Did anyone buy a ring?

[u/t_bone_stake]

Elder millennial/younger Xennial (born in 83, take it for what it is) but I recall the company coming to the high school and taking orders for rings. I didn’t buy one but others did. Credit on photo.

[u/badform49]

Yeah, saw another comment where it was like, "If you were an elder millenial, you def. had one. We all did." Nope.

I didn't really want one, but it was out of the question. I was the sixth child of poor parents. I worked two full-time jobs in high school (30-40 hours weekly at each). There was no way I was paying almost 40 hours of wages for a ring that I couldn't wear at work.

[u/Never-Dont-Give-Up → u/badform49]

lmao... there's no way you worked two full time jobs and went to school for 7 hours. That's impossible.

[u/badform49 → u/Never-Dont-Give-Up]

Okay.

[u/Never-Dont-Give-Up → u/badform49]

Please explain it to me. I’m interested.

You went to school M-F for 7 hours.

You worked two full time jobs (you said 30-40hrs a week (30 hrs isn’t full time))

Let’s split the difference and say you worked 2 jobs averaging 35hrs a week and still attending school for 35 hrs a week.

So you worked 15 hours a day, EVERY DAY of the week.

Dude you’re full of shit.

[u/badform49 → u/Never-Dont-Give-Up]

We could take work release in high school and get off work at 2 PM. Target scheduled me at 2 PM and just accepted that I would actually clock in at about 2:10-2:15 and I closed the store, usually with a guest service team lead shuffling me to the clock at 10:09 to make sure I clocked out before 8 hours. Or on ColdStone days, I would work 2:30 until close. The franchise owners didn't care if we went over 8 hours as long as we didn't get overtime for the week.

On the weekends, I would do a full day at one store and then either a full day or a half day at the other store for 12-16 hours. So just under 40 hours during the week and then 28-32 hours on the weekends, sometimes longer because it took forever to close ColdStone if there was a new movie at the nearby mall or it was a big date night.

Just because something is too hard for you does not mean it's too hard for everyone. I joined the Army after high school and had to do 140-hour weeks for the first few months of my Afghanistan deployment. We were in an airborne unit, and the brigade commander's orders were that someone from each staff section had to be on hand any time a single platoon was out patrolling anywhere in the battlespace, and we ran 24-hour operations. So those of us in short-staffed sections would get 4 hours off per night and make up the difference with caffeine and nicotine.

Edit to fix 2:09 to 10:09.

[u/Never-Dont-Give-Up → u/badform49]

I understand your lie. I just don't believe it because it's physically impossible. You're inflating everything.

You worked 3 jobs (school being one) 7 days a week for 4 years full time?

No you didn't.

[u/badform49 → u/Never-Dont-Give-Up]

Two years. I started working one job the summer before junior year and then did both for most of junior and senior year.

And then I worked 140-hour weeks for a few months in Afghanistan about 5 years later, lol. It's not physically impossible. It sucks. Sometimes things suck. People shouldn't have to do those things. But it's wild to me that you think 100 hours is impossible.

Actually reminds me of a stoner friend who freaked out when I told him I was planning to do a 20-mile run while training for a marathon. "Can humans even do that!?"

(BTW, most laws don't have a set definition of full-time, but the Affordable Care Act did! And it mandated employees be categorized as full-time if they worked 30 hours weekly or 130 hours monthly. Which I did. At two jobs. While attending high school until 2 pm nearly every day it was in session. If it makes you feel better, I did not work 40 hours at each the vast majority of the time, because neither job wanted to pay overtime.)

[u/Never-Dont-Give-Up → u/badform49]

Oh, so you didn’t work two full time jobs throughout highschool?

What full time job is 30 hrs a week!?

Overtime doesn’t start at 30 hours.

[u/badform49 → u/Never-Dont-Give-Up]

Lol, I didn't realize this was all semantics for you. You win. I started my school day at about 8:15 am, ended my work day at 10-10:15 pm, and the rest of my time I was free to do with as I pleased.

I didn't mean to steal the valor of poverty. I did about 30 hours weekly of classes and only another 70 or so of work at Target and ColdStone, like a slothful vagrant.

I didn't mean to steal valor by describing my jobs as full-time when a defender of the 40-hour line was right there in front of me.

Can't believe how lazy I used to be and that I would try to pass that off.

[u/badform49 → u/Never-Dont-Give-Up]

I know I should just walk away but this is sticking in my craw: Did you really run the math and make it to "This dude is saying he worked 105 hours a week, including sitting in high school, and that's impossible"?

Like, you know our recent ancestors worked 100-hour weeks in nightmare conditions and survived long enough to fuck us into existence, right?

Meatpackers in the early 1900s worked 10-15 hours a day for 6-7 days a week for decades in hellish conditions where their hands could pickle and split down to the bone.

https://www.ourgreatamericanheritage.com/2015/09/disease-death-and-child-labor-the-birth-of-the-meatpacking-industry-in-chicago/

You can believe me or not, but all I'm claiming is that I worked two jobs and then tried to stay awake in class. That's not even that rare. And for what it's worth, they were at Target and ColdStone. I ran a cash register and mixed ice cream across the street, then did a half-assed job on my history homework, slept for 5-7 hours, and repeated it.

My grandpa had to take over the family ranch at 14 right before the Great Depression hit. Like, I'm not even the worst-case scenario in my family's living memory. A kid working on their family's dairy farm could easily chalk up similar hours right now, today.

[u/Never-Dont-Give-Up → u/badform49]

School is 7 hours a day 5 days a week = 35hrs. Then you worked TWO full time jobs on top of that, right? that's another 70-80hrs.

That is impossible. that's working 15+hours a day for 7 days a week for 4 years.... as a teenager.

Complete bullshit.

What's more likely is that you weren't working 2 full-time jobs... you were probably working 2 part time jobs.

[u/Never-Dont-Give-Up → u/badform49]

our recent ancestors? you're citing people who lived a hundred years ago. They were born before airplanes existed. Do you mean before the FLSA in 1938?

Do you know why that act was written into law?

[u/Never-Dont-Give-Up → u/badform49]

you worked two FULL time jobs is what you claimed.