What a pay stub is actually saying

$18 an hour for a 6-hour shift. $20 an hour, 40 hours, paid every two weeks — what one paycheck is. Time and a half on $22. A $52,000 salary turned back into an hourly rate. And the one most people learn on their first job: the advertised rate is gross, and about 20% of it never reaches you.

Open Road puts two offers side by side — $18 an hour for 35 hours against $600 a week, a $2 raise against a 5% one, $30 an hour on contract against a $60,000 salary with two weeks off — so the comparison is a habit before the first real offer arrives. Nothing in the BC, Alberta, Ontario or Quebec curricula prepares a teenager for a pay stub. This does, twelve questions at a time.

Coro — chorus. Everyone gets to play.