Compensation: The Real Meaning

I have been thinking about compensation lately and how the meaning of the word has changed for me as I approach age 70.

When I was a teenager—bagging groceries at the Foodtown on Henry Street—compensation meant the $1.15 an hour I was being paid at first. That’s what you earned in a minimum wage job in those days. When the minimum wage was increased to $1.25 soon afterward, my salary went up nearly 10 percent. Today, there is talk of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. That seems like a huge increase to my 16-year-old self, but not nearly enough when viewed through my almost 70-year-old eyes.

Maybe I should have written a research paper on minimum wage in high school.

Luckily, during those teen years, I was often able to supplement my salary with tips I earned from carrying bags of groceries out to customers’ cars. Unluckily, I was expected to report the total of any tips I received. Then the reported total could be deducted from my pay for the day. (Full confession: sometimes I fibbed a little and reported only about 75% of the tips, which, unluckily, never amounted to more than $8, even on a great day.)

So what’s different for me about compensation today beyond the changes in minimum wage? It’s what I have to compensate for. A couple of years ago, I injured a tendon in my right forearm. My doctor diagnosed the injury as tennis elbow, which would be cool if I played tennis on even a semi-regular basis. No, I got the injury from carrying heavy suitcases up several flights of stairs while on a vacation in Denmark after a hotel elevator broke down. So, what I really have is suitcase elbow. Would it sound cooler if I called it Danish suitcase elbow?

Would this be more impressive in Danish?

Then, in recent weeks, I have felt a weakness behind one of my knees. I would try to describe it, but anyone nearing 70 like me probably knows what I am feeling. It’s a…a…a…weakness. Once again compensation has been required, so I have added an Ace knee brace to the Ace elbow brace I have kept around for use at the gym ever since my Danish adventure.

This leg has weathered nearly 70 years.

I fear as I actually reach 70—or beyond—that I am going to need additional compensation both for my physical shortcomings and in order to pay for new medical devices to compensate for them. My wife’s grandmother used to say, “It’s no fun getting old.” It’s also painful for your body, your psyche, and your wallet.