and how we should change, how we can do better in our society. Many posts have valid concerns and points about work life struggles. For example, this post is an example of what people want and what many Americans want from European "socialism." It's titled, "I moved from the U.S. to Denmark and wow." The author then writes, "It legitimately feels like every single job I'm applying for is a union job. The average salaries offered are far higher (Also I looked it up and found that the minimum wage is $44,252.00 per year). About 40% of income is taken out as taxes, but at the end of the day my family and I get free healthcare, my children will GET PAID to go to college, I'm guaranteed 52 weeks of parental leave (32 of which are fully paid), and five weeks of paid vacation every year. The new American Dream is to leave America." Most people actually do want to work fulfilling jobs, but they want to be compensated well with good wages and benefits and overall just treated fairly and respectfully. People want an overall better quality of life than we're currently dealt and see this as an example that we can do better. Here's an interesting round that was started from this post about how practically every job requires a college degree these days. The post read: Employers, Quit requiring candidates to have a college degree when: a) you pay $14.00 an hour with no benefits b) the skills for the job can easily be taught c) you're not invested in their advancement or future Sincerely, Everyone and their mother. Juan C. responded to this post saying: "While I agree to a certain extent, how do you make sure that candidates have a certain level of interpersonal skills, verbal skills, and educational skills that may make the candidate fit for the position? Example: a receptionist, just for the sake of the conversation. How do you ensure that candidate knows how to represent the company values and uses the right verbal communications at work? The reason why those requirements are in place is to make a recruiter's life easier. Unless you know the person who is the candidate, it's tough to get a feeling while screening them. I've been screened and have screened people. Most of the time recruiters spend little to no time before redirecting to companies. This is my opinion, good for thought." Jordan responded to Juan and said, "I don’t think a college degree determines whether or not a person knows the right verbal communications. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a teacher use the wrong form of there/they’re/their....it makes me cringe." Juan: "Very true. Hence, that's the reason why I said it makes it easier to the recruiter. If that's with a college degree, I can only imagine the ones without. There are exceptions to all cases but it's one way to filter candidates without effort." Tawonda now jumps in and responds, "Juan, the disadvantage to hiring over qualified/college graduates for lower paying/lower level positions is that they typically leave as soon as a better position becomes available. Ultimately the company loses by paying expensive talent acquisition costs repeatedly." Brianna now adds in as well saying, "You interview them! If your job is to hire people and find candidates then you should know how to discern a candidate without having to rely heavily on whatever their background says on paper. You should be good enough at your job that you are able to read a candidates acumen for a certain role." Robert finishes off by saying, "What? I read this and the pay rate is $14/hr and some employers want a college degree? That is insane. Not sure why anyone would want to work for an employer that pays so little for a degreed person. Does this same employer want years of experience also? Walk away from these companies." Yes, Robert. This is one of the several reasons why there is a "Great Resignation" movement. People deserve better. I'm going to conclude this post with a few snippets from a fantastic post titled, "What radicalized you to the anti-work movement?" The comments are well worth a read to get an idea of what this is about and why the sub boomed in popularity.
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s2y3cy/what_radicalized_you/ "I've been sympathetic for a long time because so much of what I see here is really just a call for basic human dignity and respect. The thing that radicalized me is becoming friends with Thomas through my church's homeless outreach; he has three jobs but can't afford an apartment. I cannot support such a cruel system." "I’m a social worker/therapist and I would say that the common thread tying all of us together is how the capitalist system routinely and by design completely fucks 99% of people. There are individuals struggling with depression/anxiety, even PTSD, not because of some childhood trauma - it’s the lack of hope and helplessness people are facing every day, working to barely survive with no long-term benefit." "After I turned 26 and had to get off my parents health insurance I applied for it at the office I had worked at for five years. The owner of the company told me that providing health insurance for employees was 'a huge burden on the company.' My team had performed so well that year that the owning family rewarded themselves with new cars paid for with company money. The employees received, and I shit you not, a bag of chips and a candle. I realized then that employers are NEVER your friend. They will climb over your dead body to make a nickel of profit." "Working in bankruptcy law during the 08 crash. I saw people losing everything who had done 'everything right' but got sick or lost their job due to the crash and their whole lives were falling apart. It made me suddenly realize that there was no 'middle class' safety like I’d been raised to believe. It was all a house of cards." "Got into the same industry my father raised me in. He was able to afford multiple houses, cars, and raised three kids. I make the same as he did 40 years ago, accounting for inflation, and can’t even afford rent." "When I realized my boss was pulling in almost 500k/yr for a store that I was running while he sat on his arse. Paid me 13$/hr. No benefits. No time off. I worked 6 days a week, open-close every day for 4 years. No vacations or time off in 4 years. Told me he couldn’t give me a raise last year cause my performance was suffering; shocker I was pregnant! Then magically was going to offer me a week paid vacation and 2$/hr raise when I found a job that offered me 17$/hr for much less stress and easier on my body." Some of the stories actually sound like people that don't know any better got taken advantage of. Some people just don't know they are capable and qualified for better jobs out there. Changing jobs can be a scary thing because it's a big part of our lives to uproot and change. There are several stories of people that have dealt with poor wages and bad jobs/abusive managers for far longer than they should've. I also wanted to share my thoughts on business investor owners, meaning people that make money from the business they own, but do very little or nothing at all to work for and support the business - all the management and work is hired out. I am fine with this as a way for people to invest and make money, but I have a problem with the ones that abuse it by paying poor wages and little to no benefits to all their staff while taking in large sums of the profit. Please offer meaningful, equitable profit sharing to employees on a monthly or quarterly basis at least. I wish all employers would do this at least. Many people would like to see more of a political movement grow from the popularity of these threads, with the goals of better pay, maybe less hours with the same pay, better benefits such as increased paid time off, profit sharing/bonuses, and more. I support this cause, but in the meantime, Invested Alternative still provides a way for people in a movement like this to pool resources together into investments which help pay off debts and other donations to help and being able to make money in the process.
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In 2013 I finished a job at a temp. agency and had still two and a half months before I moved away for another year of college. Scrolling through the craigslist job ads, I came across one on Monday that talked about a new office opening up that needed staffing. Not a whole lot of information. No business name listed, no address, not specific on anything really. It did say they were offering a $1700 salary. I called the number listed, scheduled an interview, and went in the next day after they gave me the address. The interview was very short and I still didn't get any information really. I was told to call back that evening from which I was informed I made the job. I was very excited to land another job just 4 days after leaving my last job, but was still wondering what exactly the company was and what I'll be doing. Since going to the interview at the business location I had the name of the company, but couldn't find any information about it online.
Wednesday was the first day of orientation. I walk in to see that they hired about 25 people all about my age between 18 and 25 or so - first flag of suspicion. I'm looking at the white board full of writing and information and the phrase that stood out to me was "advertising techniques." That's when I put it all together. Based on the mannerisms and attitude of the interviewer and now orientation instructor guy, the withholding of details, the kind of people they hired, and the "advertising techniques," I figured this was a sales job. I still wasn't 100% sure what kind of sales it was and what I would be doing though. I never wanted anything to do with sales. I hate the job and usually dislike salespeople - not them as a person (usually), but because of my experiences with them trying to hustle me for a sale. It's annoying! Also, several have been known to do some shady things do to get a sale. Anyways, I thought I'd at least give it a try and keep an open mind before immediately walking out then and there. Maybe I could be good at it (later in life I learned I'm not. I'm a terrible sales person). By the end of the first day of orientation I still wasn't even sure what I'd be doing exactly besides working with Kirby vacuum machines and getting them sold. I didn't know what a typical day on the job would be like and the pay systems or much of anything. Much of the first day of orientation was just talking about how much money we can make if we work hard. Money, money, money. Being rich, owning fancy cars, houses, boats, bling, going on lavish vacations, winning fantastic prizes, and all this jabber about vanity, possessions, wealth, and all the vain things people covet to show off how they're better than the people that went to school for a good job and have to pay off student loans. Yeah this is great to dream about, since a vast majority of people in the room are uneducated, probably have some debts to pay, and just struggle for any money really. Doing the math with figures they presented, I saw that even if all is going well, you're only making thirty to sixty thousand a year. That sounds good for anyone at our point in life, but how much of a future is there in this? Surely you can't be doing this kind of sales forever unless you switch to some other kind of sales or become a part of the business management/corporate office type work. Most of the money earned, will be spent leaving you in the same place you were at the start. My instructor seemed to be doing well for now, but I respect that he admitted that outside of this company he's only worth 9, 10, or 11 dollars an hour. Giving it thought, it's the money that motivates people because sales jobs typically suck, but it's worth it if you do get the money. During the second day of orientation I got a better idea of what's going on. People are offered a free service like carpet cleaning, but it’s really just an invitation to a lengthy sales demonstration in which the carpets are cleaned in the process of the demonstration. I would be the guy that goes into houses to do the demonstration and also have to find people occasionally to make appointments with. By the way, that $1700 salary that was “guaranteed,” isn’t. Someone asked about it and the instructor wasn’t very straight-forward about the pay. The salary is only paid if you perform a set amount of demonstrations. For example if it was 60 demonstrations that had to be met, he said that you easily do 80 or so demonstrations. It’s not a problem. Performing under 60 demonstrations is working part-time, so no salary. I wasn’t willing to make that gamble on my pay even with the good odds. It’s still more of a gamble than I prefer. Reflecting back on that now I know it was a lie or misleading at best. The whole thing was pretty scuzzy. I mean, do the math. It might've been less than 60 demonstrations as the requirement, but how many do you really expect to be doing each day or week? The money made would only come from selling the very expensive machines. You have to sell A LOT to make anything meaningful. So after the second day of orientation I was giving myself a headache trying to decide if I was willing to go through with this and give it a try, or walk out now before any more time is wasted. They did make the appearance of people finding success in this, but ultimately, I decided to not show up the next day for orientation. I quit this scam and started looking for a real job elsewhere. I’m sure sales works for some people and some think they’re all scams. I personally will never work sales. One of the analogies used in the presentation was that most people would be willing to scrub toilets for $1,000 a week, so why not do this job for $1,000 a week? The idea is that scrubbing toilets is looked at with contempt. It’s a gross, terrible job. If you’d do a job of that kind because of great pay, then sales shouldn’t be beneath you. I don’t know if I fully understand that analogy or not, but it’s not that I think sales is below me. I just don’t want to do it no matter. I hate trying to keep people’s attention for something I don’t think they really need, I don’t like feeling or knowing I’m wasting their time, and I just don’t like doing any kind of door-to-door or cold calling. I’m not above it or think it’s all a deceiving practice. I just don’t want to do it, it’s a job I wouldn’t enjoy doing, and I know I'm terrible at it when I try sell stuff on craigslist or facebook marketplace. Another observation I made during the orientation/training process, is that they either tell the stories of successful people, or they bring in the successful person to give a little speech about how it’s possible to become rich in this business. What it looked like to me was that only a few people make it big through sales somehow. As a side note again - unless that money is invested, saved, and managed correctly, they will lose those hundreds of thousands and start all over again. It’s not a consistent, steady job. These successful sales people have become more of a use as inspirational speakers to get the lower-end people motivated. It’s not that loads of people are getting wealthy through sales, but a few have and are just circulated around as examples. For my last point, when someone is successful at sales, is it really hard work, or were they just lucky getting the right customers, or are they really talented salespeople, or a combination of both? They preach about the harder you work, the more money you make, but I will have to disagree – to a point. In sales, you can’t simply earn more money by putting in more time and effort. You only make money if people are buying from you. You can work two days a week and make 10 sales, or you can work 7 days a week and make only 3 sales. Putting more time in or “hard work” only increases the probability of getting sales and earning commission/bonus. It doesn’t correlate to immediate pay for the time worked. Though you increase the probability, it’s still just probability – chance or luck that you meet with the right customers. Think about what it means to be a good salesperson. You’re good at convincing someone to buy something. If the product is really that good, it shouldn’t need much convincing. People generally don’t like salespeople because it’s basically their job to trick, manipulate, and convince you to buy from them. This, of course, is being said by someone (me) bitter about the subject and had bad experiences. This wasn't my only experience with these sales job "recruitment rallies" I'll call them. In fact, the very next year I kept hearing a coworker talk about some financial stuff he was getting into and it was interesting to me since I was taking finance classes at college. I like the subject. He invited me to an event to learn more, which I attended one evening and was annoyed to be met with a similar experience: room full of people in their late teens to mid twenties, current pop music hits playing, flashy presentation about sticking it to the normal people getting normal jobs when you can be rich from doing this and "helping people." It was Primerica. Primerica insurance sales stuff. They tried to get me to sign up a the end of the meeting, right then and there and it would cost $100! Definitely not. They tried giving me all the "why not" scenarios and tried coaxing me into giving it a try and I just wouldn't budge. I'm not wasting a hundred bucks on this. I'm not doing this. I don't want any part in it. One more time in 2017 I got tricked into one of these is when I struck up conversation with a random person I met at the grocery store. I don't even remember what we talked about anymore, but we talked about some business stuff that I was already a little familiar with in the realm of online businesses and affiliate marketing. I agreed to meet them somewhere to meet this business partner and hear more, but was actually upset to see, once again, the same demographics and same scene being set up; but this time, They were all professionally dressed in suits. The people here were weird though. A few people made similar statements to me about being "accountable," hard working, and other nonsense.that's like, well yeah I'm not a lazy loser or something whatever the alternative is to what you're asking. I just said I wasn't interested and left after that, never contacting them again. This one was Amway's Worldwide Group. This might be a good plug for being anti MLM, but I don't want to go there right now. I've had an interest in the world of rental properties for a long time. How great is it to be able to just pay a down payment and then have renters pay your mortgage, expenses, and profit with their rent! Huge bonus profit too if there's no mortgage to pay. As you make more money you can just use the money to buy more properties and your real estate empire grows and grows! You can even hire a property management company to take care of all the dirty work for you. Pay 10% or so of your rental income to have 100% of your time. Sit back and enjoy the payments coming in while occasionally throwing in an approval for big maintenance expenses. Lucky for me, I got to experience the property management side of the real estate industry first-hand when I worked for two different property management companies. During my time working in property management I also learned a lot about people and their attitudes and outlook on life, entitlement personalities, and the amount of responsibilities they want to take. I got to interact with various types of landlord and tenant personalities. I learned about and experienced the effects of the housing market on an economy, the pros and cons of having rental properties, and a lot more of what goes on behind the scenes for housing managers and landlords altogether.
In October 2015, I delivered a presentation for a university internship I was working at and afterwards, while walking back to my car I stopped in the student union building to get a drink and use the bathroom. I took a peak at a community board and saw a job offer that caught my eye. A local company was looking for a new couple to hire as resident managers. Rent, utilities, and a stipend all included as compensation if you live on site to manage their apartment community. What a deal! I've heard of these kinds of opportunities and my wife and I were interested in learning how to manage rental properties, so what luck that I just happened to stroll in to see this posting. After excitedly telling my wife about it, she called and had a brief phone interview. We went to an in-person interview together a few days later and met with our future boss at the location we would be managing. Our future boss let us tour the apartment we would inhabit if hired and we really weren't impressed by it actually. If it weren't for the perks of the job, we most likely never would've chosen to live there. It was a two-bed, 1 bathroom unit with the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs and the kitchen downstairs with a closet under the stairs. There was no washer/dryer. Instead, we had to take our laundry to the small community laundry room at the center of the property and pay $1.25 for a washer cycle, and $0.25 for every 15 minutes in a dryer. There was only wall unit air conditioners and electric baseboard heaters, no central air. The unit itself was very small and awkward to position furniture because of the wall units and heaters. It was very clean, just very small and cramped. It was all worth it for the job though. Plus, it also came with a good-sized garage close by. We were extremely excited to get hired soon after our initial interview and couldn't believe our luck! We were also lucky to be on a month-month contract with our previous apartment, so it was easy for us to get out and move to this new community. We were given a VERY brief training to learn some basics and followed the example of how previous leases were filled out. The rest we had to figure out on our own and learn as we go. This lack of training became a problem and it didn't take long before we experienced rudeness from our manager. We were asking her too many questions and/or filling out forms wrong. I took a deposit from a new tenant that was going to move in three weeks later and she, our boss, got upset and rudely said, "Clearly you guys aren't understanding this yet," so she scheduled to come out for more training the next morning. I don't remember what she said in that training, but my wife and I were still confused because she kind of rambled on tangents that wasn't actually a training or answering our questions. At the end I had to ask her a question, again, which was the whole reason she came out and didn't even answer it, so I asked again, "How long do deposits hold for? How soon does a new tenant have to start paying rent after paying a deposit?" The answer was one week. That's all I needed! All we needed was some answers to questions. We were completely new to this, so we had a lot of questions that a simple text or phone call could've answered. Lousy training has bothered me throughout my life. Too many people are really bad at training and/or get frustrated too easily. It's hard for people that have been doing something for many years to imagine knowing nothing about the job or subject and start explaining things from the absolute basics. Yes, some people learn faster than others, but bad training annoys me. There's a difference between a person being bad at their job versus not being trained well to know how to do a job properly. The next level is when I've learned something well and train a new person, and then they now look better than me because they picked up faster by having a real teacher. Yes, because I TRAINED THEM AND ACTUALLY DID A GOOD JOB OF IT, UNLIKE THE WAY I HAD TO LEARN! So on that tone, there are people in this world that are far too easily upset and they let their emotions effect their work and the people around them. When things go wrong or work is busy, they get stressed and they get mean. That's always bothered me my whole life because I have always been a pretty timid person that "freezes up" around confrontation and feel completely caught off guard. I hate that I do that. The problem in this story is that whenever something went wrong, our manager would get upset and look for things to blame, especially in other people specifically. Someone didn't pay rent on time? Our fault. Someone moved out and the place was very dirty? Our fault. Maintenance or other vendor didn't get there on time or do a good enough job? Somehow still our fault - or at least she sure made it feel that way. Sure, we are responsible for the property as managers, but we cannot control people's actions or monitor their living conditions at all times. I also need to add here that this manager did strange, illegal things and discriminated a lot. She hated men, didn't like people from other cultures or ethnicities, especially blacks, didn't like "irresponsible" young people who are trying to figure out and manage life on their own, and didn't like young college kids who were given everything from their parents. We learned this when it came to screenings and investigating people she didn't like. When screening new prospective tenants, we did the viewings and took applications, but our manager processed them from the main office. She would always ask what the people looked like and dressed like because she wanted to know their character. Of course she wants as few problematic people living in the communities as possible, but there were several times she practiced illegal discrimination just because she didn't like something about someone, or there was another applicant more "favorable." There were some occasions where she wanted to investigate a tenant's cleanliness, so when she visited our property and knew the tenant was gone, she would use her master key to peak in without consent. We were shocked to see that, but we're not going to report it since we needed that gig. She would refuse to let in single college student men, even if they paid all 6-months or more up front and parents co-signed, but let in girls with the same exact qualifications or less. They wouldn't allow more than 1 person to live in any of the 1-bedroom units unless they were married because couples, friendships, and partners break up too often and break leases. There were a lot of strange thing this lady did and it was annoying to hear her trash-talk all the tenants she had low opinions of and her disagreements with their life choices and circumstances. She only had respect for clean-cut people that make lots of money. We didn't have very many issues working at this community. All the tenants kept to themselves and it was mostly single professionals because the property was only 72-units, mostly studio and one-bedroom apartments. Only four of them were 2-bedroom units and one of those belonged to us, the managers. The biggest problems we had were with old ladies. One lady complained about endless maintenance issues and often needed help with regular things. I was shocked at how many regular things she just didn't know about or never experienced in her 65+ years of life. She complained about a hole smaller than the size of a dime in her window screen because bugs could get in. The company didn't want to spend the money to repair it because it was so small and insignificant. She complained about landscapers blowing leaves up to her door, so I went to investigate and saw, like 3 small leaves in the entryway, not even yard dust. I took a picture and showed my wife and said, "This is the type of crap she complains about! Three leaves!" She wanted to rent a garage on the property, but we never told her one was available because she probably wouldn't be able to open and close it by herself. They were not automatic. She constantly wanted help changing bulbs or batteries, or looking into something. By the way, I was a little surprised at how many people were upset that we didn't replace burned out bulbs or dead batteries for them while they are living there. We aren't a full-service 5-star hotel and we expect tenants to take at least SOME responsibility for maintaining the places they live in. We cover all exterior and shared common areas, but in your own unit you can change your own stuff. One time, this same lady called to complain that the smoke alarms were broken. I could hear all of them going off over the phone. I walk over and there's clearly smoke in her apartment from burning something on the stove. She blamed it on the neighbor grilling on his patio upstairs. Maybe that was a little factor, but I doubt it. She was insistent that the alarms were broken or needed new batteries, even after I fanned the smoke out the door and window to stop the beeping. No Joan, they are working just as they are supposed to. There was smoke in here, so they were sounding the alert. One older lady was ok for her whole tenancy until one accident in the winter. She slipped on some ice getting to her car parked in front of her unit and then sent a notice to our company trying to charge us for her injury treatments and lost wages from missing out on work. That issue was handled by our main office, so I don't know what ever became of that, but I did hear that her work offered her a sitting position because of her injury and she refused it. Snow and ice was a big annoyance for me when working in property management. People complained no matter what we did. The sidewalks and asphalt aren't heated. Ice melt and shoveling can only do so much. It's going to be slippery in winter! What do you expect us to do? Build a stadium-sized umbrella to cover the entire property!? We plow the parking lot, shovel all walkways, and use ice melt generously. There's nothing else anyone can realistically do about snow and ice. There were also two entitled older women that were paranoid about everything. One lady changed her own locks, so management and maintenance no longer had access without her being there. Our boss was annoyed, but let it slide for some reason. I think this older lady was meaner than her. This bothered me because I hated that lady and wanted to see some punishment. Our boss gave her chance after chance to correct issues, but if it was a young man she would've fined them or evicted them without a second thought. When she couldn't evict them immediately, she just wouldn't renew their lease and force them out that way. One woman was certain that someone was sneaking into her unit, messing with stuff, cutting leaves off of her aloe plant, and using red marker on her underwear. Truly bizarre. She even told us she left notes telling intruders how to properly cut the plant and other things to not cause more harm. She also had an 8-year old adopted or foster daughter staying in this cramped little one-bedroom apartment with her, who was suspect number 1 in my mind. They didn't seem to have a very good relationship. Sometimes people insisted that they be present when a maintenance visit was scheduled or something required entering their unit. The problem is that our technicians or other vendors can rarely work with their schedules or times. They come when they come. When a technician/tradesman does need to come work on your property, understand that they are not just sitting around waiting for one job to come in. They have estimated windows of arrival because they don't know when they'll finish one job or how long the next ones will take. We'd get around this issue by serving a 24-hour notice of entry, to legally enter their unit when they're not there. I was baffled by the suspicions people had in thinking we or other people were up to mischief going into their units, but then I read stories and see videos to know that this stuff actually does happen! I guess I understand the worry, but it was still annoying for me as a manager just trying to do an honest work. There have been some tenants I've worked with at both jobs, who put in a maintenance request every time they find a scratch, bend, or any kind of slight defect. Some wanted us to upgrade equipment and remodel parts of their units just because they want better stuff even if they've only lived there for a few months or barely more than a year. Please understand that it is expensive to call in any sort of maintenance technician or tradesman. There are MANY things that you need to be or can be responsible for and buy or fix on your own. Sometimes when tenants start having financial issues and being able to come up with rent money they start complaining about problems and poor conditions in the place they live. You chose to live there and were permitted to check it out before moving in. You submitted a move in inspection. If everything was good enough for you at that time, then it should still be good now unless YOU damaged it; and don't try to withhold rent until the owner fixes things. That doesn't work and you will lose that fight unless something drastic has happened like the roof blew off and you made the proper requests for problems to be addressed. Moving on: I remember one guy gave his 30-day notice to move, but then later asked to extend it by a few more days. Our manager was annoyed, but obliged and rescheduled turnover work. On the day he was supposed to turn in keys, we never got them. Our boss called in the evening to ask if keys were turned in yet and was upset at us that they weren't. What were we supposed to do? Harass this guy and be all up in his business? I guess, but he wasn't answering his phone or door anyway. I finally went over around 11pm at night and used our master key to look in and see what's going on. The unit was empty, so I went back to get my initial inspection stuff to prep for turnover like we are supposed to, assuming he left and just forgot to turn in keys. I was just about done with my paperwork when I hear the door creaking open. Just as I feared, in comes the tenant all annoyed to find me in his unit. We had a little argument about how he was supposed to have turned in his keys by now and he insisted that he still had until midnight to use up the full day. There was no formal notice since he verbally changed the date with our boss, but I think he was technically right. I deescalated the situation because I didn't really care, I just wanted to do my job and go home - it was late; but then he wouldn't stop talking to me about random stuff so after about 40 minutes of talking I'm like, "Look. I'm sorry about coming in here early. I'm glad we could talk, but it's late and I want to get back home. Just finish whatever you need here and drop the key in the drop box." I heard the keys plunk into the box about 15 minutes later. There were a few times when people wouldn't turn in keys until late and it bothered me because our boss would be nagging us about getting the keys; but I didn't want to stay up 'til midnight hoping they'll drop them in. In one instance, a girl was supposed to already be out the night before, but when the blind cleaners came in the morning the door was still locked. After people move out, we unlock the door for vendors to come in and out to do their work. So I walk over there after seeing that keys were not turned in and knock on the door. No answer. I then slowly let myself in while knocking and holler in, "Hello, management!" I finally hear a groggy, "Hello" come from the bedroom. I politely explain that she was supposed to be gone by midnight with keys turned in, so now we have people here coming to take her blinds and clean them off site. We give her a moment to get presentable since she just woke up, then she lets them in to take the blinds and be gone. She finally left about 45 minutes later and we didn't charge her for the extra day, which is what normally happens when holding over after your lease and notice are expired. She got a free night on us instead of a hotel I guess. I didn't care at all besides the embarrassment of trying to get cleaners in when she's still in there and was sleeping. There are some inconveniences to being an on-site manager. People can come to you outside of normal business hours for little inconveniences. One guy locked himself out and called our manager who then told us we needed to go let him in. It didn't matter that we were in middle of grocery shopping. We had to leave immediately to go home and let him in because she didn't want to. This made us especially annoyed because that manager also pretended to be tough and say people were out of luck if she wasn't available, yet we couldn't live by that same standard for after hours non-emergencies. One lady locked her keys in her car, which also had her unit key, so we had to let her in to her unit at 6:30am so she could get her spare car key. She did this on two different occasions. One night, the power went out for the whole neighborhood, so of course we started getting knocks on our also dark manager office door asking why their power is out and when it will be back on and that they expect a credit on their rent because of this. "I'm sorry. We live here too and are also sitting in the dark. The whole neighborhood is out, so it's not an issue with our property. The city is already aware and working on a solution. I don't know anything else and no this temporary outage does not qualify for a rent credit." After this first exposure to property management, I started to see some of the crap that landlords have to deal with. Being a tenant for a few years before, I also knew what was frustrating when things weren't taken care of such as community amenities and cleanliness. I did my best to keep the property clean, including cleaning out the dumpster pens so loose garbage wasn't just laying all over the ground in the pens. I also kept our community laundry room clean and if any machines broke down I got a repair scheduled ASAP. I still don't like that companies insist on maintaining contracts and hate month-to-month. I know they want to guarantee rent for 6-months or a year and turnovers are costly, but people still break leases for any number of life circumstances changing anyway. Plus, if you do it right, turnover work is easy to schedule and shouldn't require a lot of work if you have decent tenants. I really liked how this company started with an initial 6 or 12-month contract, then it just carries over on a month-month basis after that. Every 6 months or so, rates would go up. Sometimes there was a discount if you signed another 6 or 12-month contract instead of staying month-month. The rent increases always bothered me too and they always will. Unless you're doing some serious remodeling, the costs for the property rarely go up as much as the owners like to make it sound. I know this because at my second property management job I saw what the costs were. Owners initially buy the property and make a decent percent return from the start. Raising the rates just makes their profit margins bigger and bigger to make more and more money from their rental property. It's ok to raise it a little for inflation, taxes, and to anticipate repairs, and remodels, but even old properties were charging higher and higher rates just because they could. I get it. If I had the opportunity to make more money for nothing I'd be tempted as well, but it really sucks for the whole community in general to have higher and higher housing costs. I'm going to go on a long tangent now about the economics of rental properties: How the market works: When a property fills up to 100% or very close, they like to see if they can push that price further to make more money. It's a common practice of supply and demand. When there are less units available they make them more and more expensive. The concept of something viewed as rare and hard to come by make it easy to charge more. You see this in many other industries. An increase in costs like property taxes, insurance rates, and maintenance projects are usually only a small factor in rising housing prices. Rental housing companies often do market research to know what similar properties are charging and how full they are. If they see other properties with higher rates and are pretty full with occupancy above 95%, then they can charge similar rates. The prices really start spiking up when a lot of people start moving in and there's a shortage of housing. If most properties are full and waiting lists are growing, you can charge really high and there will still be people desperate enough to pay the high price to get in. Soon all the properties are going to be charging higher prices just because they can. People will pay what they have to to not be homeless or living in a high crime, slum shack. When there's no competition to lower prices because everything's full, prices will continue to go up, forcing more people to work 2 or 3 jobs or cohabitate with roommates just to rent somewhere. It takes a lot for rent rates to go down. Building more apartments is probably the only real solution. If there are more units for people to choose from then vacancies will be open for longer and longer periods of time. Landlords want people in there paying rent as soon as possible. The turnover time between a previous tenant leaving and a new tenant moving in needs to be as short as possible to make the most money. When vacancies are open for longer periods of time because there isn't a high demand due to more places available to live, you will then see reduced rates and specials being offered. A move-in bonus or special is essentially lowering the rent rate if you spread out the reduced cost over a 6 or 12-month lease. It's a marketing tactic to lower costs and be appealing without looking like the cheaper alternative. The free markets would conclude that more housing needs to be built to offset the high housing costs. They are correct in that more competition can bring down prices, but if there isn't room or time to build and keep up, then there needs to be other solutions. Building too many luxury apartments doesn't help either. Rental prices are pretty high in the city I live in, so I was happy to see a large complex planned for construction. To my disappointment I found out shortly after that they are going to be more high-end luxury apartments. I feel like that's all they ever build these days. Housing prices are too high? Let's build more luxury units that cost $1,300 or more for just a 1-bedroom! I guess it's better than not building anything though because then the wealthier people that can afford these luxury apartments can compete for those and make room for others to have the "standard" apartments. If wealthy investors and companies can't build or won't build, then the housing crunch goes out of control, resulting in more people trying to cram into units together just to afford it and have somewhere to live, or make an hour and a half commute or longer just to afford housing further out. Rising housing costs is a pretty normal thing in the real estate world because of the supply and demand economics as I explained, but it's a problem for society if we do not build more. It’s good for rental property owners (usually wealthy people – not always, but usually wealthy people), but bad for everyone else. Tenants aren’t making more money, but their housing costs keep increasing. They might get raises, but not as much or as fast as how much property owners raised rates at both places I worked for in property management. Thus, the poor and middle class continue to be squeezed of life. When rent goes from $625 to $650/month that is now $300/year that these individuals will no longer be able to use elsewhere and their standard of living is diminished. $300 may seem small to some, but when this is combined with costs of other things going up as well it becomes a significant problem for many people because their pay isn't going up to match it. Maybe they did get a raise, but now the new people at entry-level jobs and salaries are having a much more difficult time affording the things they need. The $25/month increase in rent isn't really a lot, but the real problem is that I've seen it go from $650 to $1,000 or more in just three years. I believe an economy can be ruined or severely stagnated and limited solely by housing costing too much. When a larger and larger percentage of the population's paycheck gets sucked up in rent, there is less to be circulated to drive business - especially if many property owners are located out of the area and take the money elsewhere instead of spending back into the local community. Even if the property owners did spend it locally, I still think the economy would be stronger if more people had more spending power than only a few spending more and controlling the majority of investment and market actions. More disposable income everywhere would help drive more business growth and investment. I don't advocate for communism trying to make everyone equal, but I do advocate for at least a healthier distribution of wealth. If I were to graph it, the distribution of wealth would be poorest on the left and richest on the right side of the bottom line. Society would be better off with a line representing the distribution of wealth that steadily increases from the poorest to the richest, instead of a nearly-flat line until a giant spike for the top 10% of wealthy people. I believe fixing the housing affordability problems would be the best place to start for maintaining a healthy economy. The cheapest rentals available in a market should not be already sucking up more than 30%-40% of people's income on just housing alone. There are people and politicians out there pushing for rent control policies to fix the maximum amount that can be charged for rent. This is a simple government idea for a solution, but it does nothing to address the real problem of too many people wanting or needing to live in a certain area and there isn't enough housing. Build more housing and they'll have to put pressure on lowering rates or go without getting any rent at all because they're charging higher than other places. A Universal Basic Income is another political idea being discussed, but without some serious changes and enforcement in other areas all it would do is inflate housing and other industries heavily impacted by scarcity. If people started receiving an extra $1,000 a month they might want to use it to move to nicer areas. Just as I described, when the nicer areas fill up they're going to charge higher and higher, thus making the UBI ineffective for many as it'll all just be absorbed by the new, higher housing and other costs. Another point to add to rising housing prices is because Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) locals are not allowing new communities to be built. They want to keep the open land instead of building new housing developments. They don't want to see new high-rise multi-unit housing in their skylines and blocking their views, or increasing traffic in their area. Ever wonder why the progressive, tech-y, and "weird" places are so expensive to live compared to other cities? It's not just the love of the culture or jobs bringing people in and raising the prices, it's the people themselves. One reddit user commented the following on a "City that thinks it's 'weird' starterpack" thread: "Most of the OG eccentrics and hippies that gave the place its 'quirky' identity back in the day are now home-owning NIMBY squares who are terrified of change and mob every city council meeting to lobby against anything new or different despite still self-identifying as progressive and tolerant. Thanks to their efforts and an economic boom or two, there is a housing shortage, rent is stupid high and there's a shitton of homeless people — which includes the rest of the OG eccentrics that didn’t 'make it'. Source: grew up in Quirky Berkeley" This concludes my long tangent about the economics of rental properties. Back to my history and experience: After graduating from college I kept looking for an entry-level job for a real career in finance, but I still needed an income to pay bills in the mean-time. The current gig at the first property management job with free rent and utilities, plus a stipend was nice, but it all added up to the equivalent of about a $9/hr full-time job. It's kind of a small amount of pay, but was nice because it didn't really require much active work. The office was connected to our home. We didn't have many expenses because they were covered by this job, but we also weren't making much money to do anything. I needed an income to provide for our family, so I applied to another property management job that started at $14/hr and got in. I only wanted to stay there until I got a better job in finance or maybe grow into a bigger property management firm that could pay a good salary. I was hired on as the manager of a 112-unit apartment complex and I was excited for the new experience. It expanded on what I was already doing to now having me be the one to schedule maintenance, do billings, and manage applications whereas our manager was the one doing all of that at the previous job. I had a lot more control and I was annoyed at my previous boss because she would be cranky, frustrated at things, and complain about being busy all the time, but now that I pretty much did her same job for another company, I found that it really wasn't hard. I found property management in general to not really be that hard. It can be frustrating and stressful when dealing with problems and angry people, but it's mostly pretty easy just to be organized and make a few phone calls for stuff. When the properties were filled up it was very easy - even boring. I had plenty of time to surf the web, watch videos, whatever. When I started at the new apartment complex in January, the previous manager left with a lot of vacancies, troubled accounts, several move-outs coming up, and she wasn't very organized in general. One of the first things I did was change up the whiteboard in the office. The previous manager would just write notes on lines of items needing attention, open units, whatever. I changed it to try copying what I had at my last job which was basically a map of the property made with thin, black tape and filled in all the info of building and unit numbers, plus the last name of the current tenant that occupied it. This helped me learn the property and easily see who was where and where the open units were. I left a section for other notes but started making everything else digital. I felt like I was being a very good manager. I was solving problems, keeping the place clean, and even lowering rents for people because we had a lot of vacancies, more coming up, and it was mid-winter. The owner of the property was freaking out because of all the empty units and had my blessing to lower rates or run specials to get people in. Some of the rate changes were pretty significant too, like a $900 one-bedroom down to $765. I personally believed the rates were too high to begin with compared to the quality and location of what they're getting. However, a year and a half later as mostly Californians were arriving in droves, those rates all spiked back up. This company did not have a very good cleaning or landscaping crew. They kept trying to keep everything in-house to make more money, but they were just bad at it. The owner didn’t want to spend money on it either, so whenever I had some free time, which was often, I forwarded the office phone to my cell and went out on the grounds. The garbage pens on the property were overflowing all the time, even with them being emptied three times a week. I would pick up and sweep up any trash on the ground and throw it in the bins, then sometimes I would bring soapy water and actually brush the pavement underneath to get rid of stinky, smelly, garbage juice that stained the ground. I did some weeding on the property, often changed burned out light bulbs, and even picked up dog poop on the grounds. I made sure the clubhouse and gym were clean and orderly. A treadmill had a broken part, so when maintenance was taking too long to fix it, I just learned how to do it and fixed it myself. All these things annoyed me as a tenant in the past, so I wanted to make a difference by being a manager that actually took care of things. A part of me enjoyed fixing things, learning how they work, and learning how to do a few handyman maintenance things. The most common problem people reported was a kitchen sink drain disposal not working and these are usually very easy to fix. Every single time it was because something jammed it up like a piece of plastic, small pebble or metal piece, whatever didn’t grind up or flush on down the drain. Most of the models had a slot on the bottom under the sink to manually spin the blade in either direction with an allen wrench. This usually dislodged whatever the blockage was and I could pluck it out of the drain. There is also a little red reset button to push sometimes after clearing it and then it worked just fine. Other models didn’t have those features, so I had to use a stick to carefully dislodge the jam, but same story. Me doing this for people saved them, the renter, a $75+ charge for not having to call in a maintenance service. There’s a lot of things people can safely and easily do in their own rentals that will save a lot of money and hassle, just by looking up how-to videos on youtube. I don’t know why more people don’t do that. Some companies will fix things free, but others do not. You have to be careful to clarify who’s footing the bill for maintenance stuff. This company I was working for loved to charge people for everything they could and I wanted to help people avoid that. Another fairly common problem was clogged vents. People don’t always properly clean the lint out of their dryers, so they clog up the vents. One guy cleaned his dryer regularly, but we found that the hose connecting the dryer to the wall outlet was badly clogged. The heaters also needed a clean vent. In the summer, bugs and birds would build nests in the dormant heater vents. I cleared out a few old nests and fixed heater problems that way too, again saving lots of money on service calls. On two or three occasions we had an issue of an air conditioner not working. I learned from a technician an easy fix is sometimes the unit has frozen over from a combination of excessive use and a blocked air intake. We just had to clear the intake vent if there was a blockage and run the unit on fan mode only for an hour or more to defrost the unit, then it worked fine again. Two more maintenance things I learned was how to adjust the temperature in a water heater and how blocking windows for darkness is bad if done improperly. A tenant complained that the water wasn’t getting hot enough for their liking, so I looked up the model and a video of it to learn to do it myself. All I had to do was unscrew a panel and use a screwdriver to turn the thermometer setting a little hotter. Easy. For the mold issue, a tenant was moving out soon and found mold in their bedroom window sill. They were using blankets to completely seal up the window to darken the room. The problem was that it still gets humid between the blanket and window, so with no ventilation, mold or mildew was growing in the now moist, warm windowsill. Of course they tried throwing it all on us to fix the mold problem, but they caused it directly because of their actions, so they were charged the cost to fix it. A big problem I dealt with early on was that the previous manager signed a contract with an obscure construction company that was hard to find any information on. They housed a bunch of their workers in, I think, 5 units. When I came in I found that they hadn't paid rent in like 3 or 4 months. The first thing I had to do was try contacting them. None of them responded and they all only spoke spanish, or at least pretended to not know english. The next step was to post a 24-hour notice of entry to investigate what was going on. Most were abandoned, but one still had guys in it and another had a young family. One of the workers made a shady deal to illegally sublet the apartment. This new guy paid the previous worker scammer a deposit and some rent and then the scammer bolted, but the new guy had keys and moved into the unit. We had to make a lot of adjustments to get this new guy, his wife, and young child onto a proper lease and convert him to an actual tenant. He's lucky we were able to work with him because sometimes people that fall victim to this type of scam just get the boot. I had to post an eviction on the last one and notice of abandonment on the others. We never received a notice they were vacating or had keys turned in and my investigating of the abandoned units found a few things in the cupboards and fridge and some small, cheap furniture items still there, so technically I couldn't just change the locks and throw it all away without proper notice and time. Eventually, we were able to get all of the units cleared out, cleaned up, and re-rented. The turnovers for all the units and the months of missing rent cost the owners a lot and despite hiring an investigator to find and sue the company owner, I don't think they were successful in doing so to recoup any of it. Too bad. Another early issue I had to deal with was finding that some people paid cash for things that didn't get recorded properly. Their accounts were accumulating late fees because it's an automatic system. Luckily for all of us, they had receipts to prove they were current on everything and always were. It definitely looked like the previous manager was engaging in some crooked theft activity or grossly mismanaging and failing to document things. Of course the tenants were upset when I told them of the situation and I knew what happened was very wrong, so I'm glad it all got sorted out. I was shocked at the lack of controls in the business and that nobody caught these problems until I came in and started sorting through stuff to get organized. From what I heard from a tenant that was close with the previous manager was that she stopped caring and became dissatisfied with the company. The freedom to run the place as free as she wanted must've been nice. I would've loved that, but I would've done a good job. Of course, now that the company was aware of the messes that were made, I wasn't going to have the same freedoms. In fact, the controls clamped down so hard that it actually hindered my work. Any change or authority to do things had to pass through 2 or 3 people first. The fact that policies were constantly changing every few months made it a disaster of organization. Even though they've been in business for 10 years, this company still didn't even have solid lease terms and policies figured out. It wasn’t even minor adjustments either. I can understand things evolving to a certain degree over time, but we were often undergoing big policy and lease changes and often trying to implement new programs, some for ease and efficiency, bust mostly attempts to make more money. Tenants saw right through the schemes too as attempts to money grab. Such a headache! To make things worse, a new person was hired and basically given authority to make changes to documents and processes that would improve company efficiency. The company owner loved what they did and constantly praised them publicly. Of course they’re doing a good job! They were given the power to make changes and had the freedom to settle issues and fix things! They were being praised for doing the job just like the owner wanted because the owner gave them everything they needed to do it. They made the exact changes the owner wanted and got praised for it! My second year at the company was getting worse with controls. I felt like I was fighting with my own company more than just managing properties. It took so much time with discussion meetings and paperwork turnover to make little adjustments like removing fees or something because the system was so automated and management loved to stick it to people hard. I always felt like they were being unfair to tenants in any way they could to make a buck and punish people for not abiding by every word of the 30-page lease. The most common problems were turnover charges and lease renewals. The company had no concept of “normal wear and tear.” Even if the unit was properly cleaned, they’ll still send in a cleaning crew for a two or three hour minimum just to make sure it is indeed clean and the renter pays for it out of their deposit. Many or most maintenance charges were billed to the tenants’ deposit as well, so it was rare to get much of your deposit back, if anything at all. People complained all the time, and even though I agreed with them, I as the property manager had to face their fury. There was nothing I could do to change it because that’s what my boss decided the policy will be. Lease renewals were my favorite glaring example of hypocrisy. If a tenant had an old lease that my boss didn’t like because it had certain lines that worked in the tenants’ favor, he said it was an old lease that had no value anymore and we are signing a completely new lease, even though they’re staying in the same unit, managed by the same company. However, if there were changes that worked in our company’s favor, such as changes that added charges, then it was a standard lease renewal and they need to pay for the changes to their lease even though the new lease is changed a little just like the other scenario. For example, a tenant wants to add a pet or additional people at their lease renewal because they’re signing a new lease for the renewal which originally didn't have extra costs. My boss would charge them the fees for changing the lease because it’s considered a renewal; but if there were lines that served in the tenant’s favor like a line stating rent cannot be raised by more than 5% and my boss wanted to raise it 10%, it was excused that they are signing a whole new lease, so they will have to pay the increase after “renewing.” I guess it makes sense because we can just evict the tenant to get a new one paying the higher rate, but this case actually happened and it bothered me - a lot. Are some of these things my company did illegal? Probably, but no one has the time, knowledge or money to go about pursuing a lawsuit for just a few hundred dollars or less in charges. There were a few people that made legal threats, but we just ignored them. They never followed through except for two occasions. The first was a paranoid woman that stopped paying rent and basically ghosted us. She was evicted and then quickly moved out last second before we changed locks and took possession. She left a mess in the property. There were old, leftover parts of furniture that needed to be removed and she painted sections of the exterior without permission that needed to be fixed. She wanted to pick up her deposit, but when she opened her envelope to see that she owed us quite a bit of money instead (missed rent payments, late fees, eviction fees, cleaning and maintenance fees) she angrily called in and threatened to sue us and hung up. Digital phone slam! Sure enough, a few weeks later we get a court summons. After gathering all of our backup documents in preparation to defend, I attend court on our hearing day and she didn’t even show up! The case was immediately dismissed and that was the end of it. The second case was more interesting. We had a problematic tenant in the apartment complex that was late on rent, or I should say just didn’t pay rent for 2 months and was in middle of the eviction process. Their apartment flooded pretty badly one morning because the guy used the toilet, which clogged, and went to work before anyone else woke about an hour or so later I guess. When I got the call first thing that morning just after 8am, I went to investigate and found that the little chain in the tank connecting the flush lever to the drain flap was a little too long and got stuck under the flap, allowing water to endlessly flow from the tank into the bowl, which was clogged, so it overflowed and flooded the place. It was also a second-floor unit so there was damage below. I don’t remember the total cost of the damage, but of course it was a few thousand dollars. The owner was going to cover half the cost because of the long chain issue, but they were still charged the other half for causing the clog and letting it flood for so long. They disagreed with having to pay at all, so they sued our company to remove the charges and pay for their furniture damages. The court visit wasn’t as interesting as I expected. The judge heard both sides of the arguments and it didn’t look good for the tenants who have caused a minor flood before and had many delinquent account issues. He agreed with the owner in covering it 50/50, so we won the case. The rest of the issues of eviction and collections was a separate issue for another day. To end it all, the woman had an outstanding arrest warrant for something, so the judge had the officer arrest her and taken away right after his decision. It was pretty funny to me to not only end this problem with those tenants, but that she showed up to court, lost her case, and was taken away in cuffs. One of the first angry tenant issues I dealt with within my first two weeks was a truck that got towed. We shared a part of our lot with another business that was very strict about their parking spaces. They even had it painted on the ground but people still parked there and got towed. It happened three times while I was working there. Tenants or their guest would come to me all upset about it, but it was easy for me to defer them to the other business that towed them. In my first case, the guy tried for half an hour or more to prove that he was safe parking on the lot and they had no right to tow his truck. Obviously he was wrong and there was nothing he or I could do to stop it. I never ordered any cars to be towed while I was working there. People rarely parked in places they shouldn't, but even if they were, they were gone within a few hours anyway. I had a personal policy to not tow until after I placed a 24-hour notice on a vehicle unless they were blatantly blocking a red zone like in the way of garbage removal or something important. I didn't want to deal with the headache of more angry people and charging someone hundreds of dollars for a first-time offense. If the same vehicle parked in someone else's spot more than once after being served the first time I would be much more willing to have it towed, but I never had that problem. Everyone's a good tenant until they pay late or have issues. When people would fall on hard times or have requests to fix issues, I would often be reminded about how they've been good tenants and they want some sort of reward because of that. Yes I can be helpful to first time offenders for minor things, but EVERYBODY is a good tenant at first and no, you cannot do random favors that aren’t asked for like cleaning the property in exchange for me to look the other way when you're late on rent or a complaint is filed against you. There were two or three times when tenants missed rent and when I called to check in I was told they’ve been wanting some maintenance things done. We do have an easy system for maintenance requests, but some issues are not as urgent as others. Some owners will agree to fix things up and others won’t unless they HAVE to. Again, withholding rent or other payments due will not work. You will get screwed worse in the end unless you REALLY know the law and know what you're doing. It's always amusing to me when people get upset about problems on their account and make comments that they're going to be looking for other places to live and moving out. That’s great news for me! A problem tenant is letting themselves out the door! Going to leave a bad review? Fine. I’ll just leave my owner remarks about how you screwed up and were a bad tenant. Nobody cares. All those people that withheld rent for whatever reason always lost. They were all evicted and now had a tainted rental record. They never had the money to pay and were just making up excuses to try and stay longer or get a discount. Even if they had the money, the simple act of turning it over to pay the rent proved difficult for some people. Many people waited until the very last day and the very last hour to pay rent. This was a problem sometimes when the software automatically assesses a late fee and then I have to argue with my own company to get it removed because they slipped it under the door or paid it at 11:59pm and it didn’t load until 12:01am. If the first or fifth lands on a weekend or holiday and you're paying with a check or cash, you need to pay ahead of time if this office is closed. If you don’t pay it online and demand to pay in person when the office is open again, you’ll be late if it's not already in the box. If you don't get paid until a few days after the due date, that's your problem to figure out. The landlord doesn't have to accommodate your pay days or job losses or any income changes. You must be responsible for your own budgeting and make sure that rent gets in on time. When I was working in the on-site office as manager of the apartments complex, several people would try to use the excuse that I wasn't in the office for them to pay rent, so it was late, even though there's a rent drop box right by the door. Rent does not need to be paid IN MY HAND! It can be paid online or left in the drop box. You not feeling comfortable leaving it in a drop box or paying a $2 on-line portal fee is not our problem. It is free to pay in my hand if I'm there, or you can pay for free in the drop box. Should the drop box ever be broken into, the thieves wouldn't be able to use the checks written to us anyways and we don't take cash payments. You would get a chance to write a new check without any late penalties. I was also very annoyed at how many times people incorrectly filled out checks or money orders, or paid the wrong amounts. I couldn’t get ahold of them after emailing, calling, and leaving messages, then they complain about all the late fees and problems. It was so frustrating because I’m trying so hard to be on their side to make sure everything’s right and so they don’t get unfair hefty charges, but it sometimes felt like they were purposefully being difficult with their screw ups and lack of communication. Don’t wait until the very last second to pay, pay the right amount, and don’t ignore me trying to reach out to you when there’s a problem. I’m reaching out to avoid problems. Many other managers, including my boss, love to trap people and make them suffer the consequences for not handling things on their own in the proper way and on time. “It’ll teach them,” they say. My future boss at another job also subscribed to that method of training. Let people learn through mistakes and get them in trouble. If it’s a hard learning, they’re more likely to remember. I hate this method! People MIGHT learn better, but it also breaks down the relationship and makes people resent you when you simply could’ve been more proactive in giving advice on how not to fail. Be on their side. I was always on the tenant’s side as much as possible. I wanted to be very fair and give people a good home with things taken care of and no problems, but I also hated conflict so I did everything I could to avoid it and sometimes people just have to own the penalty charges. I can’t completely bend the rules or hide charges in our software because I still have my own boss to report to and, like I said earlier, they really clamped down controls. I tried everything I could reasonably do to help tenants avoid problems and charges, but doing favors for people sometimes backfired. Not only did they often become repeat offenders, but it also gave me a headache trying to cover my tracks for when I was able to help the first time and they were never grateful I helped in the first place. I took a chance on renting to a young couple one time because I knew they were desperate to get a place. The problem was that they BARELY qualified, they were renting an expensive 3-bed/2-bath unit when it’s just the two of them, and I knew they would struggle with the rent if they weren’t careful, but I wasn’t going to stop them if they think they could make it work. Of course it failed after a few months, they broke lease, moved out early, and issued the penalty and cleaning charges. I really hoped they would make it work, but I wasn’t surprised. I felt guilty for allowing them to get in, but they did technically qualify – barely. Of course the parents were mad about all the charges, but they probably should’ve advised the kids to make better choices in picking a place to live. Pets. One subject that angered people in different ways was pets. I can’t believe how many people have pets and how many pets some people have! Pets are scary to landlords because of the damages they can cause and issues with neighbors. Both dogs and cats will sometimes scratch and chew the floors, baseboards, walls and doors, and just stink up the place. There were three or four times we had to completely replace the flooring in rentals because the cleaners could not get the smells out. The renter was charged the pro-rata charge for replacing flooring early. We had a rule to replace old carpets that were worn out every 7 years. If we needed to replace them sooner because the tenant and/or their pets damaged them, they would have to pay the balance of the remaining time. For example, if it cost $2,000 to replace the carpets and they were only 4 years old, the tenant would be charged $857 for the three years of use left in the carpets (2000/7 x 3 years left). My wife and I don't like cats. They're cute creatures, but almost every house we go into that has cats stinks! Dog poop all over the grass on the property was always a problem. It was difficult to find out who was leaving it and we tried a few tactics that helped a little, but it was incredibly annoying. So many people are such irresponsible pet owners! There were only about two cases of noise complaints for barking dogs, but that was also a problem that I couldn’t do much about. I’m not going to put listening devices out to prove the neighbors’ dogs bark too much, but I can talk to the tenants about it at least. We also had to make a new community rule requiring all dogs to be on a leash in public for two reasons: 1) Too many people were letting their dogs out to relieve themselves unsupervised and 2) Not everyone feels comfortable with loose dogs approaching them and pestering them, their children, and especially people with dogs that don’t like other dogs up in their space. So people had lots of dog complaints, but new prospects also complained about our pet policies. They were frustrated and cried about how unfair it is to limit the number of pets you can have and what size or breed. I made the policy clear to this one guy when he first came in, but then in middle of the viewing, this “son” that he previously mentioned that would be living with him was actually a pitbull dog, which is prohibited. He then proceeds to explain how good and well behaved his dog is and how it’s like a son to him. He was literally referring to it as his son the entire time up ‘til now. I’m sorry, but no. Did you think I can just let you sneak it in and explain to everyone else that it’s ok because he loves his pitbull so much even though it’s not ok for everyone else? No! Another interesting debate in this area is pets vs children. Some people complain that children can cause more damage and noise problems than pets, yet pets require their own deposits and extra rent. It's an interesting argument and having had young kids myself I know children can cause some damage to properties. However, I still agree with the standard that more often than not, pets cause more problems. Now the worst scenario with pets I’ve dealt with, started with a problem crazy-lady whose husband recently moved out and she started inviting scuzzy-looking people over and missed rent so she’s facing eviction. I was at a meeting in our main office in town when a tenant called in. One of our employees took the call and we hear her say, “Ok then you need to hang up and call the police.” She then comes and tells me that a someone shot a dog on the property. There was police and an animal control truck already there when I arrived. Police were taking statements and the situation was under control, but the people outside were all shaken up about what happened of course. So the scuzzy-looking guy that was illegally staying at the trouble tenant’s place brought in a scary-looking pit bull that got out. The dog ran out and proceeded to bark, snarl, and lunge at people unfortunate enough to be out at the moment. The dog also picked the wrong people to mess with as its final victims. It jumped all over one couple and became more aggressive when they tried kicking it away. The husband had enough and decided he had to shoot the dog with the pistol he carried on him to end the threat. He was actually pretty shaken up and didn’t want to from what I’ve seen and been told by people, but he felt like he had to. The fall-out from this was that we reiterated our pet policy with everyone, evicted the problem tenant, and deal with new complaints about people not feeling safe because of the shooting. One old lady came in and cried about how it’s not right that the other person could shoot the dog, he didn’t look harmed, and it’s against the lease rules and city rules to discharge a firearm. She wanted them evicted too. I was actually surprised by how many people came to the defense of the dog! On a side note, I don’t actually know if it lived or died. It was alive when the owner placed it in the animal control vehicle, but after that I don’t know if it lived or died later. Since the guy acted in self-defense the police issued no ticket or penalties to the shooter, but did take his weapon for a time for evidence or some sort of legal reasons. I agreed with the police and so did my boss that they were right to act in self-defense in that moment against a loose, aggressive dog. People do not have to wait until they’re bitten, mauled, and torn up to prove they need to kill an animal for their safety, but of course there should be witnesses to account for whether or not people are just shooting animals they don’t like. I was not there to witness what really happened, but a few others complained about being attacked and threatened by the dog. Several people in the community were divided about whether it was right or wrong to shoot the dog and both sides were upset. The tenant being evicted was taking her sweet time and not appearing to leave on her own, so I had to have the court deputies served their official 24-hour notice and when that expiration time approached, I had to call them in to let them know we needed them to enforce the order because they still haven’t left on their own. That morning the tenant did finally bring in a small rented truck to move stuff out, but I didn’t trust they’d actually turn over possession or get out on time and this needed to end today. She came over to the office with her two young boys to fake appeal compassion from me to allow more time, but I wasn’t having it. I was so sick of this lady and wanted her gone! I told her I can’t giver her more time, the deputies are taking over and coming to enforce their notice. She scowled and cursed me and pulled her children away as she left as if she was protecting them from me like I was a horrible, dangerous person. I feel bad for those kids. Life is so unfair to all the children that have to grow up in broken homes with parents that can’t manage their lives. This lady wasn’t just a mother down on her luck. I would actually work with people like that to help them. No. She was defiant, breaking several rules, refusing to cooperate, very likely using drugs, inviting people over that made the community feel unsafe, and stirring trouble with neighbors. When the deputies arrived she swore at me some more and told them how horrible I was. I just didn’t respond. There’s no point and all it would do is escalate the situation. They gave her just five more minutes to leave while we changed the locks with a maintenance tech, then they made sure she was off the property before leaving. In the early morning hours of the following day, she and that guy came back and tried breaking into the back door of her unit but were ran off by another tenant that caught them in the act. She was given the opportunity to come back for what little was left of her stuff, but never responded and her stuff just got scrapped during our standard turnover cleaning and repairs. This lady was charged with it all for being such a pain: missed rent plus the late fees until eviction, court charges and legal fees for full eviction with deputies, unauthorized pet charges, unauthorized guest charges, cleaning charges, and all the repair costs, especially for the damaged door from the attempted break-in. Good riddance! I used to watch some shows about people being evicted and they almost always acted surprised like they had no idea it was coming or assumed something was being taken care of. No, it’s never a surprise. There are lots of notices and communications that lead up to that point. Plus, an eviction means you won’t get a good reference, but if you let go all the way to court you’re going to have an actual record of it, not just a bad reference, and you’re going to be forced out anyway. It’s much better to leave on your own and not let it get to that point. Subsidized Housing Since I worked in property management, I learned a little bit about section 8 and section 42 government housing subsidies which are supposed to give aid to people struggling with finding a decent home on low incomes. Like many people, I don't like Section 8 because it's a clunky mess of organization, bureaucracy, and paperwork. I definitely understand why so many landlords refuse to take it. The second property I worked at was accepting it, but we started to phase out the program because of the headache. The tenants were required to pay a set amount of their portion of rent and the section 8 program sent us a check to cover the difference. We didn't have a lot of section 8 users and many of them were decent tenants. However, there is a negative stereotype about section 8 people which is another reason why landlords don't like it and the stereotype exists for a reason. It's often true. Again, many were good, but there were still several section 8 tenants that caused problems on the property. They had struggles with alcohol and/or drug abuse, relationship problems with loud fighting inside and outside their units, cleanliness issues inside and outside their units, and even though their rent is subsidized there were some that still often struggled with paying even their small portion of rent on time and had trouble following other community rules. I started to dislike using section 8 vouchers or company housing contracts because they became more of a burden. They basically had their own lease that we had to accommodate to and restricted our own control. Anytime there were lease changes with renewals, rate changes, or other issues they had to be notified like two months in advance with more paperwork and dealing with the long wait-times between correspondence. The bureaucratic protocols just wasn't worth it. It was much easier to just fill the unit with a new tenant on our own lease and enforce our own changes. We had a contract with a local trade school as well that was frustrating. The school itself paid the rent and was basically considered the "tenant," but they had special lease addendums that allowed them to house their students without us doing any vetting. The only problem I really had was noise complaints and extra vehicles on the property. Why do apartment complexes never seem to supply enough parking spaces? There should always be at least two or one and a half spaces times the number of units. Anyways, besides those complaints it was still just annoying to go through third party people and protocols just to manage our own units and tenants. When I eventually moved away and started looking for my own place to live, I came across some Section 42 properties. I visited them because they looked nice and had great rates, but found out that you can only qualify to live there if you earn below a set income. It was pretty low too, but I don't remember the exact amount. From what I understand, Section 8 just sends the landlord a check to make up the difference in rent so poor people don't have to pay as much, but section 42 sets an income limit that only people with low incomes can live in, but they are responsible for all rent and obligations on their own. The property company agrees to keep their rates far below market rates and abide by this standard of only allowing lower income tenants in exchange for a reduction in taxes which makes up the difference they would've earned otherwise at normal market rates. I am more supportive of section 42 properties because they seem a lot easier to manage and instead of paying out money the government mostly just goes without earning the taxes on the property it would normally get; but I've been wondering - why can't the government OWN some rental properties instead of subsidizing them? Do they already do that at all? Someone please explain if so. Not only could it provide more affordable housing to those that need it most, but it could also maybe be a source of income for the local government. Right? Roommates One more situation I want to address is roommates. There were three times we had units rented with roommate situations where roommates would fight, break up, and move out. The problem is, they signed the lease together so they’re all equally responsible for the full payment. If one leaves, it screws over everyone including the one that left. This is why the first company I worked at didn’t allow it. It’s annoying to deal with and you have to manage their drama if it happens. In one case they made it work by going through the proper channels of having a replacement apply and be approved by us and paid to add them on the lease and properly remove the previous person. In the other two cases they couldn’t find a replacement, so the others had to soak up the cost. For one, she only had the one roommate and paid the full rent herself. I felt bad for her, but she paid two months on her own then her lease was up and she left in good standing. The other was a group of four where one left only 4 months into a 12-month lease. The others paid the extra cost for 3 more months then couldn’t take it anymore and all broke lease by moving out early. I still gave good references to the three, but the fourth person that left was also sent a portion of the bill for leaving early and the late fees for the last month they were late. My final comment on renters is about complaints. In apartment communities, there's only so much a manager can do when it comes to enforcing noise complaints and pet problems. If you live in an apartment, you will hear noises! You share walls and they were not built to be studio soundproof! If you can't live with that and can't resolve problems with your neighbor(s), then you will need to move - preferably to your own home away from neighbors. Many of the people that constantly complain about noise or other issues, will complain no matter what. A cricket can chirp outside their window once at night and they’d be calling it in. A lot of people are shy and timid and don't want to confront their neighbors about issues, but you need to at least try to stick up for yourself first. If anything, it will help your case if the situation needs to be escalated to management. Most people are more reasonable than you think if you just try talking to them in a friendly manner. Know from the manager's perspective that it is fairly difficult to legally evict someone before their lease ends for any other reason besides staying after a lease has expired, or for not paying rent, or for blatant lease violations with evidence. Managers don't have eyes and ears everywhere at all times to prove the violations and people can’t be trusted. Too many fake stories are used for stupid things people don’t like and just want to get rid of their neighbors. Unless there is hard proof of people in violation, there can't be any real action besides maybe choosing to not renew a lease when it comes due in the future. If there's a violation issued and the offender challenges it, there's nothing to stand on besides someone's word. If you live in an apartment you will hear noises! The main, underlying problem to everything I’ve dealt with in property management is that too many people do not take personal responsibility for consequences to their actions and do not make rational judgments. A young woman would complain to me about having a hard life and blame the world and various factors for not being able to keep a job or afford rent and whatnot, but maybe it's because she is 20 years old with two kids from two different, non-existent fathers, a new boyfriend every 6 months, and switching jobs every 6 months. I don’t care what you do with your personal life as long as you fulfill your obligations and stop blaming the world at some point. There are still some things you do have control over despite having a rough past. Just because your work hours were cut, doesn't mean your rent amount can be cut as well. It's unfortunate, but now you make me to be the bad guy as if I’m a horrible, immoral person just because I enforce lease rules. I don't own the property. I can’t help people even if I wanted because of how the system works. I can't go to my boss and the property owner and tell them I let one person cut back on rent just because of a hard time - which hard times seem to keep happening to a lot of the same people. Dealing with Owners Now back to my job timeline. I worked at this other apartment complex for a year and then was moved to the main office to manage mostly single-family homes and a trailer park. I was used to only dealing with one owner of the mid-size apartment complex, so it was a little frustrating dealing with multiple owners now, managing the properties of all the people renting out their houses. Many people have stories of bad tenants and unusual events, but you rarely hear about dealing with owners. I've met some rental property owners who had expectations that just aren't compatible with reality or were even prohibited by law. Many owners I've worked with want to push the rental rates as high as they can go and want very strict qualifications to get the "perfect tenant." They want the perfect tenant that will pay the most, but they also aren't willing to wait and let their property sit vacant until they get that match. These are conflicting problems. If you want to charge really high rents, then your chances of units sitting vacant longer and evictions/early terminations go up with it. Even good tenants sometimes lose jobs and have life emergencies causing them to break lease under the pressure of high rents. Owners want to have strict standards and get the best tenants, but if you're going to turn away all the other applicants then you have to be willing to wait and have your property sit vacant until you can get that ideal renter. Owners often say they want all collections to happen promptly and enforced strictly. All rent needs to be collected on the 1st through the 5th and late notices and fees go out on the 6th. "No working deals and payment plans with tenants." However, once they are made to understand that being very firm and strict with this often means having to deal with evictions in the courts, they'll back off a bit. Evictions frighten owners just as much as tenants because then they are afraid of court costs, legal battles, and possible damages to the property from angry tenants on their way out. I tried to work with tenants as much as possible being firm, but fair; but it’s a careful balance and as I reflect back on my experiences I think it probably would be easier to just stick to the firm rules. The cost of evictions are higher than working with a tenant, but it can be more of a headache trying to manage payment plans with a tenant when you can probably just put a new one in instead. When a tenant is sent to collections for leaving or being evicted with an outstanding balance owing, I was told that chances are pretty slim that owners will actually get much of that, if anything back. If so, you only get a little bit here and there for a long time. Collections are very regulated and don't produce results nearly as well or quickly as you'd hope. This leads me to believe that people actually can get away without having to pay the full price, as long as they're ok with their credit taking a hit. I was surprised by how upset property owners would get over maintenance issues. Yes, of course you would like to never have to pay for the upkeep of your property and be a slumlord, but if you want to charge these high rates and stay within legal limits and whatnot, you have to pay to upkeep your property. I thought it was understood that owning and managing property would include maintenance costs, but I was surprised at how many times property owners were devastated and upset at even minor repairs. They didn't budget for it and were relying too heavily on their one rental house for income. There were other times that property owners wanted to fix things themselves to save money, but they weren't very good at doing things properly or in a timely manner. I've seen owners try to bill and charge tenants for the upgrades and remodeling of their property. No. They're already paying your mortgage and taxes for that sweet, ever-growing equity. They are not obligated in any way to pay for your elective property improvements on top of that. Poor Landlords Some people own rental properties and probably shouldn't because they can't financially support the investment. The last place I rented before buying my first home was owned by a family that were presented an opportunity to buy the rental house from a relative. The problem was that they didn't have the finances to maintain it and pay for it when no tenant was there. They worked really hard to do maintenance upkeep themselves and they were good at that at least, but they struggled managing the financial side of it. Should any costly repairs be needed or long turnover time between tenants, they'd have to get a loan to cover the costs. When I was managing rental houses, one older woman used the rental income from her property as her retire income to live on. The long-term tenant she had moved out and we couldn't place a new tenant because the house was in such bad shape, needing a lot of repairs she couldn't afford. She was very upset and eventually had a friend come to do repairs and I was laid off before finding out whatever became of that situation. Trailer Park The last interesting experience I want to comment on is my involvement in managing an old trailer park. It wasn't a park with an office or amenities, but tracts of land with plots for home hookups. The owner was a big company that wanted to develop the land, but didn't want the bad publicity of evicting all the residents. The homes on this lot were old and not up to code for transporting on the streets - not that any of the residents could afford to anyway. My job was to manage the property like any other and make sure rent is collected and all lease rules are followed, but also to encourage people to leave. We made deals with people such as free rent for 3 months if they sign over the title to their home and leave. We needed the title to own the home and approve of its demolition and removal. A few people took it and left, but many others wanted to stay. They put a lot of money into their homes and were now being forced to leave it because they can't afford to move it anywhere if it even could be moved. I felt bad for everyone in that sad situation. The worst part about managing this park was that it was onboarded from another company and it was not managed well, or at all, for many months. Most places didn't even have a lease on file, account balances were all over the place, and there were several problem tenants that were always paying late, or not at all, and a few people we could never get ahold of and questioned whether they were even living there. Some homes were abandoned, but we didn't have a title or contact for the actual owner, so that was a mess to figure out too. I watched this John Oliver video about parks screwing people over and I found it very sad and frustrating. I can relate to knowing what it's like for people to be trapped and screwed over. I worked at this second property management job for a year and a half until I was let go due to the business shrinking. Unfortunately, I didn't secure a new job in time and it wasn't for a lack of trying. I wanted to get out of there much sooner and even went to a few interviews, but I didn't get hired anywhere so I got to experience being laid off and unemployed for the first time in my life. Two other people were laid off at the same time as I, then two years later everyone else until they were left with just the owner and his wife, plus a receptionist. I don't feel that bad for their business failing because there were a lot of things going wrong in that company with bad business decisions, certain things they did with mistreating employees, and their terrible policies that hurt tenants and sometimes owners. The company owner made some bad business deals by growing too fast and hiring too many employees and buying a whole batch of management contracts from another shady company that severely mismanaged their properties, and then left all those problems for employees to deal with on their own. It was a small company and employee turnover was pretty high. Most employees there had no prior property management experience at all either. The management contracts purchased were never properly onboarded, so their lease information was missing or incorrect, many had delinquent accounts and missing deposits, and many properties haven't had an inspection for a long time. A year later, as problems started flowing in and untrained employees left dealing with it, plus the ever-changing company policies, the problems grew and property owners became upset. Most of it was the previous management company's fault, but my company's owner didn't do enough to fix it. Since the housing market was very hot, almost every single contract he purchased just the previous year ended up being closed by owners choosing to sell instead of dealing with more rental management problems. The company was small to begin with, already had a bad reputation, no marketing to attract new properties to manage, and hired too many employees. We had monthly meetings to go over how things were going as a company, so that's how I saw the writing on the wall. I was disappointed in being let go, but not surprised. I was more troubled by the fact that I was never able to get into a real job that led to an actual career in the mean time. I actually enjoyed property management and learned a lot from it. Property management as a service doesn't make very much money because it's usually less than 10% of the rent amount charged to the owners. Property management companies for the most part only make good money by charging expensive fees to tenants, managing a lot of units, or just owning their own properties themselves. I wanted to own my own rental properties some day, but I learned that it doesn’t make a lot of money unless the mortgage is paid off and you picked up the property for cheap and can charge a high rent rate. I've found several REIT investments that give you a better return for your money than actually owning property yourself and there's no management hassle with maintenance or tenant issues. The only problem is that you don't have control over your own investment. UPDATES: I am very against raising rent on current tenants that are renewing their lease unless costs absolutely require it, not just because the market allows me to. Housing is skyrocketing, but wages are definitely not. Sure the market rate is going up 20% (or whatever high number) each year, but the tenants' income is certainly not - or at least not nearly as much as housing costs are. When I worked in property management I would raise rent rates between tenants but still keep them a little lower to be competitive and fill empty units faster. If the previous tenant moves out, then at least the new tenants would choose to move in under the new rate since they are already in the market and planning for it instead of raising rates too much on current tenants, causing them to be forced out or screwed trying to make it work to stay there and souring the relationship. If they were longer-term tenants, I'd raise it by maybe half of what the current market increase is every 2 years with plenty of advance notice. I tried my best to not raise rates on the first renewal. Turnovers are expensive. It's easier to have a good relationship with tenants and keep them longer this way. You can bring up rates slowly with the long-term people, but still grow your income when there are turnovers. During an off-track from college, I had about five months to work and save up as much money as possible. I didn't start working while in college at the same time until I transferred to a bigger city that actually had jobs available for me to be able to work and take classes at the same time. Until then I just tried to make as much money as possible during my off-track breaks and other random gigs throughout the year. I was honest for my first two interviews at places when they asked something along the lines of, "What are your future plans?" Since I was just going back to school in less than half a year, of course they didn't hire me. They wanted to invest in someone they can keep. I wised up to avoid being honest from then on if I wanted work. Sorry employers. I needed work to make money and I didn't have time to waste finding it.
I was surfing through online job postings like Craigslist and Indeed for basic jobs and was willing to take whatever paid the most. I answered a posting for warehouse labor, which ended up being through a Temp agency. I never knew these places existed before then. If anyone else is still ignorant like I was, companies hire staffing agencies to get extra workers for temporary positions when they need it. The advantage is that the Temp agency provides the screening, on-boarding, and payroll. I did the initial safety training at the Temp office and was told where and when to report for my warehouse job and generally what to wear and expect for work. The job was at a tire warehouse where I met the manager with another temp worker. An interesting piece of info on this is that I interviewed for a full-time position at this same warehouse 2 weeks prior. They didn't take me because at the time of this interview I was still be honest, when asked, that I was planning on going back to finish school. The same manager I interviewed with before informed me and the other temp worker of the work we were going to be doing. He showed us how to operate the machines to do it, and where to get supplies to continue our work. You know those studded snow tires? Apparently those studs are put in by hand with the help of certain tools! It was a gun that had a tube on the back for the stud feed and in the handle for the air hose. It was attached to a little rack where you can pour the little metal studs into the top spinner, which feeds the studs down a tube single-file into the back of the gun. You're supposed to stick the nose of the gun into each of the small holes in the tires and pulling the trigger activates the air compression and gun mechanics to push the little stud into the hole. A lube is required to make sure it gets inserted easier and properly. We were mostly unsupervised the entire time, but had to keep track of how many tires we completed each day. It was frustrating because the managers kept saying we should easily do 80-100+ tires a day, but we could only get about 30-40 done. You can't just quickly punch each stud in rapidly because the equipment wasn't functioning correctly. The guns were constantly breaking down and some would work far better than the others. More often than not, the studs would be inserted crooked and not all the way in like it should be. To correct a stud, you have to pop it out first with a little ice pick tool and try again. Some holes probably weren't made as well as others in the rubber, so after multiple tries we'd just give up and either leave it crooked or maybe empty. There was a lot of crooked studs and studs sticking out slightly because we just couldn't get these things in like the managers expected, no matter how hard we tried or what technique. Like I said, the guns were always malfunctioning and had to be repaired, some worked better than others, so I think they just had bad guns/tools. I would've loved to see the managers go as fast as they think we should be. Please, by all means, show us how you get so many done in a day! This work was so dull and actually hurt my wrists and forearms pretty bad from the tedious and repetitive work, pushing hard on those guns into each stud slot to get it in right. I did this for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for $9 an hour. It was the best I could find for a job at the time in Boise, Idaho in 2013. At the end of every week we got our time cards signed by a warehouse manager or supervisor and turned them in to the Temp agency. I think our checks were available to be picked up on the following Tuesday. There was another guy there with me working away in the back of the warehouse. I thought he looked like a guy much older than me in his 30s or even early 40s. We didn't talk the first day until the end and I was shocked to find out he was actually in his 20s, like me. A few days later a 3rd guy was brought in with us. We all mostly kept to ourselves and after one week, the third guy never came back. A new kid was brought in to replace him and this guy was such a goof. He was very social and goofed off a lot. Sometimes he was annoying, but I actually appreciated him getting us to talk and be friends at work. One conversation that I'll always remember is that he was in a car accident in the recent past and was supposed to be getting a big settlement for his pain and stuff. He was happily planning on what to do with the money and what he wants to buy. The other guy said, "With that much money, you won't have to work for a whole year!" They were excited to talk about that opportunity and freedom and I was lost here. Yeah I guess you could enjoy a year off burning up your money, but you'll be right back here next year with no improvement in your life. What I couldn't relate to with these guys was their outlook for life. They had no ambition to improve. They wanted to work as little as possible just to get by and no intention of ever getting better jobs through education or training programs. I've heard from them and others before that they just don't see it as a possibility in their lives at all. It's hard coming from poor, broken families. There's no role models of decently successful people in your life, so a brighter future might seem difficult. Trailblazing a path in life where no one you know personally has gone before is tough to comprehend, but it's possible. I just don't think these guys were motivated. At all. After about three weeks, the goofy guy was gone. He just stopped showing up and we didn't know what happened. Maybe he finally got his settlement. A new guy was brought in who was pretty quiet and easy to talk to, but he only lasted one day - and he wasn't very good. They just stopped bringing in new people after that, so it was back to me and the other original guy. We worked together for about another two weeks I think and then we were given notice that the job was done. We had rows and rows of stacked, studded tires all along the back of the warehouse and even up on the racks. It was kind of nice to see everything we worked on for the last month completed. However, they probably got a LOT of returns that year because the stud quality was pretty bad. I take pride in my work and completed the most tires each day with the best quality, but even mine still had some bad ones. The other guy was let go as the temp. job was complete. I didn't let him know that I was actually asked to stay to help out with some other things longer. The manager must've liked me, probably because I had the best performance and was more willing to help with other things when they needed. The next two or three weeks I spent working there as the only temp now was weird. They kept me around to be an extra helping hand, but there really wasn't much to do. I helped move tires around, stack and organize them, and clean the warehouse; but there wasn't really that much to do. I probably only actually worked about 3 hours a day. The rest of the time I would just wander around, pretend to be cleaning even though it was already clean, hide in some tire stacks or the bathroom to play on my phone, and take hour and a half to two hour lunches. I actually wanted to be useful and help, but there was absolutely nothing for my extra labor to do. One of my least favorite things to do was helping stack the large tractor-trailer tires. Those things are HEAVY! There's a special technique to lift and toss the tires without hurting yourself, but it still took a good amount of strength and energy. I was surprised to see a shorter guy stacking these heavy tires onto columns well over his head. I started there in mid-August and around mid-late October I was finally notified that their busy season was ending and my help was no longer needed. The first few weeks were rough at that job, then the last few were extremely boring, but at least it was paying $9/hr instead of the common $7.25 everywhere else. I was supposed to check in with the Temp agency to find new jobs but they were pretty dried up for work, so I started applying like crazy again to get a new, stable job. I ended up settling for a car wash that you can read about in the end of my car wash post. I love the smell of new rubber like tires and shoes and still do, but this was probably the worst job experience I had because the nature of the job was tedious and actually hurt my hands forearms for pay that wasn't good, then it got really boring. It was a weird temp job experience, but it helped me pay some bills for a time. Getting your first job is a milestone in life. It's something we all do, but the experience can be completely different for everyone. I worked part-time in high school and full-time during the summer breaks. What bothered me most was when I wanted to still have a fun, social life as a teenager, but had to work around my work schedule and hope my requests for time off were granted the few times I needed it. Why does this often seem to be a problem for low wage jobs that people struggle to get time off? It's one thing to not be paid for your time off, I get that from the low wage employment stance with no benefits, but why does that seem to be a common struggle to be able to take time off at all? In all my professional jobs since, getting time off has been easy, especially if you have people that can cover your work. Anyways, In high school it always bothered me when the kids who didn't work or just worked for mom or dad's business just assumed I could take off whenever, no problem. No, I actually have to put in a request for time off ahead of time, maybe hope I can get someone else to cover for me, and hope it's approved. I can't just say I'll be gone and everything's fine. Some kids just never understood that!
I got my first job in the summer of 2007. I was 16 years old and just got my driver's license a few months prior. My older brother worked at a full-service car wash about a mile from where we lived and I often saw him come home with wads and wads of cash he'd earn at work. That looked pretty cool to make some money and be outside and active too - not cooped up in some retail outlet or fast food place. This place was a car wash, gas station, and detail shop combo. I went into the convenience store (c-store) and picked up an application to fill out at home. I can't remember what I put on it since I had no previous official work history. Must've been a lot of blank areas. Somebody please remind me how to fill out a job application for a first time employee. Also, if you've ever been a hiring person, how do you know if you can trust a first-time employee. What things do you look for? The next morning I returned with my application and asked to see the manager. This took a lot of courage for me because I'm a very shy person and was venturing into this new experience on my own, with not a lot of confidence as I've never applied to a job before and didn't know what to expect. I asked the c-store cashier lady if I could speak with the manager about my application and she told me she saw him walking out on the property, so I went out to find him then introduced myself, "Hi are you Mike the manager?" I don't remember his exact name, but I'll use Mike. While handing him my application I told him who my brother was and that I would like to work here too. My brother moved on and was no longer working there, but Mike must've liked my brother or was already in a good mood for the day because we hit it off well. He took me into the small office and after some small talk he was already offering me the job! I couldn't believe it was that fast and easy! I felt so lucky because at a later date I saw in the office there was literally a small stack of a few other applications on the desk. Some people get lucky and the rest are just left in a pile. That's job hunting for ya. For orientation I had to go to two or three days of training at the corporate office, which was just an hour or two each day consisting of filling out paperwork, beginner training stuff, safety, and learning some company background. Then, on a warm, summer morning, dressed in uniform, I showed up on time for my first shift at my first job. I met with Manager Mike again and after a brief tour of the property he left me at the vacuuming area with the supervisor in charge. Vacuuming is the starting spot for all new hires - and it sucks. You're hunched over the seats scrubbing away with those crappy car wash vacuum hoses trying to get every last grain out, but the particles keep bouncing around in the velcro-like carpet of vehicles. Then you have to try and cram the vacuum nose into every crevice between seats and consoles and get as much as you can so customers won't complain. Some cars barely need vacuuming, some are horrendously disgusting, but the average car coming through only took about a full minute and a half or so with each two-man team. We started in the back, pushing the seats all the way forward for better working room, then moved to the front and pushed the front seats back, then returned the seats to original position the best we could and do the trunk if accessible. When new vehicles pulled up, they were greeted by a ticket writer who speaks with the customers to write service orders and try to up-sell services. The ticket writer checks some boxes on the carbon copy tickets and makes any notes for customer requests. The customer gets the original to go pay and match the finished job at the end and the carbon copy is left on the dash for employees to know what type of service to do on that vehicle. Customers leave their vehicles to us and waited in designated waiting areas inside or outside the c-store. There was a lane on the side of the vacuum terminals designated as exterior only for the cheapest wash. Sometimes the exterior only people took it through the wash themselves and sometimes they would also get out and let us do it all. Living in sunny Las Vegas, this car wash kept pretty busy year-round. After working there for a little while and gaining trust with supervisors, I was allowed to be a designated driver who could move the vehicles from the vacuuming area to the car wash entrance. Sometimes we had a guy working the entrance that would do a quick spray over the vehicle, especially to help get bug splats off, and punch the wash order into the machine to send it through. If not, whoever drove it up had to get out and punch the code in to send it through and then return to the vacuuming area. Working the vacuums sucked, but getting my first pay check was awesome. I laugh at how little it was now, but earning around $200/week as a 16 year-old with no expenses was great! I was a money saver and squirreled it away to buy big things later, but it was also nice to have good spending money whenever I wanted to indulge. I also had an advantage here that was my key to getting out of the vacuuming. I could drive manual (stick shift) cars. Because of this, and lucky timing for when I was hired, I was promoted from vacuuming to driver in only two or three weeks. I loved the driver position. The drivers are responsible for driving the cars from the exit of the wash, to the drying lanes, keeping them in order to make sure everything is done as fast as possible, meaning one lane doesn't have 3 cars while the other only has one. The drivers also have to maintain the supply of towels for the wipers by collecting all the used towels from the baskets in drying lanes, sort, wash and dry them, then place them in a basket outside ready to reuse. Each car coming out of the wash would get 4 or 5 towels usually rolled up and placed in that spot between the hood and the windshield wiper blades that served as the perfect crevice to hold them, or just on top of the wiper blades which usually held them just fine. The roll had two towels for the glass and interior and two for the exterior/body. Sometimes a fifth towel would be included for rims or just extra use on whatever else. I loved this position because it was fairly simple to do, but also kept you busy; and one of the best perks was being able to stay in the wash tunnel where it was cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Standing in the blowers after a vehicle exits or when they stay on between cars that are spaced far enough apart was a fun experience and nice to cool off. Drivers received a "tip-out" which was a little extra cash tip at the end of each day that was gleaned off of the tips from all the wipers, so I think it was like an extra $2-$4/hr raise that isn't taxed on a paycheck; and of course the job itself was much better than vacuuming. If it was really slow and you've already refilled all the cleaning supplies and towels outside it was nice to hang out in the little side room of the wash tunnel to wash any remaining towels and pretend like you're busy. The extractor machine for washing towels had three sections. A spinning extractor in the middle and a sink on each side. The right side was used for the towels and the left held all the greasier sponges and towels that were used in the detailing garage in the back. The left sink was usually only run once or twice a day as the demand for those materials was a lot less and you could fit a lot more in than the regular use towels on the right. The sinks did have hookups for soap to be dispensed, but we stopped using it because the soaped towels would sometimes leave streaks and - business costs - you know. We would let the used towels just soak in water and agitate it occasionally with our hands. If we were really rushed there were many times that we'd quickly dump them in the water and immediately put them in the extractor. No time to wait for soaking. I remember a few times being the only driver on duty and we got SLAMMED. Vehicles were coming out of the wash almost bumper to bumper, so as soon as the vehicle driver door cleared the wash walls I was jumping in, driving them over to lanes, and literally sprinting back to catch the next one rolling off the track. If I had time to catch even a very short break I would grab as many towels as I could from the baskets, throw them in the wash water and almost immediately into the extractor. If I was too busy even for that then a supervisor or one of the wipers would have to quickly wash some towels. If you're wondering what happens if no one gets to the car coming out in time, usually it just sits at the end of the tracks and hopefully another vehicle doesn't come pushing into the back of it. It's also possible, and I've seen it happen, for the tracks to push it just hard enough that it will slowly keep rolling down the lot. I haven't seen any vehicles get damaged, but I did witness some occasions when someone left the vehicle in drive at the entrance of the tunnel, so it went bouncing over the track rollers and sped through the wash. Some guys made a futile and probably dangerous attempt to slow it down by bracing the front of it themselves, but once it cleared the walls of the wash tunnel someone jumped in and stepped on the brake. It was a good thing there weren't any other cars in the tunnel ahead of it. Kind of exciting to see crazy stuff happen, but it's never been a really big deal in the end. I think I was in that driver position for 2 or 3 months until finally making it to the big money - a wiper up front. Wipers dry the vehicles and do a little extra cleaning on the rims and interiors, depending on the service customers purchased. Wipers make the big money because they get all the tips from customers. Getting stiffed was rare and the average was $2-$3 per vehicle. I'm pretty sure I averaged around $16-$18/hr with hourly wages plus tips. That's what I remember calculating back then when I crunched the numbers. All tips are cash and none of it is ever reported for taxes. It was nice to come home with wads of cash every night. Wipers always worked in pairs. One person does the front driver-side corner to the back passenger-side corner and the other person does the drivers side and back, plus the inside console if required by the service. In that case the other person does all the wheels while the inside is getting cleaned. We worked fast, but good enough to not leave streaks or anything to get a complaint. The faster you go, the more vehicles you do, the more you collect in tips. I liked working with some of the immigrants who came from Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru because those guys were fast. They usually had me interact with the customer because my english was better and they probably thought customers would tip me more; or maybe they knew they were just faster at pushing through vehicles. Sometimes a nice sports car or expensive vehicle would come through and wipers would fight over who gets it and try to convince the drivers to bring it to them. A person that drives an expensive vehicle is more likely to pay a good tip, but never guaranteed. I remember there also being a few regulars that the wipers knew and they would either want that vehicle for the good tip, or avoid it because they always stiff. On two or three occasions there was a regular that actually requested a specific employee to work on their car. At the end of a shift or before a break, a wiper team would split all of their tips in the break room. If it was an odd number, there's a coin toss or someone decides to just give it to the other person. Nobody really wanted to break a dollar into quarters or deal with splitting coins. Now here are some things we hated: tanks, late nights, chances of rain, and, as expected, annoying customers. Tanks are what we called large SUVs, vans, and trucks. They were annoying to do because they took more time and often held more water around their bodies, so the towels would get soaked and make it harder to dry. You want to process as many vehicles as possible to get more tips, so when you get stacked with a few tanks to slow you down it can effect your pay. In the winter we were closed at 7pm and 9pm in the summer. We hated late nights after it got dark because we couldn't see very well to do a proper clean, it was very slow with no customers, but mostly because we wanted to start closing up and going home. Just as many other businesses, employees don't like the people coming in last minute. The same principle goes for when it's cloudy out and there's a chance of rain. Most people wanted to just close and go home because there was so little business and the pathetic hourly pay just wasn't worth it. However, the wash would only close if it was a strong, steady downpour that lasted more than 20 minutes and was forecast to continue that way. Being in Vegas, it didn't rain very often or hard enough to close, but those cloudy days with a chance of rain were usually pretty slow for business. Do people still get their cars washed when it's raining? Yes! For some reason, people do! It's weird, but yes we still had people coming through with their cars even while there's a light drizzle coming down. For some I understand they want the interior cleaned anyway, but for others - I just don't get it. Maybe one of you listeners can enlighten me. There was one day I remember that had a light, steady rain for a while in the early afternoon. Business was very slow, so they started sending several people home; but then, right before our rush hour, the storm clouds moved on and cars started trickling in again. Then more came. Then even more. Then we all of the sudden had the busiest rush hour I've ever had we were very short staffed from sending people home earlier. The few of us left there were SLAMMED with work! It was insane! Parking lot full of cars in lines going into the vacuum area and pumping out bumper to bumper out of the tunnel. All 4 lanes filled with vehicles. All hands on deck, everyone working vigorously to move as quickly as possible while maintaining quality work. Thankfully, most customers were pretty nice and patient through the rush madness and at the end of the night we congratulated each other on a job well done and celebrated the fact that we made so much money that day. During normal business times, there's the occasional annoying customers that were very picky about their vehicle. They would try to get a personal detail on their vehicle by a wiper out front instead of paying for the actual detailing service which is done in the garage in the back. These people were so annoying. I don't mind doing a few extra touch-ups for you or wiping streaks if there were any to make sure it's done right, but please don't waste our time trying to cheat your way into an upgraded service you didn't pay for. Two instances come to mind when I had to deal with annoying customers. One was a silent lady that just pointed at areas I assumed she wanted touched up more. No words, just pointed. It was insulting to me and I found it rude to not even respect me as a person to communicate with nothing other than pointing. There was a spot where water made its way out of a crack that trickled down even after blowing it out and a rim that she wanted a little extra attention on, but then it started getting ridiculous where you can only see the smallest smudges if the light hits it just right. The last one she finally used her voice because she walked to the other side of the car while I was squatting down cleaning a rim. "There's another over here," she said. I finished what I was working on and walked over to see what she was pointing at and I didn't get it. There was nothing there. "You don't see that?" She rudely commented. "No I'm sorry I don't" I answered while moving around trying to get a different angle on what she was seeing. She did have sunglasses that might've inhibited her vision, but then I found it. "Oh this?" I leaned in really close for a better look. It was a blemish on the vehicle paint that I pretended to scrub a little until she just walked away to the other side again for a final look-over. That saved me from having an even worse conversation that her perfect car had imperfections and they probably weren't caused by the car wash. The other instance was when we had to park a large SUV because the customer wasn't outside waiting for it yet. There was a little area we moved cars out of the way if the customer wasn't there to pick it up after washing. When the owner came and checked it out he asked if I could follow him to it. That's never a good sign. He opened up the back doors and asked me to get the jambs again and also asks if he can have a rag. He started working on his vehicle too and commented about how he used to work here and that he can see how the quality has been going downhill - passive aggressive rudeness towards me. He kept me there for a very long time and my partner had to keep moving on by himself and we were pretty busy at that moment and now getting backed up. This guy wanted me to keep wiping and cleaning and detailing, taking far longer than the average service is supposed to take. It wasn't fixing mistakes we made, it was cleaning well beyond our standard clean. I finally had enough and told him I can't keep cleaning more than the standard for the service he paid for. "I'm sorry but I have to get back to our lines and there's nothing more I can do here without charging for extra service." He made another rude comment about him just finishing it himself then and that was that. Managers and supervisors at any job can be a hit or miss. Sometimes you get to work with good ones that are good at their job. Sometimes they're good people, but bad at managing. Some might be real jerks that have good manager numbers and some are just bad and don't last long - or at least they shouldn't. I experienced a few managers and supervisors turnover throughout my two years at the car wash. Towards the end of my employment there we had the worst. We had this new woman managing the place that was very strict with rules and she wanted everyone constantly working. Usually we were all pretty good at pretending to be busy when it was really slow, or doing a few errands to keep things clean and organized for our work; but this manager was extreme and annoying. She would invent odd chores to do around the property that everyone hated and it usually involved extensive cleaning. Everything else was just straightening up our appearances, the tables and chairs in the waiting area, and reorganizing and cleaning our work area over and over. She wanted to save money by using the most out of product and never wasting or going over. It was stressful because we needed our bottles filled, but she'd be checking on how many times we filled them and how much we were using. One of the extensive cleaning jobs we did was cleaning the trash cans on the property and even using some of the product to make the black, plastic cans shiny like new. Yeah. Save pennies by reducing product use on the important stuff just to spend dollars cleaning the trash cans, gutters, and whatever other odd items and places. Sometimes when it was really slow she'd have us start cleaning the tunnel, just to have our cleaning work erased when the next car came through. Her excuse was that it was prep work and will be easier to clean at closing - which it really wasn't. This manager was very strict and kind of rude, but then she would sometimes try talking to you casually and be a friend but it was so awkward. You can't be our friend and be rude and demanding at the same time. It was also just awkward conversations when she wanted to be friendly with some employees and it felt forced. This manager also had a sidekick though. A new supervisor I think his name was Juan. Juan would give the same strict rules and stupid orders, but he wasn't confident in his position and people were a lot more prone to giving him attitude about the extra work. I was getting near the end of my stay at this job because I was going away to college soon. It was late July one evening and Juan asked me to go clean the employee bathroom in the tunnel because it was slow. We weren't dead, just slow. I was annoyed because I've been doing random jobs for he and the manager all week and if I left my post to clean the bathroom I will miss out on the next vehicles coming through which is lost tip money. Plus, that bathroom is really gross. I declined his request saying, "No. There are still cars about to come through and cleaning bathrooms is not my job." I acknowledge now that "not my job" is never a good phrase to use at any job throughout your life unless it really is warranted for inappropriate assignments. I should've said something else that explained why I believed that to be an unfair request, but he didn't press the issue to ask again and didn't even ask in a stern command in the first place. He just - left. Had he been real serious I guess I would've just done it, but I was sick of this guy and the other manager. I was tired at the end of a long day. I had a day off and then the following day I was brought into the manager's office and calmly reprimanded by the manager for disobeying Juan's order to clean the bathroom. Juan was sitting in there too just leaning his face on his hand quietly. I was suspended for a week and I calmly apologized, gave my reason for declining, and left. I didn't mind having a free summer week off, but I was very annoyed at the fact this happened, especially at Juan. When I returned the following week some of the guys made jokes and some were shocked that I was suspended. I was generally just the quiet kid that just did his work and went home. I worked just a few more days then put in my two-weeks notice. I was tired of this new manager and supervisor and I wanted to enjoy some vacation time for my last month of summer before moving away anyway. This job served me well throughout high school and I made great money. I was able to pay for my own used car in cash. I had that car for over a decade and it rarely had any problems. Later on I found out from people that worked there longer that it was discovered that the manager and Juan were "romantically" connected and were replaced. Looking back I don't know how I survived it all in high school. The early mornings with school starting at 7am, physically demanding sports after school, then straight to work right after exhausting practices and more work on Saturdays in the hot sun. Plus homework, school projects, and keeping up a social life. I can't believe I did all that. How much did I even sleep!? Now I feel like it's a struggle to get through a day at an easy desk job unless I get like 9 hours of sleep (which is never). Maybe when you're in better shape involved in these activities, it's easier to get up and stay on top of things. I've gotten lazy, so doing more is exhausting. Believe it or not, I ended up working at another car wash during an off-track in college 4 years later. I was so embarrassed to go back to working in a car wash because I've already done a couple years in college and thought I was worth more. To me this just proved that what you learn in college for most degrees isn't really important. Society only cares about finishing to get that certification even though the work you actually end up doing can be done by most people with training. I was also embarrassed and disappointed because I had tried for months to get a decent internship and never did. Decent internships are still competitive and tough to get just as any ordinary job. I only had a few months before going back to school full-time, so I wanted a job as soon as possible that paid as much as possible. When I couldn't get anything I got desperate and just needed an income asap. I went to a car wash because I already had experience and knew there was tipping potential. I was so stupid and didn't think it through though because I was now in Idaho with a much different climate and culture. Las Vegas is typically sunny year-round and people generally tip more. The place I worked at was much more well-known, in a better location, and busy. This new place in Idaho - sucked. I would've made more working at a fast-food place or retail for minimum wage because they probably would've given me more hours. This new car wash place I was at was never busy and their usual traffic wasn't even steady, plus the location was not in a very affluent area. No, it was more lower-middle class. Silly me also forgot that it was getting into late fall and early winter in Idaho which meant even less car wash business due to frequent cloudy weather and more snow/rain. So there I was working part-time starting out at vacuuming again cold and bored. After about a month I was finally moved into the wiping area which was inside the tunnel, but at the end. The tunnel was extended and wider than the place in Vegas, but I didn't like this new setup of wiping down the vehicles while they're rolling along at the end of the track. If they were busy they pulled a few cars off to the side, but there wasn't that much space and there wasn't a designated area for them. It was weird, not very efficient, and not as aesthetically pleasing for the business process. When I applied to this place, the original job posting boasted, "competitive wages" which turned out to be $7.55 instead of the $7.25 minimum wage. "ooh wee, a whole 30 cents more than minimum wage is 'competitive.'" The manager complained during the hiring process that they had a lot of turnover, especially within the first three months for new hires and he wanted to avoid that. Gee, I wonder why so many people left this boring, part-time job with "competitive wages," especially when your normal 6-hour shift is sometimes shortened to 3 hours whenever the weather is bad. I did feel a little bad since I already knew I would only be staying for about 3-months before quitting to go back to school, but if I told employers my intention of leaving after a few months I would never be hired anywhere. I did work for a Temp agency, but even that place wasn't very reliable once my first and only job there finished. My excuse for leaving this car wash after just a few months was that I was recently engaged and we decided to move for her job. It was true that I did recently get engaged, but I didn't want him to figure out I originally wasn't planning to stay there long anyway. My advice for anyone looking to get their first job, is to work at a place with tipping potential like good car washes in busy locations like warm, sunny cities, or working in restaurants or maybe delivery places. You'll probably make way more than your average retail or fast food place if you get into a good place that earns tips. However, if you are very into a certain store or product and want some kind of employee discount or reputation, work at those places if it serves you a better advantage. Likewise, if you already know what kind of career path you want later in life, work at relative places to have a start on your resume. It might be worth working at certain places for less pay if it provides a better outlook on your resume later. When I graduated from college I was embarrassed to only have lousy work experience from a car wash, warehouse, and other irrelevant jobs. They made more money, generally, but led to nowhere. I wasn't able to get an internship either, so it was very difficult selling myself to future employers. Do you have an interesting first or early job experience? Have any recommendations for others? Why did you get it and what did you like or hate about it? Article Reference: https://fee.org/articles/college-student-my-generation-is-blind-to-the-prosperity-around-us
I came across this short article titled, "College Student: My Generation Is Blind to the Prosperity Around Us" and felt like it serves as another example of the disconnect between the ideas and experiences of those that struggle and want to make a more fair and thriving society vs those that have generally had things turn out well for them personally and/or are scared of change and rhetoric coming from the former group. I'm not sure how else to phrase these two mind sets, but politically it's generally left vs right and socialism vs capitalism. In this short article, Alyssa, the author and a college student, writes about her disagreement with her peers and how they oppose capitalism in favor of socialism, and especially about how she disagrees with this comment from New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talking about Millenials when she said: "An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity." Alyssa writes: "Never saw American prosperity. Let that sink in. When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I’ve ever heard in my 26 years on this earth." "I see people talking freely, working on their MacBooks, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it." "Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? Why? The answer is this, my generation has only seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn’t live in the Great Depression, or live through two world wars, or see the rise and fall of socialism and communism. We don’t know what it’s like not to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague...We take our high standard of living for granted...We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average." No. I disagree with Alyssa and do not think that people are blind to prosperity simply because they are ignorant and don't know any different. I disagree with how she assumes everyone is living a prosperous life of luxury just because we have 21st century technology and services. Having a few nice things in a wealthy country doesn't mean you abound in prosperity. I've heard this argument a few times, comparing the standard of living of poor Americans in the 21st century to people from very poor countries in other parts of the world or even comparing to the poor living conditions of past human history. This a false equivalence. Apples and pears are both pome fruit, but they are not the same. A poor person in America is not a fair comparison to a poor person in Burundi. Poor Americans will obviously still have a better standard of living than a poor person in Burundi simply because of the different laws, government, social safety net, regulations, and proximity to services and technology when comparing the two nations. They are both poor people, but it's not an equivalent comparison. Sure, we can and should still be grateful for what we have in a developed nation, but that still doesn't mean everyone's quality of life is abounding in prosperity. When we compare the standard of living of poor people in America to the rest of the American population and know the capabilities and resources the country has to offer, I agree with the sentiment and say with confidence that they are not prospering. There are a lot of people that think a poor person in America having anything nice is a sign that they're not really poor and they should be grateful for the good life they have. This Fox video segment highlights this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al5E3KbIfeo. It's nonsense. Having a few basic amenities that are common place in a developed nation doesn't negate the fact that millions of people are just four paychecks away or less from losing it all and being homeless. I guess that line of thinking would still say they are privileged homeless because they are on paved sidewalks instead of dirt roads. I've seen these same kind of comments and arguments appear when people argue about differences in generational prosperity opportunity with how boomers had it so much easier too. Some will deny it by saying things like this: "As a member of the older generation (almost 50), ever generation thinks the previous generation had it easier and screwed it up for the next. Every generation has different challenges, some easier, some harder. Stop focusing on everything you see as wrong and start working on achieving your happiness. You're complaining about having 1st world problems, I've spent a lot of time in 3rd world countries and unless you have, you truly don't appreciate how good you have it. Your life is so much better than you realize, stop whining and make it even better." And this comment: "I find this utterly ridiculous. I am in my late 60's and still working, I never felt that I was entitled to anything, worked my ass off to get what I needed to feed and house my family. How can you feel that life owes you anything? You have to have the drive to solve your own problems, not sit and whine that life is so unfair and that you are owed an easy life because you are the SPECIAL person that you are. Grow up, if you don't make enough money, get a second job, reduce your expenses or get another job that pays you what you think that you are worth." Then there was this response: "We will never be able to own houses. I could work two jobs and still struggle. You've had privilege, recognize that. Yes, we still need to work hard and don't deserve everything handed to us, but we still deserve an actual fucking chance." I'm not going to get further into the generational fight with this post, but the degree of prosperity argument has a heavy presence there as well. The point of this post is to talk about how life for poor people in America is still difficult and stressful. Upward economic mobility for many people is getting more difficult for people that don't have connections or support, mainly because of the high costs of housing and education and jobs not paying enough. I find it rude to tell them they're not really struggling just because they are still better off than people in other countries or other timelines. So what!? Instead of silver lining the problem and dismissing it, let's talk about it. Poor people in America are still faced with any number of struggles such as having to work two or more jobs just to make ends meet with meager wages, high housing costs and other bills that both keep going up while their wages remain stagnant or fail to keep up with the increases. They forego medical treatments because of the costs, even if they have insurance they still need to meet deductibles and copays. They may struggle with not being able to get a better job while being abused at current jobs. College costs are exorbitant and getting a degree, even a "good" one, doesn't always mean you'll be offered lucrative career prospects. Poor Americans struggle in many ways and knowing the amount of money and resources out there shows that it CAN indeed be better. Alyssa also referenced in her article ways that capitalism leads to prosperity and how it built America, gave it its strong economy and power, and cites these capitalism facts as "universal truths." She continued to write, "However, these universal truths don’t matter [to the people favoring socialism]. We are told that income inequality is an existential crisis (even though this is not an indicator of prosperity; some of the poorest countries in the world have low income inequality), we are told that we are oppressed by capitalism (even though it’s brought about more freedom and wealth to the most people than any other system in world history), we are told that the only way we will acquire the benefits of true prosperity is through socialism and centralization of federal power (even though history has proven time and again this only brings tyranny and suffering)." I agree with Alyssa that capitalism has been good for propelling humanity's advancements in recent history, but maybe it can still be better with the right policies. OSHA, the FDA, the EPA, and various labor laws and other agencies have been created because pure capitalism was failing people by not providing proper safety precautions for society. Maybe it's time to make new adjustments where faults are found. That's not always a bad thing. Just because the foundation of this fairly new system in human history called capitalism is cracking, doesn't mean we ignore it because it was originally great and should never be touched, but it also doesn't mean we should scrap it entirely either. How is it cracking? Look at the people struggling to do everything right economically and still struggle to improve their quality of life. Alyssa just dismisses inequality by again comparing to poor countries where everyone has nothing. Hard to oppress people when you lack the tools to oppress (money and the control of it). Yet, growing inequality is what's causing the growing distress and creating more political extremes. I also agree with Alyssa in being against full socialism and centralizing federal power, but I don't think that's actually what most of these people want. Most people want to actually live the old American dream of being able to work your way to success in the way that job wages could actually afford a decent lifestyle. The fight over income inequality isn't about making everyone actually be equal - it's about full-time employees not requiring government welfare while the corporate bosses pocket record profits with pay discrepancies 1,000:1. Yes, capitalism helped build this great nation and economy, but the "prosperity" Alyssa cites her peers as enjoying is fake and comes with a heavy cost. Many people can barely afford housing, healthcare, and many other things that can be considered basic comforts, but hey, some people drive SUVs, some people order from or work for the likes of doordash and uber, and most people have cell phones and laptops so we ALL must be thriving in abundant prosperity, right? Never mind the fact that having a phone and laptop is practically a requirement in our society for school and work in a 21st century developed nation. Again, never mind the fact that millions are just a few paychecks away from losing it all and spending a decade or more recovering what was lost, if they recover at all. I want people to live their best life and wish I could do more to help them get there. I want people to be at peace with their finances and overall well being. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to be rich, but as long as you are debt free, have basic comforts to ward off stress, and time to do what you love. That is true prosperity. My best friend grew up in a wealthy family. His father owned a successful business. Since his dad owned the business, my friend was able to start getting work experience and good money since age 14 or younger. Sometimes he worked hard, but mostly I found out it was a job paying $12/hour to sweep the floors, organize some things, and whatever odd jobs needed to be done. As a 14 year old in the early 2000s, this was a lot of money for trivial work.
I got my first job at 16 and was happy to finally be making money. My friend always made more and never had to worry about getting time off work for vacations and whatever. Actually, he never had to worry about anything for employment. He always had a job to go to and could take time off whenever and get paid above average of everyone else our age. All because he worked for Dad's business. I never cared about this difference though, but it did bother me when he wouldn't understand why I couldn't just take work off whenever I wanted, otherwise I never cared about these differences. By the time our college years came around, we were talking about what some plans were for the summer and what we were going to do for employment and stuff. Really I was only thinking about what I was going to do since he always just works for the family business. He mentioned he sees his time as worth $20 an hour since that's what he was getting paid recently. To his credit, his job at dad's business did involve more actual work, but he still didn't have a clue of what it's like having to actually look for and apply to jobs and see that real world sees our time as worth $8-$12 an hour at that time. The higher pay is lucky, anything paying better than that was unusual or found through connections. In our late college years it seemed like everything just always seemed to go his way or everything was handed to him as he's never had to really apply for anything. It was all through family relations or other connections. Life is like that for some people. I didn't think it mattered because I'd be doing well myself someday since I doing the right things by going to school and getting good grades, but when time came to start applying for internships, I then realized some fatal flaws in myself. My friend had a very strong resume with all the connections and experience of operating business stuff from working with his father all those years. He got a fantastic internship in a different industry than his dad's business, but got it because of his father's association with them anyway. My resume, however, was weak - consisting of regular low, or no skill jobs and a few little awards and volunteer stuff that now seemed meaningless as I couldn't get anything more than what a new high school graduate could do. Even with help making myself look better on paper for a resume I had a low self-esteem because I knew most of it was lies just to make me look better, but mostly because of my most serious fault of not having direction in life. I still had no idea what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life in it was killing me. I paid for and worked through 3 years at a university and still had barely anything to show for it. I still couldn't get any better jobs, felt like I wasn't getting anywhere in life, and felt alone trying to figure out a better future with no connections to help me. I felt very lost and like I was never going to have a good future, despite working hard and being a great student throughout my childhood and college. I wondered how many others were like me that have no direction, don't know what they want to do or how to get there. When it came to choosing a career path, I hated when people trying to help would ask what I liked because the things I like don't pay what I want or I'm not good enough to be a professional. I like hiking, swimming, playing sports, games, and other things, but those interests don't necessarily have jobs people would pay you for, or it's low paying jobs barely associated with those activities, or you have to be a professional player. When I was looking for an internship, people did want to help me, but my problem was that I still didn't know what I wanted. At the time I was leaning towards finance, so I just wanted anything related to finance jobs and see if I liked it to know where to go from there. People couldn't help direct me in the right way because my desires were too general. I at least needed to narrow my search to about three fields. This took a good amount of researching best careers in certain industries, best careers for my major, and thinking about what school subjects I like the most and do the best in. Once I narrowed my search I felt more confident moving forward, but I wish I had a better resume to get the better jobs and build up. If I knew then what I know now I would've applied for more specific jobs and internships instead of taking whatever I could find that pays the most at the time. So the question I want to ask all you readers/listeners, is how did you end up where you are? Was it planned? How did you figure out what you wanted to do for a career? I'm going to share a few first job experiences in future posts/episodes and hope people can learn from them as well as sharing some of your experiences. I hope we can come together through Invested Alternative to be able to help those that have struggled or are struggling finding their direction and I hope all of you find it. I eventually got mine miraculously and I feel like that's how it works for many of us. By luck and chance things start working out. We just have to do the rest of the work on our own to build a better future. It's hard for me to not be filled with jealousy and even a bit of anger when I see into the lives of the ultra-rich like this. I'm angry because there are so many good, hard-working and deserving people that are struggling to make ends meet while doing everything right to try improving their life, and then there are these people that live better than kings. They live like Gods with all the best comforts and luxuries the 21st century can provide. What these people would spend on one night of fun is often more than what the average family has to work for an entire year or more to earn while just providing basic food and housing needs.
This reality is frustrating, but at the same time, these yacht buyers are not just burning money out of existence. Watching this documentary showed me that there is an entire industry around the yacht world that employs thousands of people. I'm jealous that one person can have this kind of wealth to enjoy such luxury, but in so doing they provide jobs to the thousands of people involved at all stages: designing the boat, building it, interior design & finishes, the broker to sell the boat, the marinas to store it, and the staff to operate and maintain it. Those billionaires aren't driving it or cleaning it themselves, of course. Plus, there are also any other party/catering services they employ on their adventures. My first thoughts regarding billionaires is that they shouldn't accumulate this much wealth in the first place. Why? Because I would love to see that excess money be used to help more people in ways like providing more scholarships for people to get an education to improve their lives, pay for healthcare, and boost the pay of more employees at the companies they own. Yes, people wouldn't have jobs without their companies, but they also wouldn't have their companies without the people doing the actual work. The people that start the company or have the great idea in the first place should be rewarded, but at some point it starts getting out of hand where I think it's too much of a reward for not enough actual input. Maybe some of you can comment and help me figure out at what point the scale tips when it's too much. When is somebody considered too rich? So I have the idea that billionaires or multi, multi-millionaires - I'm talking net worth in the hundreds of millions - should not accumulate so much wealth because they should be paying more to the people that work for them and create their wealth, and/or their services should be made more affordable unless your business model depends on it such as an expensive brand name or something. However, after watching this documentary I am reminded of how I might be wrong. Since they are still dropping big money to the thousands of people in the yacht industry, does it matter that they're able to afford such extravagant luxuries? They are still paying a lot of money to a lot of people in other industries. Is this still a bad thing? Why or why not? Where can we do better? What are your thoughts on the yacht industry? One thing that can be helpful is if more people donated or loaned money here at Invested Alternative to grow our fund to help more people. Let us keep the interest earned for a time and put it to work doing good, then you get your money back later to go spend on a yacht party. With strength in numbers we hope to grow and help more and more people. In July 2021, someone asked reddit users the following question: "People who cater to the super rich, what things have you seen?" There is an enormous number of responses and many of their stories are fascinating and provide an interesting read. You can find that thread here. In Part One of my Unemployment post, I asked about people's thoughts about the extra $600 unemployment benefit in 2020 and general experiences with unemployment. Following the timeline of initially being laid off through no fault of your own, especially during the COVID shutdowns, let's start with just contacting the office and applying online. It was a disaster and nearly impossible for many people to get through. For me it was simple to just fill out the information and go through the process online, but I was lucky to have things actually work the way they were supposed to. My wife had some issues with things needing clarification and she called day after day, even right at opening and never got through - ever. Even months later there still wasn't anyone available to answer phones. Why? Shouldn't the offices have hired more people to help since there's obviously a lot of people out of work now and there is a need to further staff the unemployment office? Can somebody please answer me this? I would love to get some insight from someone that works in an unemployment office to tell us what was going on from their end. In an attempt to get some insight from others and learn more about the experience, I asked the following questions: "What do you think about the extra $600/week unemployment benefit in 2020? Was it too much? Not enough? If you got on it did you make more than you would have otherwise working? Besides not having an income, what else annoys or annoyed you about being unemployed and job searching?" Aaron S said, “It’s 300 free dollars that was not needed. People need to go back to work, not be paid extra not to. This ‘extra’ money they are giving away could go to different places for sure - not make laziness a thing.” To which, David C. replied, “Maybe it was needed for many people. Kids aren't in schools yet, so it's either go to work and pay childcare or stay home and collect UI, which I'm sure most have paid into, at least at the state level. Wendy H in Central Point, Oregon shared her experience saying, "Contacting the unemployment office was impossible. I find it stupid that the local city offices can provide no assistance. The extra 600 equalled my usual pay." So I reached out for a follow up and while she didn't agree to a brief interview recording, she did answer my question when I asked, "Why did you have to contact the unemployment office? Did something go wrong with the application or forms? How many times did you try? Did you ever get through? Did you ever get the assistance you needed?" Her response was: "The 600 equaled my regular pay, so I didn't lose any income at all. I had to call because I had questions. I'm a school employee, which opened up a whole new set of questions at that time. The online process was great otherwise. I never got through ever. Probably tried at least 50 different times over several weeks." Thank you, Wendy. It's interesting that unemployment offices sometimes seem to be strong in verifying information and rooting out fraud, but then weak at the same time where a lot of people can't even get through to talk to someone about their case. In the case of fighting fraud, if the unemployment office is doing its job correctly, they actually do their due diligence to find the truth about your claim. Frauds can be caught and get in big trouble! For an example of their investigating, they contacted my former employer to verify some information and then contacted my new employer to verify information when I got a new job and made sure everything is 100% accurate and follows the rules. It was actually really embarrassing for me to have my new employer have to talk to someone regarding my recent unemployment. Even though the unemployment office is careful about some things, I'm sure other fraudulent stuff still sneaks through. Sometime people get stuck when their account gets flagged for review and then nobody in the unemployment office actually reviews it or they don't get to it for several weeks. My wife's case had that problem where it got flagged for changes in information, but then we never heard from anyone to get some closure or move forward on that until 6 months later. I made a similar post on reddit seeking input from people and one person responded saying, "To this day, I still regret not quitting my job, falsely claiming unemployment, and spending the entire summer traveling the national parks making more money than I do working full time." Yeah, that would sound nice to some, but in the first point, you would probably get caught in the fraud and punished. The second point is that people were not supposed to be traveling or leaving their homes much for anything, but this does raise the issue of the fact that many people were jealous of the unemployment benefit. Another reddit user commented: "The $600/week is already more than what I bring home in net salary income. I make more than $20/hour but I’m single with no kids so taxes. The people who are still working and making less are getting screwed for working pretty much. No higher pay for many with the added pleasure of being exposed to more people and potentially the virus. It’s nice to have a job and have health insurance through all this but I can hardly blame some people who are working and bitter about it. Being paid to stay home yet a lot of people aren’t. There’s a lot of factors that people are upset about..." I want to highlight this situation that there were many people that had to keep working and they were earning less than they would have if they were just sent home and onto the unemployment payroll. They wouldn't qualify if they just quit on their own though. They had to be laid off through no fault of their own. It would've been nice to see them actually get extra pay in their checks too - which some companies did offer bonuses, but I don't think most of these people received more than they would have if they got the extra $600 instead. What a frustrating situation to be in! Here are three more reddit responses: The first said, “The extra $600 a week brought my salary to just slightly under what I was making before being laid off. It did keep me from running out to get the first low paying job I could, but that was preferable for several reasons:
Another redditor said, “I was making just slightly more. It was frustrating hearing people say things like ‘No one wants to work, people on unemployment have no pride,’ etc. Though I hated my last job, I didn’t ask to be laid off. They just delivered the news to me at 5:00 on a Friday and that was it for me. I felt very lucky to get that extra $600 on top of what my state paid me. It kept me afloat so I could spend my days searching for work and staying safe during the pandemic. I didn’t need to seek further assistance and kept my rent payments. It was a nice break. I had just worked a really terrible job with a micro-manager and it destroyed me mentally and emotionally; but it was also crappy cause half the companies had hiring freezes on top of how difficult the hiring process already is. It was anything but a walk in the park. I didn’t travel ‘cause I didn’t know when I’d find the job, so I was saving money best I could and also doing my part by not traveling during a pandemic. I didn’t get to see people or do anything really.” Another Reddit commented, "It completely baffles me that for many people, the take-away is that unemployment benefits should be less instead of companies being required to pay fair and decent wages." This is an unfortunate situation that I feel bad happened to so many, but I'll leave the topic of "fair and decent wages" for another time. There is one particular response from a business owner that addresses this which I will share later on. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Moving on now in the timeline from getting onto to the unemployment payroll, what's next for you? Do you have a job to go back to when things open up? Are you going to switch careers and do something else, or try getting back into what you were doing, just with someone else? Jennifer Newman wrote me and said, "I made the same as when I worked. I didn't go get a different job as I had a job waiting for me when they were able to reopen. Then got laid off again with no extra benefits this time, so any money I did save is now gone. I'm hoping to go back to work but as I was in the food service industry it’s a crapshoot; and all those people who say go get a job - I have a job waiting to reopen." This serves as a great transition to the situation as of April 2021. Many businesses are now hiring again, but having a difficult time bringing in employees. My community facebook page had a hot topic of people complaining that there are too many lazy people that don't want to work because unemployment pays so well during the pandemic extended benefits. What spurred this conversation was that people noticed some workplaces were hiring and getting very few or no applications for a long time. They continued to double-down on the claim that there are jobs everywhere. Companies hiring can't get any applicants and struggle to fill open spots. The initial post read, “I firmly believe that no one in this community wants to work. I put up a post on several different pages have several job openings and not one person has applied. My friend that runs a fast-food place says that the only people that he’s getting in are 14 and 15-year-olds. I mean, what is this country coming to? I see ‘help wanted’ ads everywhere and nobody is filling out applications. It totally disgusts me.” Want to guess what jobs those are? 90%+ pay less than $20/hr. The better paying ones are unique and require special licensing & training, or the circumstances of the job prevent you from living a normal life in a normal area. I will touch on this aspect again later; but first, let’s look at the replies from this post: 32 people commented in agreement and about how people are making more on unemployment than working a job, so this is no surprise. Several people were unhappy with this circumstance of people getting money for not working and, of course, there were several political comments about the issue. “No one wants to work when they expect everything free. I’m with you! Crazy times!” “People want to keep living off of unemployment, sad…” “That's why local businesses will close eventually. I’m like, come on lazy people! So irritating - then they complain! It’s a no-win situation.” One person commented, “And then we wonder why immigrants ‘take’ jobs - because they’re willing to work!!!!” Someone else replied to that by saying, “I have never wondered that. They have been taking jobs white people don't want for decades. We basically invited them here to do so, so good for them.” While this comment is kind of relatable to this topic, it could probably branch off into another interesting discussion for another time. Here's another comment that can branch off to another interesting discussion: “The generations that came after my children (I'm 83) have been conditioned to expect the government to support them. They were the beginning of the ‘I want it all and I want it now’ mentality. It's a shame, but until the government of socialism is gone, it won't change; and in Oregon, it won't happen.” This comment is ripe for an attack by “OK, Boomer” people. There’s actually a lot of people that accuse this same 83-year-old boomer of being part of the actual beginning of the “I want it all and I want it now” mentality. Again, another topic for another time, but there were several comments that blamed government and socialism just as this other person as they wrote, “Some people are thinking, ‘why work when the government pays you?’ This is a very sad situation. I believe some people call it socialism.” Now, as expected, here’s a response to the anti-socialism rhetoric: “Sharon, we live in a very capitalist society that values rugged individualism and productivity over everything. We pay people miserable wages, make them work most of their time away at jobs they don’t like, and then wonder why they want to take advantage of some paid time off. I agree it’s a problem that comes down from the top, but we are by no means a socialist government. We are the wealthiest country in human history and yet most of our workers are forced to work multiple jobs just to stay afloat. How can you really blame anyone for wanting to stay home? If anything, I think the government didn’t give people enough assistance before this pandemic; and now that people are finally getting some extra help they don’t feel like they need to sell their souls to pay their monthly bills - which don’t get me started on how ridiculously high the cost of living is these days and how wages haven’t kept up. It’s a bad situation, but putting the blame on the big bad ‘reds’ is getting kind of old, don’t you think? It’s 2021 and humans are meant to support each other, not kick each other when they’re down. That’s my two cents.” Continuing on, here’s a few more that caught my attention: “Agreed!!! Everyone says they can't find a job, but my kid sure found one quick!” Ok good on your kid, but what kind of job did they get? When people say they can’t get a job, I don’t think they usually mean there’s literally not a single place hiring at all or that they are completely unemployable. They are saying they can’t get the job they want and are qualified for. Of course people aren’t jumping straight to the minimum wage jobs. They’re holding out for the better ones. “Too many freebies available at this time! We offer good wages, full-time work hours, benefits, AND a sign on bonus and still no applicants! No one wants to work when you get additional unemployment and stimulus checks and don’t have to pay your rent or fear eviction. It’s crazy!” My response to this comment and a few others like it is that if the job pays the same or less than the unemployment of $300/week, than it’s not a good wage. Stop pretending like it is. Maybe it’s decent, above minimum wage, but it’s nothing to boast about. A good wage is one where you can live self-sufficient – not requiring another job for supplemental income, or several roommates, or government welfare assistance just to get by. I guess the theme for my thoughts on this whole situation, is that I don’t think most people are just being lazy and immoral. I know there’s probably several that are, but I think more people are just doing what’s in their best interest. This person said you won’t get any applicants by offering a good wage, full-time work hours, insurance, AND a sign on bonus? Is your “good wage” more than unemployment? What kind of job is this? Does it lead to better opportunities and career growth, or is it just another grunt job? Or is it very technically specific and requires special licensing and training? Is the insurance even good? I had an employer offer all the benefits, but they were so expensive that it was useless. It would’ve cost about a third or more of my paycheck! It was terrible insurance that hurt my family. We didn’t qualify for the more affordable government option simply because my employer offered insurance, so I had to opt out of the benefits and just go at-risk without insurance. Start looking internally and from the other side of the table because there’s probably a good reason people aren’t applying for this crappy job. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. Here’s a morally superior person that said, “Because unemployment is paying an extra $300 a week. If I didn't work, I would be bringing home $400 more a week. I prefer to work. Lots of people would rather sit at home get paid for nothing.” Good for you I guess, but if I was laid off from the pandemic and qualified for the extra money I would take it as long as I could while applying to a new job; but I wouldn’t just work anywhere because of an “I prefer to work” attitude. There are always comments on this topic about how people should better themselves and have dignity by working. Realistically, are these crappy jobs really going to improve your life situation? Maybe, but probably not. Waiting around doing nothing until unemployment runs out is bad. I agree, but I do not blame people at all, for not just jumping into any mediocre job just because. I would prefer to do what’s best for me and my family, which was to make the most money possible while applying for jobs that lead to a real career and higher salary long-term, not just settling for any job that leads nowhere and pays crap because of this “work pride.” I think a lot of other people do this too. I enjoyed time with my family at home while filling out applications and collecting good unemployment money instead of being away from my family at an unfulfilling job earning less than I would otherwise on unemployment. It’s unfortunate that this person makes so little that unemployment pays more than they make working, but I’m glad they take pride in being a productive member of society. As I mentioned before, a lot of people wish they were laid off to get the unemployment because they would’ve made more, but they couldn’t just quit or they’d be disqualified. 18 people commented on that community thread something in agreement with the original post, about their experience that their place of work is also experiencing difficulties in hiring or that they’ve seen hiring signs somewhere. 15 people made comments defending the unemployed staying at home as this situation should be no surprise. The following are some of the comments I found particularly interesting or entertaining: Comment 1) “OMG. Do you know how many people were displaced and lost everything in the fires (our area suffered large property and business losses in the last year)? We are in a pandemic still?!! STFU.” Comment 2) “Some people are still afraid to go out because they haven't been vaccinated yet.” This comment derailed into a political argument about the pandemic and government response. Comment 3) “So now it's everyone else's fault that you're not making a decent enough offer to fill a position? How dare folks not want to work for you! How dare they think they want more money or better hours or better benefits! How dare they not be so desperate that they are forced to take a job you offer that they don't really want! Improve your offer and stop complaining about not finding employees, it's what smart employers do...try it.” Comment 4) “Because they can live off the government during a pandemic. When they’re paid MORE for being at home, why would they? Believe it or not, most people will choose the higher income, whether it’s worked for or handed to them. People also need to survive! If they lost a job at $17/hr and get unemployment - they don’t want to leave home for a job paying less than that. Then while on unemployment, they’ll also get food stamps and free health insurance. Once unemployment runs out, they’ll have no choice but to actually take a job!” Comment 5 Is a conversation between April and Tom. April first commented on this thread saying, “Probably because minimum wage isn't a living wage. I know people that have college degrees and get offered minimum wage. You can't survive on that.” Tom replied to April’s comment, “So how are they surviving now? A college degree in women's studies isn't going to get you much of a job in the first place. We have far too many social justice warriors and not enough people who are willing to learn some actual skills. Craftspeople make a very good living these days.” April responded, “A degree in women's studies may make finding a job in today's market harder, but I don't personally know anyone with that degree. I didn't say anything about ‘social warriors’ and am actually referring to people with ‘actual skills’ as you put it. I have a bachelor's in business and lost my job due to Covid last March. With the shutdown, it was very hard to find a job. However, with things opening up I found a job and now work for minimum wage, even though I have a degree. People are only making it by having roommates, living with parents, or couch surfing. People aren't as lazy as you want to make them out to be.” Tom: “Now don’t take my comments personal and I’m glad you found something; and yes, a whole lot of people are as lazy as I make them out to be. I think that Debbie's post and a lot of comments will back up that observation. And yes, you didn't mention social justice warriors, but I did. I am a Valley Native now living in Santa Cruz and I can assure you that there are plenty of those types of degrees given here and plenty of them out raising hell in the streets thanks to the brainwashing they have been given by their professors at UCSC. Our homeless problem here is equally as bad as it is there so it isn't like I am speaking out of school. We have the same problems here.” April: “How are people observing others being lazy? There are so many reasons people aren't working right now. Being lazy is low on that list.” Tom: “It is really pretty easy once you have a few years under your belt and hone your observation skills along with some pertinent questions.” April: “I understand that. I may look young, but I am almost 40. I just choose to not focus on the small amount of people who are abusing the system. That makes everyone who needs unemployment look bad. From reading some of these posts, it seems like a majority of people think poorly of people on unemployment or who cannot currently work. We are in weird times right now and I wish people were a bit more compassionate.” Moving on from that side conversation, here’s Comment 6) “Have to disagree a bit as I and several in fam and peeps are working. Also know people who lost 70k jobs who are hoping to get back as economy opens back up and not wanting to take less at this point. Have been hiring for years and this is not all that much different.” Comment 7) “Most places are hiring part-time. If you work part-time you can't afford medical insurance and you don't qualify for OHP, screwing people struggling to get by. Not to mention because employers hire part time, they don't have to offer health insurance.” Comment 8) “Please don't assume the worst of people. Not saying you’re wrong, but I do know that many folks are finally going back to work at their original jobs! Add to that - parents who had to completely change their work lives because of school hour changes. Also - many workers stuck with their employers throughout the Covid time at extremely reduced hours because they hoped things would change soon. I lost all my work hours last March and started back last September to a loss of over $700 a month until now. I am a school bus driver. I could not accept another job because we never knew from week to week if we would be called back to work. I am glad I waited it out though. Things are looking up. I hope you find wonderful new employees!” Comment 9) “I'm guessing maybe make the pay more lucrative for people to want to apply? I mean if they make more on unemployment than they do working a full-time job, why would they? That's more money and time. Why bust your butt for less money and less time? I'm glad I'm essential, but wow.” Now here’s a great reply someone gave in frustration as a response to this comment. They said, “So as a business owner in an industry that is fighting to stay alive due to government shutdowns and mandatory maximum limits on customers allowed, your answer to pay more is - with all due respect, laughable. One simply cannot ‘pay more.’ Where will the money come from? Shall businesses cut the food quality? That will not bring customers in the door. Shall the owners of the business forgo a salary to pay the extra to the employee that doesn't really want the job? Think of it this way: with a maximum limit on patrons to 25% of my restaurant (meaning a 75% cut in my gross sales) I'm somehow supposed to come up with extra money to pay someone $16 to wash dishes?” Here’s how I dissected this reply: “Shall the owners of the business forgo a salary to pay the extra to the employee that doesn't really want the job?” To a certain degree, yes. If you as the business owner are not willing to get your butt in there to do dishes yourself in order for your business to survive, then you are just an investor, and many people consider your hands-off approach as exploiting the employees’ value they create. Some business owners work hard in their businesses and it is their life’s work. Other owners treat their business only as an investment and try to have as little to do with it as possible, while extracting as much money out of it as possible. It’s not wrong to have the strategy necessarily, but I have far less sympathy for you if that’s how you treat your employees and your business operation. Nobody wants to wash your dishes because you pay crap and even you yourself aren’t willing to do it. If you want to be a business owner that is passionate about what you do and provide a great work environment and value for customers and employees, then you do what it takes to survive. If you want to just sit back and collect the profit that all the employees make for you, then just stick to investing in stocks, bonds, real estate, or whatever else. Additionally, why do you say, “the employee that doesn’t really want the job?” If you offer a good wage, decent benefits, and opportunity for growth then why wouldn’t somebody want the job? It sounds like you are confirming that the position is crap and complaining that nobody wants to do it. Think about that! The second issue is that a 25% capacity does not necessarily equal a 75% reduction if you can still offer take out. Maybe this isn’t the case with this particular restaurant, but I wanted to point out that this math isn’t completely true. However, I do understand the strain that this capacity issue causes. It’s still going to be a reduction in sales for sure and I agree with the sentiment that it’s hard or impossible to have to drastically increase pay to bring people in. Plus, bringing on a new person at $16/hr or whatever would be unfair to everyone else currently at $13/hr or whatever. Pay for everyone would have to increase, which isn’t very realistic for some businesses. I get it and I agree with the concern, but to an extent as I already mentioned. Some of the things this person said just rubbed me the wrong way. Going back now to the comments from people defending the unemployed staying at home because of this situation: Comment 10) “To the people talking about free money: unemployment isn't ‘free,’ you pay into it with your taxes and you can't collect it unless you have paid in. I'm fortunate enough to be ‘essential,’ but if I wasn't I wouldn't be ashamed to collect from the safety net that I've paid into, while looking for a job that was actually worthwhile. Most of the places I've known that continually complain about not being able to find employees who want to stay with them either have a miserable work environment or non-competitive pay/hours/benefits. So of course a good employee is going to leap at the chance to leave for something better. That's just the free market at work.” Comment 11 is similar: “Wow, some of y’all in the comments are delusional! You have no idea how unemployment insurance works. It’s NOT a government hand out. You ONLY get unemployment insurance IF you’re laid off. Not if you quit, nor if you get fired for some sort of misconduct; AND you only get a percentage (like 60%) of what your former salary was, and there is still a max amount limit. I was making $41k/year as a project coordinator for a health insurance company. I got laid off. 60% of my monthly pay would have been $2,000+, but because of the unemployment max at the time I only got $1,600/month from unemployment. It wasn’t my fault I got laid off. Do you think I wanted to lose my job to get less than what I was making?! But then you call people in my situation lazy because we don’t want to go work at some demeaning, minimum wage job flipping burgers? I’ll get off unemployment for a job making what I was making BEFORE I was laid off, thank you.” I want to quickly respond to these two comments and say that in this situation with the government boosting unemployment payments, it’s most likely not funded by people previously paying into through tax deductions. The government is just pumping out money that wasn’t there before. It’s another thing people worry about with deficit government budgets and ballooning debt. Comment 12) “I don’t know if it’s always a matter of ‘fair wage’ vs good career/professional job.” THIS. This comment is what I would say about this subject as well and I’ll explain it later after sharing a few more comments first. Comment 13) “I have a few friends who are unemployed parents. They’re choosing not to work because the school schedule makes that currently impossible. For example: one family lives in Burbank, CA with two kids. In order to ‘keep teachers safe,’ the school is open for ONE hour per day. This is the case despite easy vaccine access for all adults, so if your job pays like $25-$35 an hour but a good nanny or daycare costs the same, what are you going to do? I can’t speak for how this plays out across the whole country, but here in metro California public school restrictions have made it extremely difficult for many people to resume work. Until childcare is back at full capacity, people won’t be returning.” This is an interesting take that I didn’t think about before. People not being able to drop kids off at school all day anymore is really affecting their ability to leave the home and go to work. Now to wind this down, there were 4 people that commented about how it’s always been like this even before the pandemic. I agree with the people that say those that are really complaining are the owners or employees of businesses that provided either poor quality or uniquely technical jobs and they were always experiencing this hiring problem, but maybe I’m wrong. “This is ridiculous.” The first comment said, “This was a problem LONG before the pandemic and unemployment benefits. There's been plenty of jobs in this valley for years. It has nothing to do with unemployment benefits.” The second comment was interesting: “Apparently being drug free and having a license is an issue.” Now this is a statement that opened my mind to what business owners and managers experience. A problem I haven’t thought of before and it’s sad that it is a reality. This commenter is the owner of a lawn care business, so it’s just a general labor job that pretty much anybody could get if they want to do it and they have a need, but wow, I guess there’s too many people with drug problems and not having a license – which seems very strange to me to not have a license. That’s something I assumed almost everybody got, guess I am wrong. A third commenter said a similar thing when replying to the original post about people being too lazy to work. They said, “Or, people can’t or won’t stop smoking weed to pass a drug test to get a job. I know marijuana is legal but there are jobs that will not hire you and insurance that still will not cover you.” Comment 4) “Yeah it’s been hard to find help no doubt, and no one physically turns in a resume anymore. They just submit it online. Just seems lazy to me. It’s a shame... if you want something in life you have to work for it. No one seems to do that anymore.” Hahaha! This is right on the money as an “OK, Boomer” comment. This person is still living in the past, old-fashion days where anyone that wanted a job could just show up to a place of business well dressed, ask to meet with the manager, look him in the eye with a smile and firm handshake and you’ll be hired for being so confident and ambitious. That’s not how things work anymore – at least in the overwhelming majority of places. Companies WANT you to go through their online application process. Have you ever gone through an online application process? They can be very time consuming and sometimes ask you to spend up to 20 minutes or so filling out a series of questionnaires or personality tests and things like that just for a chance to make it into the pile of applicants. Just seems lazy? You know what else is lazy? Sitting in your job for 40 years and never adapting to technological advancements in your field or in society as a whole. Why do so many of these people still barely know how to utilize email, pdfs, and websites? Just seems lazy to me. Sheesh. So after this post and massive community involvement in the comments, a new job board was posted where all the people complaining about not being able to hire could post their job openings. Almost all of these jobs posted suck because of low pay and lack of career growth, or they are very specifically technical. Their huge list of jobs hiring everywhere is literally just restaurants, retail, sales, customer service, low-level maintenance/landscaping/handyman/general labor stuff, senior living care stuff, and random part-time stuff in administrative roles and call centers. None of these jobs can support a family or normal lifestyle. They are all jobs with low incomes that require living with roommates or only provide supplemental income while living with someone that provides a stronger income. Here’s some comments from the board that I found interesting: • One person posted: “Burger King is advertising $15/hr,” to which someone replied, “Yeah for a manager position. How many managers do you think they need?” Another person commented, “It says up to $15/hr. I managed a McDonald’s for 4 years and they didn’t want us giving more than a 50 cent raise after 2 years of employment with good attendance.” • “Lowe’s as a company is kind of a train wreck so I’m not surprised there. We moved here last summer, and my partner and I had both spent several years (me 8, him 13) working at the Lowe’s in our previous city. It’s gone so downhill people weren’t applying at our old store either.” Response: “Wow, you both worked there for quite a while.- My son a few years back went for an interview, a nighttime stock kind of person, and the way the person who interviewed him put it, they basically said, in different words - it is an extremely hard, backbreaking job that you will hate, but if you still want to try, I guess let us know... crazy. So he said no way!” I often hear people exclaim that there are lots of places hiring and are quick to assume unemployed people are just lazy degenerates because we see the hiring signs everywhere. What I don’t understand, is why these people don’t take a moment to think through the situation from the perspective of the unemployed. Why would qualified people with experience in certain industries just jump into any job just because they’re hiring? I see the “Help Wanted” signs everywhere too, but 1) I’m not qualified because the job requires specific licensing. I can't drive a truck and don't want to work in some machine shop or warehouse labor industry for example because that's not my skill set and career intentions. My second point is that a lot of the places hiring are either not very good jobs or a completely different career/industry. Working there would not serve them any favors because I’m looking for something else in my industry. It would limit my availability to attend interviews for the jobs I actually want. To me, it comes off as rude to just assume people should just take whatever's available no matter what the job or industry instead of being on unemployment and applying for jobs you are already qualified for and that are in your career path. I genuinely asked the question to someone saying lot's of places are hiring. I asked, "Are they good jobs though?" and all she responded was “$14 per hour.” Lady, that’s not a good job. If I was making $18 before and in a job that actually had career opportunity, not just a dead-end job that would stay at $14 forever. In closing, I want to mention another topic of discussion here that has a relation to labor shortage problems - the housing affordability crises. There are several areas where the cost of housing, whether it be rents or mortgages, are so high that people working the service and labor jobs can’t afford to live near their work and moving out to more affordable suburbs isn’t an option anymore because the suburbs too are too expensive and/or the commute is simply not worth the extra time and money getting to and from work. Many businesses are struggling to stay open because they can’t staff them. The employees that should be there simply don’t exist because they can’t afford to live there. They’ve moved on. This is a problem especially in expensive tourist or resort destination towns, but I’m sure other places are starting to experience this. The average cost of a house/mortgage it too high for the median wage. It doesn’t make sense. Housing costs seem to be ballooning out of control, as well as everything else going up too. Inflation. Too much, too fast. Something’s gotta give. Watch this PBS Newshour video released in April 2012 titled, "Why Job Seekers, Employers Aren't Connecting." The same principles still apply today. If you would like to help give to more people that currently struggle or recently struggled with unemployment, please donate at the bottom of the this page:
https://www.investedalternative.com/donate.html With the Coronavirus wreaking havoc on our lives and economies, the U.S.A. issued an extra $600/week to be paid to those who are approved to receive unemployment payments. This is to help maintain a decent standard of living to those laid-off due to mandatory business closures and also to somewhat maintain an economy since thousands of people are forced to lose their income. Without the extra unemployment money, the country would very likely be an even bigger disaster of people not being able to afford their bills.
If you received the extra $600 unemployment benefit, did you make more than you would have working? That is a concern to many people that think we're giving too much money away and driving up the national debt. It's unfair for those that are making more money sitting at home doing nothing than those still out working! If you did make more than you were before while working, what did you do with the extra income? What did you spend it on? I'll start with my story. My wife worked at a spa as an esthetician. Since it was forced to shut down by government mandate, she qualified for unemployment and the extra $600/week. Even when she was working full-time, the job only paid minimum wage plus a little tip money received from clients. Her location didn't get very many clients and there were too many other estheticians on staff she had to share the clients with, so she probably only averaged maybe $12/hr. Yes, she was making more on the unemployment than she would have otherwise. This was lucky for us because I was still allowed to work to keep my income and now that she was making more we could finally afford our bills and pay off debts. Just a month before all the shut downs, we were on the brink of bankruptcy and moving in with my parents. I got a new job at the end of 2018 and was supposed to be getting good raises over the next year. That wasn't a written guarantee, but my friend reassured me several times that this would be very likely as that was his experience. Unfortunately the company plateaued and started to decline soon after I started and those raises never came. We foolishly overspent on upgrading our home furnishings and other things that got us into debt, planning on the higher income to offset the costs. They were basically all on payment plans with very little or no interest that we could cover for a few months from savings and then the raise would take care of the rest. When the new raises never came on the dates they were supposed to, we got in trouble. I couldn't ask for the money because the company didn't have it. I started looking for a new, better-paying job, but ran out of time because I was eventually laid off due to the lack of work. Since my wife's income more doubled with the extra unemployment benefits and I picked up a second night job right before the pandemic closures, we were able to get back on track and breathe again. We used all the extra income to pay off a few thousand dollars of debt we accumulated the previous year. Capital One started getting a lot of money back from us, but they probably lost more on other people who lost their incomes and were defaulting on payments. More important bills usually come before credit card payments. I was able to keep working until the beginning of July when I was laid off, but now my wife's unemployment was running out unless they extend it. I just got on it, but the extra $600 expired two weeks later and wasn't replaced until much later, and it was less. By the time Congress and the state government figured things out we didn't even qualify for unemployment anymore. Not that that was a bad thing, but it was a lot of money we missed out on when we needed it. Since we paid off a lot of debt we were able to get caught up and could barely manage ourselves with the combination of my second - now only job since I was laid off, my reduced unemployment benefits since the extra $600 expired, and my wife's lousy income. She started working again, but with reduced hours because there just wasn't very many clients and we also needed someone to stay home with our new baby at night as we both work evenings and have to schedule around that. Now back to the people complaining that the $600 was too high. I used to think that way too, but it saved our lives. Yes, maybe our own mistakes and misfortunes shouldn't be paid for by the government, but then why do all the big corporations get their mistakes paid for? Because they need it to keep an economy going? Sure, but what good will that be when millions of people can't afford any of the products and services big companies offer because their meager allowances don't even cover food and shelter? Why not give the billions in bailouts directly to the people to keep buying the products and services they prefer? People complain that the unemployment benefits dissuade people from working. First point, in case you forgot, MANY OR MOST BUSINESSES ARE EITHER CLOSED OR REDUCED STAFF SO THERE ISN'T MUCH LEFT TO APPLY TO TO WORK AT ALL! Second point: For the jobs that ARE still available Yeah! Nobody wants to work low-paying, dead-end, crappy jobs. Good career jobs sometimes take time getting a new one, especially if you're early on in a career without much experience, or discriminated against because you're old. The job market is fiercely competitive even without the pandemic shutdowns. Families can and should live within their means, but still be screwed in two to three months or less if their income is severed in half until (and if) they get a new job that pays similar to what they had. Complaining that the extra $600 was too high to me means you insist that people should work meager jobs, lose much of what they have, and live in poverty because the pandemic forced them out of work. People also forget that the unemployment checks run out! It might dissuade people from going out and getting a new crappy job to work at, but the unemployment checks don't last forever! You better get a new job before it ends or you're even more screwed! I graduated from college in 2016 and have already been laid off twice because both of the companies I was working at lost business and downsized. Unemployment benefits saved my family both times and I am very grateful to have had that. Besides being unemployed and having little to no income, the biggest thing that bothered me when I was unemployed was when people would give me bad advice and unhelpful suggestions. When I respectfully declined their bad suggestions and explain my reasons, I often still came out sounding like I was being lazy or too picky. The bad advise and unhelpful suggestions were just quick fixes that led nowhere, stuff I was already doing, or things that just weren't practical. For example, I was frequently informed of all kinds of random jobs and places that were hiring like warehouses, grocery stores, retail outlets, substitute teaching, fast food, and other restaurants, but I wasn't looking for just a job - especially another low paying, dead end job. I needed a career. So many people don't understand what's it's like to look for work in today's job market. Every job posting has hundreds of applicants within a few hours. Some websites actually show you how many applicants applied. I'm not making it up. I've seen it. I was told that my grandmother wanted to suggest using the old-school Help Wanted/Classifieds section of a newspaper, but my parents told her that's a really outdated method. Several people suggested a few work places to start and just work my way up in the company over the years, but most of the jobs they suggested don't really do that. I've been told to other weird things like applying to a law firm even though they aren't hiring, but because grandpa in-law knew an old guy that used to work at the firm 15 years ago, so they might hire me because I have a "business" degree, so I can manage their law firm business for them; or I should apply to a a job requiring a mechanical engineering degree even though I am not a mechanical engineer, but I can prove I'm a hard worker. No. It doesn't work like that anymore and no thanks, I can find all the low level jobs easy if that's what I want, but it's not. Some think $15-$18 an hour is good pay, but not if doesn't have growth potential and you're going into your 30s with a child or children at home, you have a good college degree, and want a better career you're qualified for. Many people I knew with similar degrees got starting jobs at $25/hr. THAT's what I was looking for! I went to college to get away from the dead-end jobs where you have to fight for nepotistic favors and management politics to get promoted. There is little to no actual meritocracy these days. My brother doesn't understand the difficulty of getting jobs and must think my wife and I are complete idiots for not doing better. He showed me some government jobs that pay really well for fairly easy work and assumes it's as easy as just filling out an application and you're in, but he hasn't applied to a job since he was a teenager. I actually have applied to government jobs before. It can be a clunky mess of an application process sometimes and, again, you're competing with several hundred people that are also ALWAYS applying. Those better-paying jobs usually hire from within, even though the job posting doesn't expressly state it. They typically hire someone that has put in the years of work at little pay in a similar role. They're not just going to take some random person that can probably do the job. Thankfully, and luckily, I have a new job again and it's the best I've ever had. I can't believe how lucky I am to finally get where I wanted to be. Now I can give more to those that weren't as fortunate. Please donate to Invested Alternative so we can help those that have been struggling with unemployment and underemployment. Please put your stories in the comments or in an email to admin@investedalternative.com. What was your experience in unemployment? Was the extra $600 too much or maybe not enough? Did you make more on unemployment than you did when working? Tell me about it and I'd like to do a follow up post to share your stories. |
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