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It depends and also is culture based. In Spain you can find some places (eg coffee place) with 1-2 workers. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to get your order
by rock_artist 1mo ago
It depends and also is culture based.
In Spain you can find some places (eg coffee place) with 1-2 workers.
Sometimes it takes a lot of time to get your order at rush hours, but the culture tolerates patience and waiting.
- ricardobayes 1mo agoOne of the biggest cultural differences - for Spain - is that servers are seen as equals, not as a client-provider relationship. This reflects heavily in the language often used - "when you can, bring me X". Just one of the quirks of a low gini coefficient society.
- xyzelement 1mo agoJust yesterday there was a story on HN about Spain's dying villages and a commenter who I assumed was Spanish attributed theow beth rate to income inequality. Which is it - low gini for talking to a waiter, high gini for starting a fam?
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 1mo agoIf anyone said this about the country that you’re from (based on this attitude, we all know what my guess is) you’d immediately clock how absurd it sounds.
- kubb 1mo agoYou can’t hold two separate people accountable for their contradictory statements.
- agile-gift0262 1mo agoI'm saying this based on anecdotal observations from my biased POV, so take this with a grain of salt. There are income differences, but most are inter-city/region differences. I'd say within a specific city or region, it's low gini, but there's a high gini if you compare cross-region. Income and costs in a village in rural Spain are less than half that of a "mid-tier" city, and less than a third or even quarter of that of Barcelona or Madrid
- frikskit 1mo agoIt’s not surprising to anyone that two random Spaniards may disagree on whether a number like this is high or low. That’s because Spaniards don’t all get together to agree on a common position for online posting; and because high/low depends on the context and comparison to other countries. Spain’s gini coefficient indicates it is much more equal than USA, but not as equal as, say, Denmark.
- mcny 1mo agoI don't think it is a fair comparison. The cost of raising a child can still be too high even in a fairly low gini country. In fact I'd say gini has nothing to do with birth rate. Birth rate declines when parents have confidence that there is a good likelihood their children will survive to adulthood. It is often easy to forget that just five hundred years ago almost one of two infants born didn't survive into adulthood. Low birth rates are good. Don't let anyone say otherwise.
- myrmidon 1mo agoLow Gini compared to the US, but mediocre for a European country (comparable to France, Germany, Italy; significantly worse compared to low-Gini regions like Scandinavia).
- cma 1mo agoGini: Spain << US Youth unemployment: Spain >>> US Living with parents: Spain >>> US First birth age: Spain >>> US Fertility: Spain << US
- ricardobayes 1mo agoIn my opinion, low birth rates can't be attributed to income, or income inequality. I feel like it's more about optimism, to have kids you have to be optimistic about the future.
- inigyou 1mo agoA lot of pessimism is caused by the current inequality.
- KptMarchewa 1mo agoA lot of pessimism is caused by the relative change of inequality.
- inigyou 1mo agoTrue. Feudalism was the norm throughout human history. But those nobles had limited power because they didn't have the communications technology we have today.
- hammock 1mo agoEasily attributed less to Gini coefficient and more to the difference between a Western European approach to hospitality (structured management, technical precision and formal) and a Mediterranean one (warmth, relational connection, informal) as seen in Xenia, islamic tradition, etc
- bluebarbet 1mo agoTwo clichés to be contrasted with another two: the smiling first-name-terms coffee-shop barista in Hamburg, and the coldly brusque waiter in some Roman caffè storico. All these generalizations are as slippery as a bar of soap.
- rglullis 1mo agoOh, please. This reeks of a anglocentric worldview. Most places are like that. The exception to this rule is the US and franchise/chain restaurants that they have around the world.
- ricardobayes 1mo agoWell, yes. That's why I labelled it as a "quirk", however as it looks people really seemed to have read a whole lot of other things into it.
- QuantumNomad_ 1mo agoAt least they don’t demand a bunch of extra tips. I’m European (well, Scandinavian, which some Europeans consider European and some don’t) and my rule of thumb is that if I go out I tip 10%. If the service is extra good I might tip extra. If the service is very bad (unreasonably slow, or staff forget or mix up the order in a significant way, or they are very rude), I tip 0%. Of course everyone can mess up things a little so it’s not like I immediately tip 0% just because of some minor thing. It has to be properly bad. Also something I have learned from the Spanish is to always order something small and quick for the table even before we have decided what to eat. Then if it takes 40 minutes before the food comes it doesn’t matter that much compared to when you are starving for food. So this is a very neat trick that helps a lot to have a good experience even at slow places, and something I have started always doing.
- bilekas 1mo agoI have to ask, why are you tipping 10% before the service is extra good? I'm really against the idea that the company isn't responsible for paying their staff properly. Setting a baseline of 10% just says to me that the restaurant owners can just pay their staff less. And if the server is having an off day or just didn't meet your particular standards then they're losing money.
- alexrp 1mo agoI think it depends on location. It would be a bizarre approach in Scandinavia because the consensus here is that companies must pay their employees a decent baseline salary -- which unions negotiate across the whole sector -- so there's no expectation of a tip by default. But for much of the rest of the world, it's not a given that working conditions are as good.
- rapnie 1mo agoI think in the Netherlands the general rule is to tip up to 10% depending how good the service was, unless it was excellent and you go higher. When drinking a couple coffees in a restaurant it is okay to tip with a single Euro for good service, even if that doesn't amount to 10%.
- chistev 1mo agoChristopher Ryan said this on a Joe Rogan Experience episode.
- hammock 1mo agoI would rather have to tip, than lower my standard of living like that
- gnz11 1mo agoYour standard of living eschews patience and waiting?
- bryanrasmussen 1mo agorequiring immediate gratification at all times is a standard, I suppose.
- paul7986 1mo agoAnd in Paris waiting to be seated a good amount of time is also part of their culture. As an American visiting it was a different experience but an interesting one.