A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017) • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by astrange » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:18 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #218

throwaway199129 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes the assumption that all workers require a living wage. When I worked as a teenager and throughout college, I didn't need to make a living wage since I either lived with my parents or with roommates (admittedly funded by a combination of work and student loans). During that phase of my life, I didn't require a living wage. I just needed some extra money, and so I was willing to accept lower paying jobs that…

> This makes the assumption that all workers require a living wage. When I worked as a teenager and throughout college, I didn't need to make a living wage So you want a dying wage. How can a dying wage exist? Two ways: 1 - someone else is subsidising the business, I.e. parents are paying the rent/mortgage, and food of the teenager 2 - the person is literally slowly dying, living in a caravan or a tent as ‘working ho…

> why don’t we subsidise healthy food, or planting trees or solar panels for example, for both businesses and individuals?

https://www.epa.gov/green-power-markets/summary-inflation-re...

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

#282

Post by thr0waway001 » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:20 PM UTC

I worked as a dishwasher in the '90s at a fancy hotel for a couple years as a teen. I was in high school, was from a single parent household, my mom needed financial help, I had no skills, and had to learn the language (English).

This particular kitchen though was enormous since it serviced 3 restaurants and a lounge. So the days were long and I had to work pretty much every major holiday and/or especial day. The worst was Mother's Day. It was brutal. Always a Sunday morning and unrelenting.

It was a sweaty, tough, smelly, and undignified, at times, kind of job. The chemicals in the soap used by the machine were abrasive as hell. Burned your freaking fingertips over time.

Only good thing about the job was lunch time. Having access to a lot of good food. But you never wanted to eat your meal around other people since everyone else thought you smelled and were put off by your sweaty appearance. Again, the job was not dignified, not in appearance anyway.

And I don't care what label or euphemistic title employers come up with for the job. (e.g. dishie, dishy, etc) It still doesn't change the job. It does not make it dignified until they start paying more money and more and more people want to do it cause it pays more. Until then, job freaking sucks.

A dishwasher by any other name would still have smelly, peeled and cracked hands.

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

#283

Post by astrange » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:20 PM UTC

cvwright wrote: post #102

ceejayoz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will always be people desperate enough to race to the bottom, but that doesn't make it a good thing for society at scale.

Especially when we import millions of low-skill / no-skill people every year to compete with the poor people who were born here. Works great for the upper classes - keeps the price down for those fancy Michelin dinners.

Immigrants do not compete with native workers because they have complementary skills (like different native languages). The evidence is very very strong that immigration does not decrease wages. It generally increases them because it provides new demand, though that's not guaranteed.

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

#284

Post by astrange » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:25 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #256

rtkwe wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10/hr was a bad wage in 2017 too unless you were in an exceptionally low COL area.

$10/hr was a bad wage in 2017 too unless you were in an exceptionally low COL area. $12.95/hour in today money. The minimum wage in 2017 was $7.25/hour.

Almost noone in the US makes the federal minimum wage. You should look at local median wages if you want a relevant comparison.

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

#285

Post by samstave » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:26 PM UTC

khrbrt wrote: post #201

This as good a place as any to mention one of my favorite authors, Dishwasher Pete[0], who wrote a zine about dishwashing and dishwashers[1], and a memoir about his quest to wash dishes in all 50 states[2]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher_Pete 1: https://archive.org/details/dishwasher7 2: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827458.Dishwasher

When I was a teenager and I had just got heavily into martial arts - my Professor was teaching us about perception. (1992)

One of the examples he used, was to ask us

"Who is the most important people in a restaurant?"

>"The dishwasher, and the Janitor"

>>"Do you think you'll go to a restaurant again if its bathrooms are filthy and your dishes are dirty?"

His point was that you have to look beyond whats in front of your face, and look at things as a whole, as a system, identify all the components, even if you cant seem them - you can see their impact on the situation.

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

#286

Post by throwaway20222 » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:26 PM UTC

I kept my dishwashing job on my resume for far too long under the title “hydro ceramics engineer.”

It was grueling work, but I met a lot of interesting people, one in particular turned me on to studying Chinese which changed the whole path of my life. Also gave me entre into bussing then waitstaff. Paid my way through high school car insurance and college surviving. Definitely under appreciated and under paid, but I learned a ton about working for a living.

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

#287

Post by astrange » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:30 PM UTC

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #72

CalRobert wrote: post #71

My summer as a dishwasher made it clear tipping, already deeply stupid, is wildly unfair even to service workers. A lot of people helped you get your meal, but your dishwasher is definitely not tipped.

I thought that tipping is mainly to enable the restaurant owner to avoid paying their workers properly.

That's a popular myth because people don't want to tip, but tipping definitely gets workers like bartenders and waiters paid much more than otherwise. It also wouldn't really work in several states (like all West Coast states) because there's no tipped minimum wage.

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

#288

Post by Flop7331 » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:32 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #21

tennisflyi wrote: post #6

The "heart," but the only mention of pay is $10/hour, and advancement leads to more long nights as a chef in the volatile restaurant industry? Such respect Edit: also, the lip service of the title "porter" - the electric company will surely except that as payment

Honest question, what should they be paid? Its purely manual labor, there is not much if anything to innovate or be creative. The output is fairly binary, clean or not clean. I am all for fair wages but how do we know if $10 is the right price or too low? Interesting how serious questions get so quickly downvoted. I am genuinely curious how you would price a dishwasher when the output is important but the work itself…

> important but the work itself is fairly low value

Because it's important, vital really, it has noun value, but for some reason it is not verb valued. This disconnect is also rampant among nurses and teachers. If you know any, ask and they'll let you know. Dishwashers don't even get an appreciation week.

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

#289

Post by astrange » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:33 PM UTC

bastawhiz wrote: post #107

Gormo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, tipping is a way of directly compensating people who are directly doing work for you, even in the context of an organization managing the transaction. You tip people who are personally responding to your requests -- that's why the dishwasher and other people you're not directly interacting with don't usually get tipped.

If that was actually true, minimum wage for tipped employees would be equal to the standard minimum wage.

It is equal in 13/50 states, including everywhere on the west coast.

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

#290

Post by astrange » Wed, Aug 28, 2024, 6:35 PM UTC

liotier wrote: post #110

Gormo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, tipping is a way of directly compensating people who are directly doing work for you, even in the context of an organization managing the transaction. You tip people who are personally responding to your requests -- that's why the dishwasher and other people you're not directly interacting with don't usually get tipped.

> No, tipping is a way of directly compensating people who are directly doing work for you From a European point of view, this is ludicrous. Why don't workers in the USA receive a salary from their employer instead of resorting to charity from their employer's customers ? How is not paying employees even legal ?

It's better to think of it as Americans being so wealthy that we just love paying everyone extra money. Compare US and UK wages sometime. It's not the American workers who are underpaid!