0:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher_Pete
I have all of them in a box somewhere. I, of course, also have his book on my shelf.
IMO, Dishwasher Pete is a national treasure.
One of the examples he used, was to ask us
"Who is the most important people in a restaurant?"
>"The dishwasher, and the Janitor"
>>"Do you think you'll go to a restaurant again if its bathrooms are filthy and your dishes are dirty?"
His point was that you have to look beyond whats in front of your face, and look at things as a whole, as a system, identify all the components, even if you cant seem them - you can see their impact on the situation.
The janitor and dishwasher are vital, but so too are most of the roles. It's a collective effort. Which of the legs of a chair is most important? Silly question imo.
Which person is least important, usually the one that makes the most money. Their capital is important, but with a more distributed wealth in society the workers would be able to own the restaurant without an overlord.
I'm really interested in the idea of flat wage structures. The cleaner is possibly one of the lowest paid people at my office, but they give up just as much time to be there for an hour as the CEO does.
I think this misunderstands a fundamental economic idea: people aren’t paid commensurate to their time or sweat invested; they are paid (in theory) with their differential contribution to the economy. Therefore, people who get paid well tend to have at least two things: 1) a rare skill and 2) a relatively high contribution to the economy. Sometimes those are correlated with effort and time, but they don’t have to be.
There are tons of jobs many take for granted and are much more important than we give them credit for.