All I wanted to do this Sunday morning was sit outside and drink my coffee in the garden, but noooooooooooo, Washington, DC has turned into Seattle, Washington, and until I build some sort of covered structure, which was never in the plans, I'll have to settle for the couch. Guess I'll go to Pinterest for some covered structure ideas. In a minute.
I enjoy Sunday mornings, when Chris is singing at church and I have total quiet. The intrusive and never-ending line of contractors in the neighborhood aren't sawing and banging away, the children and their rude parents are nowhere near the school across the street, and most people in the area have silently consented to a truce when it comes to the noise wars that are a part of civilized life.
I generally ignore all things that could put me in contact with news on Sunday mornings in attempt to reduce anxiety as much as possible, if only for a few hours. But this morning, I wanted to see things about the Caps win in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals because it is just so exciting and fun and I still can't believe after all these years and all the great teams that failed to get past the second round of the playoffs, we are finally there. It doesn't seem real. Last night, the streets of DC were filled with starry-eyed people dressed in red, wandering about in a joyous daze as if they were stuck in a surrealist painting, all of the past failures melting away like Dali clocks. These failures have been so persistent in our memories that the hashtag #itsoktobelieve has been a sort of subtitle for the series. Our city, whose soul has been battered and bruised since January 2017, is actually, well, happy.
Anyway, I came across someone who doesn't live anywhere near DC ranting against an issue that is on our ballot for our coming elections, and he, like the morning's rain, ruined my Sunday morning. It's about Initiative #77, an issue that seeks to eliminate the tipping system for servers in the restaurant industry.
Our city is different. We don't have the Applebees or Cheesecake Factories or any of those megacorporations with cheap food and cheaper customers. 96% of our restaurants are independently owned. We have a professional service industry, where it is not uncommon for servers and bartenders to make six figures a year. More typical is $20-$40 an hour, with more experienced servers pulling in the higher end. They are making more than minimum wage, which is already DC law. What it will do is force restaurants to cut staff, cut shifts, and raise the price of food. The initiative will kill their livelihoods.
Imagine taking that away. These people have families and mortgage payments. I think Americans have gotten so used to the stereotypical minimum wage Cheesecake Factory waitress (think Two Broke Girls or Big Bang Theory) who's only doing it because she has no skills or is trying to work her way through college that they don't realize professional service industry workers have homes and families and that is what they do for a career. People outside the industry look down on servers as if they are somehow lower than them.
But it is more than this particular issue that irked me. It's outsiders who constantly feel the need to tell us how to run our city. Usually it's Republicans in Congress who are overturning laws we voted for, or forcing us to name our airports and Metro stops after people we don't like. This pushing, however, is coming from the liberal side, that particularly smug strain of liberalism that tells everybody that they don't know what's good for them, so here, we'll impose this, your lives are so bad that someone needs to step in and help you.
We have a term for that. It is called "out of touch."
This particular individual who does not live here and does not know the situation, pointed out some poll that claims 70% of service industry workers are against this measure. That is bullshit. Go into any restaurant in this city and ask a bartender if he wants to make minimum wage. The answer will always and emphatically be NO.
Of course, this poll was paid for by the people - the outsiders who don't live in DC - who put the initiative on the ballot. They see a progressive city and think here is a place that will pass their idea because who can argue that someone shouldn't make minimum wage. After all, DC will have one of the highest minimum wages in the country in 2020 at $15 an hour. So let's do this here.
The idea is fine in places like the Midwest where megacorporations own the restaurants and servers aren't making minimum wage (and if it is the case, they should be.) But like everything in life, a one size fits all approach to an issue DOES NOT WORK.
Chris has worked in the DC restaurant industry for three decades. He still does. He knows and is friends with people in the industry all across DC. There is not a single one of them who is for this ballot initiative. In fact, they are ardently opposed to it across the board and are actively promoting the Save Our Tips campaign to persuade voters to vote NO on Initiative #77. Save Our Tips is run by servers and bartenders, not restaurant owners. We know people involved with it, because unlike the out of touch outsiders, we live here, we eat at these places, we are served by these people, we ARE these people.
Do us all a favor, outsiders. Butt out.
I enjoy Sunday mornings, when Chris is singing at church and I have total quiet. The intrusive and never-ending line of contractors in the neighborhood aren't sawing and banging away, the children and their rude parents are nowhere near the school across the street, and most people in the area have silently consented to a truce when it comes to the noise wars that are a part of civilized life.
I generally ignore all things that could put me in contact with news on Sunday mornings in attempt to reduce anxiety as much as possible, if only for a few hours. But this morning, I wanted to see things about the Caps win in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals because it is just so exciting and fun and I still can't believe after all these years and all the great teams that failed to get past the second round of the playoffs, we are finally there. It doesn't seem real. Last night, the streets of DC were filled with starry-eyed people dressed in red, wandering about in a joyous daze as if they were stuck in a surrealist painting, all of the past failures melting away like Dali clocks. These failures have been so persistent in our memories that the hashtag #itsoktobelieve has been a sort of subtitle for the series. Our city, whose soul has been battered and bruised since January 2017, is actually, well, happy.
Anyway, I came across someone who doesn't live anywhere near DC ranting against an issue that is on our ballot for our coming elections, and he, like the morning's rain, ruined my Sunday morning. It's about Initiative #77, an issue that seeks to eliminate the tipping system for servers in the restaurant industry.
Our city is different. We don't have the Applebees or Cheesecake Factories or any of those megacorporations with cheap food and cheaper customers. 96% of our restaurants are independently owned. We have a professional service industry, where it is not uncommon for servers and bartenders to make six figures a year. More typical is $20-$40 an hour, with more experienced servers pulling in the higher end. They are making more than minimum wage, which is already DC law. What it will do is force restaurants to cut staff, cut shifts, and raise the price of food. The initiative will kill their livelihoods.
Imagine taking that away. These people have families and mortgage payments. I think Americans have gotten so used to the stereotypical minimum wage Cheesecake Factory waitress (think Two Broke Girls or Big Bang Theory) who's only doing it because she has no skills or is trying to work her way through college that they don't realize professional service industry workers have homes and families and that is what they do for a career. People outside the industry look down on servers as if they are somehow lower than them.
But it is more than this particular issue that irked me. It's outsiders who constantly feel the need to tell us how to run our city. Usually it's Republicans in Congress who are overturning laws we voted for, or forcing us to name our airports and Metro stops after people we don't like. This pushing, however, is coming from the liberal side, that particularly smug strain of liberalism that tells everybody that they don't know what's good for them, so here, we'll impose this, your lives are so bad that someone needs to step in and help you.
We have a term for that. It is called "out of touch."
This particular individual who does not live here and does not know the situation, pointed out some poll that claims 70% of service industry workers are against this measure. That is bullshit. Go into any restaurant in this city and ask a bartender if he wants to make minimum wage. The answer will always and emphatically be NO.
Of course, this poll was paid for by the people - the outsiders who don't live in DC - who put the initiative on the ballot. They see a progressive city and think here is a place that will pass their idea because who can argue that someone shouldn't make minimum wage. After all, DC will have one of the highest minimum wages in the country in 2020 at $15 an hour. So let's do this here.
The idea is fine in places like the Midwest where megacorporations own the restaurants and servers aren't making minimum wage (and if it is the case, they should be.) But like everything in life, a one size fits all approach to an issue DOES NOT WORK.
Chris has worked in the DC restaurant industry for three decades. He still does. He knows and is friends with people in the industry all across DC. There is not a single one of them who is for this ballot initiative. In fact, they are ardently opposed to it across the board and are actively promoting the Save Our Tips campaign to persuade voters to vote NO on Initiative #77. Save Our Tips is run by servers and bartenders, not restaurant owners. We know people involved with it, because unlike the out of touch outsiders, we live here, we eat at these places, we are served by these people, we ARE these people.
Do us all a favor, outsiders. Butt out.
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