Paydays

Who doesn’t like a payday? Paydays are the best part of working for most people and the reason they work in the first place. Sure, there are some crazy, whack-a-doodles who just like working and would do it whether they were paid or not. I remember listening to an interview with Don Henley of The Eagles a few years ago and he was telling the interviewer how much he loved playing music and if the band hadn’t become famous he would still be playing for the love of it. Shortly after, tickets for The Eagles concert went on sale and the cheap seats were over $200 each. I guess it’s easier to love if there is a huge payday attached.

One of my first jobs was working at a lumberyard. Most of the work force was Italian immigrants, very hard working people. One of the older men working there insisted on being paid in cash. Everyone else was given a pay check but this guy wanted money in his hand. I suppose that he lived through the depression and just didn’t trust banks at all. He was a hard worker and the company reluctantly paid him in cash, only him!

Any job that I have worked at has paid me every two weeks. Some jobs paid you on the Fridays and some companies had their payday on Thursdays. I have always felt that the smarter companies used Fridays as payday which avoided having employees calling in with alcohol sickness the day after payday. The Post Office always paid us on Thursday of course. They have never been known to be clever business leaders.

I liked having the boss come around every other Thursday morning with an envelope that said “We appreciate all of the hard work you put in over the past two weeks and only God knows how we would have gotten along without you.” Okay, the supervisor generally just tossed an envelope on my sortation case and grunted in my direction. Still, I got a pay envelope that I could take to the bank later on in the day. Eventually the Post Office wanted us to have direct deposit. Direct deposit was a relatively new thing at the time and I didn’t trust the people in Payroll not to screw up my check, so I didn’t opt for the direct deposit. Eventually, I was forced to get direct deposit. I can only think that the supervisors didn’t like getting up from behind their desks every two weeks and walking up and down the aisles.

I am retired now and didn’t get a choice on how my pension should be paid to me. I would like them to drive out with a check at the end of every month of course, but that just wouldn’t happen. Barring that, it would be nice to get my check in the mail and then I could walk over to the bank and chat with the tellers every month. Nope, it also comes direct deposit and I don’t know from month to month if they are cheating me or not. I don’t think they would intentionally cheat me, but it has been my experience that people working in payroll have less on the ball than a retarded chimpanzee.

When I started to collect my CPP, I chose to have it mailed to me at the end of every month. In my mind it was the government saying “Thanks for the years of hard work you put in making this a country we can all be proud of!” The reality was basically the government tossing it at my front door and grunting, but I was happy with that. It enabled me to go to the bank and chat with the tellers once a month. Well, that didn’t last long before I was told I had to set up direct deposit or…well, no “or”, just set up the damned direct deposit.

Great!

The only thing I can do now is to live to be 123 years old and make the bastards come out to the home every month to make sure I am in fact, not dead. When I am turning 124 years old I will give them the option of paying me cash or mailing my check. I suspect that they will mail the check in hopes that the exercise will finish me off.