now that amazon has increased the minimum wage for US employees (or has committed to doing so come november) what impact will it have?

i have read that some employees are complaining that new employees will be paid almost as much as them. would it be logical that an increase will come to other employees?

did amazon cut benefits to increase the minimum wage?

was this good? do you expect other companies to follow suit?

what negatives are there from this?

https://www.wired.com/story/why-amazon-really-raised-minimum-wage/

AFTER MONTHS OF increased public criticism about its grueling labor practices, Amazon announced Tuesday that it would begin paying all US employees, including part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers, at least $15 an hour and all UK employees at least £9.50 (with higher wages in London) beginning November 1. The move will affect 250,000 US Amazon employees and 100,000 seasonal workers, according to the company.

In the same announcement, Amazon also said it will begin lobbying Congress to raise the federal minimum wage, which is currently $7.25. Jeff Bezos—the company’s CEO and the richest man in the world—said in a statement that Amazon “listened to its critics,” and “decided we want to lead.”

On its face, Amazon's decision to raise wages is unequivocally a good thing, with the power to positively impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers who were paid low wages even as their employer amassed enormous wealth. The pay increase also demonstrates the effectiveness of the Fight for $15 movement, a grassroots push formed in 2012 to increase pay and form unions in the retail and fast food industries.

"Amazon didn't pick $15 for no reason whatsoever but because of its symbolic importance," says Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute who studies low-wage labor markets. "Political pressure can actually change wages in our economy, which I think is a helpful reminder."

Amazon has also sustained months-long attacks from politicians like Bernie Sanders, who introduced a bill last month literally called the Stop BEZOS Act. The legislation is designed to force large employers to raise wages by taxing them when their workers need to rely on public benefits like food stamps.


Sanders’ initiative provoked a rare response from the typically shy Amazon, and the senator appeared pleased Tuesday when he learned his effort had seemingly worked. “Today, I want to give credit where credit is due. And I want to congratulate Mr. Bezos for doing exactly the right thing," Sanders said at a press conference this morning. Bezos later basked in the praise on Twitter.

Amazon is likely betting, however, that increasing pay will do more than just alleviate pressure from lawmakers and activists who want the retail giant to improve its working conditions. In the coming months, the company will need to attract 100,000 seasonal employees in the US and once again try to dominate the holiday shopping season. It has to accomplish those tasks in an extremely tight US labor market—the unemployment rate recently dipped below 4 percent—where few people are looking for jobs. Wage hikes like Amazon’s have historically occurred in similar economies.

"This isn't really anything new," says Sylvia A. Allegretto, a labor economist and the co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. "It typically happens around tight labor markets. Don't forget that Amazon needs a lot of workers coming in for the holiday season."

Making hiring matters worse for Amazon is the fact that it has faced a steady onslaught of bad press in recent months about its labor practices both in the US and beyond. One report published in April documented how some Amazon workers were forced to pee in water bottles to meet workplace demands, and another from July found some employees have suffered from workplace accidents that left them homeless.

Last week, Gizmodo also published excerpts from an internal video for Whole Foods managers that appears designed to train them to spot and squash labor organizing efforts. (It has previously been reported that employees of the Amazon-owned luxury grocery chain were planning to unionize.)


Taken together, those negative reports could make it more difficult to convince the already-small pool of job seekers to choose Amazon, especially when other retailers are also hiring for the holiday season. At first, the company tried to solve that problem by fighting back with its own counter-messaging, including via a new fleet of Twitter accounts tasked with spreading positive testimonies of working at the retail giant. Now it’s simply paying more, a move that could also help to reduce other labor costs in the long term.

"They have really high turnover rates—that's very costly when you have to be constantly spending money on recruiting and training workers," says Allegretto. "Paying a higher wage will help you retain those workers."

Increasing wages also means that many more people—Amazon is one of the largest employers in the US—will have extra funds to spend on goods from places like, well, Amazon. Although the pay hike will cost the retail giant, it can potentially make up the loss via increased sales. "A lot of customers are low-wage workers. There is a lot of demand that is unleashed when you start paying workers more money," says Allegretto.

Amazon already has another established mechanism for reducing labor costs: automation. “It needs fewer workers today to sell and ship $100 million worth of stuff than it did just a few years ago. That trend is only accelerating,” Stacy Mitchell, the co-director of the Institute for Self Reliance, a non-profit that advocates for local economic development, said on Twitter.

Although Amazon has marketed itself as a leader by increasing how much it pays employees, the company is far from the first retail behemoth to raise wages in recent years. "Today's announcement also illustrates how companies around the country are increasingly recognizing that higher wages can be good both for business and their employees," Christine Owens, the executive director of the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for American workers, said in a statement. "Target is phasing in a $15 minimum wage by 2020, for example, and Costco recently raised its starting wage to $14."

What separates Amazon from its competitors, however, is that the company is expected to announce the location of its highly anticipated second headquarters before the end of the year. The retail giant is widely believed to be receiving a lucrative government incentive deal from whichever city it chooses, in exchange for bringing tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. The last thing the company needs is the announcement to be overshadowed by concerns about how it treats its low-wage workers. Establishing a $15 minimum wage helps to buffer against some of that potential future criticism.

Amazon’s labor practices, and its decision to increase wages, are representative of wider issues facing American workers. While corporations have mostly recovered from the 2008 recession, employee wages have largely failed to rise along with stock prices. The federal minimum wage hasn’t been increased in nearly a decade, though many states and cities have legislated higher employee pay themselves. The gap between the rich and the poor is greater in the US than ever before, according to some experts. Corporations are starting to be held responsible for their role in increasing inequality, and some may be trying to alleviate the harms. But make no mistake: Amazon’s bottom line is still its priority, and it stands to benefit from bridging the economic divide, too.

--
Sometimes you have to look reality in the face and say 'No!'
-Ben (Reaper)

If you need any help, don't. Hesitate to ask.

raising the wage will help them attract seasonal employees, this year might be harder for them to attract them without a higher wage.

this might take some heat off the working conditions but i doubt sanders is going to just let up. wages was one part of the issue, we would be foolish to back off now.

of course a company is about its bottom line.

companies will always pay as little as they need to. 7.25 is insanely low but without a push it wont be raised. amazon going from around 11 to 15 is still a big win. for sure those employees will be better off.

the fight is not over but i am surprised they reacted so quickly. other companies had already announced intentions to increase their minimum wage to 15 but in a couple of years.

im definitely expecting other large companies to follow suit as minimum to compete for labor. that was part of the goal right?

>would it be
>logical that an increase will come to other employees?
>

<--- Big Baller World Order

And it is hard to keep employees at $8.50 an hour at a hard job that sucks.

_______________________________________

I did a month and a half there a couple of years ago. Fascinating to be inside and see how it works.

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One Hundred.

if your competition for employees is paying as low wages and is not offering any better condition then you have no reason to offer anything better, from a bottom line stand point.

this seems like a small opening to improving things over all.

i wish i had started at $15/hr coming out of college.

long way too go

but Amazon did raise the cost for Amazon Prime about 3 or so months ago; I believe it was raised about $20 for the annual membership.

"Sean sparks like John Starks, nah, Sean ball like John Wall" - Rest In Power Forever Sean Price.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-employees-say-will-make-less-raise-174028353.html

Amazon’s decision to raise workers’ minimum wage to $15 per hour was welcome news, even Sen. Bernie Sanders praised the move.

But for some Amazon employees, the excitement didn’t last very long as they learned that existing financial incentives and bonus programs, including stock and monthly bonuses, that usually boost paychecks will be eliminated starting November 1.

Several Amazon warehouse workers in the U.S., who spoke to Yahoo Finance on the condition of anonymity fearing reprisals, talked about how the change will negatively affect them. After the removal of these perks, some workers said they will be making less. Most of the workers who voiced concerns have been working for the company for more than two years, and have been earning close to $15 an hour before the raise.

While these workers’ hourly rates will rise modestly, they said they could lose thousands of dollars that they would have collected from the stock and monthly-bonus programs. Amazon said those who are already making $15 an hour will see an increase in pay but did not specify how much.

An employee earning $15.25 an hour who has worked for Amazon for more than three years in Arizona crunched the numbers. Although he is getting a $1 an hour raise, which would equate to as much as $2,080 in additional pay a year, he said he could have earned a few thousands of dollars more from the incentive programs. “Amazon isn’t giving its employees a raise, they’re taking money from us,” he told Yahoo Finance. “It only looks good if folks don’t know the truth.”

An Amazon spokesperson said “all hourly operations and customer service employees will see an increase in their total compensation as a result of this announcement. In addition, because it’s no longer incentive-based, the compensation will be more immediate and predictable.”

In the past, Amazon had used stock options as a major selling point during the recruiting process. “One of the ways we foster ownership among employees is through Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) awards. RSUs are a key part of our global compensation program, which has been carefully designed to help us attract, motivate and retain employees of the highest caliber,” according to an Amazon brochure about the program.

Under RSUs, full-time warehouse workers usually receive two or three shares each year after a two-year vesting period. Amazon stock (AMZN) has been on a bull run — the share price has more than tripled since 2016 and now is around $2,000. Amazon said it’ll replace RSU with a “direct stock purchase plan” but didn’t offer any specifics.

Another major perk that Amazon is phasing out is employee’s monthly bonuses, called Variable Compensation Pay (VCP). An employee can earn up to 8% of their monthly income, but it depends on how many hours they work and the facility site’s production goals. An average worker usually receives $1,800 to $3,000 a year through the VCP program, according to employees who talked to Yahoo Finance. Some said it’s especially frustrating to see the program removed now, since VCP doubles during peak months in the holiday season.

Amazon said its decision to eliminate the financial incentive program was based on employees’ feedback. “We’ve heard from our hourly fulfillment and customer service employees that they prefer the predictability and immediacy of cash to RSUs,” the company wrote in a blog post. “The net effect of this change and the new higher cash compensation is significantly more total compensation for employees, without any vesting requirements, and with more predictability.”

Just in case you needed a reminder that Jeff ain't shit.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/03/amazon-hourly-workers-lose-monthly-bonuses-stock-awards.html

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One Hundred.

"everyone is getting 25 cent more an hour, and were cutting everyones hours to 32, happy holidays"

By Karen Weise
Oct. 9, 2018

359
SEATTLE — Last week, Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president in charge of operations, stood on a ladder in a warehouse near Los Angeles and announced to employees that Amazon was raising pay for its vast blue-collar work force.

As soon as he said “new Amazon minimum wage of $15 an hour,” Mr. Clark was drowned out by more than 10 seconds of cheers and high-fives.

Mr. Clark posted a video of the meeting on Twitter, where it has since been viewed more than 400,000 times. Senator Bernie Sanders, who had repeatedly criticized Amazon for how it treated its workers, praised the raise and shared the clip, adding another half-a-million views.

But in Amazon warehouses across the country, many longtime workers are fuming that — based on the information they have received so far — they may end up making thousands of dollars less a year.

Yes, Amazon is increasing wages, which will benefit most employees. But it will no longer give out new stock grants and monthly bonuses. Some workers believe that means their total compensation will shrink.

Whether Amazon finds a way to close that gap will be closely watched in Washington. On Oct. 4, Mr. Sanders, an independent from Vermont, sent a letter to Jay Carney, who runs Amazon’s public policy, “asking Amazon to confirm how the total compensation of employees who would have received stock options — those with the company for two or more years — will be affected as a result of the recent changes,” according to a copy provided to The New York Times.

Mr. Sanders, who was alerted to the issue by workers, has not yet received a response from Amazon, a spokesman for the senator said.

The New York Times spoke to about a half-dozen workers around the country, from Texas to Kentucky, and viewed numerous employee discussions on Facebook. All of the workers shared their pay stubs, but few would allow their names to be used.

Near Minneapolis, Katy Iber, who handles returned products at an Amazon warehouse, works the night shift. Her region has a tight local labor market, so she already makes more than $15 an hour.

In an “all hands” meeting at the start of her shift on Thursday — her first day at work after the pay raise was announced — she learned Amazon was raising her base pay by $1 an hour.

But it was also ending monthly attendance and productivity bonuses, known as the Variable Compensation Plan, or V.C.P. And she would no longer be granted valuable Amazon shares. The trade-off meant she’d be losing money, she said.

It was as though the company was saying “‘thanks, we appreciate you going into the holidays. Here’s less money,’” Ms. Iber said. The New York Times reached Ms. Iber through the Awood Center, a nonprofit that is organizing East African workers in the region.

Amazon maintained in a statement that the higher hourly wages “more than compensates for the phase out” of the stock and incentive bonuses. A traditional pay raise, the company said, is “more immediate and predictable.”

Amazon said more than 250,000 employees and an additional 100,000 seasonal workers would benefit from the pay changes, and announced similar changes for workers in Britain. Deutsche Bank estimated that Amazon’s pay increase “represents less than 1 percent of its projected 2019 revenue.”

For many workers, including those who work part-time and were never eligible for stock and bonuses, the raises in base pay will certainly put more cash in their pockets.

Amazon officials said that over the next week they will adjust the pay of some employees to make sure workers do not end up losing money with the changes.

The difference between what some employees believe is their total compensation and what the company believes they are being paid also may come down to accounting rules. Amazon said that if employees in 2018 get stock that was granted to them two years ago, that legally counts as compensation this year. But some employees believe that was compensation for work done two years ago.

The difference — whether because of miscommunication or incomplete information given to employees — has resonated in Amazon warehouses around the country, particularly with employees with a longer tenure at the company.

The dispute is over two compensation programs that will end on Nov. 1. The first, the Variable Compensation Plan, paid out each month. It offered up to a 4 percent bonus for attendance, and an additional 4 percent if a worker’s building met certain production goals.

Ms. Iber said someone in her warehouse wrote “BRING BACK VCP!!!!” on a whiteboard where employees are encouraged to communicate with management.

In the three months around the holiday season, known as “double down,” the bonus doubles, meaning employees could earn as much as 16 percent on top of their regular wages.

The second program gave employees shares in Amazon stock each year. They get to keep the shares if they’re still working at the company after two years. Recently, employees have been getting two shares, worth about a combined $3,725 at current market value. With the changes, workers get to keep the stock granted in previous years but will not earn new shares.

Documentation Ms. Iber provided showed that her bonus amounted to $1.28 an hour in August. In the three months around the holidays, that could be more than $2.50 an hour, far more than the $1 an hour in base pay increase she’s getting.

She is down even more when stock grants are taken into account. She will keep old shares, but will not be granted new ones.

In a Facebook group popular with employees, workers fumed over the changes, according to screenshots from the page that were viewed by The New York Times.

There were so many negative pending posts on the day Amazon announced the $15 wage that a moderator wrote that she deleted them and pleaded with workers to write to the corporate offices in Seattle rather than vent online.

Another poster wrote that her co-workers were contemplating a walkout on Black Friday, the big shopping day after Thanksgiving, and others said they were saddened to lose the sense of ownership that the stock compensation provided.

Workers said the timing of the change, just as bonuses double for the holiday season, stings. Ms. Iber said a co-worker told her he regretted paying down some credit card debt in anticipation of the extra holiday bonus. He worried that without the extra holiday pay, he won’t be able cover his regular monthly bills.

She could sympathize. Last year, Ms. Iber used the holiday season bonuses to pay for insulation in her attic. She was going to get a new water heater this year, but now she’s holding off. She said she will wait for the heater to break, and if it does, she’ll put the repairs on a credit card.

Correction: October 9, 2018
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described a benefit formerly provided by Amazon to its full-time employees. The company offered restricted stock units, which are stock grants that vest over time, not stock options, which are the right to purchase shares at a specific price.

Follow Karen Weise on Twitter: @kyweise

--- praying for peace, love, and power

do you think amazon cut these benefits thinking no one would notice/make a fuss about it?

did they not consider a segment of employees and not realize this would end up a net negative for them?

did amazon do this to show bernie raising wages would have negative side effects?

ALL of the scenarios. This is the same company that is about to open 3k cashierless stores. Do you think they really care about people or the optics of caring for people?

>do you think amazon cut these benefits thinking no one would
>notice/make a fuss about it?

if I am not mistaken, this was announced after they announced the opening of 3000 cashierless stores. Wouldn't they be prime candidates for that $15 per hour?

>
>did they not consider a segment of employees and not realize
>this would end up a net negative for them?

I'm sure they did but the business decision seems to lean more toward the bottom-line and investor satisfaction.

>did amazon do this to show bernie raising wages would have
>negative side effects?

Maybe so. With the raising of minimum wages,m there will be other trade-offs especially for those companies that already do their best to take care of their employees.

--- praying for peace, love, and power

thats been in the works for years. seems most of their employees are warehouse workers, stocking and picking items to ship.

i understand the frustration of workers that have paid their dues all of a sudden feeling like the work they put in was pointless since a new employee will now make as much as them. definitely feel the pain if their actual bottom line will now be less.

i have to have some hope that this was somewhat of an oversight and corrections are in the work. i know i read that amazon was going to come out with revised packages to offset this but it would had made sense to work that out before announcing a raise and cut of benefits.

im waiting to hear that other companies are raising their wages to compete with amazon. without that this ultimately fails.

If I reduce the amount of employees, then I can minimally raise the hourly wages for others.

For those 3k cashierless jobs, Amazon if off the hook for:

taxes
insurances
payroll
other perks

So, I believe it plays a role regardless of how long it has been in the works.

I could picture some analyst walking in and making the suggestion to do this. It's easy to picture because I used to be one of those analysts.

Either way, I'm hopeful for a happy medium but we know that it does not work that way all the time.

No ties. Somebody wins. Somebody loses.

--- praying for peace, love, and power

i think companies (and trump/repubs) have become adept at exploiting key vulnerabilities in the way people distribute/receive news now.

like 60% of stories people come across never get read past the headlines. and the correction/clarification stories rarely get anywhere near the same level of coverage/discussion in the media.

just look at the wave of employee bonus stories after the tax cuts...and the fraction of that coverage that was given to layoffs and earnings hoarding via stock buybacks by those same companies.

So this wouldn't even apply to them.

------

12 play and 12 planets are enlighten for all the Aliens to Party and free those on the Sex Planet-maxxx

XBL: trkc21
Twitter: @tyrcasey

...

--- praying for peace, love, and power

$15 for the bottom and shrugs at those making more who may lose jobs, hours, incentives in the process

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

They're actually taking money from the people they're pretending to help. Amazon didn't say, hey middle managers, we're taking your dough, and giving it to the minimum wage earners. They said they were going to pay more to minimum wage earners, while actually paying them less.

As far was what people want... i think they actually just want a living wage from a company who paid no income tax in 2017 and whose owner has accumulated $150+ billion in wealth.

In a generation of swine, the one-eyed pig is king.
-Hunter S. Thompson

from what i have read it looks like there were some real low ladder, entry level, part time, temp works that were getting significantly less than $15/hr with none of the bonus or shares. they are happy.

the people that were on the next step up are the ones losing. those are the ones that got a minimal bump to $15 or slightly above $15 but lost the bonuses and shares. anyone above them, not sure what the deal is.

i would be all for people earning less than me getting an increase as long as it doesnt negatively affect my pay. even if that means i dont get any additional raise than what i would regularly get. i wouldnt be looking to get bumped up in some proportional manner. eventually my pay would go up...or my job would be eliminated.

>from what i have read it looks like there were some real low
>ladder, entry level, part time, temp works that were getting
>significantly less than $15/hr with none of the bonus or
>shares. they are happy.

There's an argument for collective bargaining and unionization that you could make here.

In a generation of swine, the one-eyed pig is king.
-Hunter S. Thompson

>There's an argument for collective bargaining and unionization
>that you could make here.

That said a lot of the claims of employees who lose in this situation are shortsighted in terms of company policy.

This affected most of their hires, but was targeted around attracting employees most immediately for seasonal needs. Aka new hires. Before all of the side benefits were attractive for sticking around. This however gets them the temp help they need most immediately. But they can't just roll it out for them and with the political pressure company wide policy is a PR homerun.

Now truth be told the seasonal is a path toward longer term but if they gotta factor in all those extra benefits it would be a loss so new policy has no guarantee on those benefits. For people that had em before it sucks but what's the real margin on that versus the new employee pipeline.

Also make no mistake while the old rewards are gone there will be future incentives for those who stick around. They do not want a high turnover rate and will continue to compete to keep people on. Terms may not seem as good as the old policy, but if you just coming in at 15 they'll find a way to keep you around. Again it sucks for current employees I the short term but...

But here's the biggest thing. By being first they force competitors to step up, except competitors ain't got the deep pockets to support that. It drains their operating budgets while it's nothing for Amazon.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

So we pay more and more folks lose jobs/incentives

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

Bankrupt Walmart and Target. They want to be the only employer.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

the culture of you have to keep growing your market share at all costs every year or else youre failing is just dumb.

you hear the same folks cheering that on being pro small business but you cant have both.

i guess at some point companies are forced to break up if they grow too much but maybe its a bit late.

i feel like you could have a very healthy economy with a fair amount of profits for owners, companies and employees. they keep making it about entry level employees vs very low payed veteran employees though. race vs race.

looks like they will now include yearly bonuses to offset (quavo, take off) the loss of stock grants.

not quite sold but they are doing something.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-says-15-wage-floor-plan-will-include-pay-bumps-to-offset-loss-of-stock-grants-bonuses/

Amazon says it is making adjustments to its wage plan to ensure warehouse workers receive the pay bump they were told was coming when the company promised a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

The Seattle company won plaudits from politicians and labor groups when it said it would set a higher starting wage for hourly logistics and customer-service employees beginning Nov. 1. But in the week since the surprise announcement, the company faced a backlash from some longtime workers who said that, because Amazon also eliminated stock grants and bonuses, their total compensation would shrink.


Many voiced their complaints internally and on social media. “It’s not a pay raise,” one employee said of the effect of the elimination of bonus pay. “It’s a slap in the face.”

Amazon, still explaining the coming changes to employees three weeks before they are set to take effect, appears to be incorporating additional boosts to account for the elimination of those stock and bonus programs.

A spokeswoman said Wednesday that the company would roll out additional raises to workers for whom the lost stock and bonuses would mean a compensation cut. Hourly bumps so far have amounted to 25 cents, 50 cents, and as high as $2 an hour, depending on the facility and the employee’s tenure. That’s in addition to the $1-an-hour raise promised to workers who already made $15 an hour or more.

The company also plans to replace stock awards given on employment anniversaries with cash bonuses totaling $1,500 after five years, and $3,000 every additional five years after that.

In a statement, the company reiterated that all employees “will see an increase in their total compensation as a result of this announcement.”

“We are continuing to roll out the details of all these changes to employees this week,” Amazon said.

The company’s communications with its hourly workers — 250,000 people in the U.S. spread over more than 100 facilities and multiple work shifts — has been uneven. One worker said he was informed late last week of a pay increase that left his hourly rate below $15 an hour. His manager didn’t mention more was coming on Nov. 1, or offer any details about the soon-to-be-eliminated perks, he said. The employee, who asked for anonymity for fear of being fired, said he first heard about those details from the media.

Retention is a mandate.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

Retention is a mandate.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

where every single infraction that could be had effects the entire pool until there's pennies left.

I could see Amazon trying to pull some shit like that.
---------------------------------------


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Make billionaires illegal, etc.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad