Emily Duprie
One Costco worker (natnatt21) posted a TikTok explaining how she was making a whopping $30/hour at her store just to double-check people’s receipts as they walked out the exit. In a text overlay of the viral video she stated ‘When you make $29.50 just to draw smiley faces on receipts.”
Financial equality has always been an issue, and it isn’t going to be solved anytime soon. It’s easy to compare your hard-work and pay with other people, especially when making a living is so challenging nowadays.
This Costco employee shared how she was making $30 an hour simply to stand by the exit of the store and check customers receipts with a “:)” as they left.
Natalie expressed in her video her enjoyment of working at Costco as she makes $29.50 per hour ‘just to draw smiley faces on receipts.’ You might find such a task strange if you’ve never heard about Costco’s tradition of putting smiley faces on the receipts as the worker checks it before a customer leaves. This tradition is a special part of having a Costco membership, and most members take pleasure in the sanctification of that happy little face on their receipt.
Those who saw the video were split between two view-points: some were enraged by the fact that such a simple position paid more than they were currently making with their degree, and others were happy for the user and her success.
One user covered both sides with their comment:
In that particular video, Khaleah (OP) shows a comment that says, “I’m out there saving lives and you’re putting smiley faces on paper AND we have the same pay… Make it make sense.” She says that she noticed a lot of comments such as this in which people expressed their opinion that retail or food industry jobs are easier so they should be paid less than, for example, medical professionals.
Obviously, people who have studied for their degrees to get a certain job or who worked for years to have experience have a right to be upset, but directing their anger at someone who happened to find a good opportunity wasn’t the way to go about it.
Viewers continued to bash OP, to which she screen-shared her video and expressed her shame towards a job she was once proud of.
It’s disheartening that the only solution people can see is insisting others settle for a worse financial state. Though it’s true that $30 per hour is a lot more than the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25, viewers and TikTokers alike should be able to live normal fulfilling lives instead of just surviving, no matter what job they have. And those who need to get an education and work their way to the position they want should be awarded for their efforts accordingly. In a perfect world of course…
Other users were happy to see the success of another worker, and shared their insight on how it isn’t fair to lash out against another working class citizen just because capitalism made things so competitive.
