December 20th?!?
Is it really the end of the year already?
Well, I do have another week or so before I decide to put together a Year in Review blog. If I feel like it. But today I want to talk about something else.
Dude, I am so glad I don't work in NYC right now.
For you readers outside of the tri-state area who might now know what's going on, let me fill you in. The MTA has gone on strike. That means that all of the buses and subways that operate within New York City are not running. At all.
I haven't recieved any news from anyone who's been directly affected yet, but I assure you that the Big Apple is one gigantic mess right now.
Now, as someone who tends to lean to the left as far as my beliefs go (notice the subtle understatement), you'd think that I'd be behind the union 100%. They work hard, and the Man doesn't want to give them the money that they deserve for keeping the Center of the Universe running around the clock. And normally, in a situation of a strike, I do root for the workers.
Not this time.
Thanks to the New York Times, I have become well aware of how much the city's transit workers make, and I am not amused.
I'm a college graduate. I busted my behind to get my degree, and all that I had available to me after graduation was sales/marketing jobs and retail. Now I work three jobs to pay my rent and my bills, I have laughable health insurance that take $20 out of my paycheck a week (or 1/3 of a day's pay), and I have no sick days. If I don't work, I don't get paid. I don't have a pension. I don't have 401k. For a girl with a bachelor's degree from one of the best schools in the state (if not the country), I can easily say that I don't have the best work situation right now.
But some guy who barely graduated high school and now opens and closes the doors on a subway train (doesn't drive it, just opens/closes the doors and makes announcements) now makes about $20,000 more a year than I do, has sick time and personal days out the wazoo, full health insurance with no premiums, guaranteed pension when he turns 55, and can't get fired without a hearing.
And this guy wants a raise? He makes almost 50 g's a year for opening and closing doors and he wants a raise?
Call me elitist, call me an over-intellectualized snob if you want. But I really don't think it's fair that I went to college so I could have a decent and well paying job (as opposed to retail) but someone can walk right out of high school and right into the MTA and make a buttload of money.
So the MTA gets two thumbs down and one middle finger up from me. Quit your bitching and get back on the trains so that the people who work a lot harder for a lot less money can continue doing so. Your selfishness is keeping a lot of people from earning money today, and that's really just not fair.
Well, I do have another week or so before I decide to put together a Year in Review blog. If I feel like it. But today I want to talk about something else.
Dude, I am so glad I don't work in NYC right now.
For you readers outside of the tri-state area who might now know what's going on, let me fill you in. The MTA has gone on strike. That means that all of the buses and subways that operate within New York City are not running. At all.
I haven't recieved any news from anyone who's been directly affected yet, but I assure you that the Big Apple is one gigantic mess right now.
Now, as someone who tends to lean to the left as far as my beliefs go (notice the subtle understatement), you'd think that I'd be behind the union 100%. They work hard, and the Man doesn't want to give them the money that they deserve for keeping the Center of the Universe running around the clock. And normally, in a situation of a strike, I do root for the workers.
Not this time.
Thanks to the New York Times, I have become well aware of how much the city's transit workers make, and I am not amused.
I'm a college graduate. I busted my behind to get my degree, and all that I had available to me after graduation was sales/marketing jobs and retail. Now I work three jobs to pay my rent and my bills, I have laughable health insurance that take $20 out of my paycheck a week (or 1/3 of a day's pay), and I have no sick days. If I don't work, I don't get paid. I don't have a pension. I don't have 401k. For a girl with a bachelor's degree from one of the best schools in the state (if not the country), I can easily say that I don't have the best work situation right now.
But some guy who barely graduated high school and now opens and closes the doors on a subway train (doesn't drive it, just opens/closes the doors and makes announcements) now makes about $20,000 more a year than I do, has sick time and personal days out the wazoo, full health insurance with no premiums, guaranteed pension when he turns 55, and can't get fired without a hearing.
And this guy wants a raise? He makes almost 50 g's a year for opening and closing doors and he wants a raise?
Call me elitist, call me an over-intellectualized snob if you want. But I really don't think it's fair that I went to college so I could have a decent and well paying job (as opposed to retail) but someone can walk right out of high school and right into the MTA and make a buttload of money.
So the MTA gets two thumbs down and one middle finger up from me. Quit your bitching and get back on the trains so that the people who work a lot harder for a lot less money can continue doing so. Your selfishness is keeping a lot of people from earning money today, and that's really just not fair.
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