Dear CEO,

You don't know me, but your decisions impact every part of my life. You decide where I get to live, what I get to eat, and whether or not I can afford to fix my car. This month you decided that I don’t need to pay my rent, which is why I am writing this letter.

Who am I? Right now, I work in one of your stores, but I had planned to move up within your company. I was bright eyed and optimistic when I took this job, but sometime between then and now toothpaste and trash bags have become luxury items. You pay me too much to get benefits like food stamps and health care, but too little to pay for these needs myself. My utilities are always on the verge of being turned off; in fact, my phone has been turned off a few times. During one of those times you had a manager attempt to call me so that they could tell me not to come in that day. I actually wasted my gas money to show up on that day, only to be turned away. I can’t call in when I’m feeling ‘under the weather’, because I don’t get enough hours to support myself as it is. I understand that you have to cut hours when business is slow. I have been in a management position before and have had to send people home because the store wasn’t performing. What I don’t understand is why you hired more people if you were cutting your existing employees down to nearly no hours. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t wonder how I’m going to pay my bills. I do everything I can to keep a roof over my family’s head, so it was a slap in the face when you posted a story boasting about how great the company has been for the homeless.

It’s clear to me that you don't understand what life is like for the employees in your stores. You’ll probably never understand what it’s like to live on a paycheck as small as the ones I receive. I’m sure if I brought these concerns up to you, I would be told to find a second job or go to finish college. You might even tell me to be grateful that I make more than minimum wage. You would tell me that you had the company’s best interest in mind. I don’t understand how the company’s best interest is cutting my hours to the point where I can’t afford to shop in your store. I've been trying desperately to find a better job or a second job, but it's hard when nothing about my current job is consistent. I might have a morning schedule one day and a closing schedule the next, making it difficult for other employers to work with me. No one wants to hire someone with a rotating schedule. I also have to face the stress that I could become homeless because my check doesn’t stretch far enough. I also think about the fact that I could seriously injure myself at your company, which would put me in an even worse situation. On top of all this, my job isn’t protected. You could fire me and have someone else in my position within an hour.

By now, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t addressed you by name in this letter. It’s not because I don’t know who you are, but because this situation happens within nearly every major corporation. Hopefully you’ll read my letter and decide to better the lives of the ‘little people’ like me.

Sincerely,

A worker who needs something to change