Happy Half Birthday To Me

Unless you're Alice in "Alice in Wonderland" you probably haven't spent much time thinking about when you're halfway to your next birthday.  Most people don't want to think about their birthday when it actually comes.  It probably started as a kid and the fact that I really liked numbers.  I probably looked forward to February 19th each year.

The only significant thing that happened on a February 19th, was forty years ago in 1979.  We had a heavy snowstorm and my college closed that day.  My roommate took me to "The Pub" on campus and I had my first beer at the age of 18 1/2. (really)  The beer wasn't that memorable and the few I've had since then haven't been memorable either.

However, this year, I got an unexpected gift.  Working as a courier there are a number of different ways you get paid for different things you deliver.  A few of these payments are just not right, including actually delivering some boxes to Wal-Mart that you get paid nothing for.  It's one thing to get paid poorly to do something, but it's another thing to get paid nothing.  As a manager and a business owner for many years, there is no way I could expect a driver to get no pay for delivering something.

I told the warehouse manager and his boss about some of these issues and made it clear that if I wasn't going to get paid at all for deliveries, they would be better off giving it to someone else since I wouldn't be delivering them.  As an independent carrier I had some leverage, but I didn't expect anything to be worked out.

I did have additional leverage since I voluntarily come in early in the morning and helped the warehouse manager sort out all the boxes for everyone.  I've been doing this for almost a year when I first started and he would have a difficult time getting it done without me.  He's a great guy (from New Jersey) and he agrees with me on the compensation.

Yesterday he told me that he got approval to pay me extra money each week and I was shocked when he said it would be $90 a week.  It would have been a lot cheaper to just compensate me for the few things I was complaining about, but they decided to make my half-birthday special.

I've always told my kids that it's important on a job to do extra things that you're not paid to do.  You should ask questions and find out how other things work and what other people do.  Going the extra mile has benefited me many times in the past, but even I was surprised how well it worked this time.

This was a lot better than my first beer.