:The post could also be entitled “Every Single DFL-Linked Blog On Emmer’s Tip Credit Proposal”.
Because I must have seen twenty different variations on TOM EMMER THINKS WAITRESSES MAKE TOO MUCH in the leftyblogs the past couple of days.
I’d love to talk with one of these people – any one of whom may or may not have worked as a food/beverage server, but of whom none I suspect have ever run small business that wasn’t a “political consultancy” of some sort or another – and ask ’em a few questions.
It might go something like this:
MITCH: So – how much is something worth?
A FICTIONAL BUT ALL TOO REALISTIC LEFTYBLOGGER:What the Government says it’s worth!
MITCH: Uh huh. So if you’re buying, say, a Prius from me…
AFBATRL:…yaaaaaaay!
MITCH: …and I charge you $80,000, will you buy it?
AFBATRL: Oh, bogus, dude. That’s more than I want to spend! No Prius is worth that much.
MITCH: Right. Exactly. So if I try to sell a Prius for more than you are naturally willing to spend for it, nobody will buy it. Right?
AFBATRL: OK, I guess.
MITCH: OK, so what if I have a car lot with ten Priuses, that cost me $15,000 wholesale…
AFBATRL: …what’s that?
MITCH: …er, from the factory, and I sell them to people for $1 a piece?
AFBATRL: Ooh! Yeah! You can do that?
MITCH: No. I’ll go broke.
AFBATRL: So what? You’ll have ten buyers! With Priuses! That’s what busiensses need, right? Buyers? You get buyers, Mother Gaia gets Priuses!
MITCH: {{facepalm}}
AFBATRL: Blogger Berg?
MITCH: Yeah, I just…OK. So say you own a restaurant.
AFBATRL: A vegan breakfast place!
MITCH: Whatever. And after you play for your supplies and rent and taxes, you have nine dollars an hour to pay for labor – your waitstaff. You’ve got a decent location – lots of traffic, a neighborhood full of single couples without kids…
AFBATRL: …yaaaay!
MITCH: …so you wanna make sure you have plenty of service. So do you pay one waitress nine dollars an hour, or do you pay three of them $3.00 an hour apiece?
AFBATRL: Simple. You pay three of them nine dollars an hour! Because $3,50 is not a living wage!
MITCH: Well, wait! You can’t afford that! If you do that, you’ll be losing $18 an hour, every hour!
AFBATRL: Well, there must be some sort of government program…
MITCH: Well, hold on a minute – a good waitress can get tips! I mean, do the math; fifteen tables – five tables to a waitress – each getting three $30 tabs per morning rush between 6-9AM, paying 15% tips after allowing for deadbeats, equals $67 per morning per waitress – which is $18 an hour, counting the $3 you’re paying them.
AFBATRL: Oh, yeah! I read on “Tom Emmer’s Minnesota” that he said that a waitress can make $100,000 a year! So why aren’t the waitresses in my vegan breakfast joint making that kind of money?
MITCH: Look, there are no guarantees. Being a waiter, a bartender, a cocktailer, depends on how good you are, and where you work – and the better you are, the more you can earn. Someone pouring coffee at a truckstop in Valley City North Dakota might make a few bucks a day; someone working at Manny’s, serving $600 in meals per table to people who are used to tipping 20% for good service, can make hundreds of dollars in an evening.
AFBATRL: So why don’t I pay my staff hundreds of dollars a day, and make it easier?
MITCH: Because you would have to add more than 20% to the cost of your food to pay them, which means at least 20% fewer people would come in to your restaurant.
AFBATRL: So we’d need a bailout!
MITCH: Er…
AFBATRL: Hey, I do have a question.
MITCH: What?
AFBATRL: What is this concept of “tipping” you keep talking about?
Just a hunch.
My local newspaper, the Rochester Post-Bulletin, actually ran an editorial on this topic, in which they actually had the actual following thing they actually wrote and kept:
But a six figure income seems a bit excessive.
You gotta love when a newspaper lets it all hang out like that.
http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=12&a=460033#comment
So why aren’t the waitresses in my vegan breakfast joint making that kind of money?
Because vegan liberals are cheap-ass lousy tippers?
Actually, fun as this is, I think the comment I posted on a local lefty blog noting that yesterday was the anniversary of the signing of the Wagner Act, and why it was necessary, is a bit closer to reality than your fantasy.
I noticed you didn’t single out that landmark piece of legislation passing, LOL.
The State of Hawaii must think I make too much money. They keep taking more and more of it away from me.
I noticed you didn’t single out that landmark piece of legislation passing, LOL.
Good point, Mrs. Teasdale! Who could forget the stirring post that appeared on Penigma back on June 23 discussing the Taft-Hartley Act? Oh, wait….
So the DFL thinks the current minimum wage in MN is perfect? It was set by an objective panel of economists?
“I think the comment I posted on a local lefty blog noting that yesterday was the anniversary of the signing of the Wagner Act, and why it was necessary, is a bit closer to reality than your fantasy.”
I believe that one comment I posted on a Fark thread about a year ago was the most cogent comment on the topic at hand. Why haven’t you read it?
READ MY [comment on another] BLOG.
why it was necessary, is a bit closer to reality than your fantasy.
In re the issue of reinstating the Tip Credit?
Um…no?
Hey Terry. I heard on the news last night that the Governor of Hawaii declared Nohomohomo the official state protector of the nuptual.
So why shouldn’t a restaurant not pay servers at all, and have them work exclusively for tips? Or have them be contractors, and pay for the ability to serve food?
a) Because the law requires a minimum wage for them. Until 1990, employers were allowed to credit tips against that wage in Minnesota.
b) You’re describing a “franchisee” more than a contractor. A restaurant would pay a contractor as an independent rather than employee, in exchange for their food-service expertise.
Question back atcha; ever met a sales person who worked straight commission? No hourly wages?
Yeah, Swiftee, it was tough call for Gov. Lingle. She’s rumored to be gay herself, but maybe that’s because she looks like a lesbian.
Back in ’02, when Lingle ran for gov, the then lt. gov. Mazie Hirono (D, Fukashima Prefecture) was her opponent. Mazie’s posse spread rumors that Lingle would take away the Easter & Christmas holidays because she was Jewish. On the eve of the election Mazie called a press conference — covered live on television — to announce that she was not responsible for spreading the rumor that Lingle was gay. The reporters were all, like, WTF? They had never heard the rumour. Until then. Mazie spread the rumors about Lingle’s hatred of Christianity and her homosexuality in order to whip up anti-Lingle sentiment among the huge ethnic Filipino population here. They are very Catholic and many are not well educated. It sort of worked. The Filipino’s don’t like Japs and the rumours about Lingle kind of kept people from remembering that Mazie was a Buddist and that she was born and raised (until she was seven or eight) in Japan.
Mazie lost to Lingle, but in 2006 she got the blessing from the local Democrat party to take Patsy-the-pinko-Mink’s vacant congressional seat. Mazie has been my representative to the US congress since 2007.
“So why shouldn’t a restaurant not pay servers at all, and have them work exclusively for tips? Or have them be contractors, and pay for the ability to serve food?”
Actually, that’s the business model for hairdressing, and AFAIK, strippers.
Yeah, but in Minnesota the server comes to the table and asks as your mouth is full – “So’s howze everthin tastin, uh?” You don’t get that just anywhere.
LearnedFoot – Did you post that as Haiku? If so, I think I saw that on that other blog and it was spot on versus DogGone’s slobber on some other blog.
You go to places where the hairdressers and strippers serve food? Talk about your one-stop shopping.
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Mitch, Emmer is proposing changing the law. Why not change it completely?
Commission workers are still paid by their employers, not the customer. Servers have no contract with their “employer” as to what they are paid if they work for tips.
Mnbubba, strippers and hairdressers rent an area to work, and sell their own “product,” which is their skill. A server sells someone else’s product, over which they have no control. The greatest server in the world selling a poorly made meal isn’t going to be tipped well.
“You go to places where the hairdressers and strippers serve food? Talk about your one-stop shopping”
Now, if they’d just do an oil change and tire rotation……
OMIGAWD, I think we got something here.
The greatest server in the world selling a poorly made meal isn’t going to be tipped well.
Only to a liberal would this make sense. I had my tipping values instilled in me by my parents, unconsciously, but I actually usually tip 20% instead of the normal 15%. I know that food and the service is seperate, done by two different people (unless the place is really freaking cheap). You tip to the service you get. I always do at least 10% unless the service is exceptionally bad. Why do liberals not tip well at all? I’ve heard this is common throughout the country.
oh wait I forgot, they only like spending other peoples money, not their own.
Ben wondered “Why do liberals not tip well at all?” to which the sensible answer is “We don’t know that”. Putting all liberals in the same category is something that liberals do (see how easy that is?).
Ben, do you think servers ask their customers their political leanings?
There are groups of people servers will tell you are poor tippers. One of them is large groups coming from church, who like to leave fake $100 bills with bible verses on them. I’m sure they are liberals.
There are groups of people servers will tell you are poor tippers. One of them is large groups coming from church, who like to leave fake $100 bills with bible verses on them. I’m sure they are liberals.
I’d bet one of those autographed fake bills that that story is pretty much an urban legend.
But I’ve talked with not a few bartenders at Patriot events. They say the Patriot’s crowd is just about the best bunch of tippers there is.
And of course, Rush Limbaugh is famed throughout the hospitality industry for leaving $5,000 tips for $300 tabs.
It may be the only area in which he is genuinely extreme.