I Survived Capitalism and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt by Madeline Pendleton

Author:Madeline Pendleton [Pendleton, Madeline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2024-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

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Back at home, confounded by the realization that Remy’s parents were far wealthier than I could have imagined, I thought about the Director. I was learning more about money than I ever thought possible, and not just from her. As I left my apartment one day, I stopped to pick up a flyer that was shoved into my door handle. These flyers showed up from time to time, in Spanish, advertising job openings for sewers at the American Apparel factory downtown. The positions paid far better than average sewing jobs around town—$20 per hour. I’d never bothered to apply because I didn’t speak Spanish that well, but the Director didn’t know that. I took the flyer with me to work and put it on the Director’s desk.

“What’s this?” she asked. “Why is this on my desk?”

“It’s a flyer for a job opening,” I told her. “They dropped it at my house today. It’s for a sewing supervisor at the American Apparel factory downtown. They make two dollars per hour more than I do. I know how to use the machines they advertise on the flyer. I learned in school. Just something to think about. My performance review is coming up, that’s all.”

The Director held the flyer in her hand and looked at me with a strange mix of shock and pride.

“Noted,” she said, nodding.

Back at home, I prepared for my upcoming performance review with dedication and intention. I scoured the internet looking for comparable pay for my job in Los Angeles. I found a graph online showing the range of pay, from low to high, with the average outlined in the middle. My pay was below average for the industry. I printed the graph out and brought it with me to my performance review a few weeks later, folded up in my bag.

“Would you say my performance is below average, average, or above average?” I asked the Director the day of my review.

“Above average,” she said confidently, nodding.

“I’m so glad you think so,” I replied, pulling out the paper. “Here’s a graph of average pay for this position here in Los Angeles. As you can see here, my current pay is in the below average range for this position. My desired pay of twenty-five dollars per hour works out to around fifty-two thousand dollars per year and is here in the average range. Since you think I’m an above average employee, according to this chart, I should be making above average wages, upwards of seventy-five thousand dollars per year. However, I know that this is a relatively small company and might not be able to afford a salary like that at this time. I like working here, and I would be thrilled to stay on at the discounted average pay rate of fifty-two thousand dollars.”

The following week, I received a pay raise and shift to a salaried position of $52,000 per year, plus health insurance. It worked out to take-home pay of around $3,000 per month. For the first time in a long time, it felt like I could finally breathe financially.

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