Vivian on 15/5/2013 at 15:05
BRODOWN! BRODOWN! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
DDL on 15/5/2013 at 15:15
I think the key factor in waiters/sympathy is that (as has been pointed out) in the US at least they get paid below minimum wage on the assumption that tipping will get them, if not OVER it, at least up TO it...whereas no other job seems to have an equivalent system. They're actively dependent on tips: they're not a perk.
You might be working 12 hour shifts stacking boxes or whateverthefuck, and that would certainly be a shitty job, but you're not also dependent on the ostensible charity of strangers just to get yourself up to a level where you can afford to eat.
Hence, sympathy. Waiters are fairly exceptional in being working peeps who can be individually financially screwed over by random individual members of the public.
I assume that a lot of that sympathy extends over the pond either through cultural osmosis or indeed because the system in the UK/europe is getting increasingly americanised.
Vivian on 15/5/2013 at 15:17
Yo jimjack, you ever weld anything for yourself? Like framework or whatever. Metalwork is the only bit of DIY-ish stuff I've never done (bar cold-shaping metal plates for my girlfriend to angle-grind for her shows, which is fun), and welding is actually something I'd love to learn so I could make shit like bike trailers and nice benches, etc. How long does it take to learn? I mean, not to a professional standard like yourself, but to the point where you can join two bits of metal together and have it be of a practical strength? Is arc-welding easier than gas-mix torches? I think my dad's got an arc welder somewhere, but I was always too terrified by his tales of arc-eye to touch it. 'like having hot sand instead of eye-balls for a couple of days' was his exact description.
SubJeff on 15/5/2013 at 15:30
One of my regrets in life is not learning to weld with my father. He used to weld loads of stuff out of necessity when we were in Africa, and my brother trained as a welder at some point in the 80s so I'd have had a couple of good teachers. I just remember watching it all through what I thought was an awesome and spooky mask but I was too young and stupid to realise the true utility of it all and so never asked him to teach me :(
Models are in that top 300 list. Lol.
faetal on 15/5/2013 at 15:33
Quote Posted by DDL
I think the key factor in waiters/sympathy is that (as has been pointed out) in the US at least they get paid below minimum wage on the assumption that tipping will get them, if not OVER it, at least up TO it...whereas
no other job seems to have an equivalent system. They're actively dependent on tips: they're not a perk.
Re no other job having an equivalent system, it's worth noting that waiters are only the 16th worst paid in the US. So still completely shit, but not so shit as 15 other alternatives, most of which don't seem to get tips from what I can tell. I think this is the source of the 2/3 job thing in the US, which is one thing which never fails to amaze me about the world's richest nation.
So without wanting to take any sides, it does kind of reinforce the "why specifically waiters?" part of SubJeff's argument.
DDL on 15/5/2013 at 15:56
Depends on how the stats were calculated, too: it's listed as annual wage rather than "per hour", so it might hide the fact that say, waiting staff work ungodly hours (I mean, hell, you're a scientist: we keep silly hours, and a decent annual wage can actually look pretty terrible if you work it out as "money per hour worked"), or that it's calculated as an overall average, so factors in all the high-end waiting staff in ritzy new yoik restaurants and shit, while say "farmworkers and labourers" would tend to favour middle america where all the farms are, and the standard of living is lower. Or indeed whether it factors in the assumed tipping percentage (it doesn't say), since as far as I was aware, that was the reason for paying below minimum wage...and if other jobs also pay substantially below minimum wage too, what's their justification?
And hey, it's 16th on a list of 300, which only goes up to 36k, which is what? 24k a year in GBP?
I.e. still hugely toward the low end of the scale.
Overall I'd still say "shitty wages + direct capacity for being fucked over by joe public" trumps "shitty wages alone", since you don't stand to get your hopes dashed quite so much in the latter situation.
(plus if I'm honest, I can imagine that it's easier to put yourselves in the shoes of a waiter being stiffed on a tip than it is to empathise with a farmer or a shampooer, if only because of that "being fucked over by joe public" element)
(also, shampooer is a thing? Seriously?)
EDITEDIT: also, subjeff: I think modelling is one of those "shit, shit, shit, SUPARSTAR" artist-style professions, where you're either 'scraping by' (vast majority) or utterly minted (tiny but hugely well-known fraction). We all know about the kate mosses and so on, but could you name any of the random fucks in say...a littlewoods catalogue?
EDITEDITEDIT: oh. They have myleeeeene klass, so uh..yes, then. Fuck.
faetal on 15/5/2013 at 16:10
I did think that, but I'm not sure we can justify waiters / waitresses as a special case without knowing for sure their hours worked are more than the 15 below them. I'm in agreement that they have it shit and I did take into account the fact that 16th from the bottom is still dreadful. I was just saying that I get SubJeff's apprehension of waiters getting a disproportionate level of attention when it comes to shit jobs. My guess is that the "reliant on tips" thing (whereas many of the other shitty jobs don't get that option at all) singles them out from the vast cloud of "reliant on my other jobs" situations, which are more generic.
[EDIT] My guess is that many waiters or waitresses probably have other jobs as well.
[EDIT EDIT] I'll also assume that "model" covers everything from Naomi Campbell to Lady Who Hand Models Part Time In Mail Order Catalogues, so the average will be dragged down a fair bit. Shampooers are the general dogsbodies you see in hair salons. They sweep the trimmings too and probably hope they'll cut hair some day so they can be the 109th worst paid people in the US.
Thirith on 15/5/2013 at 17:00
Isn't it upside down then to be pissed off with waiters getting so much sympathy (which, by the way, I think is much more of a US thing, where tipping seems to be a sacrosanct rule, whereas here where waiters get a salary they can live off no one raises an eyebrow if people don't always tip 10-15%), rather than to be pissed off that there are people who are even worse off in terms of salaries?
