“Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.” Plato knew what was up.

it’s easier to get ahead with a weaker skillset if you’re ok with fucking over someone else to get there.

angry clowns

We are stuck in a surreal angry clowns horror movie.

Her employer should pay a living wage that doesn’t need to be subsidized by tips

Tipping isn’t gratitude, it’s a system that lets corporations avoid paying workers a living wage. The barista earns a few bucks an hour, relying on tips to survive because the company doesn’t want to pay them fairly.

It’s not the barista’s fault. The corpos’ use them as leverage to perpetuate their shitty behavior. If you don’t tip, they suffer, not the business. That’s emotional blackmail dressed up as generosity.

If we keep tipping just to hold the system together, it never has to change. Real change would mean companies paying fair, livable wages up front, even if it makes the coffee more expensive. I’m fine with that and I feel others should be too.

Tipping should be a “thank you”, not a lifeline.

If we truly cared about baristas, we wouldn’t just tip, we would be be advocating for a better system that doesn’t force them to depend on tips to survive. A mass refusal to participate in this broken model is the kind of disruption that could force companies to actually pay fair wages.

Instead, we keep tipping because it feels easier and safer in the moment even though it traps workers in a cycle of dependence. I get it. It’s uncomfortable to stop doing what feels like the right thing. But sometimes, real support looks like pushing for change, not maintaining the illusion of it.

I used to think that.

But if no one tipped, all the employees would leave, and the employer would need to slowly reconsider their life choices.

My sorry ass still tips 20% on everything in the moment though.

Why? If all I order is a drip and they don’t have to do anything special, doesn’t the cost of my coffee cover everything?

This is my random uninformed opinion, and I’m well aware that there are problems with it and it’s not the solution, I merely throw it out there as food for thought. I think every worker should make a living wage as base pay, but as a teenager I worked a job that was a tipped job (not food service).

It was in the late 2000s and early 2010s I made about $5.50 hr base pay, which was twice what my employer was legally allowed to pay me as a tipped employee, although by law at the end of the week if my tips didn’t get me up to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 they had to make up the difference.

I loved it. I did it for several years and at the end of every year I averaged $12+ an hour, and I was one of the employees who worked a larger chunk of slow shifts which obviously skewed my hourly average downwards. For a 15, 16, 17 year old teen in 2008 when the economy had crashed that was REALLY good money. Every other job was either a minimum wage job, or waitressing for tips. If I worked a busy shift I could work 4 hours and leave $100 in tips richer, plus my base pay. I don’t make $30 an hour now working in healthcare.

Anyway, all of that lengthy word salad to say that while I understand and agree with the arguments that tipping culture allows companies to not pay living wages, for teens and college students, who are probably always going to struggle, rightly or wrongly to get a well paying job, finding a job where they are mostly paid in tips can be a life changer. I worked hard in high school and stashed my tips away and when I turned 18 I had a (very) used car that I purchased myself and almost 10k in savings that I used to sustain myself through my 20s when I was trying to launch myself into adulthood through lower paying jobs that didn’t pay a living wage. I do not come from a privileged background, my parents didn’t help me with anything and in fact from the time I was in elementary school I had to work for basic life needs, so having that savings from my own work was a safety net that would have been almost impossible to build up $7.25 an hour.

And reduce your water usage because it’s a drought. While we grow water heavy crops like almonds in those drought stricken regions and foreign investors from arid countries grow water heavy crops like alfalfa solely for export back home.

Epstein prosecutions started in 2006. https://apnews.com/article/trump-epstein-investigation-records-timeline-545c371ee3dd3142355a26d27829c188

We could really use some phantom thieves to steal the hearts of these leaders with distorted desires.

By morality you mean our collective fork and knife?

Considering the idea of shame is society’s way to enforce it’s version of morality, I would argue no it is not a distinction.

For me it’s the empathy of knowing that that person won’t have enough money because I know they don’t get a living wage.

I feel guilty because I’m conflicted about what the right thing to do is, the cost, and care about fellow workers.

You probably understand why I would have a moral question (alongside some guilt of doing the wrong thing) after reading through the entire thread engaging your comment.

Meanwhile Epstein, Elon, and Trump don’t seem to have these hang-up’s and are rewarded handsomely by society…

Not OP, but both.

One of the best distinctions!

Even the next part:

world’s richest man does a Nazi salute at a political rally,

Don’t get me wrong, horrible and completely unacceptable.

But sure as shit is nowhere near the line of what’s happened with the last 100 years:

The Business Plot, also called the Wall Street Putsch[1] and the White House Putsch, was a political conspiracy in 1933 in the United States to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator.[2][3] Butler, a retired Marine Corps major general, testified under oath that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans’ organization with him as its leader and use it in a coup d’état to overthrow Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the “McCormack–Dickstein Committee”) on these revelations.[4] Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, “there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

In case anyone’s eyes glazed over instead of reading, two key points:

wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans’ organization with him as its leader and use it in a coup d’état to overthrow Roosevelt.

And even more importantly:

Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, “there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”

Shit didn’t just get bad, it’s been bad.

And the way to fight it is an opposition party like FDR.

Actually over 2 decades, now. Epstein’s plea deal was in 2008 under Bush.

Reminds me of something. Martin Luther’s own writings dating from 1531, in which he stated that Pope Leo X:

Vetoed a measure that cardinals should restrict the number of boys they kept for their pleasure, otherwise it would have been spread throughout the world how openly and shamelessly the Pope and the cardinals in Rome practice sodomy.

Our tech changes but we don’t.

Given this past decade, I’d say I we’ve known about it for the worst part of the decade.

They have no morals, which is why they can grab power so easily. They’re not playing by the rules. Thus to win consistently, you’d need to cheat as well.

Then you’re left with two options. Cheat to win too, or rolling heads.