Chef Jem remembers being paid "peanuts" for his household chores as a boy.

Date:   10/20/2011 12:48:58 AM ( 13 y ago)

I have recently been introduced to the concept of the four quadrants (as presented in Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People") and I'm finding myself beginning to think in those terms. I agree with the idea of minimizing the allowance of things in my life that are both urgent and unimportant. (That alone is something on the order of a revelation and / or truth that sets me free!

Tonight I was inspired with the idea that we can offer people a choice as to what quadrant they want to be in! Imagine that!

So tonight I consciously choose to be in the fourth quadrant of the non-urgent and unimportant which then allowed me to pursue a certain non-urgent and unimportant interest! Just saying that is something of a relief for me! Maybe this can be likened unto that of a fireman who not only is not attending to some urgency (like responding to a fire alarm, whether or not it is a "real" urgency) but also choosing to be relieved of attending to "important" yet non-urgent things as well! That makes the unimportant and non-urgent quadrant the most leisurely of all.

My fourth quadrant pursuit tonight was identifying the minimum wage for the years my siblings and I were getting an allowance at home. The idea just came to me while I was washing a shared kitchen item that some one else had used and deciding that I would give myself credit for doing that (which I often do whereby I can enjoy doing the extra chore without feeling resentment). While doing that I remembered that as child I did daily and weekly chores and at the end of the week either got paid my allowance or got to go the the movie theater and have money for popcorn as well. The entrance into the show then was $.25 for children under 13 and I think the buttered popcorn might have been a quarter as well. That totaled fifty cents. I checked out the minimum wage for that time period here:
Federal Minimum Wage Rates, 1955–2011:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

and I now realize that I was not getting anywhere near the going minimum wage rate for my household chores. But I did not know that at the time and so what I was given in my allowance was not an issue for me! Then when I started working part time in high school I think the allowance was discontinued, but I was getting paid real money then (and possibly with some silver still left in the quarters).

I also remember shoveling snow in Chicago and often getting paid in "dollars". That was definitely closer to the minimum wage rate!

According to the equivalent figures "in constant 1996 dollars" the highest purchasing value of the minimum wage rate was in 1968. We go more "bang" for our "bucks" at that time than we have since then.

 

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