Amazon delivery drivers make around $20/hr. that's well above the federal minimum (about 7.50) and above all state minimums. it won't make you rich, but it's not minimum.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/2022/10/24/how-...

Also, expecting friendly service is reasonable. Expecting poor service because the pay is low is backwards. We should expect better pay.

Flex drivers don't get mileage though. If a driver drives 25 miles an hours they are making more like ~8 dollars and hour.

Humans are all humans. Irrespective of their income level. Not sure what minimum wage has to do with whether or not being polite and pleasant conversation is exchanged.

Well if I don't like my job and I am only doing it in order to feed myself being nice to you when I am tired and want to go home and it's only 15:00 is work.

I get that some people are naturally nice and some others are not and find excuses not to be but all of cashiers in the supermarket I go to give you tired unconvincing robotic "Good morning/evening" and "Goodbye" and you can tell they are tired of it. Also they have to.

Would I be nice in a restaurant as a worker where people come to spend a special moment ? Yes, and I expect to be paid accordingly as it is part of my work. Serving people waiting in line in a fast food, will I be hostile ? No. Would I care about conversational etiquette serving people waiting in a fast food ? Hell no, I am not a smile delivery machine.

In the end it's all about stepping out of yourself and consider the reality the person in front of you is facing. Of course, if you've ever had to do a shitty job, that may help you.

It sounds like you and I were raised differently. In the end, it is all about stepping out of yourself and understanding the reality of the person in front of you. That is a two way street.

""" In every single person there's a Slim Shady lurking He could be working at Burger King, spittin' on your onion rings """

Given long enough doing robotic work under what you seem unfair/dehumanizing conditions, the Slim Shady may come out. But who knows maybe you are a different breed, good for you.

I don't think it is a valuable use of your time to try to dismiss me or try to generalize humanity.

Politeness and respect is sadly a service in the world of consumer-facing business, which means the amount of it that you get is going to correspond with how much you pay and how much the server is willing to give away for free. If the argument is that politeness should be a free service, same as a bathroom and drinking water, then just be mindful of the quality of said bathroom and water relative to the amount the employees are being paid to take care of those things, and wonder how politeness would fall into it.

Yep. I’ll choose UPS ;)

Economic hardships cause emotional distress, and you can't rationalize feelings. Your civil expectations probably match your income level, but not that below you.

E.g. Not getting enough sleep because your poor neighborhood is a ruckus provokes bad mood, chronically.

My civil expectations match what I expect from other people and how I treat people in the world. Has nothing to do with my income and is based on how I was raised by my parents to treat people you interact with in the world.

I've done hard labor (construction, landscaping), I've done food service (sandwich shop) and I've done lots of white collar office work. Wealthy people can be nice and decent to people who have a much smaller income AND vice versa.

Humans are all humans, but some humans have it better than others, and even have the gal to demand those less fortunate, working some mind-crushing job for a pittance, put on a show for them...

At least waiters and strippers get tips for their show...

It's much easier to be polite when you're well-paid and not overworked.

Barbara Ehrenreich (RIP) wrote several excellent books about that.

That's the other way around. They should be paid more. ;)

At what income level does one need to start treating the customer, that is enabling one to have a job, like a real human being?

Why does one's income level dictate how they treat others? I was always told treat others how you would like to be treated.

>At what income level does one need to start treating the customer, that is enabling one to have a job, like a real human being?

At a sufficient enough and above. Below that the Clerks (as in the Kevin Smith movie) treatment is good enough.

In any case, "treating like a real human being" and putting on a show of smiles and friendliness US-style, is not even close to being the same thing.

In "real" human interaction, we understand the other as a person with their own feelings and mood, and we don't demand from anybody to exhibit a certain cheerful mood for us.

But of course this isn't about real human connection. It's more about "When I pay I demand those serving me to entertain me with smiles and pleasantries". The customer could not care less about the person serving them, or their condition, otherwise. "Real person" my ass.

Exactly. There’s something fundamentally sadistic about American culture, I expect inherited from its legacy of slavery, where customers demand that workers perform a frightened but also “joyful” subservience to them as evidence that they’re getting their money’s worth.

This is an unbelievable take that I suspect if fueled by an over extrapolation of online culture and the news. Get a grip.

It’s fueled by my working in restaurants for ~7 years in my 20s. If you’d experienced people throwing food at you because they didn’t like how it was made, sexually harassing and hurling racist insults at your coworkers, among other, myriad abuses, you’d probably feel the same. And that’s just describing the customers, not even addressing how management behaved.

Not all of us have had the luxury to spend our lives musing about trivial things like RuneScape, in between posting on white-collar tech forums.

I've worked plenty of food service in my life. You're making the mistake of overrepresenting the worst behavior. All of those things are out of line in American society.

I don't think you should read so much into my hobby either.

I don’t think you should be telling others to “get a grip,” because their experience differs from your own, but here we are. Perhaps don’t make such obnoxious assumptions if you don’t want to be treated that way in kind.

I’m also skeptical of the extent of your actual experience if you think this behavior is “out of line” in American society. It was quite routine in mine. The first time I saw someone throw food at the head of a cashier I was shocked, but quite quickly became inured.

> I don’t think you should be telling others to “get a grip,” because their experience differs from your own, but here we are.

You tried to attached the American cultural norm of manners and courtesy to their history of black slavery.

"Get a grip" is a pretty mild response to something so absurd, hyperbolic, and flat out insulting.

No, I tied our history of slavery to the widespread abuse of service workers, and working class people more generally. This is not in anyway hyperbolic. Go read W.E. Dubois on wage labor. Or look at the distribution of service vs. professional-class jobs among minorities prior to and after the Civil Rights Movement. I likewise witnessed plenty of anti-black racism directed at my coworkers in these settings, both from customers and management. But that has no prior context in American history and was invented solely in the wickedness of individual hearts. Sure, okay.

Economic hardships cause emotional distress, and you can't rationalize feelings. Your civil expectations probably match your income level, but not that below you.

E.g. Not getting enough sleep because your poor neighborhood is a ruckus provokes bad mood, chronically.

You are asking the poor to have sympathy while not showing them empathy

The better question is at what level customers start treating service employees like real human beings.

Customer: Not only should the servants serve, but smile while doing so.

Worker: F you, pay me.

This is it in a nutshell. I could always put on my game face when things were going bad at home, but if you caught me after another customer calls me stupid or lazy (for having the job I did, during a recession, instead of, I don't know, being on welfare, I guess?), then the facade started to slip. I'm not really inclined to assume good intent from yet another rich asshole complaining about over-priced Chinese crap in regards to the $40 printer they're loading into their brand-new Porsche Cayenne.