I no longer remember what the meeting was about, but I think it must have been related to why the company couldn't afford a raise people were expecting. Somebody asked him a question that I couldn't hear; he looked a little flush and responded quickly, off the cuff. This guy who was wearing a nice suit, this guy who had clean hands and no burns from the presses, this guy who was easily clearing 10x what his workers made: this guy said, "I live paycheck to paycheck just like you all do!" And implied that he was just helpless in the face of his wife spending to much. Everybody in the room scoffed at him. I'm still scoffing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_(manufacturing)

I do a lot of 'proceduralised' jobs, but I'm 'lucky' in that I get to define and hone the procedure and then it tends only to be necessary for a few hours or a day or three, before I move onto something else entirely. I get a wee quick out of making things more efficient, then get to move on before my brain calcifies.

The thought of acting a mere part of a machine for 8 hours a day, weeks, months and years on end is ... well, it makes me appreciate my job, even at its worst!

Interestingly, Toyota's factory culture is very different. It's part of company philosophy to seek continuous improvement. They're also big on cross-training and investing in staff. Basically, they respect that hands come with brains, and that it's worth engaging both. I suspect I would have enjoyed that much more. If you're curious, the This American Life show on NUMMI gets at the contrast between the two approaches.

It was nearly three times what I was making and I thought "I can manage with so much less, wtf is this person’s problem?"

If someone years ago making 175k a year coding doesn't have healthcare insurance then it's likely of their own doing either through contract renegotiation or taking a pretty damn bad benefits package for the sake of a fairly high salary for such a position.

It's not that simple, given the health care mess in the US. I have a friend with top-shelf insurance and salary at bay area FAANG company who still has >$50K out of pocket medical costs every year.

In the US, medical insurance out of pocket maximums don't mean it's the most you can pay.

I've had years where according to the insurance company accounting my out of pocket has been less than $1000, but according to bills I actually had to pay my out of pocket was close to $10K.

6,000 EUR per month is $7,300 USD per month is tough if you’re a new pharmacist in the US and need to repay $300k of student loans and make up for 4 to 6 years of lost income and catch up retirement savings, as an example.

The concrete part is that people with that level of income (large, but not so large as to make all problems disappear) know that to be comfortable in the future they need to save a big chunk of their income. The people living with much lower incomes just don't have that luxury at all. Which is kind of the point - it's totally different worlds.

I disagree that lost income is purely psychological. There are biological realities to deal with, especially in the US without the social safety net of other countries, that make lost income important. The first two that come to mind are the significant cost of raising children and retirement. Those are ticking clock issues to many people.

I agree they are two different worlds for low and middle income people. But we could play this game with even lower income people elsewhere in the world and reduce the issues of the developed countries poor.

I think we probably agree on the situation but disagree on what terms make sense to describe it.

For example, if you get your bachelors in 3 years instead of 4 and spend $30k on tuition and earn $90k by working, then that would result in an extra $120k in compared to spending 4 years in college.

I class it as an expense, because everything has an opportunity cost, which is defined as your 2nd best option. It is not always useful, for example thinking about spending time with your kids rather earning $15 driving for uber or something. But it could be, if you need that $15 to feed your kids.

As soon as you put "saving for retirement" as something that's even possible, you're no longer in the realm of what's genuinely "tough".

"Oh, those people making three times what I do a month have it so tough! After paying way more than the minimum on their student loans and putting aside a large chunk of money for retirement, they might only have a thousand dollars or so of truly disposable income!"

"Tough" is when "disposable income" is a fantasy, and you're regularly having to choose between whether to pay your heating bill or buy enough food for the rest of the week.

The comment I responded to was about a politician complaining about a certain payrate. To which I wanted to show that it is possible to have to have to be stretched thin (mentally), and the politician is not thinking about having to cancel their third overseas vacation. Yes, they’re not on the very last rung of the ladder, but slipping off your rung also causes worry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

I think no matter how much you make, higher salaries always seem so much easier.

People can either budget or can’t, I don’t think it matters the actual amount. I’ve met people who were budgeted and running a family on $30k and people paycheck to paycheck on $300k.

This was right after she was first elected, before she took office.

It depends on where you live.

I lived in New York City for years. If you had a family, it would be hard to live there as on 6000€/mo, unless you had been living in the same apartment for decades. The median cost of a 2-bedroom apartment there is 3000€ a month, taxation is high (federal, city and state taxes), food is wildly expensive, etc.

I hear London and Tokyo are even worse.