I grew up on a small farm in eastern North Carolina. My grandparents – shown above – and my Mom and Dad raised tobacco, corn soybeans, and hogs. They worked in factory jobs, too. Mom worked the first shift and was home by 4 pm. Dad would tend to the farm all morning, lay down for a short rest, and then head off to a second shift job, getting home around midnight.
They all worked from sun up to well after sundown. These people who were so important in my life gave me a strong work ethic. Work is all that we knew, and if truth be told, it is what I really love to do.
I started working at a young age. I was around 10 years old when I had my first paid job – about $3 an hour to “hand tobacco”. We were paid as soon as we were done working – hot, tired, sticky with tobacco gum all over arms and hands. But, that was alright because the payoff was coming. I can still remember the thrill – and pride – when handed a $20 bill for the very first time.
As I got older, I had a lot of other jobs. My first job off the farm was working in a greenhouse – moving dirt, watering flowers. Later, I worked in fast food, flipping burgers; on an assembly line in one plant and as a janitor in another, and as a painter on a college campus. Those were what we called “public” jobs, where I was paid by check once a week or once a month.
I’m extremely grateful for the work ethic those jobs gave me. And for the lessons, they gave me in managing my money. One thing I learned is that sometimes, waiting for your paycheck can be hard. If you and your family are living paycheck to paycheck, during those in-between times, you may find yourself having to do without or having to make tough choices.
In these situations, getting paid right after you work can solve a lot of problems.
That’s why when I started this company, I decided to offer same-day pay. Most people thought I was crazy. They told me it couldn’t be done.
But, I had too many nurses and nursing assistants living paycheck to paycheck, who were having a hard time making ends meet. At one point in my own life – in the mid-80s – I was living on only fifty cents a day. So I understood their situations, and I knew there was a better way.
Technology was making it possible to do all kinds of things. If we could create a pay system to provide paychecks each Friday, why couldn’t we modify it to pay daily? We could and we did.
And today, that’s why many caregivers choose to work with Gale. With the national nursing shortage, nurses and nursing assistants can have their pick of work just about anywhere. I know hundreds of them personally. One of the key reasons they work with us is not because they want same-day pay, but because they need it. They have kids to feed, bills to pay, and they simply can’t wait.
I am so grateful that we can offer them a solution. Same-day pay. It wouldn’t be possible without the grace of God, the wonder of modern-day technology, and the many lessons I learned so many years ago in that tobacco field.
