Of Tips and Tithing Part 2: What happened to "There's no such thing as bad publicity?"

  The tail end of this story is that Applebee's fired the waitress for posting the receipt with the note on it. The pastor complained to management that the "viral" photo had disparaged her reputation.
    Seriously? You do something like that in a public place and you don't expect somebody to talk about it? Tell their friends? Spit in your food next time? Not to mention, this is the 21st century--you can't say, do or write anything anymore without somebody putting it on the internet.
    To say it violated the pastor's privacy is a red herring. A sales receipt isn't a social security number or a bank statement--how many hands and eyes go over a receipt from the time it's printed to the time it gets filed away in the records? Furthermore, I can only assume that the receipt was the "merchant's copy" and not the "customer's copy", so I don't really think the pastor had any rights to privacy over what she submitted to the restaurant for its records.
    I'm not saying we should post everybody receipts online--though it would be an interesting study into how poorly people treat and tip service staff in this country--I'm just saying there are a few things about this particular case that push the limits of common decency.
    On a final note, I am surprised the pastor didn't get fired. If pastors have the cash to be going out to dinner and then having the gall to write something so condescending and nasty to the person who did nothing but wait on them and try to give them a pleasant evening out, they have no right calling themselves pastors or even Christians.
    It goes back to generosity, something I thought was a basic tenet of Christian teachings--something you can't really be lacking if you're going to get ordained as a pastor/minister/priest, etc. This woman who posted the receipt is a waitress, not an investment banker. She gets treated like crap by a dozen different people every day--all I'm saying is you'd think a pastor would have the decency to treat her with a little more kindness and graciousness rather than resorting to derision and hubris over a standard industry practice.

I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

-Abraham Lincoln

Of Tips and Tithing: Part 1

  You may have read about the waitress who posted her customer's receipt online after getting a cheeky note instead of a tip. Here's what's wrong with the whole situation.

The Thing about Tithing

  "I give God 10%," Bell wrote on the receipt, scratching out the automatic tip and scribbling in an emphatic "0" where the additional tip would be. "Why do you get 18?" (Yahoo News)
    First of all, I was unaware that tithing was still so prominent. Traditionally, dating all the way back to the Old Testament, good Jews and later Catholics, then Christians, were required to pay a tenth of their yearly income to God, aka the church. Over the years, since the Church split into so many denominations, I was under the impression that this was primarily a Catholic thing, but that might have just been my microcosmic worldview prejudice because I went to Catholic school for so many years.
    Apparently, it still lives on.
    The problem here is: who are you to be eating out and refusing to tip, calling on God as your excuse? Let me hash this out: a pastor doesn't make a ton of money that would go against the whole "worldly possessions" thing. But they apparently donate 10% of that income back to the church every year. AND they can afford to eat out with party of more than 8 people? I don't buy it. If you can afford to eat out, you can afford to tip. Simple as that. If you can't afford that extra 18-20% on your bill, stay home and eat Ramen. Period.
    Secondly, 10% of your yearly income is a LOT more than 18% on a bill at Applebee's. Not knowing anything about what pastors make, I have to assume they at least earn a salary that puts them at or above the poverty level in this country. They have to live somewhere. They have to drive to work. They have to eat. And, if the church doesn't pay taxes, I don't think their ministers and pastors would pay incomes taxes either. So, that's a goodly sum, presumably outright, of which 10% goes back to the church.
    Waitresses do not make minimum wage to put them at or above the poverty level for their yearly income. They need those tips to even things out and put their income at the appropriate level. The guys at Starbucks and Subway and those little fast food places that leave tip jars out--those guys make minimum wage. Most of them are part-time, so they appreciate the extra tips when they get them, but they don't rely on them. They're like a bonus.

    It doesn't work that way at a "sit-down" restaurant. The reason the 18% gratuity gets tacked onto large party bills is people tend to forget about the tip when the bill is so large to start. It's to protect the interests of the servers who are the ones who suffer if the tip is forgotten.
    Tithing is an outdated practice. There are far too many people in need of food, shelter and healthcare in this world to be giving 10% of your money to a church to build a new wing, erect a new statue, or pay for all those fancy robes the Pope wears. 
    If that money were going directly to build a soup kitchen, support a literacy program, or buy cots for a homeless shelter, that would be one thing. But it doesn't, and parishioners aren't always told where it does go.
    Check in soon for the follow-up and conclusion of why this whole thing is ridiculous.

He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.

-Sigmund Freud

Talking Bout My Generation

  I read an article today that made me think about my generation. People in their mid to late twenties, and sometimes even early thirties, have had to put their lives on hold because of the economy. Fifty years ago, people were getting married at my age, buying houses, having babies, and starting that grown-up life before they had even fully grown up. Now, people my age are prolonging their youth, not entirely by choice but by situation. We are largely unemployed, homeless (meaning, without our own homes or apartments), and we are often broke, or damn near. [Thanks, Pete Townshend for a good lyric to put in my blog title ;) ]
    While I am the exception--I have a job, and as you read recently, I just hit the one-year mark (*hooray again*); I have an apartment that I am paying for all by myself; and I am extremely frugal and meticulous about my money, so I am never really broke. I may not have any cash on me sometimes, but I always have some money somewhere. On the other hand, I know that many people in my generation are broke, don't have their own place, and can't find a job. This was all my life before I found my job. I was unemployed for nine months after graduating college, I had moved back in with my dad, and even after I found work, I was still living with my mom for a few months until I could find an apartment.
    Moving forward in life has become overly complicated for people my age. I personally feel like I've hit the peak of adulthood. I don't have those same goals as firm, set-in-stone goals. If my life moves in a certain direction, yes, I might eventually want to buy a house. If my life moved in another direction, I might consider getting married. And if my life moved in a really different direction, several years from now, mind you, I also might consider kids. But right now, all of those possibilities seem so distant, not only financially, but in terms of my own maturity. I can't even imagine having any of those things right now. Five years from now though, who knows?
    Still, I can't help wondering about the other people my age who are broke and want to take those next steps in their lives and just can't. It's not pity, but frustration I feel about this whole thing. Why are we the ones denied what many of us consider to be rights of passage and a natural progression of life when our forebears had full access? Why did these people in control of the economy and the economic future of this country not think about how their decisions would affect their children? (Make no mistake, we are at about the age that those people's children would be--just because their kids have trust funds doesn't mean we're not part of the same generation.) Why, if they did think of our futures, did they not care enough to stop what they were doing?
    The Almighty Dollar wins again. Greed was good twenty five years ago, but the "free market" economy has spiraled out of control in such a way that the rich cling desperately to their wealth, while the poor, or the working and middle classes, must cling desperately to their next paychecks, knowing they may still have to rely on credit to meet all their financial responsibilities.
    I am, by no means, an economist--in fact, I have no idea how I even passed my high school economics class with an A because I don't remember a thing--but some of these things seem so simple that I can't understand how how people could have screwed it up so badly as to leave my generation in the position to try to move forward and clean up their mess without the means to do it.

Greed sucks. Unemployment sucks worse.

Have you been unemployed? How did you deal with it? 

What do you think about the economy and its effect on Generation Y 

(i.e. people born between about 1985 and 1995, if that)?

Discuss it in the comments below.

One Door Opens and Another Shuts

  That good news came through! Apartment settled! Move in countdown: 5 days. Next time I post, I may be bitching about moving in. On the bright side, 80 percent of my stuff is still in boxes from moving out at the end of June, so that's all right. I am super excited. I've told pretty much everyone I know, and now the rest of the world, that I found an apartment. It's a pretty nice place, actually. Somewhere I could actually imagine staying for longer than one lease. The only thing that isn't as nice is the price. (As usual, I've found something to complain about. Bear with me.) The actual apartment is a decent price for the area I live in, but I have to pay all the utilities, for the first time ever (look how grown up that is!). Needless to say, I will be following all of the low-energy, efficiency rules to the letter, and then some. But, it has the primary requisites I had in mind--dishwasher, price range appropriate, and they'll let me have my cat, with additional rent (lame, but the majority of places around here are that way--fortunately, the pet fee/deposit on the place was already paid by a previous tenant, and because it's a sublet, it rolled over).
    I am so glad to be going back on my own. I am grateful to my mom for allowing me to live in the basement, again, while I looked for a place, but it's going to be really nice to have my own space and my own stuff, all in one place. The plan is to move the majority of my stuff to my new place, meaning a lot of the stuff that is still at my dad's place is going to come to the new apartment in addition to all the crap I have at my mom's now plus what's in storage. Reunification of everything.
    I never really minded having half my stuff in one place and half my stuff in another place, carrying bits of my life around with me as I traveled back and forth between the two. That was part of not wanting to grow up, I think. Keeping all my stuff in one place means I'm really responsible for all of it. It's my job to lock the doors, my job to pay all the bills, my job not to set the place on fire, and my job not to let the cat get outside.
    Minor subject shift: fall semester starts next week up here! I actually had a dream about being back in school last week. This is the first semester start in five years that I've not been fully aware of. I was in school for three and a half years, out for one year, and back in for half a year. Even during the year I was out of school, I was fully aware of going back to school later. Now, the prospect of school is gone for the near and foreseeable future, and while it's a little strange, it's good. I get to really try to do things my way, and maybe I'll fail, but maybe I won't. I'll do my best. Now I just have to get my budget back on track having to pay rent again.

Budgeting sucks. Especially after four hours of it.

A (Lady) Bug's Life

  Standing in line at Qdoba for lunch, the four of us (my coworkers and I) noticed a ladybug crawling along the cracks in the tile, moving with the line. Apparently, it was a "fake" ladybug, something I didn't even know existed. Apparently, it was a ladybug imposter that looks just like a ladybug only darker. They eat the fruit or the vegetable, while true ladybugs eat the other bugs (aphids) that eat the fruit or vegetable. It occurred to me how evolutionarily advantageous this was. (I actually articulated this, and didn't stumble over the word "evolutionarily".) We watched for a painstaking, horrifying 5 minutes as the ladybug imposter inched closer and closer to the front of the line.
    There was a man at the counter who was shifting his weight and moving his feet around. We avoided the little bugger, but as the bug got closer to the counter (and past his place in line, I might add), it became alarmingly clear that he was probably going to get stepped on, and what's more, it would be the weight-shifting yakker ahead of us who would unknowingly do the deed. And sure enough, ladybug imposter gets closer, closer, and then, weight-shifter shifts again and... SMUSH.
    We had a brief psychological/philosophical discussion about the bug still being alive after getting stepped on, the size of its brain, and whether it was able to feel pain. My inclination was no. The bug may not have died on impact, but what little brains it has surely can't register pain anymore, I thought. Its head is probably the most vulnerable part, and would have probably been crushed more than its back when stepped on. Any life left in it would be reflexes, not neurological commands. I didn't want to get into it, and as we were at the place in line where we could order finally, I didn't have to.
    But, how did the little ladybug imposter get inside the Qdoba? Did he walk, as we saw him doing? Did he fly through the door as it opened? Or did he land on some unsuspecting burrito lover who carried him in? How did he reach his eventual demise? We'll never know, but that's why there are people like me. To imagine a plot in which a ladybug imposter finds himself on the floor at Qdoba.

Ladybug imposter? Bah, humbug.

Pros and Cons of Being a Grown-Up

I had a moment this morning, powering through my work and listening to my MP3 (No, I do not have an iPod, for a reason) when I felt very adult-like. Typing fast, jamming out to Suffragette City and Sunshine Highway, and being totally productive, something I'm mostly able to do now that I don't have to leave halfway through the day to go to school. It was awesome.
    While being a grown-up does suck on occasion: losing a significant amount of my paycheck to taxes, paying rent to apartment Nazis that shut off my water every other week, paying bills, the possibility of getting called for jury duty (yeah, good luck with that one--I've got so many addresses my name is connected to in the past five years!). I wish I could think of more grown-up responsibilities that didn't involve money, but unfortunately, it seems that my life does revolve around finances at the moment.
    There are some pluses to being an adult: I can legally purchase alcohol, I can pay for my own gas (that could be a negative, but for me, it's a pretty big responsibility), I can give money to charity and write it off on my taxes, I can rent an apartment, I can complain to the apartment managers and my complaint actually carries weight, and I can buy my own stuff. That may not seem like much, and much of it does still have to do with money, but being able to support yourself, even if it's rather frugally, is a pretty cool thing.
    I've been living off my parents for twenty-two years, and to be able to pay for my own movie tickets, take my parents out to dinner, buy my own groceries, and even cook some of my own meals. So, adulthood has some things going for it, and some things that are a pain in the ass. I do miss childhood though. I enjoyed high school. It was the only time in my life I really had friends. Almost all my friends are long-distance friends now.
    And I enjoyed life when I was little. My Barbies and stuffed animals, the Bailey School Kids books, R.L. Stine books, getting hooked on movies that weren't produced by Disney, learning to read and write, and learning I was pretty good at both. I think I'm still somewhere in between being a kid and being a grown-up. I only act grown-up around other grown-ups. On my own or with people I'm close to, I act like the crazy teenager I was a few years ago.
    As much as I enjoyed being a kid (though at the time, I couldn't grow up fast enough), I like being grown up too, at least 60 or 70 percent of the time. We may take on more responsibilities and have to deal with things way beyond our maturity level being older, but as long as we never lose our childish enthusiasm, we can stay young at heart. (Side note: I just quoted 2 movies and a song in one sentence. Which ones?)

Live long and prosper.