The week in work: blood, sweat, tears, and other wet & slippery things.
Reddit and weep
It’s best known as a source of cat memes and celebrity leaks, but Reddit can also be a place for compelling storytelling — like the epic thread this week about “What do insanely poor people buy that ordinary people know nothing about?” The lived experience of trying to make it paycheck to paycheck rarely gets aired in public — the small kindnesses, the large tragedies, the incredible stresses. It’s bracing, heartrending, and worth a click…and a maybe a drink.
If you don’t tell HR, we won’t tell HR
This is trippy. Due to some combination of weeks, months, leap years, phases of the moon, that weird 10,000-year-clock, and the mysteries of time itself, lots of people who get paid biweekly are going to get an extra 27th paycheck this year, instead of the normal 26. (There are still 52 weeks in the year, but there’s also that one extra day; it’s sort of like that online argument about whether or not working out every other day means you go to the gym four times every week.) The good news: lazy payroll departments might not notice until it’s too late, inadvertently giving employees an almost 4% pay raise. Considering real wages have been flat for about a generation, this is big news.
Soylent majority
On the same day Washington state legislators announced bills to raise the minimum wage and set minimum standards for paid sick leave, a new national poll found an overwhelming three-quarters of voters nationally support raising the minimum wage to $12.50/hour — and 63% supermajority support for a $15 minimum wage. Meanwhile, as Seattle gets ready to phase in its landmark $15 minimum wage law, wage growth in the city ranks number three in the whole country. Remind us why anyone thinks raising wages is a controversial?
cleaning up…
The moon needs a janitor — turns out astronauts left behind 96 bags of various bodily fluids, along with some golf balls, used wet wipes, and other junk; McDonald’s new ad campaign needs a refresh — everyone seems to hate it; and our state tax system is well past due for a hosing down — it’s the nastiest, ickiest, and most regressive in the whole country. Plus, Pizza Hut Japan is hiring cats to pose as workers in an internet video campaign. They presumably lick themselves clean. $15 Meow!