Once’t upon a time in America...
People like to talk about the ‘good ole days’….a young friend of mine opined that it must’ve been great back in the ‘fifties with all those great muscle cars ’n the cheap gas…he guessed nobody cared about mileage back then….I almost kind’a hated to burst his bubble but I bit the bullet ’n told him…”Yeah, ’n you c’ud buy those big block Fords for only two or three thousand dollars…once you saved enough money from your 35 cent an hour job to make a down payment…’n when people made $.35 cents an hour, gasoline sold for
$.35 cents a gallon. Boy, we had a good time then.”
Humans like to fantasize about living ‘back in historical times’ without thinking that all of us actually live in historical times…or at least it’ll be historical times when our great grandchildren read about them in school…(if they even still have school then)...
Jobs were hard to come by when I wuz in high school, ’n they didn’t pay $.35 cents an hour for teenagers…Jobs wudn’t all that easy for adults but kids didn’t have a lot of choices…there wudn’t very many ‘real’ jobs ’n there wuz a lot of competition for the ones that were out there…a kid needed an edge if he or she could get one…sometimes, just knowing the right person wuz enuff of an edge…sometimes not…it wudn’t all that easy to get a job delivering the daily paper, or bagging groceries…
One summer job that wuz pretty much open to all the boys that grew up around South Shore, Ky, wuz cutting flowers on Hardin Farms…today, they call that kind of a job, ‘stoop labor’…’back then, it paid about $.20 cents an hour…they were 10 to 12 hours a day, hot ’n dusty…hard work…but you c’d buy soft drinks from the farmer, price deducted from your wages…it wuz a hard way to go ’n the lesson wuz that you didn’t want to do this kind of work any longer than wuz absolutely necessary…but there wudn’t any wage disparity…every kid started at the same pay level…at the bottom. What they call t’day, minimum wage. At least, we didn’t have to serve an internship!
Internships, I’m told, are racially biased in favor of rich, white kids. They’re the only ones who c’n afford to work for nothing….sounds reasonable t'me but what the hell do I know....
The talk is about minority kids and wage disparity 'n how it's all rooted in racism...I don't know about you but I’m really tired of all this racial BS 'n so far as wage disparity is concerned….black kids don’t get paid less than latino kids and neither of them get paid less than white kids for doing the same job…and even tho’ some statistics show asian kids as super-achievers compared to everyone else, the asian kids don’t get paid more either…minimum wage jobs pay minimum wages…(Hint: that’s why they’re called minimum wage)…everybody that works at a minimum wage job gets paid (gasp) minimum wage.
That ain’t to say there isn’t cultural differences that affect the rate at which some kids get hired ’n others don’t. Business’ that hire young people to represent them, ie; counter people, etcetera ain’t inclined to hire young men who are showing ‘way too much undergarment or young men sporting gang tattoo’s whether or not they belong to a gang. I see a lot of highschoolers emulating thug dress, flashing made-up gang signs, girls with red, blue ’n green hair ’n heavy makeup…skirts ’n shorts that are too short, too tight, exposing too much skin, too much bling, too many bangles, baubles ’n beads and piercings in public places…
Just doing their own thing, wearing the uniform of the day much as their parents ’n grandparents did back in the dinosaur days…
Funny how the rules that applied for job-hunters in the golden olden days of yore still apply today. Present a neat appearance, use your best manners. Speak respectfully ’n look at people when you’re being interviewed. Neatness counts. Showing respect for your elders counts. A willingness to begin at the bottom of the heap also counts. People who expect to start at the top almost never get the chance to go anywhere.
Sort’a like a long trip on a dead horse...
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