Popsicles and Pet Shops

a thought occurs

mohawkcub:

dolgematki:

There’s an excellent post on the finer points of tipping the servers in the US and I cannot for the life of me fathom why don’t the industry just start paying its workers a decent living wage? After all, if you can’t afford to pay people, you probably shouldn’t hire them.

Paying a living wage?
Them’s dirty socialeest thoughts.

What’s next, affordable and readily available healthcare for all?

As much as I agree with the sentiment for many, many reasons, the problem isn’t a jingoist backlash against the dirty word “socialism”. The problem is with traditionalism and individualism.

First, the reason the system is set up this way is to encourage attentiveness to one’s job. The idea is that the server/bartender/whomever is serving the customer, not the restaurant, and therefore the customer should determine how much his or her employee should be paid, depending on the skill level of the employee.

But, this is the way it has been in the United States for at least a century, which makes it hard to change without a complete overhaul of the system. The way many restaurants deal with it is to include gratuity, or leave it up to the servers to include it—many restaurants in New York City, for example (where I waited tables for a long time) do that. But because the concept of tipping what one feels is appropriate is so ingrained in the American consciousness, that has its own host of issues. For an example, I once had a customer from the Midwest try to tell me it was illegal to even suggest a tip (it’s not, and the restaurant had printed it on the check, not me); for another example, foreign customers (including English customers*) often take particular issue with the concept of tipping purely because they are not used to having to think about it (it isn’t uncommon for foreign customers to refuse, despite knowing American practices, to tip because they don’t have to back home).

Making it even more difficult is the fact that a minority of staff in tipped jobs—but a sizable minority—would prefer the system to remain as it is. If you’re working in an Applebee’s in Georgia, for example, a living wage might be preferred. But not if you’re working for Gramercy Tavern, or any number of other private (or classier) restaurants, where a server can expect to make $2000 per week. I made twice as much money as a waiter than I do as an English professor, and I was at  middle-of-the-road restaurants. I knew people who paid their college tuitions in cash from what they made over the summer down the shore, after what they spent going out partying every night. There are multiple class action lawsuits currently being processed from both restaurants and casinos because management began taking a cut of the staffs’ tips—they did so because the staff were making so much money that no one wanted to move up to management since they’d be taking a huge pay cut to do so (Wynn casinos in Vegas and De Niro’s restaurant in NYC, for a couple of examples). Waiters won’t make $80k on a living wage.

I personally feel that the payment of staff should be the responsibility of the employer (in the above examples, management positions should have been paid more—that’s the fault of greediness in the upper execs and owners). But to boil tipping down to a backlash against the scary idea of “socialism” is to gloss over an incredibly complicated facet of life. (Side note: This isn’t just an American issue; the Wikipedia page on tipping includes subsections for forty-three different countries, and leaves out countries I’ve been to which have their own standards.) I think the fact that restaurants are beginning to include gratuity shows that the system is changing; more and more, people are beginning to realize that customers want to pay as little as possible, generally, so servers end up getting fucked (the common argument is that the good tips make up for the bad tips, but of course my argument is that good tips shouldn’t have to cancel out bad tips from cheap customers). But in the meantime, we have to deal with this grey area.

(*I mention English customers specifically because I am under the impression the people I am reblogging are from England, or at least the UK. Waiters who work in restaurants heavily trafficked by international customers learn all the subtle nuances of the various cultures they deal with; we added gratuity at our discretion at the last restaurant in which I worked, and it was often dependent on where we thought the customer was from [that might sound shitty, but that mindset is pervasive throughout the industry so that employees can feed their families]. English customers were tricky, partially because of a major difference between the older customers and the younger. Older English customers generally did not tip; one might expect $5, regardless of the check, because they understood tipping is required here, but the amount was a foreign concept for them. Younger English customers, however, usually tipped better than most Americans. I don’t know particularly why this was, but I imagine it has a lot to do with the systemic change I was writing about. Awareness and acceptance take time, but they also do take place.)

A tip:

When emailing your professors, don’t do this:

hi prof im having a bit difficulty understanding exactly what youre asking us to do as far as assignment and also the question for the paper which is do on the 14th

That’s all there is to the email.

1. I don’t know the name of this person. Email addresses rather often do not clue us in to who you are, and this person is no exception.
2. I don’t know which class of mine this person is in. Most of your professors have multiple classes; if your professor is an adjunct, he or she likely has multiple classes at multiple schools. Clarify.
3. If you don’t understand something, explain what it is you don’t understand. I post detailed instructions for my assignments, like many professors, and feel these instructions are clear. Therefore, you need to specify what it is you do not understand. Length? Subject matter? Style? If it’s just everything, then I have to call “laziness” and/or “bullshit”, because as a speaker of the English language, there is no way that your English professor’s instructions were so obtuse as to be incomprehensible.

This is not an odd email. This is a typical email, and it’s highly frustrating to be on the receiving end of this. Take the time to read the instructions, maybe even a second time, before asking questions; if you need to ask questions, be sure to identify yourself and make your questions specific and comprehensible. Finally, treat your emails like professional emails. I don’t require punctuation in my papers to be a pain in the ass—I require it because we use punctuation in order to be clear in our written communications. Use it at all times, not just for special occasions.

I was five minutes early for class today.

Which isn’t unusual; I don’t like to get to class insanely early, because students seem to not want to have normal conversations with me around, which means that we simply sit there in awkward silence. But, because this classroom has a lot of technology in it, it is also locked when a professor isn’t present. Clearly this isn’t always the case—if the prior professor doesn’t lock the door, it’s open for the next class. So, I got there five minutes early, unlocked the door, and went inside.

A student spent the first five minutes of class complaining that I need to tell security to open up the room “on time”, because she usually gets to class before the professor and has to wait outside. I kept trying to explain to her that they won’t do that because of the technology in the room; without a professor there, the room will remain locked unless someone else leaves it open. But she kept repeating “on time”… as if I were somehow late by being only five minutes early. And I kept trying to explain that I was not only on time, but early, so I’m not sure what her complaint really is. If she chooses to get there one hour early, does that mean she’s supposed to be let in? Class begins at X time, so it isn’t unreasonable that I get there at five minutes to X.

Anyway. I’m more writing this out because I feel like hell and have time to kill until my next class even though all I want to do is sleep. Goodbye.