Tips

So I enjoy going to restaurants.  I enjoy the company of a friend and good food; it is a chance to catchup and reacquaint with my friends.  The meal is a bonus for me, good healthy food that I don't have to make, maybe I get an idea or two for dinner for another day.  

Lately dinner has cost, for two people, close to $100.  I remember when four people cost that much, granted twenty years ago, but still prices of stuff have not doubled in that time.  Maybe my choice in restaurants has gotten more exclusive, but that is not what this entry is about.

I started working with a former waitress and we were talking one day about her former job.  She made $10/hour plus tips and the cooks earned just $15/hour.  She thought that was fair.  It sounds fair.  She worked 12 hour shifts and had no formal training, unlike the people who made the food.  Well she is the reason why people come into the restaurant, because of her good service, right?  Wrong, I have gone back to restaurants with good food and bad service, but not gone back to places with bad food and good service.  Good service is easy to provide, relative to good food.  Sit the customer, I've out menus, ask about drinks, gather requests, distribute food correctly (but if the y don't give the right food to people we switch as it is not a big deal), ask if things are good, ask if coffee or desserts are needed, present the bill.  Yes that is a lot of work with plenty of patrons too so it is work.  But the chefs also work hard, cooking the meals getting the seasoning right, cooking the meal correctly so people don't die and it is cooked to customer specifications, so multiple meals are ready at the same time and are still hot, multiple sets of customers; they are trained people with years of experience and schooling or apprenticeship.  

Which is more important the food or the service?  

In the above situation with my coworker, in one shift she got $120 +$200 in tips or $26.67/hour and the chefs got $15/hour.  

I went to a restaurant recently, there were 24 tables and three waitresses, they were all full and I stayed there for an hour.  Granted they would not be full for the entire shift of say eight hours, but let's just look at my meal.  My table was cleaned up from just vacating people and we sat down, my waitress watched over eight tables.  If she had a total of twenty-four customers and they all spent as much as I did, $100 and she received the same tip of $16, then she had an hourly tip rate of $48/hour and add her wage.  

I do not object to paying a tip. I do not object to paying for the meal, if it is good and had value, but I object to the fact that wait staff get all the tips.  I heard of a restaurant owner that skimmed from the tips 1% off of the value of the meals  from the tips and bought a $50,000 truck tax free.  

I think at tips should be split more fairly or that tips should be reduced.  If half the tips went to the chefs this would be better.  Makes me wish I was a waitperson.

A little note

I have been contemplating writing this one for a while, delaying mostly because I have been picking up more people who know me as a person.  The subject matter is not one that most people would understand, but I am going to try to explain it so that they will understand.

There are two big factors and a bunch of small ones.  The first big one is that I am a sex addict.  What does this mean?  It comes from my Asperger's, a condition that is no longer recognized by the professional body of psychiatric professionals; we are all Autistic now.  ASD people tend to obsess over certain things, trains, planes or automobiles, or in my case, Sex.  Actually that is a pretty common obsession, considering how sex obsessed our culture is and how much emphasis is on it to prove that you are having a successful relationship.  Honestly, most guys do not think about sex once every thirty seconds, I think I heard that most men think about it three times a day or less.  I am trying to calculate how many times I thought about sex yesterday without using hyperbole.  I think about sex about five to ten times an hour, sometimes more, sometimes less.  For the record, when I am talking to you, I am not thinking about sex, but when there are silences and pauses when I am not thinking over a problem or not listening to a conversation . . ..

Okay I thought up another factor, so change that to three major factors.

I am very introverted, less now than I used to be.  Yes, before I was a virtual shut-in, inside my head, and always could never tell people anything and very slowly open up and form extremely deep friendships that have lasted decades.  Deep enough that they remember me fondly and look me up on Facebook.  Well not the ones that I told that I was attracted to, they felt I had betrayed the friendship and never want to talk to me again and there are a lot of them too.  Part of my learned introversion, don't talk about it or bad things will happen and part of my soul will leave me forever.  I learned that one too slowly, so I guess that is another factor and a pretty big one, now that I think of it.

The second factor, now the fourth, is that I am not a real man.  Bold statement, but I can explain.  Most guys have the ability to think of nothing.  They do things and they get done but there is no thinking involved.  Women do not understand this, some don't believe it, and I, to tell you the truth, don't either, because I can't do that.  Probably part of the reason I am so obsessive and why women treat me like one of them.  I also think in terms of relationships, I fall in love with people before I approach them, not that this is a female thing, it is more like a Me thing.  There is something about me that is distinctly female; I am not sure what it is, but it is something that women have told me for many years.  Women have treated me like a girlfriend, telling me about their deepest secrets, their fears and concerns; their boyfriends — length and girth, but also that fantastic date they had last night with all the details.

The most female part of me that really kills me, is that I NEED an emotional connection in sex.  I have heard, many times, many women, that sex is fun but not fantastic until they are connected emotionally to them; no orgasms until they are in love with them.  This is me.  It kills me because the people I have a connection with, whom I love, would feel betrayed if I broach sex with them, so I don't.  I don't have the social skills to ask someone who I don't have a connection with, who I feel comfortable with.  So, I don't have sex.  

This is why MPTR hurt me so much.  When I came to accept that sex was always going to be a disappointment, there was a measure of peace in my life.  With her, virtually the only time love and sex have been paired, there was joy in sex.  Clinically, there was a positive reinforcement to my obsession for the first time ever.  

So my obsession has gotten worse.  I have, at first been trying to separate my emotions from sex, unsuccessfully, by visiting professionals, prostitutes.  I have been trying to feel what I had with MPTR, More Passive Than Rain, without the emotional connection.  I can't do it.  I came back to Smallville because my obsession drove me to it.  And without it, I just want to die.  I don't love MPTR now, she drove it out of me, part of me thinks she knew what she was doing (that would be the irrational part of me) and now I am left with this constant pressure obsession, with no means to satisfy it.  I want to die.

I work 12 hour days so I am too tired think about it constantly, but it is there waiting for me.  I know that by putting it off by working too hard, I am making it worse for me when I stop working, part of me does not care who I hurt as long as it stops.

This was supposed to be a post about why I visit professionals, but now it reads like a suicide note.  I don't care anymore