Pay stub WTF



  • I'm sure someone else here has their company's pay stubs done through ADP's iPay.

    Now, the quality of sites such as iPay (payroll management, insurance management, 401(k) management) is seldom very good* - the people who make the decisions about which service is used are seldom influenced by the same factors which might influence you and I, with the exception of Price. And so it goes.

    The first annoyance is usually the arcane usernames (I'm username@Company instead of anything normal like username@company.com for this one website in the entire world. lovely.) This, and funky password requirements, led to a second problem: when I was trying to get started with it, if I did the wrong thing in the authentication process (one of those HTTP authentication popups) then it could get stuck in a loop of 'access denied' until I closed out my browser. Annoyed by this, I requested a physical, paper pay stub.

    At first I was met with incredulity ("the website sucks? impossible! everyone else who uses it must think it's wonderful since we never had anyone else bother to complain!") A few weeks after this exchange, some of the other people in my company also affected by our recent merger actually started to try and use the site and said "wow, this sucks!" but I don't think anyone was really motivated enough to send an email or anything. But for a while I just happily received my personal physical pay stub.


    Earlier this month, though, I got a letter (edit: via email, of course). They said they wanted us all to switch to electronic pay stubs to save the company sorting/mailing costs, buuuuut if we really wanted it they cooould continue to provide it. I was like, "dude, the website sucks, I'd prefer paper" (in slightly more eloquent language). Then I was exposed to the Real WTF, since I'm apparently the last person in a company of N hundred who declined:

    [i]Please note that it’s not so much the mail costs to get you your pay stub. It’s that ADP doesn’t have a way to separate your one check from the rest of (Company). So, they print and mail all 300+ to us and pass along these costs to us. Then, (person) has to sort through the stack to find your check and mail it to you. Just not cost-efficient.[/i]

    Truly, I marvel at the wonders the information age has brought us.



    * Undoubtedly some day Google will offer its expertise in fields such as these.



  • No way to differenciate the individuals that want a paper trail?  Yeah that is a pretty good WTF.  Really, how hard is it to add a flag to the DB for 'paper_copy boolean'? 



  • @amischiefr said:

    No way to differenciate the individuals that want a paper trail?  Yeah that is a pretty good WTF.  Really, how hard is it to add a flag to the DB for 'paper_copy boolean'? 

     

    I guess it's pretty hard. They probably use mysql and that doesn't have a boolean, only a tinyint ;)

    WTF meter at level 70



  •  You think that's a WTF?  My employer tries to force ePost ( www.epost.ca )  Imagine all the worst things about mail combined with all of the least useful featuers you've ever experienced in a mail client in one.  It's basically email, but it's email that's sent as a gif or PDF only, and the only way to pick it up is to log into their site.  And there's no easy way to save it on your computer.  And I think the emails expire.  And to print it, you need to install some lame-ass plugin that doesn't work on most operating systems.  And, as far as I can tell, there's no API you can use to even begin to create an ePost to email gateway.

    Oh, and only businesses that have registered themselves with ePost are allowed to send ePost.  And it doesn't verify your address, so you can pretend to be anyone and get their paystubs if you get there first.  There's so much, much, more... like browser interoperability and so on.  Just try it out.  UGH!

     Luckily, we can still walk to another building and pick our stubs up the hard way, which I do each week.  And (until lately) each time I do that they suggest ePost instead.  And I always remind them that I will do that the minute I complete an ePost to email gateway (ie:  When hell freezes over).



  • @shepd said:

     You think that's a WTF?  My employer tries to force ePost ( www.epost.ca )

    This led me to a minor Google WTF.  I searched "site:epost.ca" (&filter=0), and got 12 pages of results.  Google will happily let me view eleven of these twelve pages.  But whenever I try and look at the twelfth page of results, it gives me the 403 "We're sorry but your request looks like an automated spyware/virus request". Not even a captcha to allow it (and I already answered one for it earlier).  All quite repeatable.  WTF!?

     

     



  • What do you need a pay stub for anyway?  I would love to get them electronically because I wouldn't have to even bother with throwing the paper copy away.  Is there some reason you need a copy of your pay stub?



  • @fennec said:

    that it’s not so much the mail costs to get you your pay stub. It’s that ADP doesn’t have a way to separate your one check from the rest of (Company). So, they print and mail all 300+ to us and pass along these costs to us. Then, (person) has to sort through the stack to find your check and mail it to you. Just not cost-efficient.

     It's not that hard to imagine. In fact, I can imagine pretty much exactly what's going on -- ADP's check origination system produces a monolithic print job, probably in PCL. There is no easy way to separate a single page from a print job stream like that. Unless of course they bought SwiftExtract, a product I used to work on which is meant to do precisely this. Maybe they don't want to pay the $2495 price tag.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    What do you need a pay stub for anyway?  I would love to get them electronically because I wouldn't have to even bother with throwing the paper copy away.  Is there some reason you need a copy of your pay stub?

    Depending on local regulations, sometimes credit checks require the stupid paper pay stub for their income checking process. At least I've been able to sidestep that requirement for some time now, thanks to my good credit rating.


  • @shepd said:

    It's basically email, but it's email that's sent as a gif or PDF only, and the only way to pick it up is to log into their site.  And there's no easy way to save it on your computer.  And I think the emails expire.  And to print it, you need to install some lame-ass plugin that doesn't work on most operating systems. 
     

    If it's a gif or pdf, why can't you print or save it?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    What do you need a pay stub for anyway?  I would love to get them electronically because I wouldn't have to even bother with throwing the paper copy away.  Is there some reason you need a copy of your pay stub?

     

    1. Know how much money is being deposited this week (it changes over the course of the year due to tax amortization and expense reimbursements)
    2. Check for any errors


  • @savar said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    What do you need a pay stub for anyway?  I would love to get them electronically because I wouldn't have to even bother with throwing the paper copy away.  Is there some reason you need a copy of your pay stub?

     

    1. Know how much money is being deposited this week (it changes over the course of the year due to tax amortization and expense reimbursements)
    2. Check for any errors

    I would think this should be fairly easy to do without the pay stub.  I just check the total amount deposited and if it seems wrong I would then look into it further.  I've also never met an accounting department that would toss expenses in with salary.  Generally expense reimbursements come as a separate check issued directly by the company rather than added into the payroll checks.  I don't think companies like ADP even have a way to add reimbursements onto payroll checks and it's certainly more troublesome than just issuing a separate check.



  • @DaveK said:

    Google will happily let me view eleven of these twelve pages.  But whenever I try and look at the twelfth page of results, it gives me the 403 "We're sorry but your request looks like an automated spyware/virus request".

    Ugh, this one pisses me off a treat too. Apparently the site: option is used sufficiently rarely that it is a good DDOS vector, so Google blocks it beyond a few pages (what any "reasonable" person might want to view - well colour me unreasonable then!). If you set your options to view 100 results per page, you can get 2 pages - a few more results than you get with fewer per page. There used to be CAPTCHAs on the pages, but such a large target as Google is obviously the quickest to be worked around, so presumably until they can work out a foolproof system then they have to just block it off completely. Unfortunately I doubt they're expending that much effort trying to work around it.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    What do you need a pay stub for anyway?  I would love to get them electronically because I wouldn't have to even bother with throwing the paper copy away.  Is there some reason you need a copy of your pay stub?


    I stuff the exact numbers about what I'm paying for each deduction into Quicken (a piece of software which is its own set of WTFs, but I digress). I have a few. The usual slew of taxes and insurance, the 401(k), a company stock plan... the occasional expense reimbursement. I can account for every penny.


    .... except for the second half of May. which I have somehow down only as 'net salary'. shoot. blah blah blah.



  • @dtech said:

    @shepd said:

    It's basically email, but it's email that's sent as a gif or PDF only, and the only way to pick it up is to log into their site.  And there's no easy way to save it on your computer.  And I think the emails expire.  And to print it, you need to install some lame-ass plugin that doesn't work on most operating systems. 
     

    If it's a gif or pdf, why can't you print or save it?

     

    The site is IE only, but limps along in firefox.  It performs nasty browser tricks.  I just don't have the patience to do that.  I'd rather just be paid to walk over to payroll and pick up the paper than go home and fret with the site on my own time to get a low quality copy of my paystub that probably isn't even something that Revenue Canada would accept as legitimate for an audit.  Forget it, give me it either by email (encrypted if necessary) or by paper.  Not some sort of half-assed hack between the two.

     BTW:  Last time I tried (a year ago), it would use a PLUGIN in IE just to allow you to print stuff off.  Good God.  For Firefox users, yes, it'd give you some ugly ass gif in some ugly ass popup window.  Just too much effort to use, too much web 0.9.  :-)



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    What do you need a pay stub for anyway?  I would love to get them electronically because I wouldn't have to even bother with throwing the paper copy away.  Is there some reason you need a copy of your pay stub?

    If I read the original post correctly, it appears that the reason he needs a pay stub is that the online site is a complete WTF, and so he can't effectively get an electronic copy of his pay stub.



  • i think salary slip in the UK is legally required to be paper.... and also the accountants department cannot produce copies.



  • @tgape said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    What do you need a pay stub for anyway?  I would love to get them electronically because I wouldn't have to even bother with throwing the paper copy away.  Is there some reason you need a copy of your pay stub?

    If I read the original post correctly, it appears that the reason he needs a pay stub is that the online site is a complete WTF, and so he can't effectively get an electronic copy of his pay stub.

    Right, and I was asking why he would even need an electronic copy of it. 



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Right, and I was asking why he would even need an electronic copy of it. 

     

    To keep Revenue Canada (like the IRS, but much less forgiving) happy if/when I get audited.  Also to ensure deductions (RRSP [like your 401(k)], pogey [you look it up], and CPP [like your social security]) are correct.  I have no clue if ePost is valid for an audit, but I know for sure a shite quality gif image isn't.  Since I don't trust idiots who can't design a website to actually perform backups, I'd prefer either an email (that I can then backup properly) or a hardcopy.



  • @shepd said:

    To keep Revenue Canada (like the IRS, but much less forgiving) happy if/when I get audited.

    If I was ever audited, I would just request a hard copy of my pay history and/or W-2.

     

    @shepd said:

    Also to ensure deductions (RRSP [like your 401(k)], pogey [you look it up], and CPP [like your social security]) are correct.

    They're the same every month for me, so it's only something I have to check once.  Then I can just know the same amount being deposited is always correct.  I suppose if you were hourly or non-salaried in some way, you would need to check every pay stub carefully.

     

    @shepd said:

    Since I don't trust idiots who can't design a website to actually perform backups, I'd prefer either an email (that I can then backup properly) or a hardcopy.

    How would an email only backed up on your computer be useful?  I can't imagine it would serve as official proof of anything.  You'd probably want to request a historical hardcopy if you were being audited...



  •  Yes, I can request a hardcopy.  However, at least one of the companies I've worked for no longer exists.  I can think of two others that are on their way out as well.  You can't get a defunct company to give you paystubs.  I also wouldn't trust one of them (a gas bar of all places) to keep proper records...  We get T4 sheets that have the same info, however, it isn't broken down month by month, which may or may not matter (I'm not the taxman).  I'd rather err on the safe side.

     

    And yes, all the jobs are hourly pay.  With varying amounts of overtime, etc.  Email probably wouldn't be a great thing either for proof, but it's way better than craptastic gifs.  :-)

     



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @shepd said:
    To keep Revenue Canada (like the IRS, but much less forgiving) happy if/when I get audited.
    If I was ever audited, I would just request a hard copy of my pay history and/or W-2.
    And I'm sure if you no longer worked for that company you'd be a really high priority for whoever was stuck with that request.



    @morbiuswilters said:
    @shepd said:
    Also to ensure deductions (RRSP [like your 401(k)], pogey [you look it up], and CPP [like your social security]) are correct.
    They're the same every month for me, so it's only something I have to check once.  Then I can just know the same amount being deposited is always correct.  I suppose if you were hourly or non-salaried in some way, you would need to check every pay stub carefully.
    Or you exceed the maximum taxable amount for Social Security, or you exceed the maximum annual contribution to your 401(k), or you get a raise. I've seen all three screwed up.



    @morbiuswilters said:
    @shepd said:
    Since I don't trust idiots who can't design a website to actually perform backups, I'd prefer either an email (that I can then backup properly) or a hardcopy.
    How would an email only backed up on your computer be useful?  I can't imagine it would serve as official proof of anything.  You'd probably want to request a historical hardcopy if you were being audited...

    Just because you request something doesn't mean they are going to have it, or that they'll get it to you in a meaningful amount of time. My experience is that payroll departments are almost always totally screwed up, so I know I wouldn't put my faith in them doing something without screwing it up at least once. Reading all your posts you seem to be living in some fantasy land where everyone you're asking for helps gives a damn, and nothing ever gets screwed up. I can only assume you've lived a supremely charmed life to have avoided any corporate foul-ups.



  • I keep the hard copy in a file in my file cabinet.  It proved helpful when I moved, so I could show both cities the amount I paid in taxes before moving.  Also, when I applied for a mortgage, it was handy to have it right there. 

    I would never throw them away.  I get paid every other week, so it's not a huge ordeal to file it.  However, if I had to print out that hard copy myself in order to file it, I wouldn't do it.  I might create a file folder and just keep the pdfs in there.



  • Out here we're given a paystub every two weeks. An e-mail comes out from the admin assistant saying the paystubs have arrived from the payroll department. Then you're expected to waddle over to the person's desk and ask for your paystub. I never pick mine up. Eventually they decide that there are too many Welbog stubs, so they package them together and put them in my office mail slot, at which point I pick them up and toss them out. It would be easier if they just threw them out for me, or just put the pay stubs in my mail slot every two weeks. But they're worried about people taking each other's pay stubs. I don't know what kind of person cares how much money his peers are making. I certainly don't.

    I'm with Morb on this one. I verify my paycheques are correct by looking at my bank history online. As long as the deposits are the right amount at the right times I know everything is fine.



  •  I had to take my kid to the Mayo clinic and they required me to show them my two most recent pay stubs.  Apparently they charge you based on a sliding scale:  the more you make, the more you pay.  Fuck those poor people!!!  Moral of the story though is that I needed physical pay stubs and not e-ones.   There are many other places that require these, and true you can always request a hard copy (if your company will go back and print them for you), but why not just keep them filed away just in case?



  • @Welbog said:

    As long as the deposits are the right amount at the right times I know everything is fine.
     

    I use the bytecount of two versions of the same file to be sure that they're the same.

    What I'm saying that maybe there's some expense of sorts that adds up to the right amount now, but is actually a timebomb, just like a timebomb bug in code.




  • @amischiefr said:

    the more you make, the more you pay.  Fuck those poor people!!!
     

    No, it's Fuck the rich!!!



  • @dhromed said:

    @amischiefr said:

    the more you make, the more you pay.  Fuck those poor people!!!
     

    No, it's Fuck the rich!!!

     

    Why should I have to pay more for services, and pay more taxes, because I was smart enough to get a college degree?  It's not my fault some people are lazy and unambitious. 

    I'm not rich by any means, but I shouldn't be forced to pay for stupid people's mistakes.



  • @Seraph said:

    can only assume you've lived a supremely charmed life
    Based on the fact that morbiuswilters is the most pro-capitalism, anti-anything-remotely-socialist, person I have ever known online, that is probably the case. The poor don't tend to hold the kind of views that morbs does.

    Either that or morbs is an economist by profession.



  • @amischiefr said:

    Why should I have to pay more for services, and pay more taxes, because I was smart enough to get a college degree?  It's not my fault some people are lazy and unambitious. 

    I'm not rich by any means, but I shouldn't be forced to pay for stupid people's mistakes.

    You're stupid yourself. There are many reasons why some people are poor. Being "lazy and unambitious" is not the most common one. Also, you're assuming that ambition = getting stupidly rich. Not everyone pursues that. There are more important things in life than money.


  • @amischiefr said:

    I had to take my kid to the Mayo clinic and they required me to show them my two most recent pay stubs.  Apparently they charge you based on a sliding scale:  the more you make, the more you pay.

    I feel sorry for you that you live in a country where if your child gets sick the clinic starts talking about money. 

     

    Fuck those poor people!!!
    So you think the poor people's children should die?



  • @m0ffx said:

    You're stupid yourself. There are many reasons why some people are poor. Being "lazy and unambitious" is not the most common one. Also, you're assuming that ambition = getting stupidly rich. Not everyone pursues that. There are more important things in life than money.

     

    Good, then you can give up your salary to the poor.  You aren't addressing the point:  why should I have to pay other people's way?  

    If you think that being "lazy and unambitious" is not one of the main reasons why people are poor you are fooling yourself.  My grandfather died when my dad was only 6.  With no money he worked his ass off to put himself through school.  I worked two jobs and took out MANY student loans to get my degree, all while raising two kids.  What is the excuse that others have for being poor?  Until I see evidence otherwise I'll go with lazy and unambitious.

    I saw one of those Dateline/60 Minutes/ Whatever specials about the poor and the general concensus from the majority of them was: "why should I get a job when the government will continue to hand me free money?"  Most of them were making more money pan-handling than they could working.  I stick by lazy and unambitious for the majority.



  • @m0ffx said:

    So you think the poor people's children should die?

    It's called survival of the fittest.  If you are too poor to be able to afford a child: DON'T HAVE ONE.  Close your fucking legs and stop reproduction you degenerate piece of shit!  If you are poor, making under 20k a year, you have no right to have 6 children.  Alright, you have the right, but I shouldn't be forced to pay for the little fuckers is all I am saying.


  • I'm set to get a degree from one of the world's most prestigious universities. My ambition is to do a PhD, go into research and someday win a Nobel Prize.

    Now, I won't be poor, but the salary of an academic pales in comparison to that I could get in other careers. Would you say that makes me lazy and unambitious?

    @amischiefr said:

    why should I get a job when the government will continue to hand me free money?

    Well the government oughtn't to be doing that. Unless they have a legitimate reason (illness, parenthood, whatever), they should be in work or study. I don't know about the US but in the UK if you're claiming "Jobseeker's Allowance" (which is a pittance anyway) then you have to show you're looking for work, and take jobs offered to you. (Though they can't really stop you deliberately fluffing interviews or getting sacked) If you're on other benefits it's for the aforementioned reasons.

    It's those who are in work, but not earning much, who should not have to pay half their money in taxes - and are thus subsidised by the rich.



  • @m0ffx said:

    I'm set to get a degree from one of the world's most prestigious universities. My ambition is to do a PhD, go into research and someday win a Nobel Prize.

    Now, I won't be poor, but the salary of an academic pales in comparison to that I could get in other careers. Would you say that makes me lazy and unambitious?

    This is by far the worst/dumbest arguement that you have made thus far, and coming from somebody with such high goals it really makes you look stupid.  One has nothing to do with the other.  My father did a similar career path: he has a PhD in pure mathematics, but instead of taking 6 figure jobs that would require him to travel, he became an analyst.  The difference between you and him compared to the poor is that my father (and presumably you will be able to) was able to pay for his kids with HIS money, not others.  He was able to afford food, medical bills for us and didn't require the tax payers to do it.

    Comparing your academic salary to that of somebody who is actually poor is rediculous.  Now that you have completely derailed this thread please just /quit in defeat and go give some homeless guy a bath or something.



  • @amischiefr said:

    It's called survival of the fittest.  If you are too poor to be able to afford a child: DON'T HAVE ONE.  Close your fucking legs and stop reproduction you degenerate piece of shit!  If you are poor, making under 20k a year, you have no right to have 6 children.  Alright, you have the right, but I shouldn't be forced to pay for the little fuckers is all I am saying.

    In other words: I shouldn't exist, and my mother having mental health problems means she's a "degenerate piece of shit". Well now that I know what you think of me, I've no interest in engaging in any further dialogue.



  • @amischiefr said:

    If you think that being "lazy and unambitious" is not one of the main reasons why people are poor you are fooling yourself.  My grandfather died when my dad was only 6.  With no money he worked his ass off to put himself through school.  I worked two jobs and took out MANY student loans to get my degree, all while raising two kids.  What is the excuse that others have for being poor?  Until I see evidence otherwise I'll go with lazy and unambitious.

    It depends on many factors. My dad left me stranded midway through college because he lost his job; I eventually was granted student loans which helped me finish my degree, and I also got a part-time job to cover my expenses (I was living on my own by then).

    Some other kids, however, are unable to continue their studies and will never ever get a degree. I was lucky only because my dad was able to land a job for long enough so I could get the aforementioned student loans. Otherwise, I might be one of those useless "near 30 but still living with mommy for free" losers. Not exactly poor or homeless, but considering my pre-graduate income ($250/month), it does look like that.

    Oh, and I've seen cab drivers with Ph.D.'s, and beggars with biology degrees. Being poor isn't something caused solely by being lazy.



  • @m0ffx said:

    I feel sorry for you that you live in a country where if your child gets sick the clinic starts talking about money.

    Why?  It's called life, buddy.  It's unfortunate that healthcare can't grow on trees and be free, but somebody has to pay for it.  What's more, the Mayo Clinic is one of the top hospitals in the world.  In the US, children of poor families are provided healthcare free of charge but it would not be at a #1 hospital like the Mayo Clinic.



  • @m0ffx said:

    Based on the fact that morbiuswilters is the most pro-capitalism, anti-anything-remotely-socialist, person I have ever known online, that is probably the case.

    Charmed my ass.  Of course I've been through administrative fuck-ups, but I still don't need my pay stub to verify that the right amount has been deposited.  You guys need to stop bringing up added expenses in the paycheck as an example as I already said that I have never seen a payroll company like ADP that handles expenses as well -- those are always cut as a separate check by the company.

     

    @m0ffx said:

    The poor don't tend to hold the kind of views that morbs does.

    Maybe some poor people don't, but plenty of poorer people believe in private property and self-reliance so I'm not sure what the fuck you are rambling on about.  In the US, it's more often than not the middle and upper classes that are full of liberal half-wits who want to "save" the poor by enslaving them in a socialist system.

     

    @m0ffx said:

    Either that or morbs is an economist by profession.

    Nope, just an amateur, armchair economist.



  • @amischiefr said:

    It's called survival of the fittest.

    No it's not.  It's quite irritating when people frame Capitalism as a form of social Darwinism.  You're doing more to hurt liberty than to help it.  Conservativism is about individual liberty and responsibility.  The problem with welfare states is that they make those on welfare unambitious and dependent on those who work while dragging down the rest of the economy with them. 



  •  I'm as libertarian as it comes in Canada.  I even voted Freedom Party.  I may even run as a candidate for them in the next election since in the last one there wasn't a candidate and I was forced to vote NDP (take that all you nuts that think libertarianism is just extreme conservatism).  People think I'm insane.

    But seriously, morbius, you come off way crazier than me.  There are limits.  At some point people need a helping hand.  Never a handout, per se, but people will work themselves into positions they can't get out of.  Many times it isn't even for lack of trying.

     I know for myself, I went to college THREE times and until last year, I couldn't get a job better than tech support.  It isn't an attitude issue, all my employers (but one, nobody's perfect) thought I was a great employee.  It is simply an issue of me not being able to get it through my fat head that the vast majority of employers hire based on letters after your name ONLY, and NEVER based on any accomplishments (if running a million-dollar a year business doesn't work as a good accomplishment, what will?).  My present job came because I was lucky enough to have a friend working there that explained nicely to his boss that I really would be the right man for the job.  Everyone here is happy with my work.  However, without that I'd never be hired because I don't have the right letters after my name.

    By the time I realized this I was in a position where it would be a choice between going on welfare and abusing the state so they'd help me out with re-educating me, or not eating or having anywhere to live and going to college for the FOURTH TIME to get those letters.  Neither option is the morally right choice, so, before I had this great opportunity, I had consigned myself that it was over, I'd be working jobs that paid a couple of dollars over minimum wage for the rest of my life.

    So don't act as if everyone in a bad situation is there because they deserve it.  There are so many that don't.  Unfortunately, US employment statistics (and I'm certain Canadian ones) were modified years ago to purposely ignore the incredibly huge segment of workers that can't get good stable employment (about 10 - 14% of all working).  They should be listed as effectively unemployed, since many of them spend several months without income, but they aren't, because of the way things are measured.

     If you were to look around and notice that out of every 10 people you see, 1 of them only needs someone to help them get back on their feet, you would feel differently.  Instead, you look around thinking that 1 in 10 people screwed things up because they are lazy or stupid.

    Liberty and responsibility are the foundations of everyone's lives.  However, exercising those rights requires freedom.  If someone isn't free to go to school, and someone is so sick they aren't free to do anything, then liberty and responsibility are no longer considerations.  Remember maslow's heirachy of needs:

    Physiological:  Food, water, breathing, etc.

    Safety:  Security of belongings, health, etc.

    Love:  Friendship, etc.

    Esteem:  Self-esteem, confidence, etc.

    Self-actualization:   Morality, creativity, reasoning, etc.

    You want people to be at the top rung without any of the base.  This is not possible.  The previous rungs must be reasonable fufilled before you can get to the point of self-actualization.  In my case, I was missing partly esteem but also safety, this is what ruined one good opportunity I had.  If a society cannot provide some ability to fufill these needs for people, then it has effectively wasted those people.

    And that's wrong.

    Oh well, enough philosophy and psychology...



  • @shepd said:

    So don't act as if everyone in a bad situation is there because they deserve it.  There are so many that don't. 

    I don't mean to be an ass, but it sounds like you DO deserve it.  You failed out of college 3 times, what makes you think that you deserve better than what you had?  Everything in your post was complete nonsense.  I would say probably 70% of all job postings in the US will say something like the following: "A BS in Computer Science or 10 Years Experience (or Equivilent Experience)", or something along those lines.  So, if you can't get the degree, you work your way up the ladder one year at a time.  My father-in-law started as a grocery bag boy and is now working at WinDixie Corporate office.  Hard work and determination prevail whereas laziness and ineptitude give you what you deserve.

    Nothing is wrong with working for a few dollars over minimum wage so long as you are living within your means you should not need government assistance.  So you can't afford the new Hummer.   Should have got that PhD.  Did you want one for free?  I'm not sure where you were going with that.  You can live a comfortable life on a small income such as yours without government assistance.  Just live within your means.

    Stop trying to coddle these lazy bastards by saying "most" are good and are just in a bad spot when it is more likely that 1 in 100 are actually hard workers fallen on bad times.  



  • @shepd said:

    But seriously, morbius, you come off way crazier than me.  There are limits.  At some point people need a helping hand.  Never a handout, per se, but people will work themselves into positions they can't get out of.  Many times it isn't even for lack of trying.

    So the way to make things better is to force those who are successful to hand over cash at gunpoint?  And then what?

     

    @shepd said:

    So don't act as if everyone in a bad situation is there because they deserve it.  There are so many that don't.

    I specifically said it has nothing to do with "fitness" or "deserving" misfortune.  I wonder how you think paying people not to work will solve this, though.  So far it has created a perpetual underclass of drug-abusing dependents of the state who no longer bothering to help themselves.

     

    @shepd said:

    Liberty and responsibility are the foundations of everyone's lives.  However, exercising those rights requires freedom.  If someone isn't free to go to school, and someone is so sick they aren't free to do anything, then liberty and responsibility are no longer considerations.  Remember maslow's heirachy of needs:

    Free to go to school?  Since when is anybody being kept from going to school?  Now, expecting them to pay for it...

     

    @shepd said:

    Physiological:  Food, water, breathing, etc.

    Safety:  Security of belongings, health, etc.

    Love:  Friendship, etc.

    Esteem:  Self-esteem, confidence, etc.

    Self-actualization:   Morality, creativity, reasoning, etc.

    So let's have the government provide us with friendship, self-esteem, confidence, morality, creativity and reasoning, too!  Oh, wait, they're already trying that...

     

    @shepd said:

    You want people to be at the top rung without any of the base.  This is not possible.  The previous rungs must be reasonable fufilled before you can get to the point of self-actualization.  In my case, I was missing partly esteem but also safety, this is what ruined one good opportunity I had.  If a society cannot provide some ability to fufill these needs for people, then it has effectively wasted those people.

    Where did I ever say people don't need a helping hand?  Where did I ever seriously propose that the poor are somehow inferior or deserving of their situation?  The problem is when you involve the government you forcibly oppress one group and end up making dependents out of the other.  It is my desire not to turn the poor unambitious and lazy that drives my hatred of welfare.  As any decent person, I believe in charity and support many.  However, this is money and time that is given voluntarily, not at gunpoint.  What's more, the aid is generally distributed on a more local level with personal involvement.  Governments are good at bureaucracy: rules and regulations.  Helping people is not something that can be done from a formula: it requires flexible thinking and acting.  Private charities have fulfilled this role exceptionally well for quite some time; far more so than government welfare programs have.

     

    Hell, even the government has turned towards funding religious and other private charities under Bush which has shown a reasonable amount of success.  I can't say I support giving tax dollars to religious organizations, but at this point they're doing a better job of helping people than the government programs are.  My mother is a fairly liberal social worker who hates Bush, but "in the field" the religious and private charities that are receiving funding are doing a damn good job of things.  Personally, I will continue contributing to charities as I can.  I hope that one day the government lets me keep significantly more of my own money so that I may distribute it to the organizations I support.  In the meantime, I will continue doing what I can, even though I am presently unemployed myself.  That should soon be rectified and hopefully I will be free to be more generous in the future.  Hell, today I even bought one of those 3rd world HIV kids!



  • @amischiefr said:

    @shepd said:

    So don't act as if everyone in a bad situation is there because they deserve it.  There are so many that don't. 

    I don't mean to be an ass, but it sounds like you DO deserve it.  You failed out of college 3 times, what makes you think that you deserve better than what you had?  Everything in your post was complete nonsense.  I would say probably 70% of all job postings in the US will say something like the following: "A BS in Computer Science or 10 Years Experience (or Equivilent Experience)", or something along those lines.  So, if you can't get the degree, you work your way up the ladder one year at a time.  My father-in-law started as a grocery bag boy and is now working at WinDixie Corporate office.  Hard work and determination prevail whereas laziness and ineptitude give you what you deserve.

    Nothing is wrong with working for a few dollars over minimum wage so long as you are living within your means you should not need government assistance.  So you can't afford the new Hummer.   Should have got that PhD.  Did you want one for free?  I'm not sure where you were going with that.  You can live a comfortable life on a small income such as yours without government assistance.  Just live within your means.

    Stop trying to coddle these lazy bastards by saying "most" are good and are just in a bad spot when it is more likely that 1 in 100 are actually hard workers fallen on bad times.  

     

    Failed 2 times, actually (quit to be more specific).  Passed once.  Would have passed the second time if I didn't want to open a business.  I have and list over 15 years of experience in the field.  It doesn't matter.  Expeiernce isn't what's wanted.  The letters are.  Of course, the difference is, I worked at multiple places.  Your dad, I'm assuming, climbed the ladder in the same company.  I'm not like that.  If no opportunities present themselves (and trust me, in most modern day tech support, they never will) I'll find somewhere else that can give me new, better experience. But, of course, that isn't what employers care about when hiring.  They care about the letters.  I suppose if I worked tech support for Teleperformance USA, if I didn't become a crazed drug addict I might actually be able to get a job maintaining computer systems there after a decade.  However, that's *not* what the job ad states, is it?  It doesn't say "We'll hire you into something good after 10 years of experience in our company", it says "10-15 years relevant field experience" which I have and I list.

    That is what people miss. Anyone without the letters tacked to their name, unless they are a hotshot superstar (and if we all were, or even a lot of us were, then by definition nobody is) they get busted back to tech support for 10 years rather than what the job ad states, that their experience should actually hire them into the job.  I know some employers aren't like that, but they are few and far between.

    Furthermore, the ridiculous idea that everyone needs a PhD or even a BS is, well, ridiculous.  How many jobs do you see that list in the requirements "Must be able to pass tests", "Write thesis", "Able to write essays", "Able to memorize topics without forming varying opinion from authors from relatively uninteresting texts"?  NONE.  And that's 100% of the skills you need to be able to get those letters on your name (okay, for a PhD, you do need a bit more, but if everyone had a PhD, it would be as useful as having passed grade 8).  I know this from fact:  Understanding this fact is what let me graduate my third try with a 95% average.  It also is why I started a business, as once I realized this, and put it into practice (and raised my second attempt at college average to about 90%) I also realized I learned nothing useful whatsoever and stupidly figured that nobody would want someone that dumb to do a job for them.  Oops!

    And yes, if you stick with the formula above, I can't think of anything you can't pass in college or university.

    Are you kidding you can life a comfortable life on near minimum wage?  Have you ever even tried?  Here's the breakdown for where I live (NOT an expensive place at all, in fact, for the ability to actually get a damn tech job, probably the cheapest place in the entire country) for the last job I had ($10 an hour):

    $21,600 gross - $2,582 taxes = $19,018 net.

    Extremely low class (generally infested with vermin and insects up to and including bed bugs) single bedroom apartment:  $600 a month + LMR = $11,218 remaining.  Single bedroom accomodations can be had for $100 a month less, however, these afford no tenancy agreements and you have no tenant rights, which means at any time whatsoever you can be on the street (clearly not a choice)

    Utilities (generally NOT included in rent):  About $100 a month = $10,018 remaining.  Cutting back is not an option, temperatures here in the winter go well below freezing and if you don't heat the place YOU as the TENANT are responsible for repairing the place after the pipes burst.

    Food ( http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2008/CostofFoodJan08.pdf ):   $163 a month = $8,062 remaining.

    Car + insurance ( The transport system here assumes nobody works outside of 9-5, unfortunately for anyone looking for a career working with computers, this doesn't work and owning a vehicle is a requirement, even for this craptastic $10 an hour job) *: $3,600 yearly = $4,462 remaining.

    Work tool costs (you are working your way up the ladder as a computer specialist, you need F-in work tools like a computer and internet access):  $500 yearly = $3,962 remaining.

    Gas for the car:  $20 weekly = $2,922 remaining.

    Dental/health related costs:  $300 yearly = $2,622 remaining.

    Clothing costs:  $10 weekly = $2,102 remaining.

    I doubt you can call any one of those a non-essential.  And these are bare amounts.  You cannot get government assistance for things like education while you are working.  The average tuition cost here (not including books or accomodations or cost of living) is about $5,000 a year.  It will take at least 3 years to complete a program.  Calculating against CPI (your crap wage will never increase unless it hit minimum wage, I've seen and experienced this, so you will have less money remaining each year as cost of living increases and cost of tuition increases) that means you will need to save for over ~12 years to pay for college, assuming not a single mishap happens in your life during this time.  During this time you will have not a single bit of entertainment and you will not even have a telephone.  This is "living within your means".

    Consider, for a moment, that upon graduation this 30 year old person will now be over 45.  This leaves them with 20 years to work their way into something better than an entry level programming position (although at that point you'll be shitting bricks at how "great" even that is).  It also leaves them with 20 years to somehow pack away enough to live like you were living previously on $10 an hour.  That means you need to have over $8,000 a month income upon retirement.  Assuming you live another 20 years after retirement, that's $2 million you need to save by the time you're 65.  You have 20 years to do it, so you can't rely on investments to do much more than give you maybe $1 million of that.  Good luck.

    So, there you go.  Still feel good about your opinion?  Haven't lived on the line yet, have you?

    I felt the same way as you for a long time, until I lived the nightmare.  The lazy ones are the ones on welfare that do nothing for themselves.  But therein lies the rub:  The government does nothing to help those that are already helping themselves.  The government will help welfare "victims" with free education, housing, money, whatever is needed.  However, those who are in the class of workers I describe above qualify for absolutely no help from the government, even though the smallest hand up would make an incredible amount of difference.  Do you know just how many people I've met in the same boat as me?  Hundreds.  Up to now I haven't even met someone on welfare.

    Unfortunately, as a species, most of us have self-respect.  In these situations, however, the truth is it's better to just feign helplessness and let the government take control.  It's not right, though.

    * - Car cost calculated as:

    $14,000 cost of new vehicle depreciated over 10 years for $1,400 a year cost.  Repair and maintenance of about $10,000 over life of vehicle:  $1,000 a year.  Insurance $1,000 a year (This is what most 30 year old single males with perfect records pay here).  Licensing and safety tests:  $200 yearly.  Totalling $3,600 Fuel is NOT included.



  • @m0ffx said:

    It's those who are in work, but not earning much, who should not have to pay half their money in taxes - and are thus subsidised by the rich.
    Why?  Why should those who make more (and presumably are worth it) pay more in taxes than those with low paying jobs?

    WHY WHY WHY

    I have a coworker whose wife is a doctor, and ER doctor, who saves peoples' lives every day, and she only gets 55% of her paycheck cuz she makes so much.  FIFTY FIVE PERCENT!  Probably even less than that because doctors have to pay for malpractice insurance cuz everyone in America is so lawsuit-happy.  She worked her ass off to become a doctor, moved to Detroit for a few years so she could do her residency, finshed at the age of 38, all of this while she had two children (she didn't start med school until she was well out of college) and works for every dollar in her salary, just like you or me.

    Then people who work in restaurants or sell insurance get to keep most of their paycheck because they make less.

    Does that seem right to you?

    The rest of the thread is a wall of text to me (except morbius' posts) so sorry if this was brought up somewhere later in the thread.



  •  Sorry to jump in on the original discussion in the middle of the new tax/healthcare debate...

    I'm salaried. However, we are paid on the 15th and last day of the month. If either of those days falls on a weekend, we are paid on the first business day before. Hence, the pay periods are not always the same length of days, and our paychecks increase/decrease accordingly. Reimbursements are handled through separate deposits, but things like overtime pay are added directly to the bi-monthly paychecks. Additionally, meals eaten in the employee cafeteria, enrollment in gym classes, etc. are deducted from our paychecks.  I suppose I could keep a running tally of the cost of my lunches and run the math on the taxes for different length pay periods+overtime, but honestly I'd rather just check my pay stub.

    I also like to check my pay stubs periodically to make sure my vacation leave is properly subtracted. My name is very similar to another girl here and sometimes her vacation has been accidentally taken out of my leave pool, and vice versa.





  • @belgariontheking said:

    @m0ffx said:

    It's those who are in work, but not earning much, who should not have to pay half their money in taxes - and are thus subsidised by the rich.
    Why?  Why should those who make more (and presumably are worth it) pay more in taxes than those with low paying jobs?

    WHY WHY WHY

    If the matter is "higher % on higher income", I have to agree with that. However, by the very nature of tax laws, even with a flat tax rate, higher incomes will give more tax:

    30k/year 10% tax = 3k

    300k/year 10% tax = 30k

    Of course, some countries (including mine) have laws where tax % depends on income. While this wouldn't be too bad, sometimes the jumps are idiotic, ending up with 30-40% tax on people who really shouldn't get taxed so high.



  • @danixdefcon5 said:

    Of course, some countries (including mine) have laws where tax % depends on income. While this wouldn't be too bad, sometimes the jumps are idiotic, ending up with 30-40% tax on people who really shouldn't get taxed so high.



  • @shepd said:

    Are you kidding you can life a comfortable life on near minimum wage?  Have you ever even tried?  Here's the breakdown for where I live (NOT an expensive place at all, in fact, for the ability to actually get a damn tech job, probably the cheapest place in the entire country) for the last job I had ($10 an hour):

    $21,600 gross - $2,582 taxes = $19,018 net.

    Extremely low class (generally infested with vermin and insects up to and including bed bugs) single bedroom apartment:  $600 a month + LMR = $11,218 remaining.  Single bedroom accomodations can be had for $100 a month less, however, these afford no tenancy agreements and you have no tenant rights, which means at any time whatsoever you can be on the street (clearly not a choice)

    Utilities (generally NOT included in rent):  About $100 a month = $10,018 remaining.  Cutting back is not an option, temperatures here in the winter go well below freezing and if you don't heat the place YOU as the TENANT are responsible for repairing the place after the pipes burst.

    Food ( http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2008/CostofFoodJan08.pdf ):   $163 a month = $8,062 remaining.

    Car + insurance ( The transport system here assumes nobody works outside of 9-5, unfortunately for anyone looking for a career working with computers, this doesn't work and owning a vehicle is a requirement, even for this craptastic $10 an hour job) *: $3,600 yearly = $4,462 remaining.

    Work tool costs (you are working your way up the ladder as a computer specialist, you need F-in work tools like a computer and internet access):  $500 yearly = $3,962 remaining.

    Gas for the car:  $20 weekly = $2,922 remaining.

    Dental/health related costs:  $300 yearly = $2,622 remaining.

    Clothing costs:  $10 weekly = $2,102 remaining.

    I doubt you can call any one of those a non-essential.  And these are bare amounts.  You cannot get government assistance for things like education while you are working.  The average tuition cost here (not including books or accomodations or cost of living) is about $5,000 a year.  It will take at least 3 years to complete a program.  Calculating against CPI (your crap wage will never increase unless it hit minimum wage, I've seen and experienced this, so you will have less money remaining each year as cost of living increases and cost of tuition increases) that means you will need to save for over ~12 years to pay for college, assuming not a single mishap happens in your life during this time.  During this time you will have not a single bit of entertainment and you will not even have a telephone.  This is "living within your means".

    Consider, for a moment, that upon graduation this 30 year old person will now be over 45.  This leaves them with 20 years to work their way into something better than an entry level programming position (although at that point you'll be shitting bricks at how "great" even that is).  It also leaves them with 20 years to somehow pack away enough to live like you were living previously on $10 an hour.  That means you need to have over $8,000 a month income upon retirement.  Assuming you live another 20 years after retirement, that's $2 million you need to save by the time you're 65.  You have 20 years to do it, so you can't rely on investments to do much more than give you maybe $1 million of that.  Good luck.

    So, there you go.  Still feel good about your opinion?  Haven't lived on the line yet, have you?

     

    Actually I have been there.  When I was going to school I was making 15$/hr working 20-30 hours a week, and trying to raise two kids, which wasn't enough.  By the end of it I had taken out over 45k in student loans.  Of course you can't afford to go to college on 10$ an hour, but you can take out student loans like the rest of us asshole, stop begging for money.

    And by your own calculations you have $2,102 a year in play money after expenses.  Sound like, for somebody making $10 an hour, a good sum of money each year for fun/vacation.  Sure you won't be able to go to the Bahamas, but YOU MAKE $10 A FRIGGIN HOUR!!! What did you expect?

    @shepd said:

    * - Car cost calculated as:

    $14,000 cost of new vehicle depreciated over 10 years for $1,400 a year cost.  Repair and maintenance of about $10,000 over life of vehicle:  $1,000 a year.  Insurance $1,000 a year (This is what most 30 year old single males with perfect records pay here).  Licensing and safety tests:  $200 yearly.  Totalling $3,600 Fuel is NOT included.


     And this is exactly what I was talking about: live within your means.  If you are a minimum wage warrior you BUY A USED VEHICLE!  Who said you have to drive a brand new 14k musting V6?  Get a friggin 4k used Kia FFS.

    Ignorant people like you are just jealous.  You always want what you can't have and you expect somebody else to get it for you.  The fact is you CAN make it on $10 an hour and live comfortably.  You could buy yourself a nice 40k trailer and pay less than the 600 / month you pay in rent.  You COULD do a lot of things that would make your life comfortable, but instead you bitch about needing assistance.  



  • On the payroll system: yeah, that's pretty dumb that they have to print every single paystub and don't update their system.

    On economics and social programs: First:  you can only have and sustain involuntary welfare under a few conditions.  Essentially there must be sufficient margin between the income you get for being on welfare versus what you can get by being a net producer instead of a net consumer. Otherwise, people will stop producing and suck up all the welfare very rapidly when there is no income. (For an example of this, take a look at many states' current unemployment insurance funds.)

    Aside from the cases of disability, I'm still trying to figure out just what keeps people poor, and I think it has to do more with the restrictive policies surrounding the creation of new jobs than anything.  Similar to the Great Depression when the minimum wage law first passed - this effectively caused massive layoffs because instead of being able to keep all employees at reduced wages, companies were forced to fire people and pay the remaining ones the higher wage.  Currently minimum wage isn't this burden, but classification of employees as full-time, part-time, etc. is related to things like payroll taxes and the like.  Actually, now that I think about it, minimum wage is a problem - otherwise you wouldn't have under-the-table cash operations for extremely low-priced labor.

    The other thing that keeps people poor is property tax (or maybe property prices in general): you can't keep a property unless you pay property tax, and most of the time it's about impossible to get a job without property. If I were to create property tax laws, I would write them so that any property which is used for direct wealth production has no property tax. So things like farms, mines, and factories would have no real-estate related property tax but stores, homes, etc. would.  This means that you could keep a farm if it was producing, but you'd have a higher tax burden if you were a pure trader or had three summer homes.

    The current system does impose a burden on actual wealth-producers. In fact, I don't know that it's even possible to be a subsistence farmer in the US anymore the way taxes are structured.  The "poor" of times past could at least farm their own land and produce other things for an income without having to worry about taxes, busines licenses, etc.

    In my mind, the thing which keeps people poor is the high taxation of real wealth relative to taxation on services which just shuffle wealth around.  I also dislike the idea of an arbitrary "poverty level" because like most things of similar nature, "one size fits none" (that is, it makes no sense that the poverty level for the US is a common level for people in urban CA and NY versus the rural places like AL, AR, LA, MS, GA, and SC).


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @danixdefcon5 said:

    However, by the very nature of tax laws, even with a flat tax rate, higher incomes will give more tax:

    30k/year 10% tax = 3k

    300k/year 10% tax = 30k

    Not that I'm trying to disagree, but doesn't 'flat tax rate' have a higher tax free allowance than other forms of tax? Your calc's seem to assume that tax is due on all earnings.

    (I'm disputing the example, not the sentiment.)

    This whole thread seems to be debating between the tax paid by those earning nowt, and those earning scads.

    What about us in the middle?


Log in to reply