So, I thought I'd pass along something I noticed yesterday. I was out at a small grocery store I like to go to because I'm on a first name basis with the owner and all the managers. I had the butcher cut me up some really nice steaks, picked up some corn on the cob, and some oranges. And then I went to the checkout.

Now, I worked in this store one summer about 20 years ago, and I know the owner will take home 15k/month. The store manager brings home 8k/month, and the assistant managers each bring home 5k/month. These men, (and they're all men) are working a career. They have plenty of income, and I also know each of them have plenty of investments for passive income as well. The lady working the front desk that is in charge of the cashiers and baggers brings home 3k/month. Not as much as the men in the back, but she's married and her husband makes good money in construction. Then there's the line employees. The cashiers, baggers, and shelf stockers. They also get different pay based on what they do. Stockers get 11/hr because they do hard physical work. The cashiers and baggers earn 9/hr.

I told you this because when I went to the register, it was some highschool girl with a big fake customer service smile ringing me up, and she'll probably work there for a year and move on. The guy putting my dinner in a paper bag is a different story. He's an older man, late 40s or early 50s. Actually a pretty intelligent dude in his own way, but he just never bothered to learn any useful job skills for office work, and he's a pretty small dude, maybe 5'5 and probably a hundred maybe hundred twenty pounds, so he's just not a good candidate for manual labor. So, he's been putting other people's food into a sack for more than 20 years. He makes 9 dollars an hour, and occasionally he gets tips when he takes someone's groceries out to their car. He's a likeable guy, and I let him put my paper bag with my dinner in it into the passenger seat of my truck, and I gave him a dollar for his trouble. Now, on a good Friday, he might clear 30 bucks in tips, and he's all smiles. Genuinely happy about his extra 30 bucks. He's got no savings, no financial future. He lives in a house that his dad bought in the 40s, and pays taxes on the 500 a week he brings home. He doesn't own a car despite living in north Texas because he genuinely can't afford it. He rides a bike to and from work, and I honestly have no idea what he does when he's not at work.

The point is, don't be a bagger at a small grocery store in your 50s. Don't spend your entire life earning what amounts to poverty wages. Do the shitty job for a year or two so you can build some real world work experience. Go to college, go to trade school, go do something. Anything. Don't be that old man putting groceries in a bag for the rest of your life.