2y ago

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)

www.nbclosangeles.com 31-year-old teacher quit her job. Now she works at Costco—and boosted her income by 50%: ‘I've never been happier'

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.

125 comments

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.
- Educated young people overthrow governments. You do the math.
  
  I would but there's no teachers so I don't know math
  
  But maybe educated young people will join the govt a well, and make it better, so that we will not want to overthrow the govt.
- 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.
  
  25 years ago in my suburban Chicago public high school district, my stats teacher brought out the teacher pay schedule for us to play with.
  There were six columns:
  Bachelors, bachelors+30, bachelors+60 Masters, masters+30, masters+60
  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.
- Teaching needs to be a cushy, highly competitive job with entry pay starting at 100k a year. It needs to attract the very best and brightest.

The headline is really misleading. She now works for Costco corporate doing marketing training. The typical store employee is still around $18/hour.
This just in: Corporate jobs pay more than public school teaching jobs. Film at eleven!
- 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.
- You are why downvotes should be more common on Lemmy. You're grossly misrepresenting the article and story.

"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.
  
  We're several generations deep into a manufactured apathy meant to fragment and dilute any workers rights reforms
  We stumbled into work from home due to the pandemic, but that genie will be put back in the bottle within 2 generations.
  Robber barons never left, they just got smarter.
- 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.

When I got sick Costco graciously moved me to a food prep and service position!
<_< That's so great.....

This is becoming more and more common overall.
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.
  
  America* does not take education seriously. This is evident from 50 years of Republican policy.
  *legislators
  
  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've asked local Costco workers what it's like working for Costco. They say the company treats them very well.
- 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.
- "Then fucking school your kids at home and let's see how that goes."
  They are, and not well.
- Not sure why you made a distinction between far-right and musilm (or any religion really) extremists. Those venn diagrams are practically circles.
- Gotta shut them down.

This is less of a news report and more of an ad for Costco.
- Bullshit jobs are paying better than shit jobs. Might be a sign corporations are sitting on most of the money.

This reads like a bad ad.
- Because it’s basically right wing propaganda very subtly pushing the message that we should privatize education and that corporations are good
  
  Then it failed, because it made me want to nationalise education completely and make it free of charge, and to give teachers immense salaries

Teacher in school makes half of what teacher in Costco makes sounds like endgame for scociety.
- Actually, 2/3rds. If she's earning 50% more, that means the previous wage was 100 and now is 150. 100 / 150 is 0.6666... or 66.66%, 2/3rds.
  Sorry for the pedantism, but it's the kind of math that needs to be correct to avoid misunderstandings.
  Still an awfully sad thing, tho. Teachers should be paid the same as doctors, IMHO.
  
  Aaaand the fact that a correction on this was even relevant... Oof
- 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.
  https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB938
  Let you assembly person know we need this now.
- c/aboringdystopia

welcome to costco, i love you

Good thing us Lemmings read more than just the headline, right? Right??
- Top comment says NOOOOOOO

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.
- You also didn't read the article, at all - clearly
  
  Yeah, you got me

An inspiration, all teachers should do this!

A Costco recruiter wrote this article (and probably made this post)
- Clearly there would be a bias there, but are they wrong?
- 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.
- lemmy should ban corporate lobbyists
  
  The beauty of lemmy is that if you can come up with a way to do that effectively, you can just host your own instance that does that.

If enough teacher leave, maybe we'll start to pay them more
- Some states? Maybe. Georgia (as mentioned in the article), likely not. There has been a continual war on education in the US and we see it on display every election cycle.
  Despite their best efforts (including paying teachers in red states poverty wages), those who would keep us dumb and scared are frustrated to find a new generation that doesn't give a fuck about division along arbitrary demographic lines and is increasingly aware of class warfare.
  This drives further education cuts and cries from extremist/hate motivated groups to further crack down on our schools because these parents are so weak willed as to be offended by diversity and critical thinking.
  I hope these are the last dying wails of this kind of hatred and ignorance, but I'm not taking that for granted. Vote, educate, and promote solidarity and unity at every opportunity because the shitheels who are on the other side will fight tooth and nail to destroy education funding and cut down our teaching corps.
  Edit: How a teacher of eight years experience is making $47k a year is a travesty.
- Florida's approach was just to give anyone with a police or military background a teaching license.
  They won't up teacher pay. They'll just hire shittier teachers because the primary highlight of public education is that it is free daycare for their exhausted, working parents.
  
  "primary highlight of public education is that it is free daycare for their exhausted, working parents."
  In their eyes. That doesn't make it true. Education is, and should be treated as, the backbone of society.
  
  Oklahoma is doing the same. My first year I was teaching the other “teachers” the material they were expected to teach students.
- Nah, the only people that will still be teaching will be ideological extremists and people that want to hang out with children for other reasons.
  
  Oof...you're probably right to a degree. And that will make culture war polarization even worse when it comes to what is taught in public schools. It will be a sad state of things, when the majority of teachers are mere activists.
  As I understand it, the problem with teacher pay is with corruption in the school system, not the schools themselves not getting enough money. They have plenty of money, but they're still not paying their teachers well.
- They'll just shut down the schools

Well thats depressing

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.

OK Zelensky, we will give you $325M more. It's no like your conflict at 5000miles away touches us directly.
- Whataboutism at it's finest. Your nation spends hundred of billions of dollars in military spending and you get to look at 300M~ sent to a nation that is fighting tooth and nails to defend itself against an aggressor.
  Do you think that 300M~ could really make a difference if used to do a salary reform toward teachers? In 2018 US teachers were 3,652,000. Those 300M~ would add 89$ 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
  
  I swear... "whataboutism" is the new "conspiracy theory" or "bigot". Can't you just fucking think by yourself, parrot?!
  I feel a bit sorry you have written so much text, I didn't pass the word and therefore didn't read your argument.
- 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.
- The problem is living in a society that doesn't educate it's people.
  
  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?!?
- Yeah, that's the advice. Just no one be a teacher. Great! Now what are all the kids going to do to get into their own fields?
  
  Simple, all to the mines! Uranium is not gonna mine itself isn't it? /s
  
  That's the beauty of supply and demand. If the supply of teachers goes down, then at some point the pay has to go up to fill that need.
- 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?

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