Upworthy posted these today, and I was devastated to discover that they were not an image set on their Tumblr. Seriously, though, the food service industry needs a complete overhaul. In the mean time, enjoy your food!
This doesn’t even account for all the differences, either. The second image is for Illinois, but New York’s minimum wage is 7.25 and the cost of living is much, much higher. Imagine that the average one bedroom apartment costs $1000 a month (which is generous, I’ve seen studios in Manhattan go for much more, but I’ll use an outerborough as an example). That’s nearly 138 hours just for rent alone.
It’s extremely disproportionate and rather disgusting in all of these cases. Retail workers and those in food service are the “face” of the company, so to speak. They’re the ones who deal with the consumers and have to do the hardest, most unrewarding work. They’re underpaid, overworked, and very often mistreated by their higher-ups. They’re expected to do the impossible for practically no pay (and often without benefits, since most of these jobs are not unionized), and it’s mostly so that those corporate higher-ups can make the bigger money.
Shit like this infuriates me. It also goes with the perception that these jobs are somehow “lesser.” That people should get “real jobs” if they want to make good money. Retail/food service are real jobs as much as anything else — without them, where else would we GET those services? These people work hard and are treated like shit, not only by their employers, but by their customer base very often as well (those who have never worked in either industry tend to be less understanding about the obstacles of things, in my experience. Having worked retail for years and working higher management at that). But these people work very hard and have to often have the patience of saints to keep a smile on their face while they are treated poorly in every imaginable way.
One time, I got reprimanded for calling out of work when I had to have emergency dental work done. “What do you mean, you can’t come in? Just deal with it until your day off.” I was actually told that. I promptly hung up because I could barely function (and since I was working part-time then — and minimum wage was only 6.00 at the time — I didn’t have dental insurance, so it wasn’t like I could really afford to just deal with any of it). That’s how that industry is. Demonizing the employees for calling out while they’re sick — they’d rather put everyone’s health at risk than let them take an (unpaid) sick day.
The state of the retail/food service industry is disgusting and needs to change, and in a hurry.
Also where I work there is a thing called “permanent part time” which is WORK 40 HOURS A WEEK AND RECEIVE NO BENEFITS because we have ‘limited availability’. AKA if you adjust your schedule so your work can’t pull a turn-and-burn on you then you get knocked down to part time benefits but still pull 40 hours a week.
A fair percentage of the people I work evening/night shift with too have children and work in the evening/night because childcare is so fucking expensive. And they get treated like shit and get paid shit.