People like this artist are why if I were ever elected President I would mandate 2 years of retail service for the entire population. They simply do not understand the stress of dealing with people in a customer-facing role in a service industry.
There was a study on job stress done a number of years ago now (I wanna say in the 2018-2020 range) by psychologists on determining the most stressful jobs, and much of the top of the list is what you would expect: firefighters, EMTs, non-active duty military, EOD technician, active duty military, etc. But the top 3 on the list, above everything else including jobs that have life or death situations, were all customer service related - baristas, customer support techs, wait staff, that sort of thing.
And the reason for this ranking was simple: jobs like bomb defusal, active duty soldiers, and firefighters are incredibly high stress but with long periods of little to no stress in between. A soldier is only on duty a few months out of the year, and in active combat for a small portion of that time. They have tons of low stress time to allow them to destress and heal from the time they spend fighting for their lives. Meanwhile, your average wait staff is in a medium to high stress environment of having to handle the abusive general public every day of the week, day in and day out. They have very little time to recover from a consistently stressful environment that only mounts higher and higher as the years go on.
As somebody who worked a job for 10 years that could basically be described as all 3 of the jobs in this comic rolled into 1 (I worked at a fish market), if there’s one group of people that I will bend over backwards to help have an easy time, it’s the kid at the grocery store, the cashier at Walmart, and the waitress at the restaurant. They don’t get paid anywhere near enough to deal with the shit that they do.
To me the issue seems to be that they are blaming the server for asking tips and not the restaurant for not providing a liveable wage to their employees.
2 year mandated retail service so people respect the job more isn’t the fix, though it might indirectly cause change, provide a real wage if lawmakers and their kids where subjected to it.
To me the issue seems to be that they are blaming the server for asking tips and not the restaurant for not providing a liveable wage to their employees.
Yes, that’s my entire issue with this comic. It seems like they’re upset about wait staff “demanding” tips for just doing their job, when the real issue is that restaurants don’t pay their servers what their job is actually worth. It’s often an opinion of people who look down on “unskilled labor” like service industry employees. Fun anecdote: airplane mechanics were considered “unskilled labor” throughout WW2 and into the early Cold War, when the profession was suddenly rebranded as “skilled labor” due to a pressing need for aircraft mechanics with the rising demand from fighter jets and airliners and a lack of people entering the field. There’s no such thing as “unskilled labor,” just undervalued work.
And my second bit that I always make about the 2 years retail service is that it would either destroy the country or make it a nicer place where people respect each other more, and at this point I don’t know which is better.
I worked half a decade in customer service, between restaurants and retail. I agree with the artist. just pay the fucking staff wages like every other service job, servers aren’t more special than any other service job.
I mean, I agree with you, but the comic comes off as complaining about wait staff “demanding” tips for doing their job when the other jobs in it don’t despite the fact that the waiters get paid a fraction of what the others do and are expected to make up the difference in tips.
It comes off as complaining about the workers being greedy and not the system that abuses them, and that’s what I was responding to. It’s the kind of opinion frequently held by people who act like “unskilled labor” is a real thing.
i would also add that what makes customer-facing jobs so stressful is that you cannot know the outcome. some people behave like assholes, demand to see the manager, then tell them that you did a bad job, and there’s nothing that you can do about it.
if you’re working as a bomb defuser, you either pull the right wire or you don’t. it’s simple laws of physics. you follow them, and that’s it. when you’re working with people, however, there are no rules. that’s what people don’t get. people seem to think that well, working with other people is just natural. however what makes it so stressful is that there are no rules. no matter what you do, you can always get shit on. that possibility drags on your brain and eats a lot of your energy.
The service I got was slow. I come here all the time, so i should know how things should be around here. My waiter sucks, I demand that he be fired.
[Paraphrased, but this is actual feedback I got the day before mothers day, when our dishwasher was broken. And yes, he stiffed me, because of course]
I’ve also had a father tell his children that “tipping is optional and they should be happy with 5%” after I spent an hour and a half busting ass for his family’s ridiculous requests. After taxes and tip out 5% can literally be less than zero into your waiter’s pocket, fwiw.
Y’all suck. I assume anyone I see bitching about waitstaff getting tips, or implying they dont tip, is an asshole, because IME those are the complaints of an asshole. Tipping culture in general is a whole other topic that there can be reasoned and nuanced discussions about, but if your take is “tipping sucks and I don’t have to,” then you are willingly taking advantage of a system that denies people of the fruits of their labor.
People like this artist are why if I were ever elected President I would mandate 2 years of retail service for the entire population. They simply do not understand the stress of dealing with people in a customer-facing role in a service industry.
There was a study on job stress done a number of years ago now (I wanna say in the 2018-2020 range) by psychologists on determining the most stressful jobs, and much of the top of the list is what you would expect: firefighters, EMTs, non-active duty military, EOD technician, active duty military, etc. But the top 3 on the list, above everything else including jobs that have life or death situations, were all customer service related - baristas, customer support techs, wait staff, that sort of thing.
And the reason for this ranking was simple: jobs like bomb defusal, active duty soldiers, and firefighters are incredibly high stress but with long periods of little to no stress in between. A soldier is only on duty a few months out of the year, and in active combat for a small portion of that time. They have tons of low stress time to allow them to destress and heal from the time they spend fighting for their lives. Meanwhile, your average wait staff is in a medium to high stress environment of having to handle the abusive general public every day of the week, day in and day out. They have very little time to recover from a consistently stressful environment that only mounts higher and higher as the years go on.
As somebody who worked a job for 10 years that could basically be described as all 3 of the jobs in this comic rolled into 1 (I worked at a fish market), if there’s one group of people that I will bend over backwards to help have an easy time, it’s the kid at the grocery store, the cashier at Walmart, and the waitress at the restaurant. They don’t get paid anywhere near enough to deal with the shit that they do.
To me the issue seems to be that they are blaming the server for asking tips and not the restaurant for not providing a liveable wage to their employees.
2 year mandated retail service so people respect the job more isn’t the fix, though it might indirectly cause change, provide a real wage if lawmakers and their kids where subjected to it.
Yes, that’s my entire issue with this comic. It seems like they’re upset about wait staff “demanding” tips for just doing their job, when the real issue is that restaurants don’t pay their servers what their job is actually worth. It’s often an opinion of people who look down on “unskilled labor” like service industry employees. Fun anecdote: airplane mechanics were considered “unskilled labor” throughout WW2 and into the early Cold War, when the profession was suddenly rebranded as “skilled labor” due to a pressing need for aircraft mechanics with the rising demand from fighter jets and airliners and a lack of people entering the field. There’s no such thing as “unskilled labor,” just undervalued work.
And my second bit that I always make about the 2 years retail service is that it would either destroy the country or make it a nicer place where people respect each other more, and at this point I don’t know which is better.
I worked half a decade in customer service, between restaurants and retail. I agree with the artist. just pay the fucking staff wages like every other service job, servers aren’t more special than any other service job.
I mean, I agree with you, but the comic comes off as complaining about wait staff “demanding” tips for doing their job when the other jobs in it don’t despite the fact that the waiters get paid a fraction of what the others do and are expected to make up the difference in tips.
It comes off as complaining about the workers being greedy and not the system that abuses them, and that’s what I was responding to. It’s the kind of opinion frequently held by people who act like “unskilled labor” is a real thing.
wait staff make the same minimum wage here yet expect tips
And here they make $2.75
Oh wow, they make $7.25/hour?!? Well shit, never mind then.
i would also add that what makes customer-facing jobs so stressful is that you cannot know the outcome. some people behave like assholes, demand to see the manager, then tell them that you did a bad job, and there’s nothing that you can do about it.
if you’re working as a bomb defuser, you either pull the right wire or you don’t. it’s simple laws of physics. you follow them, and that’s it. when you’re working with people, however, there are no rules. that’s what people don’t get. people seem to think that well, working with other people is just natural. however what makes it so stressful is that there are no rules. no matter what you do, you can always get shit on. that possibility drags on your brain and eats a lot of your energy.
[Paraphrased, but this is actual feedback I got the day before mothers day, when our dishwasher was broken. And yes, he stiffed me, because of course]
I’ve also had a father tell his children that “tipping is optional and they should be happy with 5%” after I spent an hour and a half busting ass for his family’s ridiculous requests. After taxes and tip out 5% can literally be less than zero into your waiter’s pocket, fwiw.
Y’all suck. I assume anyone I see bitching about waitstaff getting tips, or implying they dont tip, is an asshole, because IME those are the complaints of an asshole. Tipping culture in general is a whole other topic that there can be reasoned and nuanced discussions about, but if your take is “tipping sucks and I don’t have to,” then you are willingly taking advantage of a system that denies people of the fruits of their labor.