What Tipping Actually Means For Your Waiter or Waitress

http://baloo-baloosnon-politicalcartoonblog.
blogspot.com/2014/09/restaurant-cartoon.html

I’ve never worked in the food service industry. In fact, I have avoided it at all costs. This summer, when I was applying for my first job, I applied to numerous places near my home—Target, HyVee, American Eagle. When it took longer than I expected to get an interview, I finally caved: I applied to McDonalds. Now, this is not exactly the kind of position I want to talk about today--I want to focus on tipped workers. And at McDonalds, I wouldn’t have had to wait tables or think about tips, but I think I would have experienced a similar type of stress when taking customers’ orders, remembering those orders, and having to work in that hustle and bustle kind of environment.

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/mcdonalds_20131210

McDonalds called me back. My interview was Monday. It was the only interview I’d gotten.

So I went, dragging my feet, imagining what it would be like to work there, dreading it, thinking it would literally be the worst job ever.

I was relieved to get  a call from Dick’s Sporting Goods the next day, and after a successful interview, I was hired.

But more importantly: Why was I so afraid to work in the food service industry? With college approaching, I really did need a job. There were plenty of restaurants to which I could have applied. 

So why didn’t I?

http://www.occupy.com/article/keep-
tip-how-note-left-receipt-got-applebees-waitress-fired
To you Mr. or Ms. Bell I say: Jesus ain't about your hate.
"For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you gave me clothing,
I was sick and you took care of me,
I was in prison and you visited me.'
Then the righteous will answer him...
'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to
one of the least of these who are members
of my family, you did it to me.'"
Matthew 25:35-40

I think I was afraid of being treated like a waitress. And that is the real problem—a problem that is the reflection of a problem that is way bigger than just me.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour; however, a loophole in legislation allows restaurants, hotels, and other businesses to pay their tipped workers less than minimum wage—and not just half of minimum wage, which would be a measly $3.63. Waitresses and other tipped workers can legally be paid as little as $2.13 per hour.

Just let that sink in.

Two Dollars and Thirteen Cents per Hour.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Okay, I know what you might be thinking at this point: But Hannah, what about tips?

Advocates for keeping the system of tipping argue that tipping is a way to reward workers for good service—essentially, like a bribe. Culturally, we have constructed a system that assumes that these workers will make up the difference—perhaps more than the difference—in tip money. Some costumers believe that tipped workers, who are friendly and skilled, make more money because of generous and impressed patrons.

This is simply false—not to mention, who are you to decide who gets to take home a fair wage, regardless of whether or not your waiter or waitress does what you consider to be a good job?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/i.seelio.com/5e/7e
/5e7e9f130398ecfe9f533669ea9ba6755510.gif

Tipped workers experience a disgusting level of discrimination based on body type, race, gender, sexual orientation, or age, rewarding the young and beautiful. Basically, instead of being paid minimum wage—as, by law, all workers are entitled—many workers are paid far less because of discrimination. The system does more harm than good—and the numbers show it: tipped workers are 2 times as likely to live in poverty, and restaurant workers have it the worst of all. The poverty rate for restaurantworkers is almost 3 times the overall rate.

Now some of you might be wondering: Wouldn’t eliminating tipping hurt small businesses?

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/46/4695a341e7962
b4d7417cf7e2634764a74aeb987910b4029e528c80618766896.jpg

And to that I say this: small businesses are important because they are made up of people. So those hardworking people deserve to be paid a fair wage. If that’s not happening, then that business is corrupt. Maybe that business could solve the “problem” of paying its workers a fair wage simply by raising the prices. 

http://www.heu.org/sites/default/files/imagecache
/campaign_featured_thumb/uploads/campaigns/images/LWC_0.jpg

Therefore, maybe we, as a society, should change the way we think about tipping. We should be advocating for the elimination the practice of tipping, which inevitably leads to many forms of oppression, such as exploitation, marginalization, and powerlessness. We should force businesses to pay their workers the minimum wage, instead of allowing them to take advantage of the situation.

But, in the mean time, tip your servers. Whether or not you think their service was top-notch, they deserve to be fairly paid a living wage—or minimum wage at the very least.

We Are Not Binary

I am a regular user of social media. My favorite site is Facebook, but I’m also an active Instagram user. I have a Twitter account, but I don’t even know when the last time I used Twitter was (apparently, my last post was on September 28^th, 2014). I try to keep my E-dentity relatively private, excluding strangers from viewing my profiles.

My posts mostly revolve around school, friends and family, and religion and politics. As a Facebook friend, one can find out that I am a single, Democrat, Lutheran, English-speaking female who grew up in Bettendorf, IA and goes to Augustana College--but they probably already knew that. 

One could find out my birthday (minus the year), who some of my family members are, which books I have read, movies and TV shows I have watched, pages I have liked, and music I enjoy. These things all say a lot about a person, and by posting these things I’m allowing my friends to draw conclusions about me. For example, one might see that I have liked the pages Being Liberal and Conservative Daily. Or one might see that I’ve watched Dead Poets Society, Star Wars, and Legally Blonde, and Parenthood, Madmen, and Grey’s Anatomy. Or one might see that I have read 62 books including Harry Potter, 1984, Candide, A History of God, and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

This information informs the opinions of my Facebook friends. These things are not a fair representation of my person as a whole, but one could get a pretty good idea of things that I enjoy and support. But these are all things that the people on my friend list certainly know or things that I would certainly tell them if they ever asked. 

Is sharing this information about my life and myself as a person a bad thing?

When I look at my public profiles--like Twitter--I see virtually (pun intended ;) ) no problems. I might worry about strangers viewing my profile picture, but honestly, I’m not very bothered by that. The picture is pretty generic--it could almost be a stock photo. However, one facet of my E-dentity that I hadn’t really put much thought into was the amount of information available to my Facebook friends. Yes, they all know me—most of them know me fairly well. I would discuss any of the subjects of my Facebook page with any of them—religion, politics, books, movies, TV shows, etc. But that is not what is concerning to me.



What is concerning is that I haven’t talked to all of my 511 friends about these topics.


By removing that person to person connection—by merely reading about our friends’ lives and interests—we can eliminate the chance to learn these things about our friends genuinely. For example, instead of asking me about my spiritual beliefs, Facebook friends make assumptions about what I believe. People make assumptions that I believe certain things simply because I’m a listed as a Christian. And yes, this is true, but my beliefs are very nuanced. Just saying “Hannah is very Christian” does not tell the whole story of what I believe. Just saying “Hannah is a Democrat” does not tell where I stand on many issues. It reduces the complexity of my thoughts and interests to a binary, black and white, understanding of who I am.

I think Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great ways to keep in touch with family and friends who live far away and to share pictures and ideas with friends. However, Facebook should not be sealed off from the rest of our experience. We need to ask our friends about their beliefs and interests. We need to discuss these things face to face. Our friends are more than data on a page. We are not the composite of these binaries that Facebook—and our culture as a whole—creates (are you male or femlale, Democrat or Republican, religious or secular, etc.). So it is our job, as friends, neighbors, family members, and fellow human beings, to attempt to see a more complete picture of the humans with whom we interact. Let’s ask each other questions and have face to face discussions with other people as we navigate the twists and turns of the human experience. 

Sound like a plan?  

Screw Your Neighbor!

My little brother Rylon and I have a longstanding tradition of Game Night. Not even my move to Augustana College has tampered with our tradition. We’ve even played Battleship over Skype! We’ll play anything—Life, Uno, MadGab, Connect 4, or Chess. But our favorite game is Monopoly. You’d think a college freshman playing Monopoly against a 4^th grader would be unfair, but he holds his own (he’s beat me 5 of 7 times in the last year).

 CLASSIC MONOPOLY RULES

OBJECT: The object of the game is to become the wealthiest player through buying, renting, and selling property.

Over winter break, my mom, Rylon, and I played a particularly cutthroat round of Monopoly. Although I had plenty of cash and a more than steady income, when my mom landed on Boardwalk, I asked her to pay up. The steep rent of $2,000 sent her plunging into bankruptcy. By the end of the game, I owned half of the board with hotels and houses to boot—thanks to my acquisition of my mom’s properties. Rylon didn’t stand a chance.

A win like this is a rarity for me. I know how excruciating it is to lose to Monopoly. A few bad rolls at the beginning of the game can spell disaster. In Monopoly, losing is a slow and painful process.

http://www.theatlantic.com/

business/archive/2014/08/

seeing-the-great-depression/379238/

Parker Brothers first sold monopoly in 1935—ironically, right in the middle of the Great Depression—ten years after F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, a scathing social critique of the American Dream. Integral to this dream is Capitalism.  Monopoly is Capitalism in action. Each player is their own private corporation, buying, selling, and renting properties for individual interests at the expense of their neighbors. The object of the game is individual, material wealth—not the greatest good for the greatest number, as people like John Stuart Mill would support, but rather the greatest good (as long as “good” is defined as material wealth) for the individual. Through the energies of the poor—my mother and my little brother—the rich become richer and richer. To win, I must become the oppressor; I must exploit.

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/523855885441695745

Great...this game that I have taught my little brother to play promotes exploitation.

But Monopoly is not just a game, as my mother pointed out right before I sent her into the depths of poverty: “This is way too much like real life!”

And she is right.

As a capitalist society, the American Dream is our national ideology. The American Dream—that anyone who works hard will achieve prosperity and material wealth—is crucial to our social narrative as American capitalists.  As the American filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore once critiqued: “Capitalism is an organized system to guarantee that greed becomes the primary force of our economic system and allows the few at the top to get very wealthy and has the rest of us riding around thinking we can be that way, too - if we just work hard enough, sell enough Tupperware and Amway products, we can get a pink Cadillac.” However, although the rugged individualism sanctioned by Capitalism, the American Dream, and Monopoly upholds many positive moral standards, such as self-sufficiency, diligence, and a healthy self-esteem, it also celebrates sickening materialism and consumerism. In the end, the American Dream is merely material. In order to succeed, businesses must create a desire for more because more is what is needed to sustain our capitalist economy, which thrives through virtually unrestricted production, consumption, and disposal of goods and services. The very framework of our society’s social system promotes greed. Greed is the inventor of injustice.

https://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2010/12/12/
protecting-the-american-dream/

Desire is the cause of exploitation, whether it is through racism, sexism, egoism, or elitism. Buddha knew this better than anyone, proclaiming that desire is the cause of suffering.  

Our system is a system based on greed, selfishness, and injustice—a system that justifies screwing my neighbor in order to get what I want. This is the system that we celebrate!

http://sathyasaibaba.wordpress.com/
2010/06/16/zen-pictures-zen-buddhism-wallpapers/

Therefore, maybe we, as Americans, should change our dream. Maybe instead of individualism and independence, our dream should be community and interdependence; for what is missing from the American Dream is thinking about others. Above all, Americans exalt individual freedom, but in our freedom, we are greedy and alone. Alone we are empty. By thinking about others, we think less about ourselves and our material desires—we can transcend our greed and our emptiness and embrace compassion. Through compassion, we will “proclaim good news to the poor” and “set free the oppressed.” Through compassion, we will promote social justice. Through compassion, we will not screw our neighbors, but instead we will love our neighbors.