The Economy

My ex-GF's oldest brother is/was a pilot for American, and TWA before that. I don't know what he made, but her family also row farmed and had three private planes. Her two brothers and dad could all pilot those planes.

 

It might be called a different role now. But there are people who will occasionally check your receipt on the way out. And in the one closest to me, there is usually someone who smiles and nods as I walk in.

 

Try telling that to the bosses at media companies.

 

A greeter and receipt checker is SOP at Costco. The company apparently also treats its employees pretty well.

 

True, but that assumes that they're actually listening.

 

Unrelated but related... stop fucking asking me to tip you 15 percent when I pick up a pizza or you give me two scoops of ice cream.

Really? People are hired for the job to do that service. So are wait staff, but there's an extra component to that (and everyone knows waiters are paid shit) and I'll always give them 20 percent unless they're absolutely brutal.

I'll happily be generous to folk. It's just the in-the-face nature of it now, since it comes preprogrammed through the various electronic payment systems.

 

Blame the states that allow restaurants to pay their employees a couple bucks an hour under the minimum wage.

Fuck the modern tipping system. Just include what it costs to pay the employees a fair wage in the price of the food and then allow me to decide if the service merits a tip.

 

$2.13 / hr

Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees

 

For example:

‘It’s legal, there’s just no precedent’: the first US town to demand a rent decrease

 

I’ve always wondered what kind of directives have been given to the woman checking my receipt as I leave Costco. I know she doesn’t have the time nor the ability to know that what’s in the cart matches the list of items on the receipt.

 

It doesn't.

I understand the sentiment here, but a capital economy - especially ours, operating in a democracy and a culture based on the mythology of upward mobility and barrier-free class transition - requires lots and lots of running adjustment.

Right now the politics in this country are in part an expression of anger at the widening gap between the rich and the rest of us.