Cultural exchange program or cheap labor?

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

They should be paid a fair wage, not be exploited by companies that could otherwise move the labor force overseas.

But I am sure the outrage at that would die down a bit.

Then I suppose you are against the employment of illegal aliens for the same reasons?

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I'm dead serious. She's been ticked off every since she got here because she never realized that making $2,000/month doesn't = $2,000/month. She was under the impression if you made $2,000 then you had a bunch of walkin around money.

Reality struck her when she took a first job and worked about 44 hours a week. (That liked to kill her! "Oh, I so freakin tired and work so much. How I can work like zis forever, huh?") Then the bigger reality hit when she got her paycheck. "Why zis government take all my money?" HA! After a few months of that, she was ready for a different job. By different, I mean part-time.

Without a "rich" husband, she'd probably have gone back by now. The reality is, here in America, if you want something nice, you have to work for it. Sounds like the kids in this story were having chocolate fantasies that melted once they arrived.

I've seen the J-1 kids working at baseball games, McDonalds, etc., and while that's fun for them... that's not the reality of life in America. A part-time job doesn't pay the bills around here and you can't work for fun and still expect to have a nice life.

The way I look at it, this was a great experience for them. These are "rich kids" back home and this is probably the first time any of them have done any hard labor. Welcome to America. Now get to work!

Very common. In Ukraine earning $2000 permonth means someone hands you $2000 cash at the end of the month, usually foreign currency, USD or Euros. Alla had ther same reaction, she arrived on Thursday, I get paid on Friday and she was expecting someone to show up and hand us several thousand in cash or that we would have to go somewhere to collect it. Possibly with difficulty since actually getting paid in Ukraine is not always a reality. She asked "When will you get paid today?" I said "I already did, at 12:01 am it was deposited in the account" Of course we also paid the house payment, electric bill, water bill, insurance, gas bill, etc and this is what we have left...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, takes some getting used to.