January 29, 2012

Dear Mr. Carnegie...

'she's only filled my cup three times'
Warning: This may seem to be more of an opinionated bitch session than an informative blog post, but seeing as I'm the master & commander of this silly and somewhat ridiculous berth I guess I can call it as I see it (until I'm voted out by the shareholders which seems to be trending high these days)

A little back story shall we: employees at establishments that serve alcohol earn a lower base wage than the standard minimum wage. This is fact and law. Whether you knew that or not is beside the point though. It's not your duty to know the ins and outs of industry specific compensation structures. How much a person earns in our 'biz' is made greatly in part by their own efforts in the service they provide. This is actually an incredibly fair arrangement and makes for a great motivator. It makes the server give better service, it makes the business a better place to be, and most importantly, it makes the customer have a better experience. Everyone wins. (Yeah for everyone!)

Do we all know where this is going... yes of course we do. This is (as was previously mentioned) a bitch session. But a bitch session by itself is as flat and dry as a dessert in Seattle. *sniff* Enter Karma.

if a tree falls in a forest and crushes a beaver's spine...
Karma is the all powerful trans-denominational force that supersedes all things. If there's one thing that can unify all faith and platform, all creatures large and small, it surely must be this. That little old lady you held the door open for at the mall the other day... that was a damn good move because when you're speeding to work on monday because you weren't exactly 'pumped' to get out of bed to be at that task force meeting at 8:45 in boardroom C, and the Cop that sits and waits for people in your situation happens to have his radar gun fail due to a dead battery... uh, yeah... that's karma.

What needs to be understood here is that when a person jacks up a $200 bill, or even a $30 bill at their fav watering hole and leaves a $3 tip, they aren't throwing the server under the bus... no, no, they're just pissing them off and begging them to make note of this person's jersey number for the rest of the staff. What they're doing in fact, is throwing themselves under the bus.

Proper etiquette asks that you show respect to all, regardless of caste.... but if you weren't raised with etiquette then all you have left is your conscience right? Deep down inside, in all of us, regardless of education or cultural experience, we have a base sub-conscience that tells us 'right' from 'wrong' It's an instinctual survival skill that generations before you developed so that you could be here.

Your mom didn't sing that damn song so you could
go off and steal all that music off the inter-web
The good people will always be good. This is why I still like people. They are very fortunate that goodness comes so naturally to them and jealous of them, we all should be. When someone wrongs them, they may for a split second want to respond in turn, but they're wiser than that. Good people. But they are also smart people because they know that there are other forces at work that will correct the balance.

The 'not-so-good people' are just in need of a little re-alignment. Thus we have karma. So let us give thanks to karma for working her ass off and making things right in the world. We all make mistakes, some consciously, some without thinking at all. But either way, karma will gently, or perhaps not so gently remind us to get our act together and strive to be more like the good people. See: How to Win Friends and Influence People

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