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Comment by learc83 | Hacker News Reader

I worked retail customer service and then tech support for years before I got a high paying office job.

Money doesn't makes life your life automatically better, but it does make it many times easier. It won't solve all your problems, but solves a heck of a lot of them.

I try to treat service employees well, not because of some patronizing sense of responsibility, but because I empathize with their position.

They have a crappy job and low pay. Dealing with the stress of computer generated everchanging schedules, rude customers, and management that treats you like a child is bad enough. When you couple that with barley making enough to survive, it's a pretty tough existence (realitive to my own).

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> I try to treat service employees well, not because of some patronizing sense of responsibility, but because I empathize with their position.

That sounds like a patronizing sense of responsibility. I treat service employees the same as I treat everyone else I meet - like a person. Not because they're serving me food/coffee, or because I have some sort of empathy for their situation (I do, I worked retail for a long time), but because they're human beings just like me.

It's much easier to treat a service worker like they are beneath you specifically because they are serving you.

Understanding that they are people like you is the definition of empathy.

But I guarantee that you don't treat all people exactly equally.

How often do you leave a tip for a service person (beyond what is expected). How often do you tip your dentist, or your lawyer?

> But I guarantee that you don't treat all people exactly equally.

No, I don't, and it would be incorrect to do so. I don't treat my solicitor the same as my barista, I have different relationships with those people. But for someone I don't know, I treat everyone equally, be they rich, poor, serving me, being served by me, saying hello on the street, etc.

> How often do you leave a tip for a service person (beyond what is expected). How often do you tip your dentist, or your lawyer?

There's an enormous difference between tipping people and treating them respectfully. When I order a coffee, I don't ever shout or abuse the people that are serving me. If there's a mistake, I'll be polite and point it out. If there's still an issue at that point, I'll be a little less polite and probably not return.

When I phone my solicitor, I'm always polite. I don't shout at them, or abuse them, and if there's a mistake, I point it out. I treat everyone the way I would want to be treated if the roles were reversed.

Maybe I am missing something, but why would you tip your dentist or lawyer?

I think the parent comment was implying that I don't treat everyone equally, e.g. I don't tip everyone that I interact with, when really that has nothing to do with it.

People do. A lot. My father was an ophthalmologist,and people really dig being able to see. It was just an endless parade of gifts and people stopping by to say thank you at our household.

>>That sounds like a patronizing sense of responsibility. I treat service employees the same as I treat everyone else I meet - like a person.

I think it's totally OK to treat some people more nicely than you treat others, based on what you know about their position or what they are going through.

What if they aren't working there to survive? What if they are just teenagers living at home for some spending money? Or a retired person just trying to get out of the house?

Or someone working retail or service job in Singapore which has 0% unemployment? The answer, the most expensive worst service people in the world. The don't care about their job because there are 3 more waiting for them. There's also a huge social safety net there. It's not that there's no incentive to do well. It's perverse to say, but people sometimes don't care when you take away the floor.

> They have a crappy job and low pay. Dealing with the stress of computer generated everchanging schedules, rude customers, and management that treats you like a child is bad enough. When you couple that with barley making enough to survive, it's a pretty tough existence (realitive to my own).

It's possible to make quite a nice living working F&B, a customer service job, in a tourist town. Don't just assume everyone working a role is beneath you and living some kind of shit existence.

It has nothing to do with them being beneath me.

Their are people making a nice living in every industry. The overwhelming majority of service workers do not.

There's a possibility that my middle-aged waitress is independently wealthy and just doing this for fun, that doesn't stop me from leaving a $100 at Christmas time.

It's not because I think I'm better than her, it's because in all likelihood, I've been just a bit luckier than her financialy.

> It's not because I think I'm better than her, it's because in all likelihood, I've been just a bit luckier than her financialy.

This is exactly what people here are talking about. The $100 tip shouldn't have anything to do with you being luckier financially, it should be a gesture of appreciation. A $100 tip isn't a gesture of appreciation normally, it's a gesture of "I am more fortunate than you, but I take pity on you so here you are."

Solidarity with people less fortunate than you in not patronizing...social solidarity is a good thing.

Sharing money because you have more of it is not judgemental or saying someone is beneath you. Why would you think that?

so not only are you passing judgment on an act of goodwill, you are manufacturing the fundamental motivation and putting it into someone else's head as well.

that's called projection. you surely would have come across that in all your pop psych and pop philosophy reading that you are obviously doing lately, right?

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