Clueless

I have a cold. Not a serious cold; but I can't really taste anything unless I'm on Day-quil. It started as a scratchy throat two days before Christmas and by the time I woke up at zero hour, my nose was stuffy and runny. Which sucked because we were making really delicious Christmas feast-type food. I took some cold medicine as soon as I woke up but still wasn't able to fully enjoy our traditional orange roll breakfast.

 After I had half-enjoyed my Christmas linner (the lunch/dinner equivalent of brunch), my Dad (who is also sick) and I commiserated about missing the full flavor of such a tasty meal. He mentioned having read something about some indigenous tribe of people, maybe in Australia, who are all born without their sense of taste, which sounded vaguely familiar to me. I haven't been able to find anything about the Aborigines, but apparently being born without a sense of smell is a thing. 

It's called congenital anosmia, and, as anyone who has ever had a cold or allergies can tell you, when your olfactory senses are messed up, not only can you not smell but you can't taste much of anything either.

I thought about this on my way to work this morning as I was following someone who wanted to do 40 in a 55. Every speed limit sign we passed, I kept hoping they would notice that the speed that they were allowed to go and the speed that they were going was vastly different. It, of course, never happened. I felt a wave of relief and joy wash over me when Dale Earnhardt finally turned off the otherwise deserted road onto a small side street.

As some people are born without the ability to smell or taste, some people are just born clueless. 

 

 

 

It's like those people who want the minimum wage to be increased to $15 an hour. Okay, that would give you more buying power for about a week. But in order to pay you, the employee, more money, McDonald's would have to charge, like, $20 for a Big Mac. They have to get that money from somewhere; the cost gets passed directly to you, the consumer. And that, my child, is called inflation. Even someone with a rudimentary understanding of economics, like myself, can tell you that. 

I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but here goes:

If you want to be paid more money, develop a proficiency for something other than the highly specialized skill of flipping burgers. Go. Act. Do! Do something that will make you worth more money. Get more training in your field; get more experience; develop more skills; get more education-- all of these options give you more marketability in the job realm. 

Look, I know things are rough right now in the economy. Most of us are extremely lucky to have any job at all. But things won't be this bad forever (fingers crossed; come 2016 DON'T vote Clinton), and you have to look at where you want to be career-wise in five or even ten years; unless you still want to be making minimum wage a decade from now. If that's the case, carry on with your fry-cooking.

But, if you want to make more money, put forth the time and effort necessary to merit more pay. In a world that will largely pay you what it thinks you're worth, you can't afford not to.