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A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

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Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#141

Post by rootusrootus »

neilv wrote: post #35
mahoho wrote: post #16

I worked part time as a dishwasher for around 6 years in middle/high school, at a restaurant with no machine, just three sinks and a huge counter. It's definitely a good way to get into the restaurant industry, but also a great way to learn if you hate working at a restaurant.

Related to the importance and underappreciated status of dishwashers... I only sometimes washed dishes at middle school. If you wanted the cafeteria "hot lunch", but your parents didn't pay for it, you could get it that day by volunteering to wash everyone's trays, in lieu of recess. Personally, I think this wasn't a great lesson. In the current very inequitable US environment, I support simply giving nutritious food…

> simply giving nutritious food to all kids

That's becoming more common. My school district just announced they have funding to give all students free breakfast and lunch for the next three years. They got that funding through the government (and I think it may have come all the way from the feds). We're not a low income district, so I assume that funding is easily available.

Even before then, it was mostly a "pay if you can" policy. The kids have accounts and they punch in their ID number when they go through the lunch line, but it would never refuse even if the account balance was negative. They'd ask parents to bring the balance positive, but it was never revealed at the student level that someone did not have adequate funds.

Slowly but surely we're trying to make sure students can focus on school. Hard to make everyone's home life ideal, but we do what we can. Hopefully this translates to their increased success in life and each successive generation will improve.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#142

Post by atoav »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #137
atoav wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if you require the living wage or not — there will always be people who don't strictly need it in any society. Just like there will be people on the beach who won't ever need a life guard. Everybody needing a thing is not a precondition for it making sense to exist. If we want a society without exploitation the simple fix is to lift the minimum wage beyond any value that could be considered exploita…

We could establish UBI, and then we wouldn't need a minimum wage. We could decide as a society that we want everyone to have a baseline level of support, rather than doing it indirectly (and less effectively) by forcing the nonexistence of low-paying jobs.

Sure, that would also be a way to address the problem. Quite frankly I haven't read up on the UBI enough to give a qualified answer about it, but given the observation that many places appear to try it out we will probably have very conclusive data soon.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#143

Post by bryanlarsen »

atoav wrote: post #55
didgetmaster wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the job is unskilled (i.e. you can train the next person to do it in less than one hour) and you have several people standing in line to take it if the person doing it, quits; then the current wage is clearly enough. It is just like the price of the meal. If it costs more than people are willing to pay, then it is too expensive; regardless of what you personally think it should cost.

Sure, divide and conquer is the prerequisite to allow the non-working-class to exploit actual labor. I say human dignity is non-negotiable. So there should be a legal minimum wage which is automatically adjusted to the living prices of wherever the person you hire is expected to work. If you are unable (or worse: unwilling ) to pay people enough to survive of your work, you are irresponsible and a leech on society th…

So the solution is to throw many of the people who currently make $10/hour out of a job and onto welfare? That's what you're proposing.

If we raised the minimum wage to $20/hour, some businesses would raise their wages, and some will fire those workers.

And once on welfare it is extremely hard to get off welfare because of claw-backs and because once you have a gap in your resume it's really hard to get a full time $20/hour job. There might be employers willing to take a chance on you for a lower salary part-time.

The solution isn't to raise minimum wage, it's to eliminate minimum wage and put in an equitable UBI/welfare system. It'll raise wages naturally, because if they have a decent safety net, most people will feel comfortable quitting / not accepting an unjustly low salary. OTOH, if companies make massive profits through paying low salaries then we should tax those profits to pay for the UBI/welfare.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#144

Post by dfxm12 »

piva00 wrote: post #70
FredPret wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with your sentiment, that logic doesn't hold. If the wage for a job is too low to afford life, then we can say either the job is underpaid or the job is fairly compensated but simply not worth doing. If dishwashers quit in numbers for other jobs, dishwasher pay would have to rise if restaurants can afford it, or the restaurant industry would wither, and from an economic point of view, deservedly so. Of…

> Of course, this theory works best in a dynamic economy where people and capital can move around with a minimum amount of friction. This assumption is akin to a spherical cow, frictionless surface, etc. In the real world capital and people won't ever move around with a minimum amount of friction, nor will people retrain for other jobs easily.

Spherical cows are more or less a natural impossibility. The economic system in the US is designed to add friction for people like those in these types of situations to switch jobs, retrain, etc. That's an important distinction.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#145

Post by DowagerDave »

dhosek wrote: post #124
IncreasePosts wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a nice little tax dodge, at least back of the day when tipping was predominantly done in cash that I'm sure was never declared on the waiters taxes.

The thing with the no tax on tips thing pandered by both major condidates is that most waiters don’t make enough to be paying income tax in the first place. On the other hand, more regressive taxes on income (OASDI/Medicare/IL state income tax) would apply, but none of these would be covered.

professional wait staff sure make enough to pay income tax; it's a skilled trade. In Canada the tax authority would audit service industry people who don't declare other income, where tips get captured.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#146

Post by Closi »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #111
Gormo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Most of those people are self-employed, so you are usually already paying 100% of the compensation directly to them in the first place. Tipping is for when someone is doing work directly for you, but as an employee of another party.

Do people in the US tip flight attendants who serve them meal?

Or the checkout workers at Walmart?

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#147

Post by DowagerDave »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #111
Gormo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Most of those people are self-employed, so you are usually already paying 100% of the compensation directly to them in the first place. Tipping is for when someone is doing work directly for you, but as an employee of another party.

Do people in the US tip flight attendants who serve them meal?

Do people choose to dine on airplanes? Do airlines even still serve meals?

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#148

Post by DowagerDave »

djtango wrote: post #117
Gormo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Most of those people are self-employed, so you are usually already paying 100% of the compensation directly to them in the first place. Tipping is for when someone is doing work directly for you, but as an employee of another party.

Do you tip your nurses and your bus drivers?

What exactly does a bus driver do directly for just you? Everyone tips private drivers though.

Nurses don't get tips but it's very common for them to get thank-you gifts and treats.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#149

Post by DrillShopper »

DowagerDave wrote: post #138
wichert wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me change that a bit: "it's pretty ubiquitous in the US". It's not common everywhere. My personal observation (in NL) is that with the transition from cash to contactless payment it seems to be becoming less common over time. Payment terminals here are not setup to ask for a tip (with very rare exceptions) - you just pay the amount on the receipt directly.

In North America the growth of Square has pushed things the other way; tips are front and center for the most limited of "tippable service" - starting at 18% and up from there. Tipping on fast food or something like a latte were the extra labour is already priced in is ridiculous.

The drive through coffee shack that I get coffee from asks for a tip on its payment terminals.

I typically do tip because I'm never buying just drip coffee and I'd like to reward the person who took the time to make my drink.

In exchange there's typically some latte art which takes some skill to build up.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#150

Post by harry_ord »

Closi wrote: post #140
nmd wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone also living in NL (Amsterdam though, may be different in other parts of NL), I have to partially disagree with you. It's not at the US level yet, but, my experience is that many if not most cafes/restaurants I go to now display a "Choose your tip %" screen on the payment terminal before paying, and anecdotally it feels like this is becoming more common over time with the newer payment terminals.

I'm in the UK and we have this system too, although half the time the servers will just press 0% for you before they even hand over the terminal just because tipping isn't really a big cultural thing over here (at least compared to the states).

Uks a bit odd since Service charge is a thing as well and sometimes it's always added (at bill calculation) and other places only add it when it's a large group.
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