Advocacy of any minimum wage is predicated on the economic ignorance that every employee’s value is worth at least that minimum. I was thinking on the drive home that a $15 minimum wage would apply to the two imbeciles who wasted my time this morning.
I needed wasp spray and was willing to pay a couple of dollars more at True Value for the triple convenience of location, easy parking and short lines. I found the spray quickly enough, and I thought I’d get a cute animal figurine.
There were two cashiers, perhaps early 20-somethings, and no other customers. The one I chose couldn’t ring up the figurine. Three times, three, he walked over to the figurine display trying to figure it out. Finally, he got it. I wouldn’t have taken it so badly had he done more than barely look at me, not even attempting to offer an explanation much less an apology for the delay. When he said, “I always have trouble scanning these,” it wasn’t even to me, but to the other.
Then he rang me up at full price on the wasp spray. I said there was a sale price indicated on the shelf. It identified the spray by brand, so I knew I had the right one. He grabbed a circular but couldn’t find it. I said again it was on the shelf. Then the other started looking at the circular as if both were deaf and didn’t hear what I said. Then the first walked off toward the shelf, without saying a thing. By this time I’d spent five minutes in this failed effort to get rung up, so I said, “I don’t have time for this.” Damn right, I walked out. I drove a bit further over to Home Depot, where parking was busy, but I checked myself out with no trouble at all.
However they are with other customers, those two did not leave me with any impression that they’re worth the current minimum wage, let alone any “living wage.”
