'I'm feeling guilty': Minimum wage worker goes from making $13/hr to $32/hr, using dishonesty to climb the ladder and support his newborn baby

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jul 11, 2023 1:00 PM EDT

Getting a good job is nearly impossible these days. One man learned that in today's America, you gotta be a little ruthless, a little dastardly, and extremely cunning in order to get everything you want out of a job. In this case, OP was a minimum wage worker who was living with his parents who hacked the system with a little white lie, scoring the job of his dreams and securing a better future for his baby. Nowadays, a minimum wage job doesn't afford you much of a life, especially when you're a millennial poth3ad with a newborn baby on the way. 

OP was forced to make a tough choice. Should he continue on in his $13/hour job, crashing on his parents couch? Or should he fudge his own numbers a little bit to boost his corporate stocks? In the most quintessentially American way, OP chose the latter and decided to chase after that check, no matter what it cost his ethics. 

Cheating on a test couldn't be as bad as sleeping on a couch… right?

Scroll for the full story on how one man got his payday and climbed the corporate ladder using dishonest tactics and a little cunning to carve out his seat at the top. For more tales of minimum wage workers working overtime, check out this tale of a worker who took on a second job to make ends meet then got told off by their boss for being less available. 

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  • 01
    Font - www REISTASS Gather 230 C E NOTE DSTATE RICA B 100 TW G FEDERAL RESER LF 5949877 F6 D STATES RESIVE SYSTEE "To be successful you gotta bend the rules a little." WHE OLLARS TED STATES OFAMERICA THIS FOR ALL DEBTS PLEG JULY 4. 1776 & PURGALEND AND PRIVATE 100 061 STON, DC
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  • 02
    Font - r/antiwork Realizing to make it in the US you have to be a bit dishonest.
    via s3xface420
  • 03
    Font - Disclosing because I have left this position and have no ties to the company. Be me, it's 2022, your son just turned one year old and you're making $13/hr at a manufacturing plant. You live with your parents and you can't
    via s3xface420
  • 04
    Font - afford to move out along paying for supplies and support for baby. Smoke weed. I quickly realized that I needed more money, but I have no degree. So what did I do? I started studying for a certification. It would be ~20 degrees in the plant and I'd be
    via s3xface420
  • 05
    Font - studying at my desk, taking breaks to wrap my hands with pocket warmers. I scoured every entry level tech type of job I could find. Finally, I found a great position offering $25/hr, no
    via s3xface420
  • 06
    Font - experience necessary. Took their aptitude test, passed it, passed the interviewing stage, recieved job offer. Now I was excited, I live in LCOL area and this was my shot. But there was one thing I needed, to pass a drug test.
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  • 07
    Font - Now I knew I was screwed. I wouldn't be able to detox in the time frame and I got desperate. I needed piss. Found some from a government employed friend. Kept it fresh, heated it up, wrapped it in a pocket warmer
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  • 08
    Font - and stuffed it in my boxers. Go in, make the move and submit my sample. Now that week was the most anxious and tense 7 days of my life. I hear nothing back, then I finally get the email with my start date and orientation. I breathe a sigh of relief.
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  • 09
    Font - I start the job and it is great. I'm able to move out of my parents, put my son in daycare, but a new car, wonderful. I make my rent in less than a week. I've built such a rapport with my plug he'll give me free test packs just for me.
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  • 10
    Font - The job is union protected, great benefits, great managers. Now I had to work very hard, in very dangerous and stressful conditions. I don't regret it at all, but I remember thinking to myself during training (which I
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  • 11
    Font - got paid travel, hotel, and food for) that man, this is the life I'm being kept from for something as asinine as we.ed. So I'm feeling guilty but not like crazy guilty about what I've done when we get a new manager. Now let me tell I love this guy,
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  • 12
    Font - best manager I've ever had in my entire working career. The empathy and respect show by someone who was in my same title and position just a year earlier, man. Now the job isn't just physically demanding but there
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  • 13
    Font - are also performance goals to meet. But come to find out, as a tech, my manager basically broke/bent some rules to get immaculate results, which led to his promotion as manager. And I come to the realization, that to be
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  • 14
    Font - successful at least to the point of full on self sufficiency, you gotta bend the rules a little. Also that drig tests are arbitrary as hea, I can only speak for myself when I say that I'm not stealing company property to buy some weed.
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  • 15
    Font - But with one year of hard earned experience under my belt, I have left that job, and have accepted an offer for $32/hr doing essentially the same work but in sweet sweet AIR CONDITIONED offices. Which I wouldn't have got without the experience from that one job. And also with the skills
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  • 16
    Font - learned, I'm the asset these companies need. I'm not advocating for my actions but the people above get away with things much more consequential than a slick drug test. Do what you gotta, because they already are.
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  • 17
    Font - Zemirolha 14 hr. ago You haven't been taught how to cheat properly. If you cheat and fail, you're a cheater. If you cheat and succeed, you're savvy
    via Zemirolha
  • 18
    Font - mcjard 16 hr. ago I'm quickly learning that even with my educational background, I'm going to have to lie to get any decent position. I swear, before I got a lowest level tech job, I figured the industry was just that cutthroat.
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  • 19
    Font - zackiffer 13 hr. ago Think for a sec how weird and invasive it is that a company you want to work for, and seem to them to be a good fit for, decides that they need a thurd party to inspect your waste to determine if youve put the incorrect chemicals into your body.
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  • 20
    Rectangle - Freddy Faraway 10 hr. ago Rules like that are definitely a way for them to fire you whenever they want.
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  • 21
    Font - WriteCodeBroh. 7 hr. ago I understand people to be under the influence at work, but it's pretty silly when even uri.e tests can go back as far as a month for heavy car.abis users. Imagine if instead of the police using a breathalyzer during traffic stops, they checked to see if you have drank at all in the past month before driving. not wanting
    via WriteCodeBroh

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salary worker antiwork guilt employee unethical payday work discussion raise minimum wage cheating america test workers reddit thread dishonest Reddit money guilty
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