Divemedic

Remote employees

The website Payscale.com asks: “Should pay be adjusted for remote employees?” The real question isn’t whether it should, the question should be “Is pay adjusted for remote workers?” To which the answer is: “Yes, yes it is.”

This is just reality. When a business is hiring from a local pool of workers, the cost of living and tax climate of the local area dictates what amount of pay workers will be willing to accept. A person in Manhattan or Oahu, where the cost of living is high, will demand a higher salary than a person in Biloxi.

It isn’t just that, however. Labor is a product to be sold, and is thus subject to supply and demand, just like any other product. Expanding the labor pool from the local area to the entire nation increases the supply and thus the value of the labor.

One of the things that COVID and the lockdowns did to the business climate was to show businesses that expensive office space on Park Avenue in Manhattan wasn’t strictly necessary for success. Most office workers are capable of doing their jobs remotely. It won’t be long before businesses begin recruiting employees from places like Des Moines because they will soon realize that the employee pool there doesn’t need to be paid as much as the employees from Manhattan who are having to pay $3500 a month for a studio apartment after paying a quarter of their salary in state and local taxes. Places like Tulsa will soon host remote workers in the same way that India and the Philippines now host call centers.

This is why cities like Nashville and Clearwater Beach are seeing population booms as cities like Chicago and New York City see massive relocations.

The employment reality is changing.

By Divemedic, ago

Little Marxist

One of my wife’s friends is from Cuba. That friend has been dating a man from Puerto Rico, and the boyfriend has a child from a previous marriage. Let’s refer to the kid as Carlos. I first met Carlos about six years ago, when he was eight years old or so. He was a decent kid who collected coins as a hobby. He’s fourteen now. He has been in the process of “finding himself” for the past few months.

It happens. My niece decided she was gay. Then a few months later, no longer gay, but a vegetarian. Now she is back to Pescatarian. I guess kids have to experiment. My son did something similar when he was 15 or so. He decided that he wanted to be Socialist, mostly because he thought the government should pay for everything. That phase lasted until he got his first paycheck and saw how much was taken out in taxes. “This is bullshit,” was the phrase he used.

Anyway, back to Carlos. He came home recently and announced that he is a Marxist. On his visitation weekends with Mom (who is also a hardcore lefty), the two of them have been going to protest marches in places like Tallahassee, where he is waving signs saying things like “Capitalism kills” along with signs disparaging the US military, calling them baby killers, that sort of thing. He also marches with the Defund the Police, things like that.

My wife’s friend was willing to ignore it. She found a Che shirt in his closet. As a Cuban, she came unglued. I’ve seen the kid’s social media posts. He blames the US for supporting Pinochet, says he was elected and the US is to blame for supporting a dictator. He claims he is going to head to Canada as soon as he is 18. (Why do they always pick Canada?)

I can’t talk to the disgusting little monster without wanting to punch him in the face. Oh, and mom? That little communist is a certified nutcase. She is also a middle school social studies teacher.

By Divemedic, ago

Children and COVID jab

Physicians in Central Florida are recommending that you vaccinate children aged 5 to 14 against COVID.

Since the vaccine doesn’t prevent infection, the only possible reason for accepting the vaccine is to lessen the severity of the illness.

According to the NIH, the COVID fatality rate of children in that age group is 0.02 per 100,000, which is 1/10,000 the rate of the US population as a whole, which is 215 per 100,000.

Currently, the COVID vaccine has an adverse reaction rate of approximately 20.7 per 100,000.

The adverse reaction rate for the vaccine is thus approximately 1,000 times higher than the risk of COVID for that age group.

The science and the math don’t lie. Even using the US government’s own figures and accepting them at face value says that the risk of the vaccine is greater than the benefit.

By Divemedic, ago

A question on tips

This morning’s post on the minimum wage and tips brings a question to my mind:

Two couples eat at the same restaurant. They sit at adjacent tables, have the same server, and receive identical service with identical food, with one exception: the first table has a bottle of house wine that costs $20, while the second table has a bottle of vintage wine that costs $300. The question is: what did the server do for the second couple that justifies the extra $42 tip?

By Divemedic, ago

Star Wars isn’t woke enough

Now Jedi Kinights, a fictional group who lived a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, are not woke enough, according to Scientific American.

The Jedi are inappropriate mascots for social justice. Although they’re ostensibly heroes within the Star Wars universe, the Jedi are inappropriate symbols for justice work. They are a religious order of intergalactic police-monks, prone to white saviorism and toxically masculine approaches to conflict resolution (violent duels with phallic lightsabers, gaslighting by means of “Jedi mind tricks,” etc.).

The Jedi are also an exclusionary cult, membership to which is partly predicated on the possession of heightened psychic and physical abilities… The heroic Jedi are thus emblems for a host of dangerously reactionary values and assumptions.

It’s a movie, people. Get over yourselves.

By Divemedic, ago

Minimum Wage

Last November, the voters of Florida passed an amendment to the Florida state constitution that raised the minimum wage. As a result of that, the state minimum wage will be raised from $8.65 an hour to $10.00 an hour, effective at midnight tonight, October 1, 2021.

However, there is also a provision in that amendment restricting the amount of “credit” on the wages of tipped employees paid by employers who assume that some of their wages are paid in tips. The amendment sets that amount as what the FLSA allowed in 2003. In 2003, the allowable employer tip credit was $3.02 an hour.

What this means is that the minimum wage for tipped workers will increase from $5.44 to $6.98 an hour. Every restaurant in the state just saw their tipped labor costs rise by 28%. That will be passed on to the consumer, plus those workers will still expect tips.

Anyone not making minimum wage is probably just out of luck and won’t be getting a raise at all. I know I am not getting a raise.

So I recently had this discussion with some people while I explained my new tipping policy.

  • For bad service: 5%
  • For decent service: 10%
  • For great service: 15%

Next year, when the law gives you another 14% raise, to $7.98 an hour (plus tips) I will be cutting tips again. Probably to zero for bad service, 5% for decent, and 10% for great service. (Ask me what happens in 2023, when you get another 12.5% raise, to $8.98 an hour.)

The hate that I got back was legendary. I was told that if I can’t afford to tip, I shouldn’t eat out. It isn’t that I can’t afford it. It’s that I am receiving a service. Let’s list what service that is:

  1. The server writes down what food I want
  2. The server brings me a beverage and (sometimes) refills it. In the case of a cocktail, someone else who isn’t the server mixes that cocktail
  3. Someone else (not the server) provides the food and prepares it
  4. The server (sometimes, but other times it’s a food runner) carries that food to the table
  5. Someone (maybe the server, maybe the busser) cleans the table
  6. Someone else (not the server) washes the dishes

Anything else that is done is done (such as folding linens, setting the table, rolling silver) are done on the restaurant owner’s behalf, not mine. It’s a limited, minimum skill position.

Frankly, I am totally against tipping. I think restaurants should pay their own employees and not rely on customers to do it, but this is the system we are stuck with. So I get to decide what that service is worth, and to me it isn’t worth a quarter of the cost of my meal.

Here is the deal, skippy: You may have voted for a raise, but that law doesn’t apply to me. If your raise is causing me to pay more to dine out, then that additional cost will be deducted from your tips.

By Divemedic, ago