CHICAGO (AP) – April Ludgate has lived and worked in Chicago all her life. A woman with absolutely no interest in current events or national news headlines, she recently found herself stuck at O’Hare airport, where she accidentally listened to a CNN report about the “gender pay gap“, which claimed that women make only 77 cents for every dollar that men make. Although the information was not only baseless and inaccurate, but also completely useless, it did make Ms. Ludgate suddenly lose the nagging guilt that had been plaguing her for years over her near-daily habit of stealing office supplies from her place of employment.

“It’s not like they were underpaying me, exactly,” said Ludgate. “I mean, I knew what the pay rate was when they hired me, and it’s enough for me to pay my bills and still put a little by for emergencies. And I guess I shouldn’t have taken any office supplies at all, but they have so MUCH, and if they run low, they just keep ordering more, so they never run out. It’s like magic! So I figure what’s the harm if I take the occasional pack of sticky notes, or a roll of tape, or a pair of scissors, or an office chair, or a desk? Everybody does it. I mean, I saw one secretary take everything on her desk, put it in a box and walk out the door. Never saw her again. I assume she became independently wealthy from selling the stuff on eBay.”

“Anyway,” continued Ludgate, “sometimes I felt bad about that, because I’ve taken a lot of stuff over the years. I mean a LOT of stuff. I have an entire closet full of printer paper. And, well, toner, too, for that matter. Sometimes I’ve actually brought stuff back from home because I have more than the supply cabinet. But thanks to CNN, I now know that I was completely justified in taking all these office supplies because my boss has been treating me like a second class citizen and ripping me off by making more money than me. Him and his fancy college degree and 20 years of experience! That doesn’t give him the right to make money that should’ve been mine. That’s practically stealing, and stealing is wrong!”

“Oh, and all the times I called in sick when I really wasn’t? Yeah, take THAT ripoff sexist corporate America! Serves you right!”

Ludgate’s coworker, Pam Beesly, had her own thoughts on wage-worker justice.

“Yeah, I get paid exactly the same as April,” said Beesly, “which is a lot less that the guys in sales get. Which is fine with me. I’d hate to be in sales. On the road all the time, never get to see your family, dealing with jerks all day. I’m happy just typing things up for the same office jerks all the time. At least they buy me candy on Secretary’s… uh.. Administrative Professionals Day. The only thing I don’t like is [looks around] April. I swear she calls in sick every single week! And when she does, guess who gets to do all the work she’s not doing? But I don’t get a dime more in my paycheck. It’s almost like there’s some sort of gap between those who do all their work and those who only do, like, 77% of what’s expected of them, yet they still get the same pay. Never heard anyone complain about that, though.”

—–

< Buttigieg on His New ‘Gun Organization Program’: “If You Like Your Guns, You Can Keep Your Guns”

—–
IMAO is ad-supported. If you enjoyed this article, please consider whitelisting us on your adblocker.
Because our ads will never tell you to try this one old weird trick to lose weight.