http://waiterrant.net/?p=659November 26th, 2008 by Waiter
It’s a wet and dreary Monday afternoon and I’m driving to the hospital where I work part time. The dark clouds hanging low in the sky have soaked up what’s left of the day’s sunlight, causing the headlights from passing cars to generate diffuse halos in the misting rain. As I drive down the street I spy a Dunkin’ Donuts on my left. I’m working the evening shift and my bloodstream’s crying out for coffee My internist told me to cut back on the stuff after I got diagnosed with gastritis. I pull into the doughnut shop’s parking lot anyway. I have to be awake and alert for several hours. My doctor doesn’t.
<snip>
“Can I ask you about your tip jar?” I ask.
“Sure,” the counter man says. “Hey Amjad,” he says, waving to his coworker. “Come here.”
“What?” the other worker asks.
“This guy’s a writer and he wants to talk about our tip jar.”
Amjad looks me over. “What do you want to know?”
“How much do you make a day from the tip jar?” I ask.
“Rami and I split what’s in the jar,” Amjad says. “We walk out of here with fourteen to fifteen dollars every day.”
“Is that a normal amount?”
“No,” Rami says. “We used to take home twenty dollars a shift.”
“So the tips have gone down?”
“Ever since things got bad,” Amjad says. “People are tipping less.”
“They still buying the same stuff?” I ask. “Coffee? Doughnuts? Sandwiches?”
“People aren’t cutting back on what they buy, mister,” Rami says. “They’re cutting back on what they tip.”
“I don’t want to ask what you make an hour,” I say carefully. “But do you count on what you get from the tip jar? Is it a big source of income?”
“You better believe it mister.” Amjad says. “Rami and I work six days a week. We both used to take home almost five hundred bucks a month from the tip jar.”
“Wow,” I reply. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Since things got bad,” Rami says. “We’re taking home, what Amjad? One-fifty less a month?”
“That’s about right.”
<snip>
I know some people are angry that there are tip jars in places like Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks. But as Amjad and Rami illustrate, they count on that money to help make ends meet. Don’t get angry at them or the tip jars. They’re a symptom, not a problem. Many tipped workers aren’t paid a living wage which causes the American public to basically subsidize the labor costs of both small businesses and multi-billion dollar corporations alike. Annoying isn’t it? Over the four plus years I’ve written this blog tipping is a hot topic. The normal retort I get from the uber red meat capitalist commenters when I discuss this stuff is “You don’t like my tip? You don’t like the money you make? Get another job you bum!”
But now the tables have turned. Many of those “uber capitalists” are now working for (or used to) enfeebled companies that are going hat in hand to the American taxpayer for over a trillion dollars worth of taxpayer (and Chinese) backed bailout funds. Yet again, the American public is subsidizing the foolishness of private and corporate greed. Even as the average American worker suffers, CEO corporate beggars arrogantly fly into Washington on private jets. Food pantries are running out of canned goods, families won’t have a turkey on the table this Thanksgiving, and these morons are still clinging to the trappings of excessive pay and greed. Maybe those bums need to get another job.
..more at link..
(my apologies if I quoted too much, wanted to give a basic understanding of the writing..thanks)
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