I’ve been meaning to write this particular blog for a month or so now, but it’s simply gotten away from me. So here we go…
Last month, our government released to us our “economic stimulus checks”, or more accurately, the largest infusion of Chinese-loaned money ever to land in our pockets and leach into our economy. Now, don’t get me wrong- I am not against doing business with China, or any other non-American entity, as we operate in a global economy and to cut ourselves off from the rest of the world would be foolish. To a point, I’m not even against BORROWING money from China, though someday I will write a blog about my thoughts on the unfortunate “debt culture” we find ourselves in. What I do find to be a crappy deal is when we are giving money that we don’t have in the form of “tax cuts” or “stimulus checks”, with no well-thought-out means to pay it back. That’s a no-brainer. Anyway, I digress from my point.
I believe, being the hook-line-and-sinker Obamanian that I am, that WE are the solution to our economic problems, but not in the way you might think. The other day, my wife came home and told me about a bumper sticker she had just seen. It read:
“CLASS WARFARE …Brought To You By Yuppies Who Don’t Tip”
I thought about this for like two seconds before it affirmed my feelings about this whole economy going in the toilet thing. Not that yuppies are the root of the problem or anything; it’s the people who don’t tip period, regardless of class or status, that really irk me (though in my 5 years of coffee shop experience, it seems as though the people who have less money and status tip better). I guess I view a tip as a thank-you, a hang-in-there, and one of the few concrete signs in the service industry of how much you actually mean to the person you are serving. To give me a tip is to tell me that you appreciate my service to you; that you believe it is not your birthright to be served by another human being, but a privilege that you pay for. And I will do my best to insure that you get fast, friendly, “legendary” service (in Starbucks-speak), not just a simple cup of coffee. So aside from the philosophical aspect of the whole deal, I think this tipping thing is one of the keys to turning our economy around, without cramming another tax down our throats.
The shortened version of my theory of our current economic problem is that peons like me don’t have enough money to buy stuff. That the top 10% of the population controls like half the wealth in this nation. Don’t quote me on that stat, but I’m sure it’s not too far off. Here’s my overly simplistic solution to the problem: tip. Tip well. Wherever you’re at, if they accept tips, tip well. I’ll share with you my rule: at coffee shops, a dollar in the tip jar, or whatever change is left in my pockets (leaving myself just enough for a refill if they charge for them, and if I won’t have enough for a refill, it all goes in). At restaurants, 20 percent is my minimum. Up to 25 percent for good service, and sometimes as high as 30 percent for great service. I know the classic minimum is 15 percent, I was taught that. But I think, at least in the case of tipping, crappy service should be rewarded with the bare minimum, not below that. I don’t give out many 15 percents, because I don’t often get crappy service. Call it karma, what-goes-around-comes-around, whatever… but I think the best way to guarantee your own security is to give security to others. And if financial security is what this country needs right now, then there is no better time to be tipping like it’s going out of style.
Here’s my case study. At the drive-thru Starbucks I work at, we earn tips by taking the total dollar amount of tips we’ve earned throughout the past week, dividing them by the total number of labor hours we’ve worked, and then are assigned a dollar amount based upon how many hours we worked that week. So in any given week, it usually comes out to somewhere between $1.30 and $1.50 per hour (non-drive-thru stores make a lot more; draw your own conclusions). Now imagine this scenario: out of the 500 or more customers we serve every day, just half of them, 250, tip us a dollar. That’s $250 a day, multiplied by 7 days in a week. That’s $1750. Divide that up amongst us baristas, and you’ve got somewhere between $4 and $5 dollars per hour, which is 4 times what we make right now. So, a person working a part-time, 20-hour work week (as most Starbucks employees do), makes between $80 and $100 per week. Now multiply that $100 by 120,000, which is my approximate number of people working hourly for Starbucks in the U.S. (8,000 domestic stores times an average of 15 employees per store), and your dollar a day becomes $12 million per week, $624 million per year. And that’s just using part-time hourly numbers. Even running with 100 customers tipping a dollar every day, you still arrive at an extra $250 million per year of cash money floating around in the economy. And that’s just Starbucks employees. Imagine that extra dollar or two tipped in every restaurant in the country. We’re talking billions, easily… maybe even trillions, I don’t know. But you get the point- it’s probably more than any economic stimulus package can provide.
Anyway, I think I heard somewhere that between 10 and 15 percent of U.S. citizens work in food service jobs. Imagine 15% of us having extra money… money to pay off credit cards, loans, mortgages. Money to buy food, clothing, gas (ha), pay our electric bills. Money to buy some stuff we don’t need, sure, but isn’t that what the economy runs on, anyway? As tight as times are right now for most of us, we need to be okay with giving more. And tipping is a good place to start. It makes sense to me. So next time you get the check after your dinner date, or you eye that tip jar at Starbucks, consider that one extra dollar out of your pocket might just be a dollar toward your own financially-secure future.
6.17.2008
6.02.2008
An Eye On Health Care
I had an eye doctor appointment this past weekend. First one in five years. I normally go more often than that, but 1) my eyes haven’t gotten much worse in these five years, 2) I like my glasses and 3) I did not have vision insurance until the past couple of years, through Starbucks. Anyway, five years is a long time to go between medical examinations, so I said, what the heck.
After getting lost trying to find the place, and reading old copies of magazines in the waiting room, I was taken into a room full of all kinds of widgets and gadgetry. The nice lady, who sat in the middle of this revolving chair thingy that spun around four or five place-your-face-here machines, had me place my face in all of them, and then took me to another room, where the Good Doctor entered. I was promptly told that I need a backup pair of glasses. And also a pair of sunglasses. Prescription sunglasses with some kind of special UV coating. Do I wear contacts? No. Do you want them? No. Have you ever had Lasik? No. Do you want to have Lasik? No. Okay, but keep in mind, it's a great option for you. Okay.
I was then read a laundry list of orbital diseases that I could contract, and how serious each and every one of them was. I then read the letters on the wall, followed the pen with my eyes, and was asked if I would rather have my eyes dilated, or use their big, fancy Opto-Map machine that takes a picture of the inside of my eyes. I told him I would like neither today, as I had to work in an hour and would rather not have dime-sized pupils and bright, blurred vision while I run a shift on the floor. And at the moment, I could not afford the extra fee for the Opto-Map machine, as it was not covered by my insurance, so I would like to pass today, please, thank you. Well, you need to do one or the other, so choose. No, thank you.
At that moment, I felt my name being entered into the “Shit List” database.
I was told he would come back to me, and sent out to look at new glasses. I was helped by a very friendly lady, who, after going over the plethora of options available to me- lens density, frame type, coatings, polishes, clip -ons, backup pairs, etc- explained to me quite nonchalantly that my new pair of glasses would cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $300. After insurance. Even after I deleted some of the options, like glare-resistant coating and a special polishing procedure, they still would cost me almost $200. After insurance. I thanked her for her help and explained that I would pass on the glasses today.
The Good Doctor then called me back into another room. So what’s it going to be? Neither, I can’t do it today. You know, I was just telling your wife that… (insert horror story here) and well, it’s like going to the dentist and not opening your mouth, and (insert horror story here), and we really care about you here, we don’t want you to end up like (tragic horror story victim), and all the diseases that are out there (insert laundry list here), and some things in life you just have to suck it up and do it.
After checking my breath to make sure I hadn’t swallowed this guy’s firstborn or anything, I sucked it up and said no, thank you. I will do it another time. I promise.
The Good Doctor then proceeded to insinuate that I was hopelessly doomed, and then he checked my eyes and from what he could see, they looked great. Awesome. On my way out, I set up an appointment for an Opto-Map scan, because in a few weeks, we won’t have a rent check that needs to clear as urgently and we’ll have recovered some from putting another $500 into car repairs. Walking out to the car, I felt like I had just been to a fire-and-brimstone revival meeting and rejected Jesus to his face. Quite honestly, I felt guilty and crappy.
But I never knew there were so many things that they could SELL YOU at an eye exam. No wonder they only charge $10 for the office visit- they know that once they’ve got you through the door, you’re good for at least another $300. And this is only the optometrist. There’s so many other doctor-types out there, I can’t imagine the HORROR STORIES they must tell people, the THINGS they can sell, the MONEY they must make off of us poor, scared, unhealthy peasants! And this is on top of paying hundreds of dollars a month for the insurance.
I think this is why I want that dreaded “government-run” health care. I want someone who cares enough to keep me alive and healthy, but who has no vested interest in selling me all this extra stuff. I want a nice, clean, impersonal service, not a guilt trip and a sales pitch. Keep the snake oil salesmen out of the biz, keep it minimalist, and keep it inexpensive. I can handle the taxes- it’d probably end up being cheaper than monthly health insurance payments, anyway. They do this in almost every other country in the world, and every other country in the world is healthier than ours. Why can’t we create a unique, American single-payer health care system that we can all live with?
Anyway, I’m glad I went for an eye exam. I’ll probably even go back to this place. But the whole experience speaks volumes to me about why we need something different, something simpler, and something that’s much less of a drain on the psyche and the wallet.
After getting lost trying to find the place, and reading old copies of magazines in the waiting room, I was taken into a room full of all kinds of widgets and gadgetry. The nice lady, who sat in the middle of this revolving chair thingy that spun around four or five place-your-face-here machines, had me place my face in all of them, and then took me to another room, where the Good Doctor entered. I was promptly told that I need a backup pair of glasses. And also a pair of sunglasses. Prescription sunglasses with some kind of special UV coating. Do I wear contacts? No. Do you want them? No. Have you ever had Lasik? No. Do you want to have Lasik? No. Okay, but keep in mind, it's a great option for you. Okay.
I was then read a laundry list of orbital diseases that I could contract, and how serious each and every one of them was. I then read the letters on the wall, followed the pen with my eyes, and was asked if I would rather have my eyes dilated, or use their big, fancy Opto-Map machine that takes a picture of the inside of my eyes. I told him I would like neither today, as I had to work in an hour and would rather not have dime-sized pupils and bright, blurred vision while I run a shift on the floor. And at the moment, I could not afford the extra fee for the Opto-Map machine, as it was not covered by my insurance, so I would like to pass today, please, thank you. Well, you need to do one or the other, so choose. No, thank you.
At that moment, I felt my name being entered into the “Shit List” database.
I was told he would come back to me, and sent out to look at new glasses. I was helped by a very friendly lady, who, after going over the plethora of options available to me- lens density, frame type, coatings, polishes, clip -ons, backup pairs, etc- explained to me quite nonchalantly that my new pair of glasses would cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $300. After insurance. Even after I deleted some of the options, like glare-resistant coating and a special polishing procedure, they still would cost me almost $200. After insurance. I thanked her for her help and explained that I would pass on the glasses today.
The Good Doctor then called me back into another room. So what’s it going to be? Neither, I can’t do it today. You know, I was just telling your wife that… (insert horror story here) and well, it’s like going to the dentist and not opening your mouth, and (insert horror story here), and we really care about you here, we don’t want you to end up like (tragic horror story victim), and all the diseases that are out there (insert laundry list here), and some things in life you just have to suck it up and do it.
After checking my breath to make sure I hadn’t swallowed this guy’s firstborn or anything, I sucked it up and said no, thank you. I will do it another time. I promise.
The Good Doctor then proceeded to insinuate that I was hopelessly doomed, and then he checked my eyes and from what he could see, they looked great. Awesome. On my way out, I set up an appointment for an Opto-Map scan, because in a few weeks, we won’t have a rent check that needs to clear as urgently and we’ll have recovered some from putting another $500 into car repairs. Walking out to the car, I felt like I had just been to a fire-and-brimstone revival meeting and rejected Jesus to his face. Quite honestly, I felt guilty and crappy.
But I never knew there were so many things that they could SELL YOU at an eye exam. No wonder they only charge $10 for the office visit- they know that once they’ve got you through the door, you’re good for at least another $300. And this is only the optometrist. There’s so many other doctor-types out there, I can’t imagine the HORROR STORIES they must tell people, the THINGS they can sell, the MONEY they must make off of us poor, scared, unhealthy peasants! And this is on top of paying hundreds of dollars a month for the insurance.
I think this is why I want that dreaded “government-run” health care. I want someone who cares enough to keep me alive and healthy, but who has no vested interest in selling me all this extra stuff. I want a nice, clean, impersonal service, not a guilt trip and a sales pitch. Keep the snake oil salesmen out of the biz, keep it minimalist, and keep it inexpensive. I can handle the taxes- it’d probably end up being cheaper than monthly health insurance payments, anyway. They do this in almost every other country in the world, and every other country in the world is healthier than ours. Why can’t we create a unique, American single-payer health care system that we can all live with?
Anyway, I’m glad I went for an eye exam. I’ll probably even go back to this place. But the whole experience speaks volumes to me about why we need something different, something simpler, and something that’s much less of a drain on the psyche and the wallet.
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