Tipping Culture

Okay .... I woke up and chose Rambling this morning .... it was that or violence and I think rambling on the internet is ... probably .... the choice less likely to end up with me either dead, injured, or in jail. So it was likely just a matter of time today before I ran across SOMETHING that got the ole grey matter spinning, and I just came across a post "If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to eat out." ... and ... well ... I can't say I fully disagree with that, but at the same time I think that the tipping culture in the US has gotten a wee bit out of hand.

There are a lot of factors in this, not the least of which is tipping, when I was growing up, wasn't an automatic. Tipping was a 'thank you' to a server that did an above average job, or, at the least was attentive and helpful in their service. Then it became expected that a tip of a % of the bill would be left which in some cases led to reduced service shown to smaller groups or individuals because the servers didn't see those customers as 'worth the time' .... after all a 10% tip on a $10 tab was only going to be $1. Then the expected % began to raise, and tip jars started showing up everywhere, fast food, gas stations, doughnut shops, and delis, and particularly in the chain 'fast service' restaurants ... those places that are arguably a step up from fast food, but still aren't a full sit down and order restaurant.

But this can be easy to pawn off as the service workers getting greedy or just wanting to bleed more money out of the customers, but there's more to it than that. Payroll and taxation have led to this as well as the failure to increase minimum wage to at least somewhat follow inflation if nothing else. You see restaurants and other such places got laws passed that said that if their servers accepted tips they could be paid below minimum wage .... more over while those employees were legally required to claim the tips on their income tax ... the employer was NOT responsible for matching the social security and medicare taxes on the tip income. Which made for a HUGE savings for the employer and a headache (at best) for the servers. 

Of course the % of the bill that was expected as a tip increased .... cost of living has continually gone up, but minimum wage has not ... add in that servers can, legally, be paid BELOW minimum wage and their only way to increase their income was to push for higher tip percentages ... in most cases they aren't physically able to serve more PEOPLE, therefore they must collect more per person or group served in TIPS to stay above water.

Likewise as wages have stagnated and the cost of living has continued to rise more and more types of employees have sought to supplement their paycheck by leaning on the generosity of the customer. Now in most cases these positions don't officially receive tips and, therefore don't have the 'pay below minimum wage issue .... they do have the issue that the Federal minimum wage has been flat since 2009 at 7.25 an hour (or roughly 15,000 a year assuming a 40/week work schedule) ... in short I would say that most everyone would be better off going back to a system in which servers were paid for their work by their employers at a rate for sustainable living and tipping went back to being a gratuity for good or exceptional service that supplemented the income rather than an expected handout that people relied upon to put food on their own table.

Understanding that it would, likely, raise the cost of eating out ... but it would be an equitable and transparent system again. A system that would better, and more reliably, compensate the servers for their work ... but it also brings up another discussion. The Minimum Wage in general. There are a ton of issues here and a lot to unpack. 1 - it is a MINIMUM wage, meaning companies can (and many do) compensate their employees at a higher rate, 2 - many States HAVE increased the minimum wage within the State .... but those don't fully address the issue. 

You see part of the problem is that the Federal Minimum wage ... and most of the state laws where they have increased state minimum above the federal ... they're static laws ... they don't really take into account the dynamics of economy and, in some ways, their existence can actively stifle salaries. The existence of a minimum wage puts a floor down, and as a result that is where building will start it is setting the base line which is fine, that's what it's supposed to do, but as cost of living goes, as it does, invariably up that floor remains static and, like it or not, every pay rate out there is ultimately tied to that floor as companies and corporations will value everything, to one degree or another, off of that floor. (At least up to a certain level, once you go into the executive levels of a corporation you will undoubtedly be in an area where no one is thinking of that floor any more.)

That is to say, the minimum wage staying low has a tethering effect on higher level positions as well because the perceived value of those positions will, at some level, be based on that 'minimum wage' job often without real regard to the true cost associated with the requirements of the job. ... The 'entry level' position that lists a college degree for example (but could often be done just as easily by someone with a HS diploma) may start at $15 an hour ... but that doesn't really take into account the debt that college degree represents and is more likely to be set based on 'amount over minimum wage' rather than calculations related to the average cost of college tuition.

Now raising the minimum wage has it's own issues, raised minimum wage results increased labor costs across the board and the floor (and everything above that) will, ultimately, get raised and all of those scales get re-adjusted. This generally results in increased costs of goods and services (and often some lower profits as businesses will eat some of the additional costs to avoid raising prices and losing market share ... this can have it's own issues from slower business growth or loss of buffer funds to protect against market downturns or slowdowns depending on the industry in question.) The result of which is usually not as dramatic of an increase in purchasing power as expected, but does, over all, allow the economy to re-balance.

Because $7.25 isn't worth what $7.25 was in 2009 when the latest minimum wage went into effect. While it isn't huge ... that $7.25 minimum wage in 2009 to have the same purchasing power as today would need to be almost $11/hr and, taking into account that the law that raised it to 7.25 was passed in 2007 it would need to be about $11.24/hr to match what $7.25 was worth when the law passed. That's almost $23,380 / yr ... compared to the $15,000/yr that the current minimum wage represents. With the current national average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment at $1,635/month that's $19,620/year .... not including food, utilities, and other requirements for living .... no I won't say that I believe that someone should be able to raise a family on a single minimum wage income .... but I do feel that it's not unreasonable to believe that 1 person living alone should be able to take care of themselves on one, and $15,000 a year is more of an insult than anything else at this point ... and that number has an effect on the rest of the pay spectrum. It also has to be considered that it also has an effect on government dependency ... the more people that fall below those numbers the more people that need those assistance programs ... and, in turn, the more money those programs need, it's not unreasonable to believe that a solid increase to the minimum wage could, in essence save the taxpayer money. 

We need to look at the minimum wage ... and when we do I would recommend that rather than setting a static monetary amount as has been done in the past, we tie the minimum wage to an index, setting a base point, a review period, and adjust the wage regularly and automatically based on the index ... be it inflation, avg cost of living, or whatever. Yes the law can be reviewed and changed down the road as well, but putting in an automatic adjustment periodically will prevent a case where it stagnates as it has since the 2007 law ... 18 years since the last adjustment was passed into law ... 16 since it took effect. 

Random Ramblings

There's just so much going on. Israel / Iran, Russia / Ukraine, plane crashes, and idiot politicians. Some might be surprised to find out that I'm no fan of Trump ... but then again I didn't like him in the 80's and 90's either and I don't think he's mellowed with age, I think he's gotten worse. Back then I thought him the stereotypical used car sleezeba... er ... I mean salesman. Now I still think that's what he is, but now with a healthy dose of spoiled brat added in. He wasn't the popular choice before his first term he squeaked in because the Republicans had like 14 different runners in the primaries and none of them were strong front runners. The thing was that since the field was so wide he won some of the early primaries by narrow margins with under 20% of the votes, and there is a good chance that his name recognition got him more votes than his platform.

Okay, let's be real here, in the early states he didn't HAVE a coherent platform in that first run, he was an outsider with a famous name. The first did appeal to the voters that were sick of career politicians, and the later appealed to people that had no real reason to vote beyond 'It's my duty' and zeroed in on a familiar name. Regardless of that he won a few early states and one thing has been shown again and again in studies ... people will tend to back the person that they believe will be the winner. Keeping in mind that going into that race Trump had jumped parties (he'd been a registered Democrat his whole life in NY), was known to be friends of the Clintons, had several very public fraud suits against him, as well several very public bankruptcies ... If the Republicans had anyone that was remotely qualified he should have been an easy one to get rid of, but instead he squeaked by in a couple early states and took a small lead, that momentum allowed him to pick up more backing, more donations, he could point to those early victories and, again, some people who might have otherwise backed a different candidate were like 'my guy isn't looking too likely, let's back this guy he looks like he could take it' ... not because they agreed with or even liked him, just because they felt better backing someone that they thought might win. 

I should mention that I despise two of the three types of voters I just described. The 'I'm only here because it's my duty but I don't really have an opinion beyond that' and the 'I'm going to vote for 'x' because he looks like he'll win, not because I agree with him or think he'll be a GOOD choice, but just because he looks like a winner' ... if we could find a way to get those votes (from both parties) out of the system ... well I'd like to think the world might be a better place. 

I look at people that voted for Trump (by their own admission, I'm not guessing here) appalled at the effects the tariffs had and I looked at them and I'm like, this was expected, it wasn't a surprise ... I mean I'm no economist but I saw this coming. Or the ones that are like 'I wanted the tariffs to bring back jobs, but this immigration stuff, I didn't want this' ... well you voted for it ... you get the whole package, not just the parts you want. Again, it was part of his campaign, anyone that listened to him, that followed him in the least knew this was part of what voting for him was.

I look at people that I know complained and hated Obama for trying to 'Rule through executive order' that praised Trump with every one he signed, even the ones that were technically meaningless. An executive order only applies to agencies under the direct control of the Executive branch ... it doesn't create law, it can't suspend or repeal laws, those are powers of the legislative and/or judicial branches of our government ... and the number of people that don't understand that separation of power is depressingly high, particularly when one of them seems to actually BE the President.

The world is on fire and the President isn't helping any of it and is, instead, throwing gasoline on the fires in his own country. I am all for the rule of law, but for it to work the President has to operate within it, and from the beginning he as acted as though he is above the law, he says that he can't stand by while law enforcement officers are attacked while doing their job ... but he just pardoned Jan 6th rioters that ... oddly enough ... attacked law enforcement officers that were doing their job. He is a power motivated hypocrite at best, and a dangerously delusional narcissist at worst. Most Presidents that I look back on I can say they made some pretty bad mistakes looking back at it (I'm looking at you Reagan) even Carter, Bush, Clinton, "W" Bush, Obama ... but I can say with all of them that I believe they believed they were making the best choice ... doing the right thing ... But I'm not sure with Trump ... I can't say that I honestly feel like even HE thinks this is the best for the country ... He really does strike me like someone playing The Sims and removing all the doorways so that his little Sim family is trapped in the burning kitchen just to see them suffer. 

Too much going on

 I say this because I am experiencing the paradox of having so much to write about that I can think of nothing to write. No, even that's not quite right, it's not that I can't think of anything to write it's that I can't focus on anything to write about it because as soon as I do I think of 3 more things I should write about. Modern lack of civility, AI and the assault on art, the stupidity of the current economic situation, the state of the education system, the failures and pitfalls of social media,  and the arrogance of ignorance ... just to name a few bouncing around my head.

Net result is that I'm likely not going to talk about any of those ..... or maybe I'll write about all of them. We'll just have to wait and see. Sometimes I look around, I listen to the news and read things that make me wonder if I'm the only one that sees some of this stuff. I mean I feel like I can't possibly be ... well, let's be fair, I know I'm not because I know my wife sees at least some of it too because we talk about things such as this fairly regularly. But outside of that? Well let me tell you a story.....

Last year I was working late evenings catching drives for various jobs and we had a 'one off upload' coming in that night. That is a client coming in that just needs to use our fast internet connection to upload their media to another location ... usually LA or New York. Well turned out they were shooting marketing material for a show we were working on (we didn't know what they were shooting when we booked the job, and they didn't know we were working dailies on the show, just had heard that we had good internet connection and reasonable rates.)  ... none of that's important by the way, just a cool coincidence.

 Well when he came by to drop the material for the upload since there was nothing going on in the office I offered that he have a seat, it was only a 30 minute upload based on the data anyway. I started the upload and we sat down at the breakroom table and talked. There was something political in the news ... I don't remember what now ... and normally I wouldn't normally discuss politics with a client, but he brought it up and while I doubt we'd have agreed on everything, we did on this point at least in general neither of us spoke too specifically. He was about my age ... maybe 5 years or so older if I had to guess (and I would have to as I didn't ask) ... and one thing we definitely agreed on is that we, as a society in general, have largely lost the ability to disagree.

I've talked about this a bit before I think, or maybe I haven't here ... I don't remember ... but starting I'd say with the news media in the late 90's or so and then into the rise of 'social media' nearly everyone and every topic largely became black and white, but reality and life rarely truly work that way. Discussion, debate, discourse is how we, as a society, learn about the complexities of issues by getting information from a differing point of view. But too often now, anyone that disagrees with someone becomes 'the enemy' (and we both noted that this behavior is from both sides in pretty much any discussion ... it isn't a left/right or a liberal/conservative or even a black/white issue .... it's a society issue.

A lot of people in today's society have decided that their view is the one true view, that what they see is THE answer and that everyone else is wrong. But that's not always the case, and with almost every complex social issue it is certainly NOT the case. Everyone has different experiences, different points of view, maybe different understandings of a situation. A friend of mine showed me an image many years ago, and I've used it many times in talking about this issue, but I recently found one that took it even a step further:

 

What you know and see may be true, but it doesn't mean that it is the whole truth, it doesn't mean that what someone else sees and describes from their point of view is wrong or a lie. This tendency to attack and belittle anyone with a different point of view only leads to not actually understanding the TRUTH of the matter. We are stronger and better as a society if we can take a step back and look at something from a different perspective, listen to someone that might have different life experience and take a moment to understand their view of things, doing that might give us a better picture of the truth, a better understanding of the issue and allow us to work toward better solutions, better ways of treating others around us that maybe we don't understand at first because we don't share their point of view, their experience, or their upbringing. 

 Don't get me wrong. Some things are simply wrong. Judging or treating someone differently because of their race, religion, sex, or anything like that is wrong, full stop ... do not pass go, do not collect $200. Any group that preaches, teaches, or condones hatred toward another group, who wish harm on another group ... is wrong. Some will say 'then punching Nazis is wrong too' ... in a way, that is correct, however, Nazis have traditionally been the aggressors and defending yourself or others is not wrong. Most reasonable people understand that these things are bad, so if you have a group of people going out of their way to identify themselves with such a group of people openly ... yeah ... Captain America had the right idea....