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This book will collect “Year Eight,” spanning the four storylines that start on September 1, 2017, and complete on August 30, 2018. This includes new commentary, behind-the-scenes artwork, 24 previously Patreon-exclusive bonus strips, and new character designs into a full-color 222-page tome with luxurious glossy paper all bound up into a sturdy presentation!
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aw come on, Beckers, SURELY you can afford the finest UPSCALE smells!
[like, uh… P.F. Chang? idk what’s there]
In which Becky learns about the concept of minimum wage
And the related concept of begging for extra shifts
Not just minimum wage. WAITRESS minimum wage. It’s $2.15 an hour, depending on the state.
Which is absolutely bollock-shitting insanity.
Damn. It took me a minute to get that (I live in California). And Galasso’s doesn’t seem to be the sort of environment where the tips would be high enough for withholding to kill the cheque.
But their primary clientele are college students, a demographic famous for being awash in disposable income…
/s
Wait what, US$2.15/h? That’s lower than working at a McDonald’s in my country with no minimum wage laws!
Yup. :/ Wait staff are expected to make the rest of a livable wage up in tips, which is shitty in SO many ways….
(I should add that the staff at McDonalds and other fast food restaurants usually *do* make the normal minimum wage, something like $7.15 I think (if it’s not higher due to state laws); it’s only servers and similar tip-focused positions that make the insanely low minimum wage. :/ )
Wait what? That is so Wrong. Tips are supposed to be like a bonus. Flee to Canada Becky. Even Saskatchewan will pay you $11/hour in our colorful monopoly money
That’s how it *used* to be. In the 1960’s, employers basically dumped the bill on their customers to pay their employees. Successfully lobbying for a separate, tipped minimum wage when waitstaff finally got added to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
And the tipped minimum wage hasn’t increased with cost of living like the regular minimum wage has.
Even the regular minimum wage (federal) has less buying power now than it had in the 1950s. It, uh, hasn’t increased in a few decades its own self.
State/local minimum wages, depending on where you are, those are a different thing. But the federal minimum wage last saw an increase around the turn of the millennium, and I think THAT was the first such in 20 years, itself.
Minimum wage hasn’t budged in 30 years, at least in my state.
Raised to the current rate in 2009 (with a couple steps up in the years before). Before then, raised in 1997.
But yes, it’s fallen behind cost of living. And the tipped minimum hasn’t gone up since the early 90s.
Of course it’s not so much that it got worse in the 60s, since there was no minimum wage for such jobs before then.
It does suck, but it’s a little more complex – tipped jobs can actually wind up paying well over the minimum wage counting the tips in, so they’re often not a bad option. And theoretically, if you don’t make enough in tips to reach minimum wage, your employer has to make up the difference. That’s commonly abused though. Illegal, but common.
And since Becky is working without all the proper documentation IIRC, she probably wouldn’t have much leverage against that.
I thought she had gotten everything she needed? Even so, the tips at a student pizza joint aren’t going to amount to much, even if she’s also working the bar section (which, assuming she’s 18, she could, but then involves the complex algebra of tipping out the bartender, who has a math degree and thus can figure that out to1/1000th of a cent).
Becky’s documented. She’s got her SSN and birth certificate. That’s enough to prove anything she needs.
She’s not working the bar though. Jason it. We’ve seen they need people 21 or older to even bring drinks to a table.
Pamela didn’t take her documentation though – Becky’s still technically working under the table.
And, no, it’s not ‘more complex’ with tipped positions – pay your goddamn workers properly (as in, the fucking minimum wage if you can’t be bothered to go over). And yeah, making more than the federal minimum wage isn’t saying much – your federal minimum is garbage too.
I’ve never met an American server who wouldn’t rather make a stable, consistent (preferably living) wage over one that relies on customer generosity, especially when tip collecting is so easily abused.
I’ve met plenty who worked restaurant jobs precisely because with tips they could make more than a straight minimum wage job. Admittedly this was some years back in my twenties, when I worked for minimum wage or just above and knew plenty of people in the same boat.
Of course, they’d have rather been making an actual living wage, but that’s a separate question. They had to choose between crappy job with tips or our crappy minimum wage.
It’s fair to say that tip abuse has probably gotten worse over the years though. I think there’s more room to cheat by pooling and splitting tips than there used to be.
You only make that extra if you have a lot of customers or if the customers are generous though – that’s part of the problem. You can’t make an actual living wage if your employers don’t even have to pay you the crappy existing minimum wage.
Gotcha. I was just going by the state law. It could be that the local ordinances restrict it to 21 (I live in the OTHER Big State U city in Illinois, and that’s a bit more research than I want to do ;), but if comic canon says it’s 21, it’s 21.
I agree with BBCC here, it’s not “more complex” – at least not in this direction. Imagine a waiter/waitress being largely tipped, having a way of life according to it. They would have to rely on this income to be able to pay whatever insurances (health, whatev) that the boss don’t pay for them (let me guess how often the answer is “any” for small joints like these). Any sick day would result not only on a salary loss, but on an inability to be able to further pay any health related insurance. Whereas on a standy even minimum wage, you always can afford what you’re paid for. That’s the reason proper healthcare means drug dealing is moot.
What’s worse is, the IRS will tax your tips, even if you didn’t make any. They just assume you made good tips, and tax you on that.
At one time it may have been that Tips were a bonus. But (at least in some western countries) they are almost an expectation. (Granted, its usually not mandatory to leave a tip, but protocol seems to be “Minimum 10-15% of the bill”.)
I listened to a comedian in my country talking about a visit to California. He had gone to some type of stand up club, and in the pause the owner of the joint had come up on stage to remind everybody to tip, “especially you cheap Europeans!”
And the guy was like: I’m the cheap one? You’re the asshole who pays your staff minimum wage so that I have to tip them.
Yeah. I live in California, and I totally agree. (I moved here from England, though.)
It’s really shitty to call Europeans “cheap” because they don’t know how tips work because THEY PAY THEIR EMPLOYEES A LIVING WAGE. I see that attitude all the time, and it drives me nuts. A lot of folks have never traveled abroad and don’t know how nice it is when their bill isn’t a giant inflated lie due to sales tax and tip being added on after the fact.
Yeah. It is. The thing is that in America, it used to be that waiters and waitresses were paid by their employer and made minimum wage and tipping was considered rude. But, when money started flowing up, businesses started to encourage staff to ask for tips from wealthy patrons willing to pay extra for faster service. Tipping became the norm and business owners argued that because wait staff could expect to be tipped for the service they provide, they shouldn’t have to be paid minimum wage. So, they’re paid just $2.15 an hour. TECHNICALLY, the restaurant should pay their staff for any hourly shortcomings (If you only make $1 in tips due to it being slow or working on a campus of broke college students, they’d have to pay an extra $6 an hour to make up for it), but that isn’t really enforced.
The solution is to stop tipping.
The solution is to fix the legislation. If you stop tipping, all that happens is that servers fail to make rent for years and have their lives ruined before anybody will actually hold employers accountable for not appropriately compensating their workers.
what is wrong with you
Quite a bit actually. If everyone stopped tipping then it might work, but that’s not going to happen and the only result of not tipping is that the people who can least afford it are screwed again. What annoys me though it tip creep where more and more of the pay is shifted to expected tips. In my lifetime 10% was a generous tip. Now, 20% to 25% is considered standard.
So the poorest, working class folks have to get evicted and starve in order to make a point that the culture of relying on tips is unethical? Let’s not.
Notice how great that’s going with healthcare? Diabetic working class folks are rationing their insulin and dying, and NOTHING is being done about it.
…Sorry, I now realized I’ve mis-read your comment. I was fixated on the “if everyone stopped it might work” part, but you clearly addressed the problem where it screws over the most vulnerable.
It’s apparently really easy to jump to conclusions on this topic, which we all seem to agree is awful. Carry on.
Wait, I lived in Germany with the assumption 10% was a normal tip, AND they don’t pay waiters in tips there…
You can’t change an entire culture by cheaping out of paying workers. If you don’t tip, waitresses starve. You need to fix the laws.
I’m pretty sure Taffy meant on a cultural level, but yes, that requires forcing employers to pay their employees first, at which point tipping will be unnecessary.
But that’s not what he said. He said the /solution/ is to /stop/ tipping. Not that tipping should be unnecessary. By saying the solution is to stop tipping, that implies that he thinks the way to fix the problem of underpaid waitresses is to stop tipping and let things sort themselves out.
If he meant that tipping should be unnecessary, he should have said, ‘this is why tipping shouldn’t be a thing.’
That’s basically what I meant, yeah. I think I came across as an asshole, there.
To clarify, the current situation is that customers are expected to pay the employees directly, on top of their original purchase, instead of employers being expected to pay their employees in the first place, and I’m trying to say that I don’t think it should have to be that way.
On second thought, how about I just shut the fuck up about the subject, since tonight clearly isn’t a good-communication night for me and everything I say keeps coming out wrong.
That’s why I said that’s what I’m pretty sure he meant.
Perhaps the solution is to start an initiative by opening your own restaurant and pay your waiters minimum wage, then not accept tips.
However, you’ll quickly realize that 99% of waiters actually prefer this tip-based system as they can rake in a lot more cash this way. (May be different in places where most customers are poor students).
I’ve heard that that’s been tried, and customers got sticker shock and didn’t want to pay the “high” prices.
Plus, given how I’ve seen some people behave at European restaurants, I suspect many customers would be just as unwilling to give up tipping. People can get really weird about it.
Just an unknowing European here: wouldn’t the solution be to go into and change politics/ elect somebody who enforces fair pay/ join an union/ start your own restaurant with fair pay? If you are not willing to do something by yourself about it, it is quite unfair to underpay the staff by not tipping.
I already said I’m not talking about it anymore. I don’t need words put in my mouth so you can take issue with them in my absence.
This probably counts as both those things, but I read your first post as “stop the tipping culture”. Like change the whole thing not just micro scale.
I am sorry. I wasn’t aware, that I misinterpreted it so much.
And I didn’t see your replies until today. I am sure they weren’t there, when I answered, otherwise I wouldn’t have answered as I have. Again, I am sorry!
Alright, Mr. Pink.
Reservoir Dogs reference aside, I really don’t think Taffy should have to apologize for how others construed a single sentence accompanied by no context.
And, even if they meant it the way you guys chose to take it, your replies were rude, confrontational, and wholly nonconstructive….so basically everything that’s been wrong with the comment section for years, only applied to tipping instead of social issues.
People are allowed to have opinions, including unpopular ones. People also aren’t required to tip. Stop being such assholes for imaginary brownie points just because being mean to ‘acceptable targets’ on the internet makes you feel good about yourselves.
@Tilt
I don’t think it’s actually true that waiters and waitresses used to paid by their employer and made minimum wage.
Near as I can tell servers were never covered under regular minimum wage laws. They only were brought in at all in the 60s when the tipped wage was introduced.
In Indiana, $2.13/hr. But McDonald’s employees are not tipped.
The minimum wage is $7.25/hr for all employees, tipped or not. But tipped employees are supposed to report their tips, and if those reported tips + tipped minimum wage are at least equal to the minimum wage, then the employer only has to pay the tipped minimum wage.
If a tipped employee reports tips that are less than the difference, then the employer has to make up the difference. But if a tipped employee reports tips that are less than the difference, they are likely to be fired, and that’s completely legal. Not right, but legal.
Yuuup.
https://youtu.be/q_vivC7c_1k
In theory, tips should more than make up the difference. But it does depend on the restaurant. Back when I waited tables (mid 80’s), I got $2.01/hour. One place I worked only lunches and a bad day averaged $5.00 or so an hour (including the $2.01). A good day was more like $8.00/hour. T
The other place was much better. I worked evenings and averaged AT LEAST $9-10/hour on a bad day, $15.00/hour on a good day. For comparison, minimum wage was $3.35/hour then.
That wasn’t bad money for an early 20’s college student.
The US waitress minimum wage is fuck off evil. Where I live it’s $12.20 an hour. It’s still lower than the $15 minimum wage ideal but it’s not fuck off ridiculous.
It really, seriously is. Especially in small towns because smaller businesses aren’t required to meet the same standards of business practices. So it’s a double whammy of ‘There aren’t enough people coming here to make good tips’ and ‘They don’t employ enough people for the government to care.’
I want to say that when I called a lawyer about unsafe business practices and the owners cheating staff, I was told that they couldn’t do anything as long as there were fewer than 15 employees.
This whole conversation made me do some digging just to see what the policies actually are here in Canada. Apparently Tips are never considered Wage (Good for us) but can be considered Pay depending on if they are Controlled tips or Direct Tips. Controlled Tip = Restaurant automatically adds 20% Gratuity to your bill. Direct Tip = I leave $5 on the table when I go. Controlled Tips count as Pay and employer distributes them onto the paycheck. As pay they count for income tax, CPP and EI.
Does using Controlled Tips mean the staff’s hourly wage is allowed to decrease, though? Or just that it gets added to the staffs’ paycheques, and therefore taxed?
Canadian myself here, and so far as I’ve ever heard, pay doesn’t decrease, but I couldn’t say for sure, having only ever worked two days as a waitress, heh. And I don’t really have the spoons to research it myself right now. :/
From what I was reading it’s added to wage. the Government web site was very specific that Tips do not count as Wages. So Controlled Tips are a bonus, on top of your Wages, but you still pay Taxes and the other things on them.
Wait, so a voluntary tip isn’t even considered taxable there?
I mean, that makes sense, if it’s not countable as wages and not mandatory it should be considered a gift, but that’s not at all how it works in the US.
Not only do tips count toward wages for minimum wage purposes (and while if they’re not enough to get to it the employer is supposed to make it up, they almost never actually do that) they’re considered taxable income.
That’s why it’s best to tip in cash even if you’re paying with a credit card, credit card tips are always reported, cash tips can be fudged. And I’m not going to begrudge somebody making sub-minimum wages a bit of fudging on taxes at all.
I don’t know how Mother Bears, the real life Galasso’s, handles tips, but in Indiana you can actually force the wait staff to pool their tips.
What’s more, the Trump Administration recently changed the rules that allows any employer that forces their wait staff to share their tips can divide the tips amongst the staff AND the restaurant however the owners of the restaurant chooses, which means that it is now perfectly legal for the restaurant owner to take nearly ALL of the tips earned at the restaurant.
That is FUCKED UP.
That’s red America, where corporations are people and they’re more important than human people.
Another layer of “FUCKED UP” I didn’t even know existed added to an already shitty situation. What the hell.
And any restaurant that actually tries that will soon be out of business because they can’t get good (or possibly any) help. The laws of the market are more powerful than those of the state, since they’re self enforcing and can’t be repealed. (Not that politicians don’t keep trying. )
You’d think so, but sadly there are always desperate people. In certain places, word would get around, yes. But even in the UK I hear people going to work for places like Deliveroo, who reduce their wages once they’ve finished recruiting in a new area because people stick with them. Some people are just grateful to have a job.
The fucked-up bit here is apprenticeships. No matter how old you are, on an apprenticeship you get paid less than £4 an hour. This applies to placements that will lead you directly into a new, high-paying job, AND for placements that are two years of office administration for a certificate that says “I can do filing, also speak English”.
Anyone who thinks a business will go out of business because they treat their workers like shit doesn’t know business. It is good business sense to squeeze every last drop out of your works while giving them nothing in return, sometimes less then nothing, and then hiring someone else to replace them because they’re disposable and there are plenty of other disposable people struggling to make ends meet who can use the job.
And the best part about america? It’s actually not really illegal, per say, to do horrible things like withhold pay checks, charge someone for things like their uniform or really any number of other issues. As long as you do it to only one or two employees at a time the government in a lot of red states won’t investigate complaints. Particularly if you use an older model of clocking in that leaves less evidence for them to show. And the FBI and Police don’t investigate things like this at all!
So as long as you only do it to the poor people who can’t afford lawyers, you’re good, because the myth about lawyers working pro-bono to help people died a long time ago and these days lawyers won’t do shit without money upfront! And you have their paycheck! And it’s christmas anyway so no one’s even at the office!
^ This is a real thing that happened to me at a store in which I was a fricking stock manager. Last I heard, their chain was going inter-state. And this is actually one of the least offensive stories I’ve got from my time as a non-crippled individual capable of performing menial labor.
McDonalds. Germany. the 2000’s. Lodging illegally polish workers in the basement. Making them pay 1/3 of salary for accomodation. Still found plenty of them. And Poland is EU.
Though even if the restaurant pools tips and takes most of the proceeds themselves, they’re required to ensure that servers aren’t actually working for less than minimum wage – pay+tips has to be minimum. That’s often abused, but I think it would be easier to catch if the tips are pooled and distributed by the business.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but under those terms I could hire a full staff of waiters at $2.whatever an hour, collect ALL their tips, and then bump paychecks up to minimum wage ($7.25 where I live) and pocket the rest?
Are you fucking kidding me?
You could.
Of course, that’s not really any different than any other business where you can hire employees for minimum wage.
And I suspect your employees would either quickly move on. Or discourage tipping. 🙂
Schpoonman – You’d also lose wait staff incredibly fast, leaving only the schlubs who suck at it. Your service would take a huge hit, quickly followed by the restaurant’s reputation, then boom! You are out of business.
See, the thing about wait staff is that there’s pretty much an infinite and renewable supply of inexperienced teens who think that any amount of money is better than no money and will need a couple of months to catch up to the fact that you’re giving them the rawest possible deal. By cycling through employees every couple of months you can hobble along at “passable” service pretty much forever.
You can always rely on someone taking the absolute most exploitative route, and the idea that they’ll be punished for it is a nice enough fantasy until you compare it to reality where exploitative practices are rewarded all the time.
See also Marillius’ and Daisy’s responses to Wizard above.
Or you could take all the tips, pay $2.15 an hour, and threaten your staff if they complain!
well i’m pretty sure the place is legally obligated to provide the difference if tips don’t get them up to minimum wage. I heard that somewhere….. eh.
EXCUSE ME!?
$2.15!?
That’s like 3 dollars in my country. Minimum wage here is around 17 dollars. That means our minimum wage is nearly SIX TIMES more than yours. That’s disgusting.
Jesus Christ.
The minimum wage for restaurant wait staff in the US is even more bullshit than the minimum wage for everyone else, and if I ever lose my current crappy retail job I’m going to avoid applying for restaurant jobs if at all possible. I think the minimum wage for all workers (including restaurant wait staff) should be at least $15/hour.
No, server minimum wage is not $2.15 an hour. Servers are guaranteed, no matter what, the same minimum wage as everyone else(barring state laws that can result in even higher pay). $2.15/hr is just the minimum contribution toward that amount FROM YOUR EMPLOYER.
If something goes wrong that’s out of your control – super crappy tips for no discernible reason, or you get stuck with nothing but early-week lunch shifts – and you don’t make enough in tips to bring you up to a full minimum wage, your employer has to make up the difference. That $7.25 is guaranteed no matter what.
On the other hand, if whatever goes wrong is your own fault(crappy service, lots of mistakes, etc.), you’ll still be guaranteed your $7.25, but you’ll likely end up fired before too long.
That said, it’s freaking RARE for a server to make less than $5-something in tips per hour. I’ve only been a server for a few months, and I tend to get stuck with some of the less desirable shifts due to my level of experience and availability, and I still regularly take home at least $10 in tips per hour worked. I actually average closer to $15/hr, with my best day so far being ~$25/hr.
With employer contributions, that’s like an average of $17/hr at a job that requires no schooling. And potentially more as I get more experienced and can start taking on more desirable(but also busier and more challenging) shifts. I. Am. Not. Complaining.
Seriously, read the federal laws regarding servers and learn what a tip credit is and how it and tip claiming works. Don’t just see $2.15 out of context and freak out.
You should be complaining.
You’re averaging what should be the minimum wage, except that you’re depending on luck to get you there.
Wouldn’t you rather be making $17/hour wages with tips being on top of that?
(The campaign for $15 as a minimum wage is now shooting too low, there’s been inflation since the “fight for $15” campaign started, and it now needs to be somewhere between $17-$20/hour to be an actual living wage.)
And of course if an employer has to make up the minimum now, they’re going to fire people. Never mind that crappy service had nothing to do with it, you just happened to get a string of crappy tables that left you fake cash jesus pamphlets instead of money for tips, and the cook forgot to put on the hairnet on one meal, and then somebody decided to dine and dash, you’re going to report tips above minimum so you keep your job.
Oh, and Sonic is paying sub-minimum wages some places now. Fast food, but since some people tip there sometimes, they can get away with it. And of course there’s the same pressure to report at least the minimum wage, even though there’s a really good chance you’ll never actually make it at a fast food place.
It’s a scam.
$2.15/hr is minimum wage in some states? YIKES
Makes our minimum wage in the UK look positively millionaire-making: for adults over 25, it’s £8.21/hr.
For 21-24yo, it’s £7.70/hr.
For 18-20yo, it’s £6.15/hr.
For <18yo, it's £4.35/hr.
For apprentices (any age, any trade/profession), it's £3.90/hr.
And a year after becoming a qualified junior accountant, I'm getting equivalent of a whopping…£9.74/hr. xDDD
Are we seriously believing this?
Because I make minimum wage, and I can afford Taco Bell on occasion.
Glasso doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d pay his employees the standard restaurant stupidity of below minimum wage+tips.
He deducts $0.02 from your pay every time he must call you “FOOL!!!”
Adds up quick.
Now that, I can believe.
Waitress minimum wage, dude. It’s fucked up.
As I recall they withhold the tax on the tips they believe you should have gotten.
I’m aware of “waitress minimum wage”. It’s stupid as shit and I will stab people over it.
It’s part of why I give 20%, minimum, as a tip (might be part of why I don’t go out to eat much…).
I despise tipping economy, but until I get to a position where I can forcibly make it go away, I just have to alleviate it as best I can.
Okay, serious question – is it 15% or 20% for tipped positions? I ask because growing up I always heard 15% but now I keep hearing 20%.
Far as I can remember it’s meant to be 15% minimum. I try to always give 20% though, as it’s easier for my math-impaired brain to calculate, and because I want to at least try to possibly offset someone who gave a poor tip.
It used to be 15% but as cost of living has gone up and wages have not it’s been generally accepted that to bring it up to 20%.
Given that the federal tipped minimum wage hasn’t gone up since 1991 when the minimum wage went to $4.25/hour, there’s a lot of pressure to bump it up to 25% or 30% now. And before it was 15%, it was 10%
As far as I’m concerned, that’s the wrong way to go, the minimum wage needs to go up significantly and the sub-minimum wage needs to be eliminated. And average service shouldn’t be tipped at all, tips should be one of those things when somebody was truly amazing, not part of wages for just doing your job.
But we can’t fix it by cutting tips unilaterally, that just hurts people who have no control over the bad situation. So for now, 20% is the minimum tip, and you should really tip more.
I grew up this way too, and it’s a little bit of a shift to 20 in the us of a and a little bit where you are in the us of a. Metro areas are 20 pretty uniformly, but I’ve tipped 20 for great service at little off the road places and they act like I’m rich when I’m on even footing as the waitstaff when you adjust for location.
General consensus seems to be 20% in the US. Does anyone know if this is different in Canada?
When tips are given voluntarily in the UK, it’s most often at a rate of 10%.
When restaurants put their own “service charge” on your bill, it’s generally at 12.5%.
Restaurant service charges are total bull though.
She’s also hoping to go to college soon, remember. Even with loans and scholarships that can be expensive as hell.
$10,680 per year for tuition, plus another $10,488 for room and board.
Becky (most anyone, really) could save a good amount by taking her gen-ed courses at an in-state community college whose credits can transfer to IU. A quick Google search brought up Ivy Tech; their tuition is $140 per credit hour.
Or she could look at moving and establishing residency in another state. Tennessee isn’t generally considered a progressive state, but community college is free for in-state students, and the UT system is going to be free for low income in-state students starting next year. No, living expenses aren’t included, but at least it will cover about half of the cost.
@Dark – She’s probably making more in tips, but this is her first real paycheck and she was expecting there to be actual money in it.
I can go on and on about the minimum wage… And just some poor moron try to say we shouldn’t have one…
Panel five Becky: We’ve all made that face at one point, haven’t we?
Per Judge Ooka, the smells of food are paid for with the sound of money.
Big oof
Disambugated Tacos is gonna be pretty great at Coachella though
The rumor is that Disambiguated Tacos is playing right after Deconstructed Mac and the Cheese.
Again, at Petro’s an order of Chips & Queso for five costs LESS than two single orders of Chips & Queso. 🙂
*plays “Pocketful of Change” on the hacked Muzak*
Just because a lot of Americans think of Petro’s as a truck stop behemoth and not a regional restaurant chain, I offer them this menu.
Also, just as a point of picayune pedantry: it is not a priori clear that two single orders of Chips & Queso contain fewer chips and/or less queso than one order for five.
Are we going to have the fiscal responsibility argument again?
I’ll block every single participant on Twitter, if it happens.
Isn’t Sarah’s birthday before Dina’s? When Billie was rattling off the list of birthdays to Ruth, Sarah’s name came first.
…Oof, nobody knowing it’s her birthday is gonna be a storyline, isn’t it?
Knowing Sarah, she’d be happy if nobody knew her birthday.
Knowing Sarah, it’s actually Halloween.
Oooh…what if TODAY is her birthday? We’re in mid October in-universe, and Sarah suddenly started putting up Halloween decorations without warning, so what if she was reminded of it like “oh hey, it’s my birthday, that means it’s ALMOST HALLOWEEN WOO”? Heck, if that’s the case, it could even be that yesterday was her birthday, and we’ll get to see another Joyce freakout face when she finds out.
(I don’t have any other evidence to think that’s actually where the story is going, but wouldn’t it be fun if it was? XD)
Becky needs a side hustle. Let’s help her brainstorm ideas for what it could be.
Streaming video games. She would be perfect at it.
I would totally watch Becky play games.
And if it was Becky playing violent or explicit video games while Joyce watches and reacts, sign me up for the patreon.
Does Becky swear, or is she indoctrinated with the milquetoast stuff Joyce uses?
Panel 5, aka Becky’s Finest Moment.
She’s the Precision F Strike sort.
I think even better would be watching her learn new information from Dina. Her reactions would seem staged, but would be real, and would be hilarious. They could also add Joyce in for added comedy.
i could definitely see becky as a stand-up comedian/ future talk-show host
Running a politician through Twitter?
Expect Robin to take up raising the minimum wage.
…how many hours did you work~
The way time flows in the Dumbiverse, probably 0.5 and it took three months.
Sounds about right
Per Walkypedia timeline, Becky started (by Galasso’s fiat on Mon, Oct. 4, and it’s now Sat, Oct. 16.
My first fast-food job, the pay period was two weeks, Sunday-to-Sunday, with paychecks coming out on the Friday after that. If that were the case for Becky, the first paycheck only has one week’s worth of hours.
If she were unfortunate enough to start on the last day of the pay period, she’d only be seeing one shift’s hours.
Last place I worked (call centre, not a restaurant, mind you), they withheld the first two weeks of pay, so as to give you your two week’s pay when you left, since (for security reasons) they didn’t use the “two weeks’ notice” thing. You quit/were fired, you left at that moment, didn’t even get to go back to your station. Someone else went and got your stuff.
So that first cheque was down those two weeks too. Didn’t get a cheque until a month in, and then it was only for two weeks. :/
Most places nowadays use something called “at will” employment. Either party (employer or employee) can terminate employment or quit working at any time for any reason, real or imagined, and no advance notice is legally needed… although since the employer still tends to hold all the cards, they can insist on a two-week notice (or more) because there’s always the spectre that they will give you a less-than-sparkling reference if you don’t.
I know the DofA timescale is unique, but I had not realized Becky’s only been working there for under two weeks.
Awww Becky… just bring her to the museum and call it a day.
Wait… are there free museums in the area? Am I about to be horribly disappointed?
It’s a small college town, so not much, but there is a decent free art museum on campus. Except it’s closed for renovation right now, to open in Fall 2019. Willis could ignore that.
The biology department has a lobby of stuffed birds and fossils? and terraria with reptiles, plus a greenhouse complex which is really nice to hang out in in the winter — snow out there, tropical tree in here.
Lilly Library. Mathers Museum of World Cultures. A few other minor things.
It is fall 2019 in the comic right now.
It IS fall in the comic, but it’s not set in any particular year.
It’s set in the present year.
It’s comic book time – it always takes place the current year.
Um…in Fall 2019, Forest is closed for renovations. So how are Billie and Lucy and the 3 fangirls staying there?
Is a puzzlement.
Just repeat to yourself “it’s just a
showwebcomic, I should really just relax.”DoA takes place “this year”, but it uses 2010’s calendar to determine how the days of the week line up. It keeps up with the real IU campus in broad strokes (the food court turned study area, the IT building), but it can’t reflect every change.
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Brigadoon.”
All the acronyms (FICA, SS) dipping into Becky’s paycheck.
Don’t worry, she’ll get it back when she turns 65, right? Right????
I think someone that young doesn’t get full SS til 70.
On the off chance the program hasn’t been killed sometime in the next 50 years.
Don’t elect Republicans and it won’t be.
And don’t keep reinforcing the idea that it’s going away because it’ll only get killed if people accept it as inevitable. I want howls of outrage any time it’s even suggested.
Mind you, Becky’ll never get it, but that’s because she’ll be 70 sometime around when the sun goes nova. 🙂
Absolutely. And you should take a look at this lovely bridge I have for sale.
But Galasso didn’t require ID or SS card from her. He won’t make deductions.
Mandatory payment to the Global Domination Fund. Redeemable after Galasso has achieved his destiny.
You’ll notice it’s Pamela who’s handing out the paychecks.
Galasso might not require these things, but business accounting does. If Becky’s getting an actual paycheck (as opposed to a check cut from the business account), then all the technicalities have presumably been worked out by Pamela, or perhaps by a Deus Ex Willis.
And now Becky has discovered the concept of minimum wage.
So much for Gaygenomics.
Yup. Make a hundred bucks a week and don’t let them know you’re not eternally grateful for the privilege. Rinse and repeat until death, so your family can go hungry paying for your headstone.
Sometimes the joke isn’t the last panel jumping to something that proves you wrong, but the last panel proving you painfully correct!
Isn’t Becky still living with Leslie, who probably isn’t asking for rent? And she isn’t a student, so I assume she’s working the max possible for a minor? ….How can she not afford Taco Bell?
Unless she gets paid primarily in tips, but A) paychecks are required to cover the difference if they don’t hit minimum wage, and B) if she’s been getting tips, why have such high hopes for the paycheck?
Pay rates are also somtimes reduced by the value of free meals you get at work. Whether you want them or not.
Charge you, at their rates, for food you don’t want and can’t refuse? That’s as bad as anything i’ve ever read about company towns in the 19th century.
The fact that there are people who have no better option than working at these places shows just how f’d up U.S. society is.
The fact that a lot of those people voted for Trump, and for other Republicans before and after him, shows that propaganda is frighteningly effective, and we’re probably all doomed.
Eat Arby’s. Read The Nib. Burn coal. Debate with young-earth creationists and anti-vaxxers. Eat some more Arby’s.
Is it any wonder that some people (including me) like the thought of a Mars colony? Life wouldn’t necessarily be easier there, but at least it would be hard for a reason other than human nastiness. And when global warming passes 4 C and clouds stop forming and we jump another 8 C in a few decades and the vegetation burns and desertifies and everyone goes Mad Max on each other, Mars looks pretty survivable by comparison.
As long as I’m spewing happiness and rainbow unicorn poop, here’s a relevant conversation with my SO from earlier today:
SO: “When do you think AIs will get paid for their work?”
Me: “Sometime long after they’re recognized as people.”
SO: “… I think that may be the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.”
On the bright side, it’ll be a while before they have Arby’s on Mars.
I’m pretty sure that, strictly speaking, she CAN afford Taco Bell, but less so than she was imagining. And she does want to save up for other things.
There are also other expenses she might have, like day-to-day food, personal hygiene products, her phone plan, clothes, bus fare (though she does generally seem to walk places).
Joyce and Becky didn’t even use buses growing up!
Neither did I? Neither did most people I went to college with because we were from towns with inconvenient bus systems and families with cars. Then you go somewhere buses are more commonplace, and you might start to use them.
Unless you mean school buses? Which of course they didnt use, but can you imagine if they got on a school bus that just circled the block and them dropped them off back at home.
Is there someone in the Dumbiverse who can hear the parentheses in panel three?
(I’m thinking of Thea from Girls With Slingshots, the editor who can hear punctuation.)
Sucks it’s not grand, but still, woo hoo on her first paycheck!
The food industry is bullshit and restaurants shouldn’t exist if they can’t pay their workers a living wage.
Oof. She just said she was hoping to find somewhere else to live, but she can’t even afford Tacos Bell on her paycheck.
Where does she go next?
Heyyyy we haven’t seen Pamela since Joyce’s first kiss
Okay, something tells me she isn’t even getting paid minimum wage, cause you can get six tacos and two drinks for, like, $15 max.
Waiters don’t have to be paid minimum wage unless they fail to meet it from tips. 🙁
Which is why this seems off. Either she’s getting great tips or she’s getting the standard $7.00-$7.50 an hour. Either way, she could get freaking Taco Bell.
…this reminds me of my favorite Friends scene ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP89Uefobcs
Because it’s so, so true.
I mean, my first real paycheck outside of after high school stuff was heavy overtime stuff and I was more going “wow, I just earned rent in one week, I guess that makes up for my fraying sanity”, but still!
Ugh Been there.
In a country that was founded as a revolt against taxation without representation, Becky learns first-hand that taxation WITH representation ain’t all it’s cracked up to be either.
If this storyline has Becky joining the IWW, then I will be a happy internet nerd commenter person
…oh, right. In the US, you have to wait a couple days for your cheque to clear, right? So she’s unhappy about not being able to spend this right away?
She’s unhappy that her check isn’t as much as she was expecting.
Stop being two minutes faster than me.
She’s unhappy it’s really low.
No, she’s criminally underpaid because of a movement among restaurant owners to make it possible to get away with wage fraud.
…gah, never mind. I was mislead by the ‘direct deposit’ line. It’s a food service industry joke.
My first cheque was for $80 working at a buffet restaurant, but i thought it was great since i was 15, living at home, and had a $5/week allowance so this was the most money i’d ever had for myself before.
ObBigMovieClip: https://youtu.be/v12f2al7Ogk
At least she isn’t being paid with a debit card that charges high fees to give you your own money.
Recently changed up payroll at my job (restaurant) and that was one of the options. I picked direct deposit, got my paycheck before noon on Friday, and a coworker spent part of his Saturday night fighting to get his debit card to work.
I don’t know if he had to pay fees to get his money, but I know what was easier.
Yeah, the American minimum wage causes horrified Canadian screaming.
I mean, Canada has a few provinces that could stand to beef theirs up, but the US’ is pathetic.
I think it’s $11.06/hour in Saskatchewan and I think we have the lowest in the country.
Yeah, like, it’s not the generally considered living wage of 15-16 an hour, but it’s not ‘horrified screaming’ level bad.
This takes place in Indiana too, where I believe they aren’t required to pay servers minimum wage on the assumption they make the difference or more via tips. So basically she probably makes like a little over $2 an hour before tips and if her tips aren’t equal or greater than federal minimum wage, then they make up the difference.
It’s still a draconian practice.
We have the same principle here, but the lower wage for waiters/waitresses is $12.20 an hour.
Look, Becky, it might sting your self esteem a bit, but if she’s fine with it then a slim paycheck shouldn’t stop you from eating tacos with Dina…
Don’t worry Becky. You can always get the money to buy her a birthday present by holding up a convenience store. Sal can show you the ropes.
Might wanna get another tutor – Sal was only a lookout for the first one and was laughably bad at the second.
How much does a dinosaur cost anyway? Might require two convenience stores.
Luckily, Sal’s old partner in crime goes to school here. 😉
*looks at the comments about how fucked our minimum wage is and how the canadian minimum wage is at least double digits* sorry ruth
This is why as soon as she’s free from her grandfather, she’s moving the fuck back up here as quickly as she can haul her ass.
You mean, as soon as Howard is free from her grandfather.
Hopefully Grandpa Dickwad hasn’t made her give up her Canadian citizenship.
That seems like a lot of paperwork. I mean, sure, he probably knows someone who could expedite the process, but if she wasn’t born in the States, his priority would presumably be getting her US citizenship rather than giving up the other. He probably thinks that Canadian citizenship doesn’t count, anyway, just like our money isn’t real.
I would assume she already has American citizenship — if she didn’t when her parents died, Grandpa would have taken care of that pronto, if only because it would make getting her into U.S colleges so much easier.
But since she already had a claim to U.S. citizenship through her mother, she wouldn’t have had to renounce her Canadian citizenship. (The U.S. government doesn’t recognize dual citizenship for American citizens — as far as they’re concerned, you either are an American or you aren’t — but as far as the Canadian government is concerned, she keeps her Canadian citizenship until she formally renounces it.)
Which is why, once she moves back here, she has to renounce her American citizenship to get out of the grip of the IRS.
Ruth’s not free until Howie is, so yeah.
Ooh, can we aim her at Doug Ford? I’m sure he’s not actually using his femurs…
Canadian minimum wage only goes about 70% as far because exchange rates.
Still I think even then it is higher but not as higher as you are thinking.
Using the $12.20 CD figure that’s been thrown around here and the 0.75 official current exchange rate that leaves Canadian tipped minimum wage at $9.17 USD. That’s more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 USD, let alone the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 USD. 1.26 and 4.31 times as much, respectively – and that’s without taking into account how exchange rates tend to overstate effective differences a bit once buying power is taken into account, which would make both of those numbers effectively higher.
$12.20 is what it is in my province. It ranges across the country, but the lowest was $9.80
Because Canada is way less dense than US, literally everything is more expensive here except local food and healthcare. Gas costs more, utilities cost more, imported foods are more, cell and Internet cost more, etc. Hence 70% instead of official exchange rate.
Becky should seek better jobs if she can’t even afford that abomination that many claim to be tacos. Taco Palenque es one of the best Tex Mex restaurants!
Let’s face it; a job at Galasso’s was never likely to be the path to wealth or even anything more than slightly reduced poverty!
Is Becky purposely growing one side of her hair out? Cuz a shoulder-waist length asymmetrical cut would be awesome
It is a good look, and it is also way cheaper to get your side(s) buzzed (like sometimes under $10) than to get a haircut; free if your cool queer friends (/landlord) do it for you.
Silly question, but how did Becky get a bank account in order to be able to do direct deposit in the first place? She’s been couch-surfing since she showed up in the strip here, most recently with Leslie, and most banks require some form of stability, such as an address of one’s own. So unless she gave them Leslie’s address (or Joyce or Dina’s dorm address) I don’t see how she’s gotten an account in order to have a check direct-deposited to it.
I think Hank helped her out.
I can’t find the comic where it was mentioned right now, but Hank helped her set one up.
Gotdang it,
BobbyNeedfuldoer.You must have snuck in there while I was digging through the comics Becky’s tagged in.
Found a mention of it. Sounds like they set up at least a savings account, with Hank as a joint owner.
Joint.
Better known as the “if girls like her shoved me into lockers, I woulda figgered out this lesbian thing way earlier” strip.
THAT’S the one! Thank you!
I just realized that Becky is effectively a non-powered genderbent Spider-Man.
Because that scene is perfect for the Parker luck.
Well, her surname has never been mentioned, so maybe she really is a Parker.
… yes it has? Her last name is MacIntyre
That’s none of my business.
Is Becky’s name a reference to Reba McEntire, the country singer? (Her given name is Rebecca, which just feeds the conspiracy.)
Don’t jinx it! Do you want her prowling the streets in a dinosuit, brooding over Dina’s dying words “With great dinopower comes great responsibility?”
…Yes?
I love Dina double checking in panel two. Very Dina
“He who comes into money will be left with sticky notes”
The thought of that makes my teeth itch.
I was going to ask how much rent she’s paying Leslie if it could take such a massive dent out of her paycheck.
Turns out America is just a shitty place to be.
I want to move out of this shithole, but where would I even go?
Apparently New Zealand’s minimum wage is 6 times more than America’s after exchange rate is taken into account, but we don’t get as many good shows on Netflix. So you know, it evens out.
(tangible sarcasm.)
You know what, maybe I could try New Zealand. My favorite show was filmed there, and I don’t have a use for Netflix anyway.
America is the worst place to live, except for all the other places.
Plenty of civilized places where even college age food service workers get paid a living wage or close to, with universal health coverage, and lower violent crime rates.
But go on,
In the U.S., we spend 18% of our GDP on health care, way more than any other country, but in return for that we have [checks notes] the 31st best life expectancy in the world.
This. We spend lots of money on certain things because the spending is what we believes makes the systems work…. not using our resources efficiently.
We have tips in my country besides normal payed hours for waiters. In good restaurants it gets into a pot and split between waiters and kitchen at the end of month (with waiters getting sometimes more percentage). I tip a lot more since I bring a toddler with me to the restaurants 😀
Also, last panel: Becky, this is no time for fart jokes. Or diarrhea jokes.
Between what I’m sure Becky’s feeling resonating with me and the conversations above and below with how fucked the
service industryworld is in its sense of wealth, this breaks the tension I was feeling really well.You could even say it
cut through it
Is Becky’s hair getting longer? I’m diggin’ it.
It bugs the hell out of me that tipping is slowly creeping into New Zealand society. People are all like, “Oh if they give good service they should be tipped.” NO! Just friggin… NO! If they give good service, if the food is good, I’m PAYING them to provide good service and good food ffs. If they don’t I’ll go somewhere else. Service workers should be paid a decent wage, by their employer, end of story.
Bottom line is tipping is enabling employers to not pay a reasonable wage. However, the way the economy is most countries seems to be set up is that even attempting to impose a ‘living wage’ leads to a close-to-immediate collapse of the service sector, which is too low-margin to support a reasonable wage for entry-level employees.
We have a government mandated minimum wage which is currently being incrementally adjusted to reach the accepted living wage over the course of a few years. Of course people are saying it will drive small businesses bankrupt and drive up prices. I dont know, maybe it will, but they have said that every time the minimum wage has gone up, which it has done regularly for 20 years or so and, surprisingly, we still have successful small industries.
Minimum wage for wait staff is still well under $5/hr. I work with and have worked with waiters whose paychecks amounted to less than a single dollar after taxes, which is really the employer eating the taxed amounts off their reported tips.
Current economic research disagrees with them – higher minimum wages help small businesses because they get more customers with more spending money. The price increases also tend to be within a few cents, except in restaurants, which do go a bit.
And frankly, fuck small business owner’s entitlement – if you can’t afford to pay a living wage to your employees, you shouldn’t be in business. Wages are part of your damn operating costs and you should be ashamed if you can’t meet them.
I agree 100%, ktbear. I was very happy to find after moving to Belgium that tipping isn’t really a thing there.
Just charge me the price for good food and good service, and I’ll pay that. If I don’t feel I’m getting my money’s worth, I won’t come again, but I don’t want to feel under the obligation of deciding how much “extra” I need to pay. (And if it’s a flat 15% or whatever, just put that price on the menu to begin with!)
i have never understood how its LEGAL to have such a low minimum wage. wasn’t the whole point of it to make sure that everyone can afford to live and eat and support their family even?
like i think the minimum wage in my country is like at least 8e/ hour (Finland, dont quote me on that though), which isnt a lot but my friends who work can afford their rent at least
ding dong I was Wrong
we do not have a minimum wage apparently; it depends on which field you work in.
but checked on a calculator online and the minimum wage for someone without a vocational education in waitressing nor any experience in the field would still be about 8,16e/h, aka 1298e/m (aka ~9.15USD and 1456 USD)
…wow, the idea of making 9.15/hr as a waitress at a pizza place would be amazing. American minimum wage is… much, much less, and can be even lower than legal for waitresses because the tips are “supposed to make up for it”
It also varies by state, and sometimes county/city. I live in the Seattle area, and minimum wage is getting ramped up here rn. As it currently stands:
TIPPED
Federal: $2.13/hr
Indiana: 2.13
Washington: 12.00
Seattle: 12.00
UN-TIPPED
Federal: 7.25
Indiana: 7.25
Washington: 12.00
Seattle: 15.00 (16.00 if the company has at least 500 employees)
Note that in any US state/city, the employer must make up the difference if a tipped employees does not make enough tips to equal what they would otherwise earn with the un-tipped minimum wage. IE if I work 8 hours and get a $1000 tip, in Indiana I would get $1017.04, but in Washington state I would get $1096.00 (before taxes).
Becky is looking like a redhead Ashly Burch, it’s nice!
Nothing for it, Becks. Just have to find yourself a nice Sugar Raptor.
I know this is apropos of literally nothing else going on in the comic, but I’ve noticed this grey haired lady is Pamela – I can’t remember but is Connie in this universe? At first I thought it was her but maybe dumbingverse-ified. Maybe it still is?
Pamela is Galasso’s wife and Conquest’s mother. Connie is still in this universe, and is 16 (she showed up in a Patreon strip once with Becky and it was hilarious).
When Joe and Joyce went on their date, Conquest was their server. (She’s in the tags.)
I’m… slightly confused? Do they need to set up direct deposit individually for each employee (and this takes longer than 10 minutes)? Are they just now getting around to implementing direct deposit for everyone?
It is entirely possible that Galasso likes having a safe full of paycheques so he can gloat that BY HIS WILL ALONE will the minions receive their monetary reward, and Pamela has finally convinced him to reconsider this.
Generally, yes. In most jobs you get at least one physical paycheck before direct deposit is set up. It’s always worked that way for me, and I have been working retail for awhile.
I see, thanks. Must be an(other) American thing.
Every (American) job I’ve ever worked, first and last paycheck were always on paper. Usually that’s because they need to be processed manually due to pro-rating of various items and benefits, which is often difficult to do with the mostly-automated direct deposit systems.
Weird. When I got my first pay checks, before I start realizing things like saving for a car and later gas and car insurance and, of course, phone, I was super excited at the hundreds of dollars that were suddenly mine to spend as I wanted. Has someone sat this girl down and told her the minimum amount of her check she’ll have to hold back or what average rent should be or something?
That depends on how much is written on that check. If it’s $3 an hour (for ease of math, apparently it’s less), that’s less than $500 bucks a month for a 40-hour work week (which I doubt Becky’s doing, seeing as she’s also trying to undo the fuckery homeschooling did to her). It’s not impressive to start with, and Leslie might have talked to her about at least the taxes or something.
And, of course, Becky wants to save up for a superior education, which I hear it’s a “bankrupt yourself” kind of deal in the US – like healthcare.
College is a scam anyway. She should probably go to a Trade school, get the practical skills for some relatively stable and well paid job and educate herself on her own time by buying books and studying with Dina.
Except Becky doesn’t want to work with a trade – she wants to be a scientist. You need to go to college for that. That’s something trade advocates never seem to get. Not every job people want is a trade (and if everyone went into trades, those jobs are going to have the same problem law, tech and education do – the job market is flooded with applicants, so nobody ends up with a job).
My point is that it would be safer and more efficient for her to get a trade job. Being a scientist is nice but I don’t think it’s a very sensible career choice, especially considering what a massive scam Colleges are and if all she wants is to learn and experiment she can do a lot of that by herself.
She should focus on securing a stable and safe future. Once she has a firm foundation for her life she can use the spare money and resources on her dream.
No. She can’t. Because her dream is to be a scientist.
Also, most trade jobs aren’t really safer than being a scientist. It’s a lot easier to get hurt working with pipes/heavy vehicles/etc.
Trade school requires money and time as well, so it’s not like going to trade school will be better on that front. And again, if people did go into trade schools instead, that just means a flood of applicants for the job market. Especially when a lot of trades DON’T actually have a ton of well paying full time jobs – they have a lot of on-call jobs. Not to mention how much gatekeeping there is, especially with women in trades.
If college wasn’t worth it for you, fine, but college education is often an important part of many careers and just because you don’t think she should try to become a scientist doesn’t make being a scientist not sensible.
Now I see a lot of wrongful assumptions here. Allow me clear up the message I was trying to convey.
I have nothing against college education per say, I actually hold a Master’s degree but that’s from a country with mostly free college education. As far as I understand it a college in US is basically a debt trap that a large portion of the newest generations have fallen into.
I have nothing against Becky becoming a scientist, quite the opposite I’d be very happy if she would be able to become one. However that is a distant dream that she just cannot afford at the moment. Her life is in shambles, she has no family or financial support, she is essentially homeless, living on Leslie’s mercy and has maybe couple hundred bucks to her name. To walk into a debt trap like College education right now might very well result in her being broken by the system beyond repair and I would hate to see that.
Before she starts to chase her dream she needs to lay strong foundation for her life. She needs a home, a job, she needs to have something to fall back on if the scientist thing doesn’t work out. I believe there is too much romantic “Chase your dream” and not enough pragmatic “But make sure you can survive” in this scenario. Becky is in a far worse position than most kids her age and she simply can’t afford to run around with her head in the clouds or she will fall over and kneecaps herself.
I’m not recommending Everyone to go to the trade school, just Becky. Of course there are definitely alternatives which I hope you can enlighten me on. I simply believe that she needs to create a more stable life for herself before she focuses on chasing her dream. Furthermore I think I didn’t clarify the “safe job” term I used. What I meant was a job that won’t get outsources abroad or get replaced by automation anytime soon.
Finally I do not believe that she Needs to go to college. If she wishes to pursue knowledge then she can do that very well on her own. There is more than enough materials freely available for her to chose from and pursue her discipline of choice. Once she has her feet firmly on the ground with some disposable income in her pocket she can enrol into a college or university on her own terms, without the threat of student debt hanging over her for the next decade or two.
A) Becky does have a home, with Leslie. If she has to wait until she owns her own home, she’s going to be FUBAR because that’s not an easy sell even for people who haven’t had their families in shambles for a long time.
B) There is financial assistance – while, yes, many are in loans, there are also grants, which you don’t have to pay back.
C) Trade school’s not a good option for Becky – it’s a waste of time and money that’s not going to get her closer to her long term goal. Trade school isn’t cheap in the States either. If Becky’s going to go somewhere either than IU, she’d be better off at a community college. Community colleges are often cheaper (especially for students from the state), have credits that will transfer to IU so Becky won’t have to retake those classes, and keeps Becky on track to her goals without breaking the bank too much.
D) Again, trade school isn’t more stable for Becky – it’s still breaking the bank to go into jobs that often involve a lot of physical labour and that she’s not even interested in long term.
E) Trades aren’t even that safe by that definition – trades often have unions, true, which help, but even so a lot of trades simply don’t make as much money or have as many full time positions as they used to. A lot of them are based around on-call or per-job rates nowadays, especially for newbies starting out.
F) If Becky wants to get into science, paying off loans to go to trade school are just one more expense that she’d have to pay off before she get to school, especially if you’re wanting her to own her own place and have enough money that she’d be on even keel with the other kids – that’s just not a thing that’s going to happen, because she’d be in her 30s by the time she had that kind of cash (assuming she even gets a stable job right away).
I suppose you are right. It’s all about how Becky’s situation is really so bad that there are no perfect options, just lesser evils and hurdles she’ll have to overcome. Well let’s hope she succeeds.
Trade schools also often tend to be for profit scams that completely screw you over and leave you without anything marketable.
There are certainly good ones out there, but there’s a lot of complete scams.
Trades can be a good option, but unless they’re something you really want to do, they can be hugely impractical for a few reasons:
– Boom and bust cycles
– On call or per-job rates, not full time jobs
– Job instability
– You often have to move around a lot to follow the market, which would take her from her support structure
– Physical labour can fuck you up – this is bad in a country without healthcare (backs, knees, wrists, ankles and shoulders)
– Trade school costs time and money too – that’s one more expense she can’t afford in addition to her larger goal
– Gatekeeping of women, PoC, and LGBT+ people
– Money depends very much on the trade, especially at apprentice/journeyman/entry level
– Jobs are dangerous and most employers have at least one safety violation
– The best paid are unionized and unions are always under fire.
Building skills/certificates/university credit via community college is often an option that’s just as good if your long term goal is college/university because they’re at cheaper than college/university prices, give you educational credit you can put toward your later goal, and they’re not as physically taxing on the body.
Reminds me of my first check (from my high school cafeteria), which was for $4.9something. My mom wanted to frame it but I wanted my money, so she bought it from me for $5.
It still shocks me how little American restaurants pay their employees, I know here in Canada service staff get atleast minimum pay+tips(thou tips in most Minor restaurants are shared)
It must be hell depending on the kindness of your customers for each pay check
I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but here in the US people seem to think that if something is no longer their job, be in preparing food or ringing up merchandise at a register, it gives them carte blanche to treat the person doing that job like shit if they are inconvenienced even slightly. I wasted three years of my life as a busboty in an Outback Steakhouse sweating and aching for peanuts and having to endure customers bongoing whining atwhile my poor colleagues had it little better. I thought getting a new job at Goodwill allowed me to put it all behind me, but now I have put up with people snarling at me when I inform them some of the things they’re trying to donate violate our prohibited items policies.
How the fuck does a person get mad that they can’t give something away for free? If you wanna get rid of it so badly, just toss it in the fucking bin.
It is because they can’t give it away for free and thus have to pay a fee to take it to the dump. That, at the very least, I can sympathize with.
What I am NOT okay with is them pestering me to take it anyways as if the sign written in big red letters isn’t two feet away, and when I do my job and explain again and again the myriad reasons we have to stick to the policy, they get pissy and say I’m copping an attitude with them. Worst case I ever had was when a woman spit at me and called me a lazy faggot before screeching away in her truck because her couch had a huge gash in it.
And most people down here (especially those in power) would consider that Communistic. Treating people like they are human beings is as Red as the Sickle & Hammer. At least to the EMPLOYERS, anyway.
Dang. Becky’s hair grows as fast as mine.
Welcome to the marvelous world of below-minimum wage and tipshare.
Being a caring, well-meaning, yet utterly broke mate.
Man, I’ve been on BOTH sides of that equation.
First paycheck is rarely for a full two-week pay period, unless you were very luckily hired on the exact right day to begin at the start of the new pay cycle.