Comment by defterGoose | Hacker News Reader

Comment by defterGoose | Hacker News Reader

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>There's a schism being created in this world with the work from home crowd being one side, and the warehouse/foodservice crowd on the other side.

Totally agree, and it's good to know that anyone besides myself sees it. For me personally, I'm educated and know I have the skills to be on that first side of the divide, but it makes me feel very nervous/sad, because I know a lot of the stuff going on at the lower-wage end of the scale is unsustainable, and it makes me very worried for the future of our society. In the sense of how modern people want to live their lives, people in the service industries are extremely undervalued, and everyone deserves a fair wage for fair work and the ability to live in a dignified way.

I complain about everyone expecting a tip on their POS terminals and prices constantly rising, but in the spirit of my above point, they probably deserve it. We need a return to sanity regarding the returns of being a business owner.

> I complain about everyone expecting a tip on their POS terminals and prices constantly rising, but in the spirit of my above point, they probably deserve it.

This is also a huge complaint of mine in specific situations. If I go to an NBA game or concert, buy a beer for $12, and the POS has a tip thing, I want to scream. I want to scream at the vending group to just pay the people more money. The profit margin on the beer is insane, give your workers some of the money rather than try to pass the buck on to the consumer you’re already gouging.

Sorry, but you gotta tip in those scenarios. You have correctly identified the problem, and you know it isn't the workers' fault. Still, they aren't getting paid enough. It shouldn't be our job to spread money around evenly, but here we are. You can afford the game, you can afford the beer, you can afford to tip them.

There's no reason to believe that the workers there aren't making $15 or $20/hr. Sure, they might be minimum wage, but there are fast food places by me advertising $25/hr for first shift workers and they can't find anyone. The stadiums in the nearest city are fully staffed, so it's unlikely they're getting minimum wage.

It's certainly likely, bordering on probable, that a lot of the people getting tips now that didn't get tips 4-5 years ago are making good money without tips and that's just extra.

For a specific example, I go to a local Subway every now and then, and they advertise hiring at $18/hr to start, more for part time, less desirable shifts, etc. Their POS lets you tip 18%, 20%, 25%, or "Skip" ($0) unless you do custom. I obviously don't know their revenue but they've been in business years while others in the same shopping center have come and gone, so they've got to be doing decent volume. There's no reason to think they're not getting several dollars and hour (e.g. several thousand dollars a year) in tips beyond their salary. It's not because they're underpaid, it's because people will tip if you make that the default.

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