Never give a sucker an even break WC Fields
I recently wrote in passing about the flagrantly moronic Traitor Tot ad trying to recruit mental defectives to become ICE agents, since apparently most American mothers would rather have their sons grow up to be Marseilles pimps than ICE agents. But there was actually a second head on that fish that was rotting, and I just discovered it on Saturday.
I had written previously that the kind of Y-chromosome mutants these ads are geared to couldn’t pass the psych tests to be a mall cop. Too dangerous on a Segway. So they appeal to adventure, violence, and greed. And of the three, greed wins hands down every time. At one point the announcer somberly intoned;
Join us in completing the mission, and you could qualify for up to a $50,000 signing bonus!
When I heard and actually comprehended that sentence, I literally couldn’t stop laughing. First, I couldn’t stop laughing simply because of the total absurdity of either Traitor Tot of the DHS actually giving inbred redneck thugs $50,000 to pound on undocumented immigrants. It’s absurd. But when I considered the rest of it, the laughing only got harder.
The bait-and-switch is actually the last two \words, Signing Bonus. I’ll explain. Let’s say you and I get a job. Starbucks, IBM, United Airlines, wherever. We pass the interview and get a start date. And on the day we start training, we start getting paid, with the normal two week lag for payroll, it’s three to four weeks from our start date to our first paycheck.
But it doesn’t work that way in high level professional sports, for a very good reason. There’s often a several month stretch between the time the athlete signs the contract, and the season starts, and he begins getting paid. Most of these kids are of modest means. How many times have you heard on the sports report, Top draft pick Jasper LeGoof inked his contract today for a whopping $25 million over five years with a $5 million signing bonus.
There’s those two magic words again, and they’re the heart of the con. Nobody signs a contract to give somebody $25 million, and then hands them an extra $5 million to thank them for taking their money! There’s no such thing as free money. It’s all the same cash! The kid is just getting a piece of it as walking around money until he starts getting paid. A five year, $25 million contract is $5 million a year. But for those five years, the kid is only going to make $4 million a year while he pays down that $5 million signing bonus, of which his agent took his 10-15% off the top.
The same thing goes here, I guarantee it. Let’s just say that ice starts at $50,000 a year for roughing up immigrants. If these ICE hatchlings are anything like most people who come into a sudden windfall, they’re gonna blow it in a couple of months. Which means that for the next five years, they’re going to be scraping by paycheck-to-paycheck while they pay down that signing bonus, likely dropping them to about $40,000 a year.
What’s the old saying? There’s one born every minute, and two to fleece him. Personally, I like the old Wall Street mantra better, If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. And it’s a sad commentary about the collapse of the esteem of the federal government that not only can’t they attract qualified people, they can’t even attract unqualified people without having to f*ck them over to get them in the door. What a way to run a railroad..
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Neat point you made Murf. There’s another part in that “bonus” I’d like to see the fine print on. What exactly do those two words “up to” in the “Up to $50,000″ mean? I’ll bet there are pages and pages of what kind of qualifications are required for what level of bonus any given applicant will qualify for. I wonder how many high school grads, or even high school dropouts have eagerly signed the paperwork and not bothered to read the whole agreement, much less understood it. Like you I’d love to see the looks on their dumbass faces when they ask for the fifty thousand bucks and have what you wrote explained to them. Even better the reaction to ‘Well, YOU don”t qualify for the full $50k. YOU qualify for five grand. Or maybe ten if they have a year or two at a community college.
Some might say screw it and walk out. Quit. Sadly, others will stay and take out their anger on people they target in their daily duties. Hell, having them pissed off might be just the kind of thing Stephen Miller would have dreamed up!
sound like a loan to me
i doubt it. signing bonuses are usually for real but mybe paid in increments. mine was 3 k. 1k paid after 30 days then 2k paid after 6 months. other sites for the company paid 5k or more. mine was for a part time job. this was an actual bonus. that is, extra money, not an advance such as actors often get.