“I don’t get paid enough to do this crap.” We’ve all heard someone mutter this at one point or another. The usual reply is something stupid like “oh I hear ya” or “you’re tellin me” or “please don’t talk to me while I’m crapping.” I’m an ass I guess because this statement totally annoys me. Sometimes I wish I was Neighbor Nate and could reply with what I was actually thinking.
In reality, you’re getting paid just the right amount of money for what you do. Do you know how I know this? Because it’s the fucking laws of nature. If you were worth more, you’d be getting paid more. I know that sounds like a callous thing to say, but it’s 100% true. You might reply “well I could be getting paid more at a different place.” This might be true, but why aren’t you working at that mystical ethereal company. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn’t, but this isn’t Marxist Russia. We live in a capitalist society where our wages are determined by their MONETARY value, not by some wage genie that gives out money because you spell check all your e-mails before you send them.
I hear this one a lot: “Teachers are so underpaid”. Nope, they’re not. If they were worth more, they’d be getting paid more. A worker’s wages are no different than any other good or service. If you bought a pair of shoes for $60, how much is that pair of shoes worth to you? It’s worth fucking $60…no more…no less. Exactly $60. Even if you would have paid more, their value is $60. If another company were able to produce the same pair of shoes for $50, you would have bought that pair. This goes on and on until a company is no longer able to make shoes for cheaper. This is where the price stays. Wages are no different. If a teacher makes $28/hr, it’s because there are people willing to work at that price. If they couldn’t hire people at $28/hr, they’d raise the wage to $29.
So, stop giving me crap for paying my gardener $85 a month to mow my lawn. Some coworkers were giving me shit that I don’t pay them enough. There’s a crew of 3 guys, they spend 2 hours tops, then mow the lawn and break my sprinklers. If they said “Yo quiero noventa dollares”. I’d say politely “screw off”. I’ll find someone to do it for $85. Hence…their services are not worth $90 to me. They might be to others, which is fine. When enough people get together with the same opinion it sets the wage of a worker or the value of a good. I’m not cheap, I’m efficient.
These days it’s a knee jerk reaction “this burger was not worth $5”. Yes it was shithead. It might not be next time, but it was this time. Over time, if that burger is shitty enough, guess what? The price will go down or that company will go out of business. It’s fucking magic. This brings me to the title of my column. It’s 10 to touch. There’s a reason it’s not 11 to touch. First, I don’t carry around singles because making change in a dark parking lot is risky business. Second, it’s just not worth 11.
