I was talking to my coworker about her 2nd job, she works with a bunch of teenagers and boy does she have a lot of stories, stories with drama.
This latest one was about a girl who let slip to another employee that she makes $8 an hour, well girl two got upset cause she only makes 7.50 and hour. She took off and complained to the floor lead asking how girl one could make more than herself and she had been there longer.
Well, needless to say floor lead girl was upset also cause she only made 7.75 and hour, so the three of them went to the manager to complain. First, the manager laughed and said to girl one that she doesn’t make 8 an hour, instead she makes 7.25 an hour, which is minimum wage there. Then she told all three, that no one should be talking about their salary because nothing good comes of it and she didn’t want to hear them talk about again.
While my coworker was telling me this story I thought about the story that Jesus to his disciples about a landowner who hired ‘day workers’.
I’ll summarize the story, but you can read it yourself at Matthew 20:1-16
Here is the story–
A landowner has a large plot of land that needs to be worked, so he goes out early in the morning and hires some guys for X amount of money. They agree to that amount for the day.
About every 3 hours the landowner would go out and pick up some ‘day workers’ to work for the same X amount of dollars until the day and work is done.
By the end of the day the ‘day workers’ line up to get their day’s pay, each person in line, no matter if they started at 6am or only came in at the last 3 hours, they all get paid the same X amount. Well, of course the guys in line see this and those that had worked longer than other start complaining to the land owner.
Well the landowner asks, did you agree to X amount of money to work for the day? They agreed that they did. The landowner then suggests that they stop whining and take their pay and go and stop telling him how to run his business and hire his workers.
The END
It is amazing how talking about money causes either one of two emotions to pop up, either you internally thank god you make more than them or you internalize anger either at the person who makes more or at yourself for not asking for more.
It’s a green monster of envy and greed that is unfortunately part of our humanity, but one thing I have noticed, it isn’t necessarily a bad monster… it helps me realize that each and every one of us has a green monster, we are alike in that respect. At our core we are similar and in my opinion, I’m glad that we have a God who understands that in us.
Isn’t it ironic that the color of money is green? It’s so bad to talk about wages with co-workers. I mean, that’s rule #1, however, I noticed in smaller businesses or retail, people will bring this up only because it’s smaller wages…meaning…if they were in a business making 75k and up, + bonuses, it’s sorta a faux pas to talk about it – but regardless, any wages spoken of results in a negative outcome.
Great story from the bible to line it up with! Thank you!