for keeping your hours low. Before Obamacare, anyone could work 40 or more hours a week. Now, if you go over 30, you have to be given insurance.
Posted on 05/17/2014 8:54:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
When I woke up to see the news, I could hardly believe it: President Obama is planning a visit to the Mountain View Wal-Mart where I work.
But the excitement quickly passed when I found out the store would be shutting down hours in advance of his visit. I wouldn’t be able to tell the president what it’s like to work at Wal-Mart and what it’s like to struggle on low wages, without the hours I need. I am living at the center of the income inequality that he speaks about so often, and I wanted to talk to him about how to change this problem.
My situation is not unlike that of many of the 825,000 Wal-Mart associates – and many other Americans – who are working hard, but just can’t keep up. Most of us aren’t even paid $25,000 a year even though we work at the largest employer in the country and one that makes $16 billion in profits.
I wanted to tell the president what it’s like working – and living – like this.
Things have always been tight. After four years working at Wal-Mart in Mountain View, I am bringing home about $400 every two weeks (I’d like to get more hours, but I’m lucky if I work 32 hours a week). That’s not enough to pay for bills, gas and food. All I can afford to eat for lunch is a cup of coffee and a bag of potato chips. I’ve always done everything possible to stretch paychecks and scrape by. Sometimes it means not getting enough to eat.
But then I got some bad news that made stretching my budget impossible.
Two months ago, I started feeling ill. My doctor told me I needed to take a week off to have a series of medical tests. Every day for a week I went to the hospital and had to pay $30, $60 or $100 in co-pays for each appointment, test and X-ray.
With these additional expenses and without a paycheck for the week I was out, it pushed me over the edge. I didn’t have enough money to pay the rent.
Right now, I don’t have a place to call home.
I sleep on the floor of my son’s living room because I can’t afford my own place. All of my belongings are in my car. I don’t know where to send my mail.
I used to think, “At least I have my health and my family.” But my doctor thinks I may have colon cancer, and with all of the money I still owe the hospital, I’m not sure how to finish the tests and get treatment. Even though I do have insurance through Wal-Mart, the co-pays are more than I can afford with only $400 every two weeks.
I wanted to tell the president I am scared. I am scared for my health. I am scared for the future for my grandkids. And I am scared and sad about the direction that companies like Wal-Mart are taking our country.
I don’t wish the struggle I’m facing onto anyone. But sadly, my situation isn’t unique. I know that I am one of many living in the Wal-Mart economy who has no financial stability. We expect to work until our deaths because we don’t have any retirement savings and are concerned about the future in front of our children and grandchildren.
There are so many of us who have it so hard – trying to live paycheck to paycheck. While the president is here visiting my store, I want him to look inside at what is really happening at Wal-Mart.
I want the president to help us and tell Wal-Mart to pay us enough to cover the bills and take care of our families. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask from such a profitable company, a company that sets the standard for jobs in this country. And I hope it’s not too much to ask from a president who believes that income inequality is the defining challenge of our time.
She obviously didn’t write that claptrap and the photo was taken so as to avoid showing how fat she is.
I got a 'coaching' for getting ONE MINUTE of overtime. I was heading to the back to clock out, and a customer stopped me to ask where to find lightbulbs. After I pointed him in the right direction, it was one minute later than I meant to clock out.
Usually, they'd send you home early, no matter how busy it was, if they thought you were getting anywhere close to overtime.
I haven't set foot in a walmart in five years.
Actually, the government is the largest employer.
An apple or banana would be a cheaper, healthier choice.
I felt it was a seminar story...it hit all of the heart string triggers progs love to bash conservatives with in the media. I wonder if Harry Reid will stand up and say she’s a liar because her health insurance costs too much in terms of her co-pays.
There are a$$holes in every family.
Having some experience in retail (and fast food) when I was younger, I can tell you that these places are starved - starved - for managerial talent. Yet there are very few employees who are willing to take the initiative and step up to added responsibility. So often they have to hire their managers from the outside - how crazy is that!
The bulk of the employees in these places shuffle into work like sheep, punch their time clocks and shuffle out at the appointed hour. They put up a fuss when asked to do something "outside their job description" and seem focused only on getting their shift over with with the minimum amount of effort.
Yet all they have to do is show a spark of ambition and be willing to take on additional responsibilities and their employer will move them up the ladder very quickly. I recommended to my 17-year-old son, who was working at a supermarket at the time, to ask his manager if he could be trained for more responsibility. Turned out all he had to do was ask! The manager took him under his wing and shortly thereafter, he was covering for the front-end supervisor when he/she was "out sick" and he was soon doing that job on his own with a decent raise.
I gave him that advice because that's how I did it. Every place I ever worked at, I quickly rose to the supervisor/managerial ranks.
Of course having this ambition can quickly alienate you with you co-workers who will see you as a "kiss-ass" and what not. But that goes with the territory when you want to make something of yourself. Otherwise, plan on being nothing more than a low-skill drone and spending the rest of your life griping and moaning about your situation while others move up the ladder around you.
Now some will retort to this by saying that not everybody working at Wal-Mart can be a $137K a year store manager. Well that is correct. Only those with the necessary ambition and work ethic can achieve that. If you do not have that fire in the belly, then go ahead and resign yourself to the fact that your fate will be controlled by others.
She's evidently in her sixties by the looks of her, and she has no IRA? Smoking pot and going to protests for 50 years is no way to go through life, lady.
for keeping your hours low. Before Obamacare, anyone could work 40 or more hours a week. Now, if you go over 30, you have to be given insurance.
Pam Ramos’ article needs a Union-Made label. It is far to crafty for someone at her level (example - she cites her take home pay. Uh, is that net of not only your gubmint imposed FICA, Medicare, SDI, State and Federal Tax withholding, but also Health Insurance, and 401K? Thought so.)
Pam thinks companies exist to provide jobs and benefits as an end in itself. Those who realize that the point is to make money, and help do so, tend to get ahead. Those who time-serve, whine, and scowl at customers like a sea-hag get to sleep on someone’s floor. Pam also needs to know that potato chips are unhealthy, and more expensive than a peanut butter sandwich and/or an apple.
Maybe Obama can apologize to Pam for causing her to lose paid hours for his PR visit, and for defining “full-time” at so few hours that part-time workers only get 31 per week.
The comments after that article are truly frightening.
Pam Ramos’ article needs a Union-Made label. It is far to crafty for someone at her level
We have a huge house just for me and hubby but when family visits I have 2 single blow up beds that I put in the office for overflow........so they don’t have to sleep on the couches.
And they are cheap at Walmart! Lol
bfl8r
“They are not a job you should expect to be able to live off of.”
As long as the government is chosen by universal franchise voting, that view (more correct than not) will cause defeat after defeat.
Cry me a river. This ramos lady sure is one big whiner. Does anyone owe her anything. Walmart apparently her what she is worth...which isn’t much. Gibmesum ramos needs to shut up. Someone at the union wrote her piece of give-me trash. What a pitiful loser.
I sleep on the floor of my son’s living room because I can’t afford my own place. All of my belongings are in my car. I don’t know where to send my mail.
If you’re old enough to have adult children, yet you’re sleeping on your son’s floor and your belongings are in your car, you have either had a sudden tragic event in your life or more likely you’ve really screwed up.
Interesting that there is absolutely NO reference to her level of education or what skills she might have.
IF this is another dropout who didn’t think they needed high school & MIGHT have obtained a GED, then she is lucky to even have a Wal-Mart job.
IF you spend your life doing nothing to advance yourself, then I don’t have one ounce of sympathy.
My guess is Pam Ramos is a ‘composite’ identify, cobbled together by the writer for the purpose of inciting outrage.
That is the way the regime controlled media manipulates the narrative these days. If there is a real “Pam Ramos”, she is undoubtedly a paid Dem. operative. They always are.
She’s certainly not going to be able to pick up a part time job if she’s going in for cancer surgery and chemo. She won’t be working the Walmart job either. She’ll be on MediCal, since Obamacare is not affordable even with the subsidy.
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