Meet the busser who’s worked at the same pancake house for 54 years
chicagotribune.com
chicagotribune.com
Being in the EU, here's what I get:
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European
countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at
options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU
market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that
will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.What makes you think this man is or is not typical? (I'd err on the former side, "lifers" are common in many industries including restaurants.)
As you say, not everyone should become a manager. That doesn’t mean seniority isn’t a thing though.
Just thinking out loud, it seems like a lot of the 'point' of this article is that he intentionally stopped progressing in his work, but it seems to me like a lot of people do that in a lot of ways, just not usually as a busser.
The focus on take-home pay misses the other parts that don’t show up on your pay slip.
It would be a struggle to write something more patently ridiculous.
Check out the book, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill
You're making some unfounded assumptions about me there.
> People are generally happier and satisfied with what they have. They work, they eat, they enjoy life with their families. They don't feel the need for more.
One major problem with this "money does not affect happiness" schtick is that a person will often, if they live long enough, encounter a problem or set of problems that can be solved by the spending of money, perhaps only in that way. An inability to solve such problems because of the lack of money can affect a person's happiness.
It's true enough that some people and some cultures are better at shrugging off disappointments like not being able to afford medicine, education, housing, food, or whatever. To say that being able to solve those problems wouldn't make them happier is just disingenuous.
Also, key point: > Spend some time traveling the world, head to some developing countries outside of your consumer driven world.
Traveling is a luxury that many people cannot afford - it requires a ton of money.
You're telling me to save up money, then to spend it, to go to a place where I realize I won't need money?
How do you tell a poor person with financial troubles - don't worry just travel and you'll see you don't actually need money?
People who say, "Money does not affect happiness" usually come from a place of privilege - i.e. they already have money and have their basic needs met, so they've never /really/ had to worry about money. If you're a single mother of three kids in a minimum wage job, then money definitely affects your happiness.
From the article, it sounds like Loggan is exactly that. Never complains. Never asked for a promotion. Content with what he has.
“He could retire now,” said Javon Chambers, his grandson, himself a Walker Bros. busser for 15 years. “He’s financially straight and everything. I just think he knows when people retire, they die. That’s what he’s said: Old people don’t have nothing to do, they see their friends retire, and then they retire, and that’s when they die of boredom too. It’s like people who are married a long time — if one dies, the next goes right after. That’s like my grandfather and this place. He doesn’t want the will inside him to dry up.”
Ambition, in a time of low expectations, in a country defined by inequality, can mean holding on to what you have, internalizing your place in the world. “I think Loggan wanted to fit in somewhere,” said chef Pat Levy, also known as “Popeye”; he has worked at the restaurant 42 years, arriving in Chicago from Jamaica. “I think Loggan just decided to be a busboy. He is content. It’s all he wants. So I ask — isn’t that OK?”
For instance, the company took out life insurance on Loggan (payable to his wife); Ray says that for years he’s set aside about $50 a month for Loggan, as an informal retirement fund (subject to a 30 percent penalty for early withdrawal).
A person can be content with what they have and still find value (happiness, even!) in having more, for a variety of reasons that don't involve naked greed or avarice. It's extremely strange that anyone needs to have this explained to them.
This thread of discussion literally began because you wrote "Money definitely does not make people any happier."
Well yeah the ones that are alive..
>They don't feel the need for more.
I would question if that's true.
I've also spent time being fucking broke, and being very very well off. Actual adult broke not fake have-a-backup-plan broke. One is way fucking better than the other.
Having money does not create happiness. Not having money most certainly certainly does create misery though. In hundreds of daily very specific death-by-a-thousand-cuts ways.
Instead of wandering around the world, try that instead, and see how your perspective changes.
This clearly isn't a simple story of 'happy man in a humble job'.
I mean, the man still buys lottery tickets for a start...
Is this their attempt at GDPR compliance?
That's why a GeoIP block is not a real fix.
> When an individual leaves an EU country and travels to a non-EU country, they are no longer protected by GDPR.
https://www.hipaajournal.com/does-gdpr-apply-to-eu-citizens-...
They also don't have European operations, so it's not like the EU has any means to compel them to act even if it wanted to.
You'd certainly be laughed out of a US courtroom (rightfully) if you are trying to force a domestic business to comply with arbitrary foreign regulations in a country they have no involvement with.
A US entity operating under US law with no physical presence in a foreign jurisdiction but actively courting business with citizens in that foreign jurisdiction has to be a lot more careful. For example, if one of their foreign customers sues them in a foreign court, wins, and gets a damages award there is a decent chance in many states that the US court would recognize and enforce that judgement.
Almost every restaurant server in America makes below the minimum wage, this is allowed by law since their tips almost always take them back above the minimum.
https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm
If an employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 an hour do not equal the Federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.
So, every server by law does not make below minimum wage. (If this is always enforced, not sure)
This would be just about the easiest form of wage theft possible, and wage theft is already a huge problem. If I were a waiter I would not put much faith in that law.
Some tip pools among regularly tipped employees are okay; what is unlawful is the house or managers taking tips from tipped employees, either for themselves or to pay kitchen staff, etc.
A rider buried in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 makes this practice illegal. Department of Labor regulations had already prohibited this, but now we have a statute. Further regulations are to be implemented that may complicate things. Let's see.
it will be one or two days before they are sacked, either because the place have more servers than it need for the traffic or that one server is upselling less than the others.
in anyway, your argument on the letter of the law is pointless (at least on the anecdotes I know about, would love to se actual nation wide data on this), becuase it changes nothing. either you live on tips, or you are unemployed.