[Ratmagiclady]

Jerks come at all income levels. I'm not sure how much this incident would say about the 1% past this particular person (if it indeed happened the way it has been reported). The blog http://futureexbanker.wordpress.com/ from which this story came has been deleted.

I dunno, man, when you see a lunch bill near twice what you could put to groceries this month, With contempt for the work of the server written on there, you do tend to identify with the working person getting stiffed.

I don't see a complaint about the service there, I see contempt for the working woman. (Guess they've gone from screwing the disabled and jobless with 'Get a job' to doing it directly to the working people over 'Get a real job.' )

I suspect that the site may have been taken down (if it didn't just exceed the bandwidth it paid for thanks to something going viral,) that it may have involved a little bit of a 'settlement' from someone who might be embarrassed. )

I dunno, maybe there's a niche market there, restaurants with expensive food served by poor and sick people to abuse. (Better make it gratuities included) A lunch like that'd cover a lot of bubba-burgers.

[mikemike]

As to the subject of whether or not waiting tables is a "real job" I would say it depends on the restaurant. Waiting tables is one of the jobs where someone can make a wage which supports a healthy young single person (high school through new college grad) can earn a living wage which support themselves or pay their way through college. But if someone is getting into their late 20s and they are still waiting tables at Applebee's or comparable they do not have a real job. I don't know where this place falls in the totem pole of restaurants in newport beach, but a waiting job at a nicer place here you can easily earn a middle class income around $50,000 with health care, 401k, and time off. Any job where a walk-in who is still in high school with zero experience could be your next co-worker or replacement is not "a real job" in my book.

[vonBaloney]

Assuming the receipt is real, we still only know less than half the story. If the server insulted the patron, or made a crack about him/her being a "1%er", then the return insult could well be deserved. We don't know. 99%ers can be jerks too, you know. It doesn't make sense that someone would write "get a real job" on a receipt just out of the blue -- there must have been an exchange or insults previous to that...

[ihasa]

Outside of the U.S., where a server may be paid as little as $2 per hour before tip, it is a much smaller portion of the server's income.

Did I read that correctly, Gene, $2 an hour basic wage before tips?

The minimum wage here is about $11, and any tips waiters earn for good service are on top of that. To be honest I hate the idea of obligatory tipping, the idea that a customer can punish you through your wage packet if for whatever reason - bad day, problems with the chef, personal issues - your service isn't 100% up to par.

[ihasa]

Any job where a walk-in who is still in high school with zero experience could be your next co-worker or replacement is not "a real job" in my book.

Really? A job's a job in my book, if you're out there working and doing your best to provide. I'm in my thirties, and if I got fired from my current job, I wouldn't hesitate to work a minimum wage job as temporary employment. To be honest I wouldn't have much of a choice, if a landscape architecture job didn't fall into my lap. Would you rather people went straight on to benefits?

[vonBaloney]

Did I read that correctly, Gene, $2 an hour basic wage before tips?

The minimum wage here is about $11, and any tips waiters earn for good service are on top of that. To be honest I hate the idea of obligatory tipping, the idea that a customer can punish you through your wage packet if for whatever reason - bad day, problems with the chef, personal issues - your service isn't 100% up to par.

It has been a long time since I've had that type of job, but most places in the U.S. where you get tips you will be paid less than the minimum wage (which is legal), but you are still guaranteed the minimum wage -- in other words if it is a slow day or your tips just suck the employer has to make up at least that difference. But the vast majority of the time, the tips will put you over the minimum wage, often well over. Just depends on the job and amount of business. I think most baristas and behind-the-counter people where there is only a "tip jar" (which tend not to get filled too much) make at the least the minimum to start with (and with benefits at a place like Starbucks). Waiters and delivery people at lower-end restaurants usually make $2-$5 hour plus tips with tips being the bulk of the income. I used to make $100-$300 a night delivering pizzas, mostly tips, and that was 20 years ago.

[boriscleto]

Did I read that correctly, Gene, $2 an hour basic wage before tips?

It varies from state to state. In California it is $8/hr. In NY it is the Federal minimum of $2.13/hr.

U.S. Department of Labor - Wage & Hour Divisions (WHD) - Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees

[jeffkrol]

Compassionate conservatism has been dead for a long time. Romney's Detroit speech cremated the remains. As a man, Romney remains far and away the most capable of the presidential candidates seeking the Republican nomination. But he has now finally eliminated the policy differences separating him from the radical congressional wing. If Romney should win the Republican nomination, moderate and independent voters nationwide will be forced to decide: If they vote for Romney, who is it they're truly voting for?

Romney throws his economic plan overboard - CNN.com

[jeffkrol]

Did I read that correctly, Gene, $2 an hour basic wage before tips?

The minimum wage here is about $11, and any tips waiters earn for good service are on top of that. To be honest I hate the idea of obligatory tipping, the idea that a customer can punish you through your wage packet if for whatever reason - bad day, problems with the chef, personal issues - your service isn't 100% up to par.

I'm pretty sure, across the country, Gene's is the "status quo".........


The Wisconsin's 2009 Minimum Wage Rates
Rate Type As of 7/24/09
Adult [Non-agriculture] $7.25
Minor [Non-agriculture] $7.25
Opportunity Employee $5.90

Tipped Employee $2.33
Tipped Opportunity Employee $2.13

Adult [Agriculture] $7.25
Minor [Agriculture] $7.25

[Ratmagiclady]

Did I read that correctly, Gene, $2 an hour basic wage before tips?

The minimum wage here is about $11, and any tips waiters earn for good service are on top of that. To be honest I hate the idea of obligatory tipping, the idea that a customer can punish you through your wage packet if for whatever reason - bad day, problems with the chef, personal issues - your service isn't 100% up to par.

It's very true, ihasa, it's that bad, wageswise... By more or less that scheme, waitstaff do pretty much live on tips, ...(It's expensive to live where people drop fifty or a hundred dollars on lunch, of course, never mind maintain the image it takes for expensive joints like that, so it apparently tends to not leave so much over. )

[vonBaloney]

Nevertheless, most jobs where you get tips end up to be better-paying than a straight minimum wage job, and at a fancy restaurant quite a bit more. No one likes to get stiffed, but you get big tips sometimes too -- what counts is the total at the end of the day, not what each individual tipped. Life's too short to stress about every single transaction...

[Ratmagiclady]

As to the subject of whether or not waiting tables is a "real job" I would say it depends on the restaurant. Waiting tables is one of the jobs where someone can make a wage which supports a healthy young single person (high school through new college grad) can earn a living wage which support themselves or pay their way through college. But if someone is getting into their late 20s and they are still waiting tables at Applebee's or comparable they do not have a real job. I don't know where this place falls in the totem pole of restaurants in newport beach, but a waiting job at a nicer place here you can easily earn a middle class income around $50,000 with health care, 401k, and time off. Any job where a walk-in who is still in high school with zero experience could be your next co-worker or replacement is not "a real job" in my book.

Mikemike, you're just repeating the contempt by judging people over what they do for a living at a given age, though, that's just ridiculous in a time when people with masters' degrees are having to wait tables and the like cause they can't get jobs in this market, and lots of *underemployed* people are working two and three of those jobs to try and keep a home.

There are a lot of our underpaid *teachers* waiting tables or tending bar, just to stay afloat (That's been the case for a long time: half my teachers in high school tended bar after hours) ...working parents, unpaid interns, (doing 'real jobs' for no pay) etc, etc.

The cost of living in a place where you can be tending high end bar are often inflated by those people who claim millions of dollars a year 'isn't that much,' ...certainly some places are more cash-poor than others, (Actually a decent place for the likes of *me* to be, those, in a way: a fixed income goes a little further, though it isn't quite enough to make ends meet alone, as I keep finding. and I live in a basement in a low-rent neighborhood. And my sweetie and I paid a good deal *extra* to set me up down here cause rents this low are *rare* even in this area. I've got friends online having trouble finding a place at even three times the rent, because the foreclosure crisis that leaves all those empty homes has meant the *rental* market is inflating even *more* than it had been. )


And one problem in places where they *don't* mostly serve the rich, is that people work longer and more hours across a lot of those jobs because the *customers* aren't going out as much or buying as much or as expensive of things when they do. Never mind pulling in fifty grand.

You may have an expectation, 'Oh, they're doing all right,' (With maybe some best-case ideas of the figures involved) and then feel entitled to judge people over what they're doing to live. But you don't even *know.* You might feel like you're being a big spender during the rush, but spread that out over a whole working day, and see how it really works out hourly.


Even in this town, rent closer to downtown would be approaching what I used to associate with a little above the floor in Boston. I'd be pretty thrilled to be up to a job like that, myself, (Since I've barely been able to move for a couple of weeks, it gives me pain just to think of it,) ...But you don't know people's circumstances. If I became healthy this instant, I wouldn't know where to scratch up the wardrobe and haircut even for places I might frequent if I were doing a little better. And you'd be right to complain about the service you got, It's exceptionally hard for me to do basic calculations these days, never mind remember what orders someone might rattle off. Even if I did everything perfectly, it's *still* legal to fire me just cause of who I am in this state.

Saying, 'Well, I can stiff the waitstaff cause I think they're too good for this, starving them out will 'incentivize' them to get a better job, rather than make it harder for them to do anything,' ...is just the same kind of greed and sense of entitlement that people are angry at the 1 percent about.


Cause if you *didn't* have particularly bright and experienced waitstaff, you'd be calling them 'idiots' and using *that* as an excuse to stiff them, too.

[kenafein]

He just wants to let everyone else know what it's like to have a small tip.

[séamuis]

As to the subject of whether or not waiting tables is a "real job" I would say it depends on the restaurant. Waiting tables is one of the jobs where someone can make a wage which supports a healthy young single person (high school through new college grad) can earn a living wage which support themselves or pay their way through college. But if someone is getting into their late 20s and they are still waiting tables at Applebee's or comparable they do not have a real job. I don't know where this place falls in the totem pole of restaurants in newport beach, but a waiting job at a nicer place here you can easily earn a middle class income around $50,000 with health care, 401k, and time off. Any job where a walk-in who is still in high school with zero experience could be your next co-worker or replacement is not "a real job" in my book.

age of the employee and money earned are not qualifying factors for defining wether a job is 'real' or not. your view is plain ignorant.the job is a part of a service that we all depend on at times. some more than others, a few maybe never, but most of us all at some point. thus, it is as real a job as the guy building the buildings and houses we live and work in, or the vehicles we drive. you take away all the restaurants, all the grocery store employees, etc. and see just how fast the jobs become real to people like you who poorly define what is 'real' in the world of work. western society depends on the people at the bottom doing these 'non-real' jobs a lot more than we depend on most of the 'real' ones, and you damn well know it. so stop ignorantly judging people you don't know and start showing respect for the people that do work that you clearly view as beneath you. if the jobs weren't 'real' we wouldn't be depending on them so much every day of our lives. you know, unless you don't eat at restaurants or shop at grocery stores, or department stores, or home improvement stores, etc, etc. right? cause you don't ever need these things and the people who are employed there often making barely more than minimum wage, right?

[mikemike]

Really? A job's a job in my book, if you're out there working and doing your best to provide. I'm in my thirties, and if I got fired from my current job, I wouldn't hesitate to work a minimum wage job as temporary employment. To be honest I wouldn't have much of a choice, if a landscape architecture job didn't fall into my lap. Would you rather people went straight on to benefits?

The connotation of "a real job" is a career - a job which you enjoy, take pride in, can provide you and your family with a living wage, and has a pathway to retirement. Like I said, there are service jobs out there which do fit this bill and there are people out there who enjoy doing it since they never have to bring their work home with them, it is relatively low stress when you are off the clock, and they find the hours agreeable.

Unemployment insurance is there to help people between jobs for a reasonable amount of time because desirable jobs very rarely "fall into the laps" of the unemployed so they need to get out there and hustle for a new job in their field.