Exploiting the workforce

I used to work for a large dairy distributor and took the cash from the drivers when they turned in their paperwork for the day. I was counting the money and credit tickets everyday and balancing them to the deposit we would send on the armored car to the bank. I was easily counting 5 figures a day in cash and credit tickets were far more. Suffice it to say the company was bringing in a lot of money.

One day I took an average of the month and tried to extrapolate how much money we were making against what I expected the workers in my department (and later the whole company) were being paid.

I’m certain that my math was fuzzy at best given how little I could actually know about people’s paychecks and operational costs of keeping trucks on the road, refrigerated, stocked, etc. But, when it became a little more clear just how much we were hauling in daily, the concept of any of these workers having to work a second job just to get by started weighing heavily on me. What were we all working for? Our own betterment or simply to make money for someone else?

Any company I create will pay it’s workers on their value, not on how little they will accept.