31-year-old teacher quit her job. Now she works at Costco—and boosted her income by 50%: ‘I've never been happier' (these are not feel good stories, this is sad)
In 2022, 31-year-old Maggie Perkins quit her eight-year teaching job and got a job at Costco. She doesn’t regret the decision, and she’s never been happier. Here’s a look at a day in the life working at Costco.
She got a job working in a corporate office for a big company. This is pretty typical of not-retail-worker-salary beating out public sector nine times out of ten.
Why would someone ever be a teacher for <50k? Anybody with an education background can move to Seattle, Washington (or other state close to big city pay) and be a corporate trainer and move up to a director level role and get paid many times what they would ever be paid as a teacher...
...except so many want to stay near family, not be near a big city, can't move because of xyz, want a couple months off each year.. etc etc etc.
To quote somebody: Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense.
Just isn't that way today and there is a big political and economic mess in the way of getting there.
Uneducated people overthrow governments. Educated people involve themselves so they make a better, longer lasting, more stable and effective government in the long run.
There's this consistent delusion that if we just burn everything down and start anew that this time it will all work out for the best.
It hasn't worked for the past two millenia, it's not going to magically work now. All it does is give rise to new fascist states.
The mess is allowing decades of union-busting to be effective. Teachers in my state of Victoria (Australia) are heavily unionised, so US$50k is the starting salary. You would absolutely be making what she is now, $64k, if you’d worked for 8yrs like she had.
Edit: And that’s just for public teaching jobs. Australia has way more private schools than the US and those pay even more. With 8yrs of experience it would be easy to get one of those positions and be making $70k.
Those salaries still sound far too low for a teacher, especially since, as I understand it, your dollar doesn't buy you guys as much as our (US) dollar, or is that just in electronics and video games?
Either way, the vice principal in The Breakfast Club cites that he's making $35,000 a year in 1985. I'll assume that's the higher end of the scale since he's admin, and has been teaching for years at that point. The thing is that adjusted for inflation that $35,000 is closer to $87,000 today. It's not just teachers either. No essential worker has had a raise since the early 1970s, in fact we've had pay cuts when you look at inflation, and expected productivity.
Edit: just noticed you specified US dollars, sorry.
The +30 or +60 refer to credit hours of additional college coursework
Each row showed the number of years of experience.
In 1998, the upper-left (fresh out of college, no experience) salary was around $38,500 or something.
The bottom right (masters+60 or doctorate, and 30 or 35 years of experience [I forget]) was $151,000. And they got a great pension (fatter than what teachers in IL starting now will get).
You also got a small multiplier for each extra curricular you ran.
We had mostly excellent teachers as a result. Couple of duds too, but that's life. 70+% of graduating seniors went to college of some kind within two years. I believe I went to a good school.
But this is what happens when you fund schools through property taxes: the good neighborhoods get good schools, and it propels a virtuous cycle. The bad neighborhoods get bad schools, and they just spiral downward. It's a dumb way to fund education.
I live in Oklahoma. I make $40k/year teaching. I can not afford the up front cost of moving to Seattle. Long term I’d love to end up in a corporate job, but because teaching is so shit and a lot of people are leaving, transitional jobs are difficult to find.
You could move to Oklahoma City or Tulsa or something. If you can't save a few grand to move anywhere whatsoever i'd suggest getting a second job a couple nights a week or over the summer during break to make enough to do so. It's your livelihood anyway.
Today: What do you do when you need a new car to get to work and yours stops working from age? give up? walk many miles to work? assume the fetal position until death? I promise there is a possible way in this world to have enough to relocate, the only question is what you're willing to sacrifice to get it done. My wife lived on rice and beans for months while she saved up enough to afford tuition which ultimately made her income go from a few hundred dollars a month in another country to a little over a thousand. She learned English on her own and got a job that was a two hour commute from her home and made even more money. Now she makes over double what you do. I'm not saying it's easy, i'm not saying it's fair, i'm just saying it's possible.
The headline is really misleading. She now works for Costco corporate doing marketing training. The typical store employee is still around $18/hour.
Downvoting you, because you are mischaracterizing the article content.
The first half of it describes how she started there and the regular positions she had, before she moved up and into the teaching position she has at corporate office, which is similar to the teaching position she had before; both are of a teaching.
From the article...
At first, I made $18.50 an hour — a little less than what I earned as a teacher. I put in 40-hour workweeks, five days a week, and got a $1-per-hour raise when I hit 1,000 hours.
How TF am I mischaracterizing it? The teacher in this story got a pay bump by taking a marketing job with Costco corporate, not by working in the warehouse. The headline implies that she got a raise by working for her local Costco. That's misleading.
The important thing to remember is that she's still a teacher. She's just not teaching children anymore, since it doesn't pay enough. This should be a wake up call to most people...
"Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce; they should be making six figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to it citizens, just like national defense."
I hate how a 23 year old quote from the West Wing is still so relevant...
Next line that you left off speaks to that...still.
"That's my position. We just haven't figured out how to do it yet."
That hits hard. Will we ever figure out how to do it here?
This might be the most memorable quote from the entire run of the West Wing for me. Our teachers are doing their job out of good will and our society is taking advantage of them because their value far outstrips what they are paid.
All of this is true,
instead of happening in schools for the advancement of knowledge,
it is happening in corporations for profits and egotistical power trips.
An acquaintance of mine I met while working a help desk job: He was in process of getting his degrees to become a teacher, did so and taught high school math for 5 years. As much as he loved, and took pride in, the work he did with teens and making a difference, the continued stress of a bullshit administration (at 2 different schools and districts) took its toll. He left, becoming a corporate training (see, still teaching) and I've seen a marked difference in his attitude and life. He has less stress and a fatter paycheck.
Teachers shouldn't be put though the wringer and not be expected to react. "There's no workers shortage, just a shortage of slave labor" is more evident in their profession than any other (outside possibly food service).
You're 100% right. My wife has a masters degree in education and spent 7 years as an English teacher with 3 very different types of schools in different districts. She left to be an instructional designer (with zero experience in that field) and nearly doubled her salary overnight.
If America wants to take education seriously they need to stop screwing over teachers.
If you don't mind telling, how did she find an instructional design job? My wife is looking to make a similar transition. Any tips for trying to make the switch?
I work in a Costco. They treat me very well. Far better than the Walmart I worked at prior. Pay is far better too. As an example, I helped run the night shift as an Overnight Support Manager at Walmart. My topped out pay in that role was 50 cents an hour more than my starting pay at Costco. Now, 18 months later, I make more as a frontline grunt at Costco than I did in that management role.
3 years from now, as a frontline grunt, I'll be making more than the Assistant Manager I worked under at Walmart.
I found your comments weird but the Wal-Marts in the US appear to be garbage.
Just read that average ASM makes $40k a year. The Wal-Mart Canada average salary is $60k. All of the ASMs that I kneel about at the store I worked at made over $100k.
The amount of other shit that you have to do and the long hours makes the US ASM position very unappealing.
The Wal-Marts in Canada also do not have a top threshold for wage. You continue you get you little wage increase each year.
Costco Canada does have a wage cap based on role in Canada. It's only 3 dollars above min wage here. But you reach that 3 dollars much faster than you would at Walmart
Everyone who can should shop there, max markup is 14%, they stand by their products, generous warrantees AND they treat their people very well
Any work reform, pro Union, ethical consumers out there should actively shun Walmart, shove a finger into Amazon's ass, and shop Costco when possible, support an ethical supply chain
I feel this story buries this: Costco above other stores is a step up from most careers
I bought a router from Costco once and a week later they mailed me a check for $20, explaining that they lowered the price on the item after I bought it. Like, who does that? They have an amazing return policy too. Costco is awesome. If you drive a lot, then just the gas savings alone will cover the cost of membership. If you do most of your shopping there then the executive membership rebate at the end of the year will cover the entire cost of membership plus some extra money.
Edit: oh, and they sell hearing aids and hearing aid batteries at cost, which can save people who are hard of hearing thousands of dollars. Literally thousands of dollars on a one time purchase. For example, they have the top of the line Rexton hearing aids for $1499. Those cost $6,500 at any normal audiologist office.
I have a close friend from high school who has worked there for 15 years now, she said she never thought Costco would be more than a summer job between college searching but she's happy there and they treat her well. Nothing wrong with that
Well it's nothing wrong with working at a company who treats their employees well, it's sad that there are so few companies that we can name off the top of our heads like Costco in the US. What's sadder is how poorly the teachers in this country are treated.
Far-right media and muslim extremist are going hand in hand, blaming school of turning kids transgender. I cant believe I just wrote that sentence. Here in Canada and Québec, no one wants to work in school anymore because of those brainwashed idiots, and I dont blame them. You think school teachers have a agenda because they try to teach kids about having basic human decency? Then fucking school your kids at home and let's see how that goes. I am fed up will all those idiots who chose to boycott their brain.
If anyone here lives in California, please express your support for AB-938. It increases teacher pay and attempts to maintain it at an inflation adjusted level.
Not only that, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's more job satisfaction in retail than teaching. Teaching in the US is a dog, and I'm frankly amazed they haven't already run out of teachers.
While I'm one that normally would suspect such a thing myself, honestly, they wouldn't need to, they already have such a great rep in the states where they're located.
I've had the opposite experience. I left my job in fast food management in 2017 to pursue better options and it ended up being the most expensive mistake of my life. I was making $24/hr. I was self sufficient. I haven't made anywhere near as much since. The grass is always greener on the other side, folks.
That's because being a manager in a fast-food place means pretty much nothing. My 18 y.o. girlfriend back in the day was the manager where she worked because with two years of experience she had the most seniority. You're competing against people who actually studied management now so take classes or go back in the fast-food business (although it might be too late for that since your experience is 6 years old at that point.,.)
Similar thing happened to me after I quit serving tables after getting my degree. I went from averaging $40/hr down to $22. I still wouldn't go back, but damn 2x the monthly income is a life changer.
Whataboutism at it's finest. Your nation spends hundred of billions of dollars in military spending and you get to look at 300M~ sent to a nation that is fighting tooth and nails to defend itself against an aggressor.
Do you think that 300M~ could really make a difference if used to do a salary reform toward teachers? In 2018 US teachers were 3,652,000. Those 300M~ would add 89$ a year to each teacher salary. This instead of helping people who are fighting and dying under the fire of missiles to keep their freedom (isn't it a value dear to you fellow Americans?) beign taken away from an authoritarian state.
I invite you to reflect more deeply before making these populist comments. People are dying and are appealing to the values you marketed for years. They are literally imploring the help of the west, because they know what being oppressed feels like.
If you want to help teachers, go vote for people who promote a better welfare and social system that can benefit people doing a public service. You can help your people and make the world a better place at the same time my dude
Dude that's not how that works. The US is giving physical items for the most part that equals that cost and we already have wasted the budget on them to help pay for rich people that stay rush by making weapons.
Also it's practically a loan that should Ukraine win the US will use them to be their next golden civilization and make the capitalists every red cent back of.
But yeah should we spend less on military upfront and put it back into internal issues like teacher salary. Fuck yeah. But also we need way more taxes for that to really amount to much. It's 2 prong of not enough and shitty spending habits. Hip hip hooray but I would never think we should regret trying to help people being killed
Stop going into fields that pay like shit. I don't really see the problem here.
You have graduate after graduate complain that the jobs in their field pay like crap... but you could easily have researched what the pay rate is for these careers before you even started your degree. If it isn't as much as you want to make, then find something better.
I'm not disputing that and I'm not saying that teachers shouldn't be paid more. You're missing what I am saying. I am simply stating that if money is a consideration (and it is for just about everyone), then you should be looking up what jobs pay in a certain field before you even start your studies. And this goes for more than just teaching. I hear this all the time of how people are surprised that X field pays like shit.... well how the fuck did you get through 2 or 4 or more years of school and not look up what the job prospects are?!?
And people have stopped going into education. I graduated with my BS with one other teacher in my field. So many, many schools in my state are just going without.
Why do we not want to encourage folks to develop the next generation? Do you really want a society of illiterate adults? Are you going to complain when the person at the cash register can’t count to twenty?