Also known as the one guy who didn't die...And here's a picture of him!
Tips and the Service Industry.
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Get the Ciaphis Cain Hero of the Imperium Omnibus. Lots of humor, easy to read, and has 3 of the novels and a few of the short stories in a single book. Best bang for your buck.
Isn't this exactly what businesses do with programmers and other overseas export jobs? Do you support this?
As for me, I say get rid of the whole tipping bullshit to begin with and just pay the waitstaff a regular wage. Believe me, the chick at Denny's isn't going to serve you any better or worse if there's no tip involved.
Thing is that that 2% reporting is really fucking with a class of people that depend on every last dollar to begin with (see our tax the rich thread).
But I do agree with Steiny on one aspect. I don't feel sorry enough for waitstaff to really give a crap one way or another. No one forced them into their jobs; if you don't want to be a waiter, find another low-skill profession with a normal salary structure (i.e. Janitorial work).
I run a janitorial business on the side, and my employees get anywhere from 15-30 bucks an hour with like 25-35 hour weeks. They're all part time to supplement their day-job, and the work is literally just vacuuming, dusting, and throwing out trash. It's not a matter of being stuck in that one profession. There are TONS of low-skill jobs out there. From my experience though, most waitstaff are self-entitled hipster douchebags who feel that the world owes them something because they have to carry your steak and fries to the table.
If anything, I wish waitstaff got a full salary and if they do a phenomenal job (I'm talking short of giving me a hummer at the table), then yeah they should get a nice tip on the side. I really wish I could tip the cooks. They're the ones who really make or break a dining experience.
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In tonight's episode, the part of "fade" will be played by "stienman".
Wow, reading this thread was like an out-of-body experience. Stieny, old boy, this is what happens when you try to carry a pure logic debate around here. You can't do it, because emotion is too heavily attached. Especially with former waitstaff around. The only thing missing was a Tommy Lee Jones image macro. You even went out of your way to say you didn't think it was right, just logical.
Wow, reading this thread was like an out-of-body experience. Stieny, old boy, this is what happens when you try to carry a pure logic debate around here. You can't do it, because emotion is too heavily attached. Especially with former waitstaff around. The only thing missing was a Tommy Lee Jones image macro. You even went out of your way to say you didn't think it was right, just logical.
So on the top end you're paying your staff 55k a year for janitorial work? I own a business and that seems very high for vacuuming dusting and throwing out trash.
Of course. I can get a good programmer in the Philipines for $2/hour. There are some things I want programmed here with people I can visit with, but for everything else there's a $2/hr programmer. (cue mastercard commercial)
If I can't convince my clients that I'm a better programmer, or at least easier to work with, why should they pay my $90/hr rate when they can do it for a fraction of my rate?
The only way I, as an individual, can stay on top is if I constantly increase my skills and my value to customers(educating them, working on-site, anticipating their needs, etc).
A rolling stone gathers no moss, and in our economy you can't take your job for granted. Sure, you've been a secretary for 30+ years, but in the 70's and 80's you were laid off because of the xerox copier and the computer. If you don't keep moving, you'll find that moss is actually poisoning you and your career. Now there's one secretary for 80+ engineers, and it happens to be the secretary that kept improving her skills beyond what was required of her when she was originally hired.
The internet allows a lot of work to be done anywhere in the world. Just like the computers and the copiers of the past it will change the way businesses work. Protectionism can't possibly work in this environment - witness the great firewall of china. We can't protect our jobs by placing tariffs on imported cars like they did in the 80s. Why didn't we protect the secretary's jobs from the evils of IBM and Xerox? Why did we let robots into the manufacturing workplace?
We can't protect our national economy (nevermind our individual personal economies) from the onslaught of the global economy - all we can do is take advantage of it, in the same way we took advantage of the copiers, computers, and robots that today raise no ire among workers who would otherwise be doing those jobs.
Waitstaff should be glad that even in our current economy, they can't be outsourced, or easily replaced by machines. It's quite a sense of entitlement to argue that waitstaff should be paid as well as skilled labor, though.
you guys should seriously read the American Way by Carville Earle(sp) its amazed me to no end. basically it talk about cycles, there are two classes the protectionist elite and the free-trade masses.(give you one guess who's who in our country) he talks about how what's happening in our country has happened twice before and generally lasts for about 50 years at a time. last time the PE were in charge their cycle ended in the 1920's(hmmmm) and then the government stepped in with the NEW DEAL, and started stacking the deck for the FTM. we had what many people consider the golden years of last century that ended in the late 70's mid 80's with Reagen. we are now again in a PE era and thus basically the FTM are going to suffer more than not.
(i will add that I have not finished the entire book and I am still digesting and trying to understand it all, but its amazing to see)
(i will add that I have not finished the entire book and I am still digesting and trying to understand it all, but its amazing to see)
Very interesting - google books has a preview. http://books.google.com/books?id=RCp-l_HxpIoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=XWterUiUBcgC&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1, this book was written to help explain what Earle was talking about. the man that co-wrote this book , John Heppen, was his doctoral student(his most faithful student), he is also my professor of geography at my school.
C
Chibibar
I was talking to my co-worker yesterday after Obama's speech at one of our campus. The global economy is here to stay. The world is getting smaller and smaller. We (The U.S.) shouldn't try to produce worker to compete foreign market. We just can't compete. There are laws in place and such which make our cost of production high (safety, worker laws etc etc) so we have to adapt and produce different kind of workers that CAN compete.
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