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Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

236 points by h2odragon 5y ago

lotsofpulp 5y ago
> Places like this rely on high school students for jobs like working the counter and delivering food. This sentence should be amended to “Places like this rely on people to accept low wages and low quality of life at work”. The whole article can basically be cut down to that sentence.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  For what it's worth, the usual "high school jobs" are not a problem when done by actual high schoolers as side gig to fund phone, beer, weed and gas. They don't need to pay rent, food or health insurance so what would be a non-living wage for an adult is luxury money for high schoolers. The problem is when actual adults who have to take care of adult things (rent, food, health insurance, car payments, ...) have to resort to entry-level jobs as a result of economy crunches or various forms of discrimination. For a long time employers took advantage of such employees and ran them to the ground... but now that retirees follow the "societal contract" and actually go and retire instead of blocking places for the young to rise, employers are in a bad crunch.
  - MattRix 5y ago
    That is true for some high schoolers but many others are making meaningful contributions to their family’s income and/or saving for college. There’s really no excuse to not pay them a living wage as well.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    > The problem is when actual adults who have to take care of adult things (rent, food, health insurance, car payments, ...) have to resort to entry-level jobs as a result of economy crunches or various forms of discrimination. No, the problem is labor supply and demand curves have shifted, hence prices have shifted. People do not make business plans and budgets based on the number of high schoolers are available to hire. They make budgets based on the price at which they expect to be able to purchase labor. In this business’s case, they seem to have made some erroneous assumptions, which is the cause of the problem.
    - ajmurmann 5y ago
      And when you ask for a pay increase because cost of living has gone up or complain that someone in another town that's similarly expensive earns more than you for the same role at the same company, you'll quickly hear that comp is based on cost of labor and not cost of living.
  - acdha 5y ago
    I knew multiple classmates who were working substantial hours because their families needed the extra income, and that was when wages were better than they are now. Anything close to real work should pay real wages because otherwise you’re screwing the most desperate at the expense of the more affluent kids who can afford to walk away.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      > Anything close to real work should pay real wages because otherwise you’re screwing the most desperate at the expense of the more affluent kids who can afford to walk away. That isn't how wages work. If someone can do the same job for less, they will and you will not get paid. You can raise the minimum but then you make everything more expensive (the people who build the tractors get more, the guy driving the tractor gets more, the person picking the lettuce gets paid more, the lady trimming and repackaging the lettuce gets more, the truck driver delivering the lettuce gets more, the high schooler throwing the lettuce on your burger gets more...) That "make everything more expensive" is inflation. Inflation hurts the poor the most. The lady making $400k/year doesn't care if ground beef is 10% more expensive.
      - acdha 5y ago
        > That isn't how wages work. If someone can do the same job for less, they will and you will not get paid. Sure, but recognizing that is what happens is important for both not patronizing businesses which give their workers the worst deal allowed by law and support for increasing minimum wages to match inflation. > You can raise the minimum but then you make everything more expensive (the people who build the tractors get more, the guy driving the tractor gets more, the person picking the lettuce gets paid more, the lady trimming and repackaging the lettuce gets more, the truck driver delivering the lettuce gets more, the high schooler throwing the lettuce on your burger gets more...) You're leaving out a key part: prices only go up for the fraction of those costs which are due to wages. For things like fast food, that's not a large component which is why, for example, a McDonald's worker in Denmark has a much better quality of life while the average Big Mac buyer is paying the same or less than their American counterpart: https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index Another big factor to consider is the cost of poverty. The working poor have less ability to participate in the economy so a certain amount of local economic growth never happens, and they're often worse off because they're forced to do things like buy inefficiently because they don't have the reserves to optimize. Paying people at the level minimum wage used to mean would allow a significant number of people to participate in the economy more effectively and we've never regretted growing the pie.
  - dls2016 5y ago
    What are you talking about? Have you ever been to a restaurant during the day or counted the employees over-50 at Walmart? There always have been adults working these jobs.
  - soco 5y ago
    I'm not sure how being served in a restaurant (restaurant, not fast food joint) by a high schooler can make an experience I'd wish to repeat. Or having my chateaubriand cooked by one.
  - watwut 5y ago
    > retirees follow the "societal contract" and actually go and retire instead of blocking places for the young to rise, Hard no here. If retirees feel strong enough to work, they are 100% entitled to improve their incomes. Especially when they don't have super generous pensions. Retiree struggling to pay pills and doctors is not something super exceptional. There is no social contract for them to stop working.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      > Hard no here. If retirees feel strong enough to work, they are 100% entitled to improve their incomes. Assuming a finite number of places of employment in an economy, when old people cannot ever reasonably retire because multiple governments have either outright stolen from the pension funds or otherwise fucked up the pension system, there is an imbalance: young people are forced to be either unemployed or massively under-employed (i.e. stuck in low-paid, entry level positions), instead of being able to rise through the ranks based on the work they put in.
    - ajmurmann 5y ago
      Also echoes a scarcity mindset whereas more market participants usually increase the pie.
- seneca 5y ago
  Well, the point is that these jobs don't create that much value. They're only worth so much, and the only skill required to do them is to put up with the misery. If you argue that all jobs must pay a "living wage", then jobs like this will just cease to exist and high-school kids won't be employable.
  - cool_dude85 5y ago
    These jobs don't create that much value? Did you look at the theater's financial statements to come to that conclusion? I suspect someone - most likely the owner of this establishment - is making quite a bit of money on this deal.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - soco 5y ago
    It might come as a surprise to some, but in some other countries service people are really paid a living wage. And the economy is still doing fine.
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    > these jobs don't create that much value According to what I read online, apparently eating out is something that is necessary for mental health and the pandemic causing issues with eating out is actually causing issues for people for some godforsaken reason. So probably not as valueless as you might think
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      Eating out and employing low paid workers don't have to be the same thing. Significant amounts of that can and will be automated. We are already seeing it happen.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    Good! High school kids shouldn’t need jobs. Encouraging that just ensures we have a child labor workforce that we can underpay, driving down wages for adults who need that money to survive. Child labor laws are a thing for a reason. If there’s not a lot of value in a job, it shouldn’t be a job. Yes, this will mean a degradation in service level across service jobs. Yes, that’s okay. Customers need to adapt to a world where they are expected to be more considerate, otherwise they’ll find themselves without help.
phlipski 5y ago
Excellent article. Shame so many wealthy people are cheap on tips. Always round up on the tip - the people relying on them need that extra $1-5 dollars more than you do. And if you can't afford those extra few dollars than what are you doing going out in the first place?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Shame so many people think it is a customer’s job to pay anything more than what they are asked to pay.
  - vultour 5y ago
    I find it hilarious how Americans think restaurant/bar staff is almost exclusively entitled to getting more money than what they signed up for, courtesy of the customer. Do you give other minimal wage workers tips? Cashiers, cleaners, random shop staff? If not then shut up.
    - burkaman 5y ago
      Restaurant staff make significantly less than minimum wage.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Not in CA/OR/WA/NYC/DC. Also, the federal minimum wage is not lower than anyone else’s, assuming they want to report their employer for not following the law.
        kritiko 5y ago
        The United States of America federal government requires a wage of at least $2.13 per hour be paid to employees who receive at least $30 per month in tips.
        5y ago
gitfan86 5y ago
You don't reach the top levels of government and media by having real world experiences. You get to top levels by playing the networking and politics game.
- nradov 5y ago
  In the 1992 US presidential campaign debate, George H.W. Bush had to admit that he didn't know the price of a gallon of milk. That was a "gotcha" moment that made him look out of touch. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17826509 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17826509
gbrindisi 5y ago
I am always baffled when I read about the tip culture in the states. I find it so belittling for workers. It seems to incentivize a mentality of "the customer is always right", with workers putting an extra effort to always smile and be nice in the hope for a fair tip.
- burkaman 5y ago
  It is belittling, and almost nobody except restaurant owners likes it. It's sort of a game theory problem - if we could coordinate everyone to stop tipping, then restaurants would be forced to pay their workers normal wages, and almost everyone would be better off. But if I stop tipping, I'm just an asshole making no impact on society. I guess the only practical approach is to simultaneously keep tipping and push for your city/state/country to eliminate the tipped minimum wage loophole.
  - pitaj 5y ago
    I think you'll find that servers and bartenders are the most adimant supporters of tipping. They make a killing.
    - bluedino 5y ago
      You also get to take cash home after every shift.
    - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
      Making a killing is pushing it unless you're working at a high end place. I really wonder how many HN people have ever worked in a waitstaff role. As much as you might hate it, tips keeps you just above minimum wage 95% of the time. Its not some money fountain like some people here seem to thing it is. People who want tips of course want it because it gives them money on top of minimum wage, why the hell would you expect someone to sabotage their own income stream?
      - toyg 5y ago
post_break 5y ago
Welcome to the terrible world of tipping. Subsidize the wages so the employer doesn't have to. I got out of my way to avoid any type of business or service that has tipping. It's getting so bad out there I've seen people talk about getting asked for a tip in a drive thru. Do I tip when I eat out? Yes. But that's cut down to a minimum now. I think we're headed towards a breaking point. Profits and cost of living cannot continue to skyrocket while pay stagnates.
- dls2016 5y ago
  > Welcome to the terrible world of tipping. While I agree, I remember bartenders making $10/hr + tips when I worked in a restaurant... in 1998. I could make $10/hr washing dishes (always the most hard-to-staff position) but wouldn't do so until after the restaurant died down because I made more busing tables with tips. Let's just call this type of employment what it is: wage slavery. People are used to there being a class of people willing to take these jobs.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - bluedino 5y ago
    > in 1998. I could make $10/hr washing dishes Most dishwashers were only making minimum wage back then ($4.25 in my state)
  - kickout 5y ago
    No way anyone outside of LA/SF/NYC were paying dishwashers 10+. I made 5.25 (i think) around that time period (98-00) washing dishes. It sucked ass
    - dls2016 5y ago
      Central PA, it was a busy restaurant next to Hershey Park. I believe dishwashers started at $7.50 or $8... but on a busy Saturday night the managers would have to go around begging someone wash dishes. I doubt they would've let me work full time at that rate, but they let me clock in/out to my advantage when they needed it. Hosts/busers started around $5.25 or so... I think I eventually worked it up to $7.50 or so, but with tips it was much more. My point is that even then it wasn't worth it to me to work for $10/hr. If I had to guess, the wages probably aren't much more now than they were then.
sokoloff 5y ago
Am I reading the author right that he’s expecting people to tip on the movie ticket portion of their check? If so, I’m not at all surprised to he ended up disappointed when people didn’t do that. It would never occur to me to do that, before or after reading the article.
- mwhitfield 5y ago
  I don't think that was the expectation, not sure where you read that into it. The two examples he gave were for the bar in the lobby and a total bill that would be mainly food. This is presumably a Drafthouse or one of the similar places that have full waiter service at your seat.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    > On Christmas Day a family bought over $100 worth of tickets and food two days after Christmas. > The tip? $2.00. How else would I read that? If it was $85 in tickets, $10 in served items, and $5 in tax, that’s a 20% tip in my book, but the author (a career politician) would like you to read it as a 2% tip.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - mwhitfield 5y ago
      Tickets are 10-15 dollars, the assumption here is that bill is mostly food.
      - irrational 5y ago
        $10-15 per person (closer to $15 in my experience). This was a family. If there were six of them, that would be $60-90 in tickets.
    - bnralt 5y ago
      He also says it was during "a movie night for kids," and the author thinks people should be paying for normal movie theater stuff, like popcorn: >You want to see Spider Man? You desperately want to bring your kids to Encanto or Sing 2? And you want your popcorn, food, and drinks? Cool. But if you don’t tip... If someone is taking their kids to a movie night, I wouldn't expect them to tip for tickets, popcorn and soda. And if there's a theater where the workers get upset that you don't tip them for those, I'd expect people to avoid it and go to a normal theater.
jimbokun 5y ago
> When I was a 16 year old kid working as a “Courtesy Clerk” for Albertsons Grocery store, we got a 15-minute break for every 4-hour shift and an hour lunch for an 8-hour shift. Shouldn't this be enforced by law?
- acdha 5y ago
  Yes. One of the big problems we have now is that companies are either reframing their work Uber-style to get around regulations or flat-out ignoring them. Going after violations like that or e.g. the endemic wage-theft at small businesses like restaurants would be a great use of civic money since most of the people affected by lax enforcement have limited power to push back.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The first step is to have those laws. The article is about Texas, a government that takes pride in not having laws that provide a minimum quality of life at work.
- ruined 5y ago
  federal law says nothing about breaks except that if they're 30m or longer you don't get paid many states go no further, including Texas, which explicitly does not require break time
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  Sure, but teenagers don’t know any better so they get away with it.
tom-thistime 5y ago
My personal opinion: it's not crazy to tip much more generously during COVID. This is not a normal time for businesses or employees. (NB I am not a tipped worker. I am a grumpy old engineer.)
irrational 5y ago
That picture of the $2 tip clearly shows that originally there was no tip: the tip space has a line through it and the 3 was a 1. I wonder if someone with them had a conscience and cajoled them into giving a tip.
mhb 5y ago
There's a line out the door and workers are quitting because of low pay and bad working conditions? It seems like a former labor secretary would, instead of blogging about a static situation, understand that this is a self-correcting problem. If you have demand that you can't satisfy, you raise your price.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  If you have demand that you can't satisfy, you raise your price. But not before bitching high and low about lazy workers and trying to convince Uncle Sam to force the wage slaves to return to work.
- ipython 5y ago
  He’s not in the position to do that though. He’s a bartender. It’s clear he is advocating for higher wages and better conditions and even notes that the management of the theater tried to do so but the national chain leadership shot them down.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I know quite a few businesses that leveraged themselves with CMBS to refinance during the mid to late 2010s whose debt service coverage ratio are about to go below the agreed upon threshold because of rising labor costs. They borrowed money and gave up the business and land as collateral in exchange for some frothy valuations and limiting personal liability, but the terms are that if they exceed their DSCR, they enter default. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dscr.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dscr.asp
    - alistairSH 5y ago
      The correct solution to that problem is allowing those businesses to default. Not attempt to universally prevent wage increases.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
1121redblackgo 5y ago
I wonder why all the comments from this thread exclusively about tips when the article covered much much more than that. Interesting.
- DanTheManPR 5y ago
  It suggests to me that a lot of HN commentators have only been on one side of the interaction between service workers and customers.
- lithos 5y ago
  Tipping is a semi frequently covered political topic here. Anything from corporate corruption, dumb Americans, any anecdote, and similar easy observations that don’t need you to read the article. Especially when “top comment” is on such an easy/well tread/low effort/acceptable topic, people here are far less likely to read the article. (Personally I think the “top comment” is almost always worth collapsing. Though looks like you’re top now while I typed this)
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  I suspect a lot of people here have never worked the kinds of jobs being talked about. It's basically bikeshedding. Tips are easy to talk about and the rest isn't.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  Talking about tipping is easy. Literally every argument for and against has been made, repeatedly, in this very forum, so you don't have to think before replying. Your knee jerks and paragraphs come out and you score internet points.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  Probably because he concludes the piece saying “Customers… if you don’t tip or act like an act like an asshole… workers will not be there to serve you.” Most of us have been customers at movie theaters, so we latch on to the part where he addresses us. Meanwhile, we’re all experiencing an increase in expected tips, both percentage-wise and existing services newly asking for tips, which tends to annoy customers. It’s like hidden fees for airlines and airbnb and all that other shit. You know it’s coming, but it always annoys a bit, and it’s just growing.
CapitalistCartr 5y ago
I have found no lack of good workers available. It's at a price point the company owner winces at, but that a different issue.
zivkovicp 5y ago
Sounds to me like a lot of "customers" in the US are just a55holes and anyone who has to work with them regularly is right to just stop. I'm sure a little common courtesy in everyday interactions is all it takes to make workplaces enjoyable; and a wage that allows you to stay warm and fed while working a _single job_ will get most people back to work. It's really a very low bar to set, I'm surprised this is even such a debated topic, it's sad.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ngngngng 5y ago
  When I worked at a call center doing technical support, customers would often get frustrated. But as soon as they crossed the line into unprofessional, I informed them I was hanging up the call, and did. Why would anyone in a service based industry put up with customers throwing tantrums? The manager should immediately march out, give them a refund, and tell them to leave.
  - anotherman554 5y ago
    It's much easier to hang up on someone than ask someone to leave in person. The problem customer may refuse to leave and escalate their tantrum.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    When was that? Because like every other low wage job, those conditions have also gotten a lot worse. These days a very standard contact center policy is that reps can never hang up on a customer under any circumstances. Breaking this is considered one of the big ones, termination-worthy on a first or maybe second offense depending on the employer. All you can really do is escalate it up to your supervisor. But that depends on them being available for that, and willing to back you up possibly at a personal cost to themselves. People put up with this because they are precarious workers who need the money badly. This is the sort of life where even if you have another job lined up, the 2-3 weeks between stopping one pay cycle and starting the other can be a huge risk or incur costs. These employers depend on this precarity, because otherwise like you said, why would anyone put up with it?
nepeckman 5y ago
It's a shame that the comments here are laser focused on the tipping parts of the article, and not the bigger picture items. The author outlines the struggles of getting service jobs filled in high CoL areas, the vicious cycle of turnover in these jobs, and all the commenters here want to discuss is the 2 paragraphs on tipping.
- CPLX 5y ago
  Indeed. The part about getting your income on an ATM card with mandatory fees no matter what you do seems like the best anecdotal example of how fucked things are for the little guy these days.
  - mynameishere 5y ago
    For many low-wage employees the alternative to this is check cashing fees which is even worse. The issue of why so many people are unbanked is a separate discussion.
    - michaelt 5y ago
      This writer isn't unbanked, though - he's a former labor secretary. He was charged a "fee" to get his pay despite that.
      - mcv 5y ago
        Having to pay a free to get your pay is ridiculous and should be illegal. Your pay should simply be deposited in your bank account with no other obstacles to access.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      Access to banking is indeed a problem, but pragmatically there is always cash or a non-fraudulent [0] check drawn on a local bank. And for tips specifically, they can just be bundled with the rest of the pay rather than creating a second problem. [0] for example checks drawn on Bank of America accounts are generally fraudulent, as BoA refuses to pay the specified amount when presented for payment at a branch. They're trying to run a similar scam to the ATM card fee described in the article, but they're doing it with the much older technology of checks and thereby inducing their customers to commit check fraud.
l8rpeace 5y ago
Former politician who focused on labor joins the workforce and learns the real truth THEN chastises customers for not tipping in the conclusion of his article? Yes, he talks about the tough conditions of the job and customer behavior and other things, but nothing about how MAYBE legislation should change for wages (hourly service workers relying on tips in the US actually make well below the hourly minimum wage). Sorry, for once I want to throw some outrage around about this.
- mynameishere 5y ago
  I think he's actually going through the exercise of confirming his prior beliefs with "experience".
  - l8rpeace 5y ago
    Too true! Yes he's now in the workforce, and it's such a shame that he NOW sees how the system works AFTER dictating/enforcing policy about it for an entire state. And there's an implication at the end of the article: tip more, customers. Policy is fine, it didn't cause this problem, customer behavior did. Perhaps he needs more confirmation through that experience.
    - jonathankoren 5y ago
      There’s a difference between understanding something and groking something. Experiencing something yourself is very different than simply reading and empathizing about something.
    - StewardMcOy 5y ago
      I can definitely see why what would be your interpretation of the end of the article, but I don't think that's what the author was trying to convey. Earlier on, under the "The first and biggest is wages" header, the author implies that the policies around tipping are a big part of the problem. But the reality is that there have long been efforts to end the practice of tipping in the US, and they have all failed. Even if there were to be a successful push to change the culture around it, it would take years, and his argument is about what is causing labor issues now. His argument is addressed to Austinites and others in similar areas who want to enjoy activities like watching a movie in a theater, and are now finding it harder than it used to be. In summary: 1. In order to survive, lots of theaters have pivoted to models where employees serve food and drinks to customers sitting in the theater. 2. Because they're serving food this way, they can get tips. 3. Because they can get tips, their wage is $2.13 an hour. 4. At the start of the pandemic, a lot of people took early retirement, opening up a lot of higher-end jobs that had been unavailable previously, since Americans are retiring later, and high-end job growth does not scale linearly with the population. This means low-wage workers now have more options, and it's switched from an employer-favored job market to an employee-favored market. 5. Low-wage earners cannot afford to live in Austin. Workers at this theater were either teenage children of wealthy Austinites, or commuting from less expensive areas. If the job gets too bad, the teenagers can afford to just quit, and the commuters can find jobs closer to home. 6. On one day given as an example, the entire tip amount was $3.80. Since tips are split evenly, every worker got $3.80 in tips for the day. Assuming they worked 8 hour days, that means the employees making a base salary of $2.13/hour got a total of $2.61/hour, or a total of $20.84 for the day, with no healthcare. That doesn't even cover the commute expenses for the day. 7. Because of all of the above, there are few people willing to work at a movie theater, and when a movie theater can't even keep a skeleton crew on staff to keep it running, it will have to close down. Therefore, if you are an Austinite who wants to continue going to movie theaters, you have only one immediate way to keep them open: tip generously. You might think the other option is to go to a movie theater that doesn't serve food and drink this way, and thus must pay the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. And this is more reasonable, but a total day's pay for a worker there will still be $58/day without healthcare. We're at the point where it covers the commute, but barely. The IRS estimates that commutes cost $0.56/mile in oil/gas/maintenance costs. For someone with a 30 mile commute each way, that's $33.60 in commute costs, leaving them with $24.40 for a day's work. Raising wages would help, and the author did point out that companies that have been making higher profits than ever could afford it. Universal healthcare, affordable housing in the city, and more robust public transit could help, but those aren't coming any time soon. The only hope of getting a pre-pandemic theater experience in the short term is to tip so well that employees are making significantly more than the minimum wage, this attracting enough workers to a theater. Even then, however, the author's point about customers being entitled assholes might still drive employees away. You could take tipping out of the equation entirely and most of the author's argument would still be true.
giantg2 5y ago
"The myth that Americans, and especially younger Americans, aren’t willing to work is flat wrong." It's not really a myth, but also can't be universally applied. When a very large percentage of jobs are like this, there's not much alternative. It's you want to work and deal with it, or you don't want to work. Option 3 would be that you want to work a "good" job, but good luck finding one! People don't want to work shitty jobs. I'm a software dev and I'm tired of the corporate BS and lies. I don't want to work. If this is a "good" job then I don't have hope that anything will be better. I can't wait to retire.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  Then you should drastically cut your expenses, probably move, and retire as soon as possible.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I have a family. Expenses are already reduced as they can be within reason. My wife won't consider moving. I have at least another 20 years.
    - germinalphrase 5y ago
      Then - good luck.
ianhawes 5y ago
TL;DR Macro trends: - older folks retired or never re-entered workforce after COVID - employees, for the first time in ~20 years, understand they can quit their job today and get hired somewhere else tomorrow - corporate won't raise wages because "they're already too high", ignoring any variation in the location's cost of living - teenagers have more options/entertainment available to them today and don't want to seek out traditional employment. The author's "their parents are rich" line has some nugget of truth to it unfortunately. Plus they don't want to be yelled at by angry entitled customers. Specific to the author's situation: - a business that would not traditionally rely on tips (a fucking movie theatre) relies on tips much to the detriment of the employees - tips are dispensed on a scam debit card (IMO should be illegal),
Dave3of5 5y ago
The article isn't surprising at all. Workers rights are very poor in the USA. The people that are the worst off when this is the case is the lowest ladder of workers and service industry is in that camp. If you want these industries to stay open you'll need better workers rights. For example allowing such a poor minimum wage when tipping. Things like at-will working and such like don't help here either. At the drop of a hat any one of these employees could be fired so I doubt any of them will stay under poor working conditions. I'm also surprised movie theatres are open on Christmas Day.
- Finnucane 5y ago
  Xmas has traditionally been a very busy day for movie theaters. Going to the movies is a popular way to spend the day in the US.
d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
I used to work crappy jobs too and they sucked really bad so I dedicated my life to getting the next slightly less crappy job. More qualified people move out and new people move in and the pipeline stays full. If the service you are selling has any value then valuable people will work there. The problem is that nobody in their right mind would see a movie in a theater these days. Your only customers are people who are all a few cards short of a full deck.
- fundad 5y ago
  Who could have guessed that moviegoers during a pandemic are bad tippers?
ashtonkem 5y ago
> While there have been complaints from employers that workers “don’t want to come back to work” just wanting to “stay on unemployment,” data shows that isn’t true. States that stopped increased unemployment payments early didn’t see much if any change in employment numbers. Child care was hard to get before COVID. The pandemic has increased shortages, building huge barriers to women who may otherwise want to get back into the workforce. The most recent reports show the shortage isn’t from “lazy young people who don’t value work like older generations do (and get off my lawn while you're at it).” It’s from older people who have opted to either retire early or simply aren’t returning to work. Someone finally said it better than me. All of the discussions of "worker shortages" around Unemployment Benefits have either been incoherent nonsense, or political points cloaked in fake economics.
smarx007 5y ago
I see that many are fixed on tips, but I found it quite shocking to read about long queues of people on the Christmas day and people quitting on the Christmas Eve. In many European cities, the streets are completely empty and almost all shops (maybe a local supermarket would open from 10:00 till 14:00 on a Christmas day after being closed for the Eve) are closed both on the Christmas Eve and the Christmas day.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  That is probably because he was working at a movie theater. Seeing a movie at a theater on christmas is a bit of a tradition for a lot of people here, for some reason. It's less extreme than in europe but in the US also most businesses will be closed or have reduced hours on those two days, and would expect much less business even if open. Movie theaters are an exception.
  - xibalba 5y ago
    This is a tradition for many across the United States. I have lived in 4 major metros and the theaters are always packed (excepting 2020) on Christmas day. Anecdotally, many of my friends tell me they have family traditions of opening presents, having a family breakfast, and then catching a midday matinee. Box office receipts show this trend [1]. Hollywood tends to drop some of their biggest films in the late holiday season, possibly to capitalize on this trend, though there is probably some kind of reflexive dynamic to the pattern. Part of me suspects that attending church on Christmas eve/day, once a widely practiced tradition in the U.S. has been replaced by the movies as Americans seek to fill some kind of communal void. [1] https://www.boxofficemojo.com/holiday/christmas_day/2021/ https://www.boxofficemojo.com/holiday/christmas_day/2021/
- deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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- hogrider 5y ago
  Just give it time until europe reaches late stage capitalism. Yes, they didn't have as many neoliberal waves eroding the social fabric in name of capitalism.
tomohawk 5y ago
Imagine how much more reasonable politicians and appointees would be if they had to serve 1 year in a non government, non ngo paying job prior to each year they served in government. We have so many people that go from school, to being an aide to so-and-so, to being elected or appointed to serve, and they don't know how most of the people go through life. Want to serve as a legistlator for 10 years? First work 10 years outside of the government/ngo complex.
UIUC_06 5y ago
Let's see: a pandemic hits, and suddenly we see a rush of stories like this. Is there a connection, and a solution? Or is everyone ignoring the elephant in the room? How about eliminating mask mandates & social distancing? Focus on protecting the vulnerable folks, and let everyone else lead a normal life. Let doctors provide meds for early-stage COVID patients that they believe work, and keep them out of the hospital. COVID is never going away. Going out to eat or shop nowadays sucks, and maybe that's why customers are so nasty.
- jmcgough 5y ago
  You do realize that healthy, young people who get sick can spread it to more vulnerable people, right?
  - UIUC_06 5y ago
    > You do realize ... right? maybe drop that condescending tone repeating the TV wisdom? You know, that "wisdom" that comes from "journalists" reporting on the latest "studies"?
hogrider 5y ago
There should seriously be a tipping customer strike. Worse is better, then everyone will have to leave these shitty jobs.
unmole 5y ago
> And with the stock market at an all-time high, corporate profits soaring, and CEO pay exponentially higher than their workers, execs can afford to share the wealth a bit. Executive pay makes up a tiny fraction of the total salary expense of a large corporation. Even redistributing the entire salary of the CEO among workers will have no impact whatsoever.
- cma 5y ago
  > Executive pay makes up a tiny fraction of the total salary expense of a large corporation. If the Activision/Blizzard CEO's pay were lowered to 100 times median income, it would be enough to give each employee an extra $16,000.
  - unmole 5y ago
    Activision/Blizzard are not finding it difficult to find workers through.
theurerjohn3 5y ago
Am I reading the article wrong, or did the main character of this story, quit his job as a former labor secretary, because when his department was accidentally too generous with benefits, he received death threats?
FrameworkFred 5y ago
That's an excellent article that I think highlights a big chunk of the explanation for the recent labor shortage. While I'll admit I experienced a quick mental blip on the notion that someone might expect me to tip an amount that's a function of movie tickets plus food and drinks in a counter-service situation, I think it's a spot-on observation that workers on the low end of the wage spectrum have a sea of options and won't be putting up with what amounts to abuse, even if it's not an entirely intentional act on the part of management. The article tracks very well with what I've heard from employers and employees that it's not just about wages. The author was clearly happy with the gig when things were going well. But when it's Christmas (or maybe when there's something fun happening this weekend that sounds better than cleaning feces from a movie theater seat) during a labor shortage and everyone is overworked, the low wages combine with literally every other damn downside about what can be a truly thankless job to form a crystal-clear and perfectly legitimate plan to achieve the perfect holiday schedule. A worker can simply quit, enjoy their holiday, and later go find a job that's probably going to pay more and/or offer better working conditions. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
justin_oaks 5y ago
There would be a lot of benefits for every politician, CEO, or other big-wig to be "down in the trenches" to understand what's really going on. The way the world works looks much different from their throne than it does elsewhere.
kerneloftruth 5y ago
To be honest, the former New Mexico Cabinet Secretary and current bartender seems to be quite a complainer: he left his job and NM out of a rather general fear[1], now inexplicably working as a bartender[2]; he then proceeds to basically complain about how shitty jobs are indeed shitty, and notably not making a cogent point regarding economic and societal root causes of labor shortage. He vaguely attributes them as due to older people retiring early (many indeed are), but in most examples of people quitting (i.e. the entire kitchen staff) don't fit his thesis. I'd expect more depth from someone whose cabinet post was focused on labor. He's similarly dismissive with statements like "But since the kids out here don’t have to work because for the most part their parents are rich, getting them hired and wanting to stay is really hard." A little bitter, perhaps? It seems to all be about his worldview and personal identity being based on being a victim; he and everyone he's working with are all fellow victims. And nowadays, victim-hood carries enormous cache -- they're today's heroes. [1] "While the letter wasn’t threatening, “it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that it was only a matter of time before my home address and other personal information was shared on social media..." [2] nothing at all wrong with being one, but for a 'professional class' person to need a desperation job in the current market is surprising...and maybe indicative.
hadlock 5y ago
> was recently “promoted” to an assistant manager position) works another job as a hairdresser. She once told me she recently worked 12 days straight between the two gigs. Texas has another interesting labor rule, movie theaters are considered entertainment, so they are not required to pay over time. The result of this is that companies will happily schedule you for unlimited hours, as there's no penalty for going over 40 hours each week. I ended up working 60-90 hours a week in a movie theater, 7 days a week for.... three to four weeks at a time for almost two years. 12 days straight was entirely normal in my twenties. Two days off in a row was a rarity, and meant that money that month was going to be tighter than normal.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
This is yet another obscure benefit of UBI and/or comprehensive social safety nets in general (and on a smaller scale, getting rid of tipping as a cultural practice). Employer abusing you? You have options. Employer allowing customers to abuse you? You have options. And not only when there's a temporary shortage of what you're offering the market. It's not a coincidence that people see tipping as a hold over from slavery and class systems. Every time you see people saying that you can't give people healthcare or they won't want to work they're actively saying they want to trap people in these situations by removing their leverage. If you can't provide a service to the public without abusing your employees and threatening to withdraw their families healthcare, maybe we'd all be better off if you went out of business and someone else provided that service in a different way. Because that is uncivil.

236 points by h2odragon 5y ago

> Places like this rely on high school students for jobs like working the counter and delivering food. This sentence should be amended to “Places like this rely on people to accept low wages and low quality of life at work”. The whole article can basically be cut down to that sentence.

mschuster91 5y ago
For what it's worth, the usual "high school jobs" are not a problem when done by actual high schoolers as side gig to fund phone, beer, weed and gas. They don't need to pay rent, food or health insurance so what would be a non-living wage for an adult is luxury money for high schoolers. The problem is when actual adults who have to take care of adult things (rent, food, health insurance, car payments, ...) have to resort to entry-level jobs as a result of economy crunches or various forms of discrimination. For a long time employers took advantage of such employees and ran them to the ground... but now that retirees follow the "societal contract" and actually go and retire instead of blocking places for the young to rise, employers are in a bad crunch.
- MattRix 5y ago
  That is true for some high schoolers but many others are making meaningful contributions to their family’s income and/or saving for college. There’s really no excuse to not pay them a living wage as well.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > The problem is when actual adults who have to take care of adult things (rent, food, health insurance, car payments, ...) have to resort to entry-level jobs as a result of economy crunches or various forms of discrimination. No, the problem is labor supply and demand curves have shifted, hence prices have shifted. People do not make business plans and budgets based on the number of high schoolers are available to hire. They make budgets based on the price at which they expect to be able to purchase labor. In this business’s case, they seem to have made some erroneous assumptions, which is the cause of the problem.
  - ajmurmann 5y ago
    And when you ask for a pay increase because cost of living has gone up or complain that someone in another town that's similarly expensive earns more than you for the same role at the same company, you'll quickly hear that comp is based on cost of labor and not cost of living.
- acdha 5y ago
  I knew multiple classmates who were working substantial hours because their families needed the extra income, and that was when wages were better than they are now. Anything close to real work should pay real wages because otherwise you’re screwing the most desperate at the expense of the more affluent kids who can afford to walk away.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    > Anything close to real work should pay real wages because otherwise you’re screwing the most desperate at the expense of the more affluent kids who can afford to walk away. That isn't how wages work. If someone can do the same job for less, they will and you will not get paid. You can raise the minimum but then you make everything more expensive (the people who build the tractors get more, the guy driving the tractor gets more, the person picking the lettuce gets paid more, the lady trimming and repackaging the lettuce gets more, the truck driver delivering the lettuce gets more, the high schooler throwing the lettuce on your burger gets more...) That "make everything more expensive" is inflation. Inflation hurts the poor the most. The lady making $400k/year doesn't care if ground beef is 10% more expensive.
    - acdha 5y ago
      > That isn't how wages work. If someone can do the same job for less, they will and you will not get paid. Sure, but recognizing that is what happens is important for both not patronizing businesses which give their workers the worst deal allowed by law and support for increasing minimum wages to match inflation. > You can raise the minimum but then you make everything more expensive (the people who build the tractors get more, the guy driving the tractor gets more, the person picking the lettuce gets paid more, the lady trimming and repackaging the lettuce gets more, the truck driver delivering the lettuce gets more, the high schooler throwing the lettuce on your burger gets more...) You're leaving out a key part: prices only go up for the fraction of those costs which are due to wages. For things like fast food, that's not a large component which is why, for example, a McDonald's worker in Denmark has a much better quality of life while the average Big Mac buyer is paying the same or less than their American counterpart: https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index Another big factor to consider is the cost of poverty. The working poor have less ability to participate in the economy so a certain amount of local economic growth never happens, and they're often worse off because they're forced to do things like buy inefficiently because they don't have the reserves to optimize. Paying people at the level minimum wage used to mean would allow a significant number of people to participate in the economy more effectively and we've never regretted growing the pie.
- dls2016 5y ago
  What are you talking about? Have you ever been to a restaurant during the day or counted the employees over-50 at Walmart? There always have been adults working these jobs.
- soco 5y ago
  I'm not sure how being served in a restaurant (restaurant, not fast food joint) by a high schooler can make an experience I'd wish to repeat. Or having my chateaubriand cooked by one.
- watwut 5y ago
  > retirees follow the "societal contract" and actually go and retire instead of blocking places for the young to rise, Hard no here. If retirees feel strong enough to work, they are 100% entitled to improve their incomes. Especially when they don't have super generous pensions. Retiree struggling to pay pills and doctors is not something super exceptional. There is no social contract for them to stop working.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > Hard no here. If retirees feel strong enough to work, they are 100% entitled to improve their incomes. Assuming a finite number of places of employment in an economy, when old people cannot ever reasonably retire because multiple governments have either outright stolen from the pension funds or otherwise fucked up the pension system, there is an imbalance: young people are forced to be either unemployed or massively under-employed (i.e. stuck in low-paid, entry level positions), instead of being able to rise through the ranks based on the work they put in.
  - ajmurmann 5y ago
    Also echoes a scarcity mindset whereas more market participants usually increase the pie.
seneca 5y ago
Well, the point is that these jobs don't create that much value. They're only worth so much, and the only skill required to do them is to put up with the misery. If you argue that all jobs must pay a "living wage", then jobs like this will just cease to exist and high-school kids won't be employable.
- cool_dude85 5y ago
  These jobs don't create that much value? Did you look at the theater's financial statements to come to that conclusion? I suspect someone - most likely the owner of this establishment - is making quite a bit of money on this deal.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- soco 5y ago
  It might come as a surprise to some, but in some other countries service people are really paid a living wage. And the economy is still doing fine.
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  > these jobs don't create that much value According to what I read online, apparently eating out is something that is necessary for mental health and the pandemic causing issues with eating out is actually causing issues for people for some godforsaken reason. So probably not as valueless as you might think
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    Eating out and employing low paid workers don't have to be the same thing. Significant amounts of that can and will be automated. We are already seeing it happen.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  Good! High school kids shouldn’t need jobs. Encouraging that just ensures we have a child labor workforce that we can underpay, driving down wages for adults who need that money to survive. Child labor laws are a thing for a reason. If there’s not a lot of value in a job, it shouldn’t be a job. Yes, this will mean a degradation in service level across service jobs. Yes, that’s okay. Customers need to adapt to a world where they are expected to be more considerate, otherwise they’ll find themselves without help.

phlipski 5y ago

Excellent article. Shame so many wealthy people are cheap on tips. Always round up on the tip - the people relying on them need that extra $1-5 dollars more than you do. And if you can't afford those extra few dollars than what are you doing going out in the first place?

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Shame so many people think it is a customer’s job to pay anything more than what they are asked to pay.
- vultour 5y ago
  I find it hilarious how Americans think restaurant/bar staff is almost exclusively entitled to getting more money than what they signed up for, courtesy of the customer. Do you give other minimal wage workers tips? Cashiers, cleaners, random shop staff? If not then shut up.
  - burkaman 5y ago
    Restaurant staff make significantly less than minimum wage.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Not in CA/OR/WA/NYC/DC. Also, the federal minimum wage is not lower than anyone else’s, assuming they want to report their employer for not following the law.
      - kritiko 5y ago
        The United States of America federal government requires a wage of at least $2.13 per hour be paid to employees who receive at least $30 per month in tips.
        5y ago

gitfan86 5y ago

You don't reach the top levels of government and media by having real world experiences. You get to top levels by playing the networking and politics game.

nradov 5y ago
In the 1992 US presidential campaign debate, George H.W. Bush had to admit that he didn't know the price of a gallon of milk. That was a "gotcha" moment that made him look out of touch. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17826509 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17826509

gbrindisi 5y ago

I am always baffled when I read about the tip culture in the states. I find it so belittling for workers. It seems to incentivize a mentality of "the customer is always right", with workers putting an extra effort to always smile and be nice in the hope for a fair tip.

burkaman 5y ago
It is belittling, and almost nobody except restaurant owners likes it. It's sort of a game theory problem - if we could coordinate everyone to stop tipping, then restaurants would be forced to pay their workers normal wages, and almost everyone would be better off. But if I stop tipping, I'm just an asshole making no impact on society. I guess the only practical approach is to simultaneously keep tipping and push for your city/state/country to eliminate the tipped minimum wage loophole.
- pitaj 5y ago
  I think you'll find that servers and bartenders are the most adimant supporters of tipping. They make a killing.
  - bluedino 5y ago
    You also get to take cash home after every shift.
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    Making a killing is pushing it unless you're working at a high end place. I really wonder how many HN people have ever worked in a waitstaff role. As much as you might hate it, tips keeps you just above minimum wage 95% of the time. Its not some money fountain like some people here seem to thing it is. People who want tips of course want it because it gives them money on top of minimum wage, why the hell would you expect someone to sabotage their own income stream?
    - toyg 5y ago

post_break 5y ago

Welcome to the terrible world of tipping. Subsidize the wages so the employer doesn't have to. I got out of my way to avoid any type of business or service that has tipping. It's getting so bad out there I've seen people talk about getting asked for a tip in a drive thru. Do I tip when I eat out? Yes. But that's cut down to a minimum now. I think we're headed towards a breaking point. Profits and cost of living cannot continue to skyrocket while pay stagnates.

dls2016 5y ago
> Welcome to the terrible world of tipping. While I agree, I remember bartenders making $10/hr + tips when I worked in a restaurant... in 1998. I could make $10/hr washing dishes (always the most hard-to-staff position) but wouldn't do so until after the restaurant died down because I made more busing tables with tips. Let's just call this type of employment what it is: wage slavery. People are used to there being a class of people willing to take these jobs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bluedino 5y ago
  > in 1998. I could make $10/hr washing dishes Most dishwashers were only making minimum wage back then ($4.25 in my state)
- kickout 5y ago
  No way anyone outside of LA/SF/NYC were paying dishwashers 10+. I made 5.25 (i think) around that time period (98-00) washing dishes. It sucked ass
  - dls2016 5y ago
    Central PA, it was a busy restaurant next to Hershey Park. I believe dishwashers started at $7.50 or $8... but on a busy Saturday night the managers would have to go around begging someone wash dishes. I doubt they would've let me work full time at that rate, but they let me clock in/out to my advantage when they needed it. Hosts/busers started around $5.25 or so... I think I eventually worked it up to $7.50 or so, but with tips it was much more. My point is that even then it wasn't worth it to me to work for $10/hr. If I had to guess, the wages probably aren't much more now than they were then.

sokoloff 5y ago

Am I reading the author right that he’s expecting people to tip on the movie ticket portion of their check? If so, I’m not at all surprised to he ended up disappointed when people didn’t do that. It would never occur to me to do that, before or after reading the article.

mwhitfield 5y ago
I don't think that was the expectation, not sure where you read that into it. The two examples he gave were for the bar in the lobby and a total bill that would be mainly food. This is presumably a Drafthouse or one of the similar places that have full waiter service at your seat.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  > On Christmas Day a family bought over $100 worth of tickets and food two days after Christmas. > The tip? $2.00. How else would I read that? If it was $85 in tickets, $10 in served items, and $5 in tax, that’s a 20% tip in my book, but the author (a career politician) would like you to read it as a 2% tip.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mwhitfield 5y ago
    Tickets are 10-15 dollars, the assumption here is that bill is mostly food.
    - irrational 5y ago
      $10-15 per person (closer to $15 in my experience). This was a family. If there were six of them, that would be $60-90 in tickets.
  - bnralt 5y ago
    He also says it was during "a movie night for kids," and the author thinks people should be paying for normal movie theater stuff, like popcorn: >You want to see Spider Man? You desperately want to bring your kids to Encanto or Sing 2? And you want your popcorn, food, and drinks? Cool. But if you don’t tip... If someone is taking their kids to a movie night, I wouldn't expect them to tip for tickets, popcorn and soda. And if there's a theater where the workers get upset that you don't tip them for those, I'd expect people to avoid it and go to a normal theater.

jimbokun 5y ago

> When I was a 16 year old kid working as a “Courtesy Clerk” for Albertsons Grocery store, we got a 15-minute break for every 4-hour shift and an hour lunch for an 8-hour shift. Shouldn't this be enforced by law?

acdha 5y ago
Yes. One of the big problems we have now is that companies are either reframing their work Uber-style to get around regulations or flat-out ignoring them. Going after violations like that or e.g. the endemic wage-theft at small businesses like restaurants would be a great use of civic money since most of the people affected by lax enforcement have limited power to push back.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The first step is to have those laws. The article is about Texas, a government that takes pride in not having laws that provide a minimum quality of life at work.
ruined 5y ago
federal law says nothing about breaks except that if they're 30m or longer you don't get paid many states go no further, including Texas, which explicitly does not require break time
wayoutthere 5y ago
Sure, but teenagers don’t know any better so they get away with it.

tom-thistime 5y ago

My personal opinion: it's not crazy to tip much more generously during COVID. This is not a normal time for businesses or employees. (NB I am not a tipped worker. I am a grumpy old engineer.)

irrational 5y ago

That picture of the $2 tip clearly shows that originally there was no tip: the tip space has a line through it and the 3 was a 1. I wonder if someone with them had a conscience and cajoled them into giving a tip.

mhb 5y ago

There's a line out the door and workers are quitting because of low pay and bad working conditions? It seems like a former labor secretary would, instead of blogging about a static situation, understand that this is a self-correcting problem. If you have demand that you can't satisfy, you raise your price.

alistairSH 5y ago
If you have demand that you can't satisfy, you raise your price. But not before bitching high and low about lazy workers and trying to convince Uncle Sam to force the wage slaves to return to work.
ipython 5y ago
He’s not in the position to do that though. He’s a bartender. It’s clear he is advocating for higher wages and better conditions and even notes that the management of the theater tried to do so but the national chain leadership shot them down.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I know quite a few businesses that leveraged themselves with CMBS to refinance during the mid to late 2010s whose debt service coverage ratio are about to go below the agreed upon threshold because of rising labor costs. They borrowed money and gave up the business and land as collateral in exchange for some frothy valuations and limiting personal liability, but the terms are that if they exceed their DSCR, they enter default. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dscr.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dscr.asp
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    The correct solution to that problem is allowing those businesses to default. Not attempt to universally prevent wage increases.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago

1121redblackgo 5y ago

I wonder why all the comments from this thread exclusively about tips when the article covered much much more than that. Interesting.

DanTheManPR 5y ago
It suggests to me that a lot of HN commentators have only been on one side of the interaction between service workers and customers.
lithos 5y ago
Tipping is a semi frequently covered political topic here. Anything from corporate corruption, dumb Americans, any anecdote, and similar easy observations that don’t need you to read the article. Especially when “top comment” is on such an easy/well tread/low effort/acceptable topic, people here are far less likely to read the article. (Personally I think the “top comment” is almost always worth collapsing. Though looks like you’re top now while I typed this)
kayodelycaon 5y ago
I suspect a lot of people here have never worked the kinds of jobs being talked about. It's basically bikeshedding. Tips are easy to talk about and the rest isn't.
notreallyserio 5y ago
Talking about tipping is easy. Literally every argument for and against has been made, repeatedly, in this very forum, so you don't have to think before replying. Your knee jerks and paragraphs come out and you score internet points.
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
Probably because he concludes the piece saying “Customers… if you don’t tip or act like an act like an asshole… workers will not be there to serve you.” Most of us have been customers at movie theaters, so we latch on to the part where he addresses us. Meanwhile, we’re all experiencing an increase in expected tips, both percentage-wise and existing services newly asking for tips, which tends to annoy customers. It’s like hidden fees for airlines and airbnb and all that other shit. You know it’s coming, but it always annoys a bit, and it’s just growing.

CapitalistCartr 5y ago

I have found no lack of good workers available. It's at a price point the company owner winces at, but that a different issue.

zivkovicp 5y ago

Sounds to me like a lot of "customers" in the US are just a55holes and anyone who has to work with them regularly is right to just stop. I'm sure a little common courtesy in everyday interactions is all it takes to make workplaces enjoyable; and a wage that allows you to stay warm and fed while working a _single job_ will get most people back to work. It's really a very low bar to set, I'm surprised this is even such a debated topic, it's sad.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ngngngng 5y ago
When I worked at a call center doing technical support, customers would often get frustrated. But as soon as they crossed the line into unprofessional, I informed them I was hanging up the call, and did. Why would anyone in a service based industry put up with customers throwing tantrums? The manager should immediately march out, give them a refund, and tell them to leave.
- anotherman554 5y ago
  It's much easier to hang up on someone than ask someone to leave in person. The problem customer may refuse to leave and escalate their tantrum.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  When was that? Because like every other low wage job, those conditions have also gotten a lot worse. These days a very standard contact center policy is that reps can never hang up on a customer under any circumstances. Breaking this is considered one of the big ones, termination-worthy on a first or maybe second offense depending on the employer. All you can really do is escalate it up to your supervisor. But that depends on them being available for that, and willing to back you up possibly at a personal cost to themselves. People put up with this because they are precarious workers who need the money badly. This is the sort of life where even if you have another job lined up, the 2-3 weeks between stopping one pay cycle and starting the other can be a huge risk or incur costs. These employers depend on this precarity, because otherwise like you said, why would anyone put up with it?

nepeckman 5y ago

It's a shame that the comments here are laser focused on the tipping parts of the article, and not the bigger picture items. The author outlines the struggles of getting service jobs filled in high CoL areas, the vicious cycle of turnover in these jobs, and all the commenters here want to discuss is the 2 paragraphs on tipping.

CPLX 5y ago
Indeed. The part about getting your income on an ATM card with mandatory fees no matter what you do seems like the best anecdotal example of how fucked things are for the little guy these days.
- mynameishere 5y ago
  For many low-wage employees the alternative to this is check cashing fees which is even worse. The issue of why so many people are unbanked is a separate discussion.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    This writer isn't unbanked, though - he's a former labor secretary. He was charged a "fee" to get his pay despite that.
    - mcv 5y ago
      Having to pay a free to get your pay is ridiculous and should be illegal. Your pay should simply be deposited in your bank account with no other obstacles to access.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    Access to banking is indeed a problem, but pragmatically there is always cash or a non-fraudulent [0] check drawn on a local bank. And for tips specifically, they can just be bundled with the rest of the pay rather than creating a second problem. [0] for example checks drawn on Bank of America accounts are generally fraudulent, as BoA refuses to pay the specified amount when presented for payment at a branch. They're trying to run a similar scam to the ATM card fee described in the article, but they're doing it with the much older technology of checks and thereby inducing their customers to commit check fraud.

l8rpeace 5y ago

Former politician who focused on labor joins the workforce and learns the real truth THEN chastises customers for not tipping in the conclusion of his article? Yes, he talks about the tough conditions of the job and customer behavior and other things, but nothing about how MAYBE legislation should change for wages (hourly service workers relying on tips in the US actually make well below the hourly minimum wage). Sorry, for once I want to throw some outrage around about this.

mynameishere 5y ago
I think he's actually going through the exercise of confirming his prior beliefs with "experience".
- l8rpeace 5y ago
  Too true! Yes he's now in the workforce, and it's such a shame that he NOW sees how the system works AFTER dictating/enforcing policy about it for an entire state. And there's an implication at the end of the article: tip more, customers. Policy is fine, it didn't cause this problem, customer behavior did. Perhaps he needs more confirmation through that experience.
  - jonathankoren 5y ago
    There’s a difference between understanding something and groking something. Experiencing something yourself is very different than simply reading and empathizing about something.
  - StewardMcOy 5y ago
    I can definitely see why what would be your interpretation of the end of the article, but I don't think that's what the author was trying to convey. Earlier on, under the "The first and biggest is wages" header, the author implies that the policies around tipping are a big part of the problem. But the reality is that there have long been efforts to end the practice of tipping in the US, and they have all failed. Even if there were to be a successful push to change the culture around it, it would take years, and his argument is about what is causing labor issues now. His argument is addressed to Austinites and others in similar areas who want to enjoy activities like watching a movie in a theater, and are now finding it harder than it used to be. In summary: 1. In order to survive, lots of theaters have pivoted to models where employees serve food and drinks to customers sitting in the theater. 2. Because they're serving food this way, they can get tips. 3. Because they can get tips, their wage is $2.13 an hour. 4. At the start of the pandemic, a lot of people took early retirement, opening up a lot of higher-end jobs that had been unavailable previously, since Americans are retiring later, and high-end job growth does not scale linearly with the population. This means low-wage workers now have more options, and it's switched from an employer-favored job market to an employee-favored market. 5. Low-wage earners cannot afford to live in Austin. Workers at this theater were either teenage children of wealthy Austinites, or commuting from less expensive areas. If the job gets too bad, the teenagers can afford to just quit, and the commuters can find jobs closer to home. 6. On one day given as an example, the entire tip amount was $3.80. Since tips are split evenly, every worker got $3.80 in tips for the day. Assuming they worked 8 hour days, that means the employees making a base salary of $2.13/hour got a total of $2.61/hour, or a total of $20.84 for the day, with no healthcare. That doesn't even cover the commute expenses for the day. 7. Because of all of the above, there are few people willing to work at a movie theater, and when a movie theater can't even keep a skeleton crew on staff to keep it running, it will have to close down. Therefore, if you are an Austinite who wants to continue going to movie theaters, you have only one immediate way to keep them open: tip generously. You might think the other option is to go to a movie theater that doesn't serve food and drink this way, and thus must pay the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. And this is more reasonable, but a total day's pay for a worker there will still be $58/day without healthcare. We're at the point where it covers the commute, but barely. The IRS estimates that commutes cost $0.56/mile in oil/gas/maintenance costs. For someone with a 30 mile commute each way, that's $33.60 in commute costs, leaving them with $24.40 for a day's work. Raising wages would help, and the author did point out that companies that have been making higher profits than ever could afford it. Universal healthcare, affordable housing in the city, and more robust public transit could help, but those aren't coming any time soon. The only hope of getting a pre-pandemic theater experience in the short term is to tip so well that employees are making significantly more than the minimum wage, this attracting enough workers to a theater. Even then, however, the author's point about customers being entitled assholes might still drive employees away. You could take tipping out of the equation entirely and most of the author's argument would still be true.

giantg2 5y ago

"The myth that Americans, and especially younger Americans, aren’t willing to work is flat wrong." It's not really a myth, but also can't be universally applied. When a very large percentage of jobs are like this, there's not much alternative. It's you want to work and deal with it, or you don't want to work. Option 3 would be that you want to work a "good" job, but good luck finding one! People don't want to work shitty jobs. I'm a software dev and I'm tired of the corporate BS and lies. I don't want to work. If this is a "good" job then I don't have hope that anything will be better. I can't wait to retire.

germinalphrase 5y ago
Then you should drastically cut your expenses, probably move, and retire as soon as possible.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I have a family. Expenses are already reduced as they can be within reason. My wife won't consider moving. I have at least another 20 years.
  - germinalphrase 5y ago
    Then - good luck.

ianhawes 5y ago

TL;DR Macro trends: - older folks retired or never re-entered workforce after COVID - employees, for the first time in ~20 years, understand they can quit their job today and get hired somewhere else tomorrow - corporate won't raise wages because "they're already too high", ignoring any variation in the location's cost of living - teenagers have more options/entertainment available to them today and don't want to seek out traditional employment. The author's "their parents are rich" line has some nugget of truth to it unfortunately. Plus they don't want to be yelled at by angry entitled customers. Specific to the author's situation: - a business that would not traditionally rely on tips (a fucking movie theatre) relies on tips much to the detriment of the employees - tips are dispensed on a scam debit card (IMO should be illegal),

Dave3of5 5y ago

The article isn't surprising at all. Workers rights are very poor in the USA. The people that are the worst off when this is the case is the lowest ladder of workers and service industry is in that camp. If you want these industries to stay open you'll need better workers rights. For example allowing such a poor minimum wage when tipping. Things like at-will working and such like don't help here either. At the drop of a hat any one of these employees could be fired so I doubt any of them will stay under poor working conditions. I'm also surprised movie theatres are open on Christmas Day.

Finnucane 5y ago
Xmas has traditionally been a very busy day for movie theaters. Going to the movies is a popular way to spend the day in the US.

d0gsg0w00f 5y ago

I used to work crappy jobs too and they sucked really bad so I dedicated my life to getting the next slightly less crappy job. More qualified people move out and new people move in and the pipeline stays full. If the service you are selling has any value then valuable people will work there. The problem is that nobody in their right mind would see a movie in a theater these days. Your only customers are people who are all a few cards short of a full deck.

fundad 5y ago
Who could have guessed that moviegoers during a pandemic are bad tippers?

ashtonkem 5y ago

> While there have been complaints from employers that workers “don’t want to come back to work” just wanting to “stay on unemployment,” data shows that isn’t true. States that stopped increased unemployment payments early didn’t see much if any change in employment numbers. Child care was hard to get before COVID. The pandemic has increased shortages, building huge barriers to women who may otherwise want to get back into the workforce. The most recent reports show the shortage isn’t from “lazy young people who don’t value work like older generations do (and get off my lawn while you're at it).” It’s from older people who have opted to either retire early or simply aren’t returning to work. Someone finally said it better than me. All of the discussions of "worker shortages" around Unemployment Benefits have either been incoherent nonsense, or political points cloaked in fake economics.

smarx007 5y ago

I see that many are fixed on tips, but I found it quite shocking to read about long queues of people on the Christmas day and people quitting on the Christmas Eve. In many European cities, the streets are completely empty and almost all shops (maybe a local supermarket would open from 10:00 till 14:00 on a Christmas day after being closed for the Eve) are closed both on the Christmas Eve and the Christmas day.

giraffe_lady 5y ago
That is probably because he was working at a movie theater. Seeing a movie at a theater on christmas is a bit of a tradition for a lot of people here, for some reason. It's less extreme than in europe but in the US also most businesses will be closed or have reduced hours on those two days, and would expect much less business even if open. Movie theaters are an exception.
- xibalba 5y ago
  This is a tradition for many across the United States. I have lived in 4 major metros and the theaters are always packed (excepting 2020) on Christmas day. Anecdotally, many of my friends tell me they have family traditions of opening presents, having a family breakfast, and then catching a midday matinee. Box office receipts show this trend [1]. Hollywood tends to drop some of their biggest films in the late holiday season, possibly to capitalize on this trend, though there is probably some kind of reflexive dynamic to the pattern. Part of me suspects that attending church on Christmas eve/day, once a widely practiced tradition in the U.S. has been replaced by the movies as Americans seek to fill some kind of communal void. [1] https://www.boxofficemojo.com/holiday/christmas_day/2021/ https://www.boxofficemojo.com/holiday/christmas_day/2021/
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hogrider 5y ago
Just give it time until europe reaches late stage capitalism. Yes, they didn't have as many neoliberal waves eroding the social fabric in name of capitalism.

tomohawk 5y ago

Imagine how much more reasonable politicians and appointees would be if they had to serve 1 year in a non government, non ngo paying job prior to each year they served in government. We have so many people that go from school, to being an aide to so-and-so, to being elected or appointed to serve, and they don't know how most of the people go through life. Want to serve as a legistlator for 10 years? First work 10 years outside of the government/ngo complex.

UIUC_06 5y ago

Let's see: a pandemic hits, and suddenly we see a rush of stories like this. Is there a connection, and a solution? Or is everyone ignoring the elephant in the room? How about eliminating mask mandates & social distancing? Focus on protecting the vulnerable folks, and let everyone else lead a normal life. Let doctors provide meds for early-stage COVID patients that they believe work, and keep them out of the hospital. COVID is never going away. Going out to eat or shop nowadays sucks, and maybe that's why customers are so nasty.

jmcgough 5y ago
You do realize that healthy, young people who get sick can spread it to more vulnerable people, right?
- UIUC_06 5y ago
  > You do realize ... right? maybe drop that condescending tone repeating the TV wisdom? You know, that "wisdom" that comes from "journalists" reporting on the latest "studies"?

hogrider 5y ago

There should seriously be a tipping customer strike. Worse is better, then everyone will have to leave these shitty jobs.

unmole 5y ago

> And with the stock market at an all-time high, corporate profits soaring, and CEO pay exponentially higher than their workers, execs can afford to share the wealth a bit. Executive pay makes up a tiny fraction of the total salary expense of a large corporation. Even redistributing the entire salary of the CEO among workers will have no impact whatsoever.

cma 5y ago
> Executive pay makes up a tiny fraction of the total salary expense of a large corporation. If the Activision/Blizzard CEO's pay were lowered to 100 times median income, it would be enough to give each employee an extra $16,000.
- unmole 5y ago
  Activision/Blizzard are not finding it difficult to find workers through.

theurerjohn3 5y ago

Am I reading the article wrong, or did the main character of this story, quit his job as a former labor secretary, because when his department was accidentally too generous with benefits, he received death threats?

FrameworkFred 5y ago

That's an excellent article that I think highlights a big chunk of the explanation for the recent labor shortage. While I'll admit I experienced a quick mental blip on the notion that someone might expect me to tip an amount that's a function of movie tickets plus food and drinks in a counter-service situation, I think it's a spot-on observation that workers on the low end of the wage spectrum have a sea of options and won't be putting up with what amounts to abuse, even if it's not an entirely intentional act on the part of management. The article tracks very well with what I've heard from employers and employees that it's not just about wages. The author was clearly happy with the gig when things were going well. But when it's Christmas (or maybe when there's something fun happening this weekend that sounds better than cleaning feces from a movie theater seat) during a labor shortage and everyone is overworked, the low wages combine with literally every other damn downside about what can be a truly thankless job to form a crystal-clear and perfectly legitimate plan to achieve the perfect holiday schedule. A worker can simply quit, enjoy their holiday, and later go find a job that's probably going to pay more and/or offer better working conditions. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

justin_oaks 5y ago

There would be a lot of benefits for every politician, CEO, or other big-wig to be "down in the trenches" to understand what's really going on. The way the world works looks much different from their throne than it does elsewhere.

kerneloftruth 5y ago

To be honest, the former New Mexico Cabinet Secretary and current bartender seems to be quite a complainer: he left his job and NM out of a rather general fear[1], now inexplicably working as a bartender[2]; he then proceeds to basically complain about how shitty jobs are indeed shitty, and notably not making a cogent point regarding economic and societal root causes of labor shortage. He vaguely attributes them as due to older people retiring early (many indeed are), but in most examples of people quitting (i.e. the entire kitchen staff) don't fit his thesis. I'd expect more depth from someone whose cabinet post was focused on labor. He's similarly dismissive with statements like "But since the kids out here don’t have to work because for the most part their parents are rich, getting them hired and wanting to stay is really hard." A little bitter, perhaps? It seems to all be about his worldview and personal identity being based on being a victim; he and everyone he's working with are all fellow victims. And nowadays, victim-hood carries enormous cache -- they're today's heroes. [1] "While the letter wasn’t threatening, “it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that it was only a matter of time before my home address and other personal information was shared on social media..." [2] nothing at all wrong with being one, but for a 'professional class' person to need a desperation job in the current market is surprising...and maybe indicative.

hadlock 5y ago

> was recently “promoted” to an assistant manager position) works another job as a hairdresser. She once told me she recently worked 12 days straight between the two gigs. Texas has another interesting labor rule, movie theaters are considered entertainment, so they are not required to pay over time. The result of this is that companies will happily schedule you for unlimited hours, as there's no penalty for going over 40 hours each week. I ended up working 60-90 hours a week in a movie theater, 7 days a week for.... three to four weeks at a time for almost two years. 12 days straight was entirely normal in my twenties. Two days off in a row was a rarity, and meant that money that month was going to be tighter than normal.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

This is yet another obscure benefit of UBI and/or comprehensive social safety nets in general (and on a smaller scale, getting rid of tipping as a cultural practice). Employer abusing you? You have options. Employer allowing customers to abuse you? You have options. And not only when there's a temporary shortage of what you're offering the market. It's not a coincidence that people see tipping as a hold over from slavery and class systems. Every time you see people saying that you can't give people healthcare or they won't want to work they're actively saying they want to trap people in these situations by removing their leverage. If you can't provide a service to the public without abusing your employees and threatening to withdraw their families healthcare, maybe we'd all be better off if you went out of business and someone else provided that service in a different way. Because that is uncivil.