• 0 Posts
  • 124 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 22nd, 2023
  • betheydocrime@lemmy.worldto[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation@lemmy.world•Since you asked for updates- I had a big setback.English
    2·
    5 months ago

    Hi! I just read this, and man that is such a frustrating situation to be in. I dealt with severe food aversion when I was in high school, and ended up getting a diagnosis of gastroparesis. Similar to you, there was a day where I just suddenly got “better”, although I never recovered to the point of having a normal appetite for a person my size. I never reached the point where the smell of food triggered a gag reflex, but I’m definitely familiar with how personally we take our relationships with food and how that must be affecting you and your family. I’ve been in situations where I desperately wanted to eat something in order to make someone’s effort feel appreciated, but haven’t been able to because of my body. When I read about you not being able to get a meatball sub for your daughter, it brought up feelings I hadn’t thought about in over a decade.

    Do you know of any mutual aid groups that could help you with transportation or lodging or financial aid in Rochester, if you ever have to go back? It may be worth looking for other ways to access care

  • betheydocrime@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Tipping culture npcs
    21·
    7 months ago

    I understand what you’re saying, and what you’re saying is only concerned with individuals, not systems.

    What I’m saying is that regardless of how many individual people turn that job down, the job listing at that wage will still exist. Eventually, someone who is down on their luck will become desperate enough to take it because they don’t have any other options left.

    They could be homeless people trying to afford the deposit on an apartment, or single dads trying to pay for field trips for their kids, or ex-cons locked out of conventional employment trying desperately to earn an honest living, or college students trying to buy one used textbook, or even uneducated twenty-somethings trying to build work history so they can stop working for tips.

    All of those desperate people, the people who have no choice but to tolerate the wage that you have too much self-respect to accept–they deserve nice things too. Their boss is a greedy, insufferable bastard who is willing to pay them the minimum that he is legally required to. If he could pay his employees less, he would do it in a heartbeat. By refusing to tip, you are climbing in to the same boat he’s in, no matter what ideology you shout as you clamber over the gunwales.

  • betheydocrime@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Tipping culture npcs
    1·
    7 months ago

    spujb@lemmy.cafe typed up the perfect response to this in another thread, let me copypasta their comment for you:

    you are proposing that if we all stop tipping, companies will be motivated to pay their workers; you are correct, this is what would happen if we all stopped tipping at the same time.

    this process is known as collective action. it is incredibly important to remember that collective action only works when it actually happens. in other words, your individual action of not tipping your waiter is ONLY beneficial to your waiter if you can make sure one else tips either.

    do you have this power? (i think you don’t; if you do i beg of you to exercise it lol.)

    now consider who actually holds the power here. at any point, your restaurant’s owner could institute a no-tip policy, thereby ensuring that no one has to tip, ever. several restaurants already have done this, and it works. now, you might (correctly) note that this may gives an unfair advantage to other competing restaurants who do not implement no-tip policy. this is where local and regional policy can come in to help coordinate transitioning to a more helpful model of compensating employees.

    so there’s kind of this imbalance, where yeah technically it’s possible for us as eaters of food to “fix” the tipping problem, but its way way easier for the people in charge (whether that’s government or owners) to fix it, because they have the power of coordination on their side.

    tldr, tip your waiters and advocate for anti-tipping policies if you want to maximize long term benefits for everyone.

  • betheydocrime@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Tipping culture npcs
    1·
    7 months ago

    Socialist theory is great, but material conditions don’t care about our ideologies :) I use Marxism and socialism to help myself understand why I feel so alienated and to help fight those feelings, but I still understand that every worker in America lives as an exploited laborer under capitalism. I’m not wealthy or politically powerful or willing to use violence to enforce my views, so my praxis must be aimed at helping the little people until we have enough of a leftist coalition to take on the bigger issues.

    Essentially, I’m not big enough to change the world for the better all on my own, but I can change the parts of it that I can reach out and touch with my hands, so why shouldn’t I?