If paid athletes aren't employees, are they 1099 contractors? If you pay someone, you must have some sort of relationship with the person you are paying. If not a contract, then at will. (At least in California.) They can quit, but you can fire. Some linebacker sucks, they're fired, and they file a wrongful termination suit? Nothing beats sports more than corporate sports!
This is just weird. Something will come to a head, right? It's always funny when you get that first paycheck and wonder who the eff this "FICA" guy is. My first non-cash paycheck was in 1980, for $3.05 an hour, six days a week, no overtime. "Ma'am, it is illegal to make a non-exempt employee work more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week." "There is no overtime here. You are welcome to find another job. People are beating down the door for this job. I can replace you this afternoon." My inner voice: 'Beating down your door to scoop dogshit, break up hornets nests, wash cars, tennis courts, and swimming pools, work for a Bible thumping supe with a bizarre wife who follows you around all day especially when you are hacking the brush back shirtless and drowning in two cycle engine oil, for effing three bucks an hour? Take this job and shove it; I ain't workin' here no more.' My outside voice: "Yes Ma'am. Thank you."
I will say this, though. she was the most fascinating person I've worked for, and apparently I was the only summer kid (at that time) to remain employed the entire summer, and she gave me a hefty bonus at the end of the summer. Four figures! (Barely, but still.) Things turned when she found out my plan was to become a civil engineer. I was 16 when I worked for her. Since she gave all the orders, we communicated quite a bit. "Do you plan to do this the rest of your life?" "No Ma'am. I always wanted to be an architect, but have realized civil engineering is in my DNA. I can't escape that. Between the end of summer here and going back to school, I'm doing the civil engineering honors program at Boulder. My math teacher set me up with it." "Oh, thank God. You don't want to work for people like me." Suddenly I'm getting free ski equipment out of their massive basement.
Valuable experience, my initial proletariat protestations and all. My Spanish vastly improved, because it had to between the Argentine maids and my gardening compatriots. My English improved because I met Prince Phillip and Princess Anne coming off the tennis court I just washed for them. Mrs. Taylor's husband Vernon (aka "Moose", was an old Ivy League footballer and a bigtime Denver oil man, who made damn sure that I had the combination to the key lockbox in their maybe 12-car garage because "my cars need to be air dried at freeway speed - or faster (wink) after you wash them." He drove a Lincoln, Lambo, Ferrari, and several Porsches. I think the two of them basically started Vail. He was cool but she was something else, mostly in a good way. I had no idea who she was until I saw her obituary in the New York Times decades later.
My first boss. Ann Bonfoey Taylor
