Life Lesson

One of the Starbucks locations at which I worked was in a pretty wealthy area, yet our tips were just a little over half the area average.  One of the younger baristas wondered about that, asking, "wouldn't our tips be higher than most of the other stores since people around here are so rich?"

I simply replied, "Do you really think these people got rich by giving their money away?"

You know, Jesus had something to say about this very thing.  Funny how people haven't changed, and how we haven't yet learned lessons from thousands of years ago.  A fair chunk of Jesus's parables and other teaching can be summed up as, "rich people are assholes."  Fail to understand this and you'll get burned every time.

Comments

[Corvus9]

Word.

[ballgame]

Ian Welsh has a superb post up about how society treats the poor.

[ballgame]

!@#$ing Typepad.

(mutter grumble)

The link to the Ian Welsh article:

http://www.ianwelsh.net/disrespecting-the-poor/

[litbrit]

One of the wealthiest people I know--the guy and his family live in what can only be described as a castle in the middle of their home city (in the midwest), and they have numerous houses in Florida and one of the Rocky Mountain states, too--makes a habit of leaving a bare 10% tip (if that) after ordering waitpersons around all night at dinner. Robert won't go out with him and his wife any more; when we did, we usually took turns paying for dinner, but when the friend and his wife were paying, they left risibly, insultingly small tips and Robert and I would then, invariably, have to run back in to the restaurant on the pretense of having forgotten an umbrella or something, so we could quietly throw some more cash on the table and bring the tip up to a proper, respectable amount. (Ex-bartenders and waitresses are probably famous for that kind of behavior!) For shame, right?

Seriously, Stephen, you're so on-point: way too many wealthy people--especially those who've inherited it as opposed to come up through the ranks, as it were--are SERIOUS tight-fisted assholes.

[MR Bill]

One reason I'm not doing art as a career is that, especially after the mid '90s, getting paid, by private clients, or galleries, or corporations was so bloody difficult.
Once a client, a wealthy lady (the ruby 'tennis' bracelet was worth more than my house came to my modest studio, and after commenting on the spartan conditions (such as wood stove for heat) said, "well, I don't suppose you care what you make as long as you are happy".
"Actually, I think I deserve to be reasonably well paid, and paid enough to raise my kids in a decent manner."
She was taken aback, and would after a few months, commission a piece. My usual procedure is to get %50 down and get 50% on delivery. She was out of town when I hung the piece, and I was told to bill her. It would take 6 months and threats of a sheriff's lien to get paid.
Gallery people will tell you it's the wealthiest clients who are slowest pays. I have a slew of horror stories of slow payment, bounced checks, even sexual harassment on artists, who are just not in position of power most of the time. (I wrote this up in an article called "The Economics of Dysfunction" for ARTPAPERS Magazine in the late '90s). If you wonder why some successful artists are flaming assholes, it may be that the culture lets them survive and even thrive when nice guys get the short end of the stick.
And today I will be staining an almost 1/2 mile of horse fencing (4x4 posts, with rough sawn 2x6x8 boards). I was only able to get $10 an hours. The client is a 'nice' lady from Macon who hates blacks and 'the messiah' in the White house, and was complaining about all the taxes she was paying.... I'm glad to work, and it's not too strenuous. It will last into next week and I'm not sure what will follow that.
But wages are falling, and I've gone from a high of $20 an hour for carpentry two years ago to this. Even the Mexicans and Guatemalans are leaving here. And if you don't think wages will be suppressed in this current depression, and the wealthy won't squeeze more value, you are ignorant of history.

[jshinola]

I worked at an old-money country club and what I came to realize is that there is a fundamental lack of understanding the impact that tips make on wages. many who are rich never had to work service jobs and I am continually surprised at the number of people who don't understand that service minimum wage fluctuates by industry and state.

To them it's extra money, not base income. And they are jack-asses.

[dm]

A fair chunk of Jesus's parables and other teaching can be summed up as, "rich people are assholes."

Now, had the priests and nuns put more stress on this, I'd not have strayed. At least not so quickly.

[Elena]

The real reason for this is probably much simpler than "rich people are mean".

Namely, they don't have awareness of the "evrery nickle counts" logic behind dropping money in a tip jar in a casual setting such as a coffee counter. They are careless because these small amounts would be meaningless to them, and so it doesn't occur to them that others may rely on it.

[John]

That passage is exactly what thought of when I read that article yesterday.

I think there may be some implications for tax policy, but I am not sure what they are.

[litbrit]

Elena, if you're intelligent enough to *get* rich in the first place, wouldn't logic dictate that you'd be capable of doing simple math--that a few dollars and quarters here plus a few dollars and quarters there add up to thirty dollars that the two baristas split, meaning each got an additional (and Earth-shatteringly huge) fifteen bucks for the eight-hour shift on top of his minimum wage-minus-taxes-and-social-security paycheck?

I mean, if someone is too far-removed from real life and too "above it all" to be aware of what minimum wage is (and aren't so many wealthy Republicans always trying to keep it from being raised at the state and federal levels, so I do think they're well aware of how much it is per hour), that itself would, to me, be the definition of mean: unaffected by and thus uncaring about the circumstances of others.

Also, the "not being aware" excuse doesn't really explain how Mr. Wealthy Guy can look at a restaurant check and calculate a 7% or 8% tip every single time, despite common knowledge that the standard minimum for decent service is 15%, more for excellent service--and at least 20% in New York, if you want to show your face at that place again.

I still say, an alarming number of really rich people are serious assholes. Mean, tight-fisted, selfish, and socially unacceptable assholes.

[Sara Anderson]

They did get bad service by not tipping, though.

[DN]

This is a bit silly. I've waited high-end restaurants and Denny type places. The reason so many people want to work the high end is – they tip really well. Expecting 15-20% starts with the rich. You can _almost_ make a living in a good joint because people want to keep face. You guys go work in a Shari’s and make your 5%. With people screaming about their water has no ice and eggs cooked too hard and give me a coffee refill right now and where is my ketchup. I’ll work Ruth’s Steakhouse. Let’s compare tips. Even at Starbucks you will be better off working a rich area than not. Of course, you’ll be even better off if you don’t need to work such a shit job.

I think nobody on this thread has ever really waited for a living.

DN

[litbrit]

DN, you think wrong. Really, really wrong.

And "expecting" 15-20% does not "start with the rich"--it is, and long has been, the accepted percentage for tipping food and beverage servers in the United States; many restaurants automatically apply an 18% service charge (tip) to bills for tables with more than, say, six people. Why? Because it has been proven, again and again, that when the total bill is higher, people conveniently forget that 15-20% guideline and cheap out on the group tip. A waitress will spend the better part of an entire shift serving drinks, appetizers, entrées, desserts, and coffees to a big table of people, each of whom had various special requests, and then present a bill of $500 to the table; if the restaurant doesn't automatically calculate and add on a tip, the patrons will throw a $20 bill on the table and think they're being generous because it's a WHOLE TWENTY.

It's true that one can make more money, overall, in a high end restaurant, but you leave out some key points: the rate of table turnover is much higher at breakfast joints than at fancier steak houses, for one thing. Your average tab is lower, but you have more of them. Also, the private club in Miami at which I worked (and made really great tip money) required that we dress up considerably and spend a fair bit on manicure, hair, hats, and shoes (there was a full-time style consultant who monitored all that, too). Everyone was, at a minimum, bilingual. Those types of requirements aren't generally in place for Denny's waitpersons.

The wealthy and the not-wealthy have their share of crummy tippers, true, but as those of us on this thread have noted, rich folks are invariably responsible for the more egregious and shameful acts of stiffing.

[Stephen]

rich folks are invariably responsible for the more egregious and shameful acts of stiffing.

Well, the rich and church attenders, which groups don't always overlap.

For several years there was a KC Masterpiece restaurant on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. Whenever a server got stiffed on a tip, they'd say they had been "Nazarene'd," a reference to members of the Church of the Nazarene, which has a publishing house, general headquarters, seminary and liberal arts college all in the KC area. And a history of bad tippers.

[Tracy]

I work at a bank in a wealthy area and the people with the most money are the ones who complain the loudest when they incur a fee. Because they have a lot of money with us, they want (and generally get) special treatment. It saddens me when the poorer folks who could really use the $37 aren't given that same consideration because they have a smaller bank account. Seems very backwards to me. Explains why I'm a Democrat, though.