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(MSN)   A teacher who quit her job finds more happiness working at Costco   (msn.com) divider line
51
    More: Murica, Education, High school, Teacher, University of Georgia, Employment, Maggie Perkins Maggie Perkins, Private school, University  
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1207 clicks; posted to Business » on 30 Jan 2023 at 3:25 AM (8 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



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AirForceVet [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-29 11:27:14 PM  
As many in my family were teachers, I completely understand why she changed careers.

/Especially with fascists running states, like Florida.
 
Lsherm [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 2:18:24 AM  
media.tenor.comView Full Size
 
optikeye [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 3:52:44 AM  

AirForceVet: As many in my family were teachers, I completely understand why she changed careers.

/Especially with fascists running states, like Florida.

America

FTFY
 
Mad Canadian
2023-01-30 5:13:51 AM  
Teachers get paid poorly and are treated worse than minimum wage burger flipping monkeys and can make more money working at other places, including becoming a burger flipping monkey.

Ric Romero level reporting detected...
 
Hyjamon
2023-01-30 5:21:15 AM  
FTA: "Perkins says she's much happier at her new job and no longer fears for her life."

emphasized for those in the back.  As a teacher, this is more prevalent in my mind than it really should be.
 
August11 [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 5:26:56 AM  
I know a group of teachers who teach from 8am to 2pm. They then facilitate programs until 4pm. And from then until whenever they need to call students' parents to provide voice to voice progress reports. They need to make phone contact once per week.

It's a new idea that will make most of them leave. But at least they have futures as telemarketers.
 
togaman2k [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-01-30 6:14:23 AM  
My wife is leaving being a teacher. Yes, we'll have two kids at home under age 3 (and another in 1st grade) but daycare expenses alone would eat 80% of her take home. Add a small side gig or sub a few days each month and financially we are just fine.

The biggest change will be the improvement in stress - no more expectation to be there early and stay late, no more bringing work home, no more writing lesson plans on weekends because they took away daily planning time, no more wiping tables and sweeping the cafeteria because the county cut the number of janitorial staff and expects the teachers to pick up the difference, no more expected after-hours events 2-3 nights per week.

All for just over $50k after 12 years of experience.
 
dryknife
2023-01-30 6:17:19 AM  
external-content.duckduckgo.comView Full Size
 
The Weekend Baker
2023-01-30 6:48:10 AM  
This will likely be me in a week.  Not a teacher, but a 24-year database analyst, and I finally had enough of carrying our office on my shoulders due to the lack of support by our multiple IT departments (not to mention a horribly sh*tty client).  I probably won't end up at Costco, but the idea of doing something like data entry?  Yeah, that's sounds really good right about now.
 
IAmRight
2023-01-30 7:08:52 AM  
Yeah, this is part of the Republican plan for America. The nice part (for them) is that even where they don't get to install their stupid beliefs as law, they can destroy teaching as a profession and destroy public education anyway, just as they've wanted to do ever since schools got integrated.
 
Fano
2023-01-30 7:11:08 AM  

dryknife: [external-content.duckduckgo.com image 474x342]


Came to see, "because they love you at Costco"
 
debug
2023-01-30 7:42:47 AM  
Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.
 
Nick Nostril
2023-01-30 7:55:06 AM  
My daughter, a newby teacher, did this last year due to an aggressively incompetent principal at her elementary school who apparently thought she was teaching at Harvard. Nothing was good enough. Daughter didn't find out that she'd chased the previous four teachers in her exact position out in one year on the job too. She left and went back to her college gig, working at Target. She's now back on her feet and looking at a permanent job at another school district.

I also know an engineer who did this. Don't know how happy she is but she made that decision.
 
Dear Jerk
2023-01-30 7:57:23 AM  
The same for journalism. This one time, in our newspaper jobs, the sports editor and I considered quitting to take jobs as janitors at the Woolco, because of the pay, hours, and reduced stress.
 
Another Government Employee
2023-01-30 7:59:50 AM  
That's an employment ad.

However, the point made is valid.
 
George Santos' taint
2023-01-30 8:03:51 AM  

debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.


Are you sure about the no pension, because COSTCO takes pretty good care of their staff.
 
tobcc
2023-01-30 8:20:35 AM  
Wife is a teacher, she cry's at least one day a week before going to work, about hating it.  She has 4 more years till  a full state teachers retirement. She has had colleagues leave to go work at Walmart and got paid more.
 
Rapmaster2000
2023-01-30 8:23:54 AM  

George Santos' taint: debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.

Are you sure about the no pension, because COSTCO takes pretty good care of their staff.


I thought it was pretty good too, but...  Costco offers a 50% match on your 401(k) contributions up to a maximum of $500 per year.

That's pretty lousy.  It's nice that a retailer offers a 401k, but that's a lousy match.
 
chasd00
2023-01-30 8:30:38 AM  
Wife is a teacher so I understand. Every school my wife has quit has been because of administration and not once has it been the students. Fix the "leadership", or at least ask principals to not smoke weed in their car before school, and you fix most of the problems. The incompetence in a public school district is something to behold.
 
Snarcoleptic_Hoosier
2023-01-30 8:34:06 AM  

tobcc: Wife is a teacher, she cry's at least one day a week before going to work, about hating it.  She has 4 more years till  a full state teachers retirement. She has had colleagues leave to go work at Walmart and got paid more.


I don't doubt you for a second. I have a lot of family and friends who've gone into teaching. The happiest ones are those who made enough money beforehand that they do not give a fark about district bull crap. Teaching is what they want to, not what they have to put up with it. The ones who need the job to survive? Absolutely miserable.

Your wife is a saint, according to some guy in the comments section of a news website.
 
Muta
2023-01-30 8:36:45 AM  

The Weekend Baker: This will likely be me in a week.  Not a teacher, but a 24-year database analyst, and I finally had enough of carrying our office on my shoulders due to the lack of support by our multiple IT departments (not to mention a horribly sh*tty client).  I probably won't end up at Costco, but the idea of doing something like data entry?  Yeah, that's sounds really good right about now.


That shift from IT to the business side was imposed on me when things went to shiat in 2008.  At the time I was pretty happy just to have a job.  There was no pay cut either.  I have made no attempt to go back to the IT side of it.  Also, I was able to automate many of my repetitive tasks with my programing background.  Yeah, I am a Cowboy Coder but 'F' and their lack of expertise in my business domain.
 
The_Shade_Richard_Swift
2023-01-30 8:37:50 AM  
Each time I  read these kind of stories about how teachers are treated like garbage, I always want to tell people: tell me China is going to win without telling me China is going to win.
 
Muta
2023-01-30 8:42:25 AM  

chasd00: Every school my wife has quit has been because of administration and not once has it been the students. Fix the "leadership", or at least ask principals to not smoke weed in their car before school


You're suggesting edibles?
 
Slayinit
2023-01-30 9:04:23 AM  
Hmmm...no summer break. No time off during holidays.  Work weekends & evenings. No pension. Have to deal with the general public. Yeah, I call bullshiat.

Teaching in the U.S. may be pretty bad but it's not nearly go-work-retail-instead bad.
 
jso2897
2023-01-30 9:26:30 AM  
I notice that people assume that just because they have heard people complain about something for a long time that it is normal, customary, and will somehow be okay.
That's not necessarily true, I would remind you.
Sometimes, stupid people dismiss things for generations before they result in full-blown catastrophe.
Complacency kills.
 
rogeld
2023-01-30 9:26:40 AM  

Slayinit: Hmmm...no summer break. No time off during holidays.  Work weekends & evenings. No pension. Have to deal with the general public. Yeah, I call bullshiat.

Teaching in the U.S. may be pretty bad but it's not nearly go-work-retail-instead bad.


Less likely to be shot in a Costco
 
Eightballjacket [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 9:39:05 AM  

debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.


Exactly, I went to college with a guy who went an extra year and got his teaching degree.  Out of all of us who hung around together, he is the only one who is retired. Made pretty good money his whole career and has a good enough pension that he can do what he wants and is only 55 years old.
 
ranchguy
2023-01-30 9:44:01 AM  
Full time teachers salaries should be immune from Federal income tax up to 100,000 (including spousal contribution) and ideally state income taxes as well. It is a hard job and harder still to raise a family and teach as evidenced up thread. K-12 should be where we put maximum effort and 12+ should be all on those who seek degrees (with exclusion of true rural primary care physicians).

We won't put any effort into this as Murica's idea is to destroy education, deny health maintenance, and deny health insurance. Keep the workers struggling until they are replaced with AI bots.

Then ideally it is Wall-E world, or maybe more like Soylent Green
 
dylanthomas
2023-01-30 9:44:15 AM  
I'd be really happy to learn that my kid was one of her students during her 2 year 'quiet quitting' period.
 
pounddawg
2023-01-30 10:41:29 AM  

Eightballjacket: debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.

Exactly, I went to college with a guy who went an extra year and got his teaching degree.  Out of all of us who hung around together, he is the only one who is retired. Made pretty good money his whole career and has a good enough pension that he can do what he wants and is only 55 years old.


Costco offers retirement plans.

/works at school district
//I get why teachers are leaving.
///3
 
Ethertap [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 11:00:38 AM  
My mom taught for over 20 years (I think it was 22 total) when she "retired". She works part time as a receptionist at one of the community pools in her neighborhood. She is much happier working part time than she would have been trying to stick it out a few more years when she was already burned out on it.

Financially, my parents are fortunate that she was able to do that, but the fact that teaching (a job she used to LOVE) became that awful for her is what concerns me more than anything.
 
sinko swimo
2023-01-30 11:07:04 AM  
any teacher quitting teaching is bound for happiness. Administration in schools are headaches and the students are much worse. America truly lacks good parenting.
 
Tax Boy
2023-01-30 11:20:17 AM  
Why quit teaching to work at Costco when you can do both?

Costco has a great law school.
 
debug
2023-01-30 11:23:44 AM  

pounddawg: Eightballjacket: debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.

Exactly, I went to college with a guy who went an extra year and got his teaching degree.  Out of all of us who hung around together, he is the only one who is retired. Made pretty good money his whole career and has a good enough pension that he can do what he wants and is only 55 years old.

Costco offers retirement plans.

/works at school district
//I get why teachers are leaving.
///3



https://www.zippia.com/costco-wholesale-careers-2996/benefits/

As mentioned previously, Costco provides health insurance to the retirement plan of all full-time and part-time employees that have worked at the company for at least ten years.
On top of that, Costco also has a 401k retirement plan. This means that a minimum of 3% of your eligible earnings goes to your Pension Plan account. Plus, if you choose to contribute 4% of your earnings as an optional contribution, Costco will contribute an additional 2%. So in this instance, that would mean that the company contributes 5% to your Pension Plan.
Overall, Costco matches 50% of an employee's contribution, up to a maximum of $500 per year.


This is nowhere close to a state teacher pension.
 
tobcc
2023-01-30 11:37:17 AM  

debug: pounddawg: Eightballjacket: debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.

Exactly, I went to college with a guy who went an extra year and got his teaching degree.  Out of all of us who hung around together, he is the only one who is retired. Made pretty good money his whole career and has a good enough pension that he can do what he wants and is only 55 years old.

Costco offers retirement plans.

/works at school district
//I get why teachers are leaving.
///3


https://www.zippia.com/costco-wholesale-careers-2996/benefits/

As mentioned previously, Costco provides health insurance to the retirement plan of all full-time and part-time employees that have worked at the company for at least ten years.
On top of that, Costco also has a 401k retirement plan. This means that a minimum of 3% of your eligible earnings goes to your Pension Plan account. Plus, if you choose to contribute 4% of your earnings as an optional contribution, Costco will contribute an additional 2%. So in this instance, that would mean that the company contributes 5% to your Pension Plan.
Overall, Costco matches 50% of an employee's contribution, up to a maximum of $500 per year.


This is nowhere close to a state teacher pension.


My wife is a teacher, we live Missouri.  The pension that they have it run by the state.   Every few years some redneck, in our redneck state tries to "save money" by proposing to cancel the teachers pension.   Moving it into 401k's, that I am sure would run by some politicians brother in law.   But it would also allow the state to get there hands on the pension money, to "invest", ie use in its pet projects.

My wife has 4 years till she gets full retirement as a teacher, but even in the meetings about retirement they bring up that there still is a chance at any point it could just go away.

I work in Healthcare (IT), I worked for a large public hospital that just cancelled our pension one day.  After 10 years I only got $60k in an annuity that earns > 3% .   Course I left and went somewhere else, but once again public healthcare I got a 403(b) instead of a public pension.

Staying in teaching for pension is turning into a losing proposition as the politicians still have ultimate control of them.
 
Not again 5
2023-01-30 11:53:29 AM  

debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.


I'm a teacher, and it's my secondish career.  I have close to 25 years in Social Security that I have to give up 65% of to get my teaching pension.  My teaching pension is laughable.  But at least it's there.
 
natazha [BareFark]
2023-01-30 12:16:31 PM  
My mother quit teaching and took a back-office job at the UoA food services. 8-5 and zero interactions with parents.
 
Eightballjacket [TotalFark]
2023-01-30 12:27:16 PM  

pounddawg: Eightballjacket: debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.

Exactly, I went to college with a guy who went an extra year and got his teaching degree.  Out of all of us who hung around together, he is the only one who is retired. Made pretty good money his whole career and has a good enough pension that he can do what he wants and is only 55 years old.

Costco offers retirement plans.

/works at school district
//I get why teachers are leaving.
///3


I'm in Michigan, the teacher pension is quite generous.

I do quite a few tax returns of retired teachers, they do quite well.  So do retired cops.
 
My Second Fark Account
2023-01-30 12:34:38 PM  

debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.


Let's see if teachers pensions exist in 30 years.
 
My Second Fark Account
2023-01-30 12:38:41 PM  

ranchguy: Full time teachers salaries should be immune from Federal income tax up to 100,000 (including spousal contribution) and ideally state income taxes as well.


Or just pay them more.
 
CCNP
2023-01-30 12:42:42 PM  

Mad Canadian: Teachers get paid poorly and are treated worse than minimum wage burger flipping monkeys and can make more money working at other places, including becoming a burger flipping monkey.

Ric Romero level reporting detected...


It's worse than anyone thinks.

The only developed countries that pay teachers less than the US are Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Ireland, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Israel, South Korea and Japan.  https://data.oecd.org/teachers/teachers-salaries.htm
 
Nonpo
2023-01-30 1:01:25 PM  

CCNP: Mad Canadian: Teachers get paid poorly and are treated worse than minimum wage burger flipping monkeys and can make more money working at other places, including becoming a burger flipping monkey.

Ric Romero level reporting detected...

It's worse than anyone thinks.

The only developed countries that pay teachers less than the US are Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Ireland, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Israel, South Korea and Japan.  https://data.oecd.org/teachers/teachers-salaries.htm


This is why every time my sister does the poor underpaid teacher shtick I find it annoying because she makes literally twice what I do from working manual labor and she only works 7 hour days, 10 months a year with multiple "free periods" every day. Teachers are not underpaid, they make significantly more than the average worker for working significantly fewer hours. I swear teachers have no idea that the average pay in this country is actually $15 an hour.
 
morg
2023-01-30 1:48:01 PM  
I think about this frequently. Not specifically Costco but anything where you don't think about work when you're trying to go to sleep.
 
MikeyFuccon
2023-01-30 2:16:19 PM  
I don't doubt it, as far as it goes. A friend of Mrs. F quit nursing after finding out she could make more per hour walking and boarding dogs.

If you pay less for something, you get less of it. The rest is commentary.

But please, tell us more about what you think critical race theory is, uncle Cletus.
 
George Santos' taint
2023-01-30 2:23:29 PM  

sinko swimo: any teacher quitting teaching is bound for happiness. Administration in schools are headaches and the students are much worse. America truly lacks good parenting.


quickmeme.comView Full Size
 
madgonad [OhFark]
2023-01-30 4:28:05 PM  

togaman2k: My wife is leaving being a teacher. Yes, we'll have two kids at home under age 3 (and another in 1st grade) but daycare expenses alone would eat 80% of her take home. Add a small side gig or sub a few days each month and financially we are just fine.

The biggest change will be the improvement in stress - no more expectation to be there early and stay late, no more bringing work home, no more writing lesson plans on weekends because they took away daily planning time, no more wiping tables and sweeping the cafeteria because the county cut the number of janitorial staff and expects the teachers to pick up the difference, no more expected after-hours events 2-3 nights per week.

All for just over $50k after 12 years of experience.


I left teaching over two decades ago. I don't miss it, but I acknowledge that I have given up something.

First, if I stayed where I was I would have hit the max (25 years) on the salary schedule and been paid $80,735 this year for a ten month contract. Converted to a regular job that is an annual salary of $96k. That is a tiny bit more than what I make in the private sector.

Second, retirement. Full retirement is the rule of 80 (age plus service) or work 30 years. I could retire in 2 years if I was still a teacher and start drawing $4,700/mo (which COLAs up for life). Full retirement for the real me is 16 years away.

These numbers are for teaching in Missouri in a suburban district.

There are some shiaty sides of teaching, but there are some hidden benefits.
 
iamskibibitz
2023-01-30 4:46:46 PM  

Rapmaster2000: George Santos' taint: debug: Lets check back in with her in 30 years and see what she thinks when she's not retired with a pension.

Are you sure about the no pension, because COSTCO takes pretty good care of their staff.

I thought it was pretty good too, but...  Costco offers a 50% match on your 401(k) contributions up to a maximum of $500 per year.

That's pretty lousy.  It's nice that a retailer offers a 401k, but that's a lousy match.


Assuming you start in your 20's or early 30's and got a decent rate a return, you'd be looking at $100k to $150k upon retirement on the match alone. No, not amazing but you'd have at least double that (since it's a match and all) and more if you saved, say, $1k/yr. And if you were at Costco that long, you'd probably have a chance to move up to management, which can pay 6-figures.
 
Bruscar
2023-01-30 9:11:04 PM  
First, American students need more staff, not more stuff.

As much as the pay, the hours are an issue. The public is under the impression that teachers' still have summers off, but most systems are very close to having year round school now. Teachers' scramble to pack in mandatory training during shorter and shorter summers. Or they fight a losing battle trying to catch up kids who need summer school in well under a summer. The school year, the school building typically opens at 7:00 to accommodate breakfast. It doesn't matter when the last class is dismissed if the last bus doesn't come until 5:00. Strapped systems push teachers into working dual roles. Instead of going home after school, teachers coach various sports and lead school clubs. Then, they still have to plan lessons, assign work, and grade student work. This is a system that might have been somewhat successful when married women weren't school marms and working women didn't have families. Now, however sincere the principal who works from 7 am to 8 pm is; however heart-felt his concern for the students may be; when he expects his teachers to do the same; he contributes to their burn out.

We need more funding for schools that is ONLY allowed to be spent on staff. We need a federally guaranteed floor for teacher salaries. School systems with 55% or more students who qualify for free or reduced price meals should receive grants for construction of additional classroom space and the teacher salaries necessary to limit all classrooms in the system to no more than 15 students per class. Schools with 10% or more students who are ELL; or with 10% or more students who are disabled should receive grants to fund the teacher salaries necessary so that these students are in classes with no more than 15 students per class.

The laptops, the Prometheus Boards, even the distribution of free school supplies can't provide the human contact that makes real a difference in learning. No gadget can replace a caring teacher. As previously stated, American students need more staff, not more stuff.
 
GrizzledVeteran
2023-01-30 10:23:24 PM  
For everyone making PENSION comparisons: you might know of the Social Security thing...in some states, it's set up so teachers "Opt-Out" of SS (as it were), and so get a pretty substantial pension from the state in the end--it's as if their SS contribution had gone into the state's pension fund all those years. Here's a good article about it:

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/mapED/storymaps/TeacherSocialSecurity/index.html

Missouri is one of those states. madgonad just above tells us that if he/she had stayed in K-12 'til retirement, there'd be $4700/month available two years from now (not bad at all!). But, MO teachers don't separately get SS (based on their decades of teaching wages, anyway).

I retired from teaching in an Opt-Out state (living costs roughly like MO's); my pension won't be that much, but in combination with SS I'm doing comparably.

SO, if an acquaintance complains about the super-cushy teacher's pensions in some states, please do bring up the SS thing....it's pretty pivotal...
 
ThighsofGlory
2023-01-31 10:41:05 AM  

IAmRight: Yeah, this is part of the Republican plan for America. The nice part (for them) is that even where they don't get to install their stupid beliefs as law, they can destroy teaching as a profession and destroy public education anyway, just as they've wanted to do ever since schools got integrated.


My ex was an elementary teacher in Richmond, California. He moved to Minneapolis and couldn't get a teaching job there. Too white, too male.
/works at Costco, last I heard
 
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