Tipping Pros. Thoughts?

[ten ocho recon scout]

[Blarg]

My time is worth more than 15 dollars an hour so I have no problem paying someone to do what I don't want to do.

 

Reading comprehension

 

I would assume by stating your time is worth more than $15 dollars and hour that would mean a marginally greater value not a Health Care overage for the cost of a bandage kind of value. All the same your time value would have to equate to $75 dollars an hour even if you are saying you employ two maids, you still have the costs to sit on your butt and ignore some light dusting.

 

Now you could easily reduce your costs by simply getting some Old English or Murphy's Oil and do a quick swipe across those surfaces a couple times a month. That cuts one maid out of the budget for not only base rate but also that stupidly ridiculous tip for doing the job you employed them to do.

 

In a couple months you will have saved enough to buy an X-Box or PS4 and play games while your daughter vacuums the floors. After all, you are in the Mid West these days, family values and women being women, so teach her right and introduce her to domestic servitude so you can marry her off to some nice guy that won't do any housework either. You guys can play Halo together while the women make some sammiches.

[Tank]

Am I the only one who thinks $15/hour for general unskilled labor (i.e. cleaning, digging holes) is fair -- regardless of skin color?

 

i don't think $15 an hour as an entry level job is a good idea. $10 may not be enough, but $15 strikes me as too much as a starting point. my POV is that working at a job that pays minimum wage is not going to become a lifelong career unless you plan to go into some type of management position.

 

whether or not we want it to be so, we need places that sell cheaply priced food because we have people that can't afford nicer places. to jump the minimum wage of mcdonalds workers (for example) up to $15 an hour is going to eventually affect the price of their food, and that's going to impact the people who eat there regularly because it's affordable. i see the potential for financial complications with this plan to jump the minimum wage by so much.

[mp170.6]

i don't think $15 an hour as an entry level job is a good idea. $10 may not be enough, but $15 strikes me as too much as a starting point. my POV is that working at a job that pays minimum wage is not going to become a lifelong career unless you plan to go into some type of management position.

 

whether or not we want it to be so, we need places that sell cheaply priced food because we have people that can't afford nicer places. to jump the minimum wage of mcdonalds workers (for example) up to $15 an hour is going to eventually affect the price of their food, and that's going to impact the people who eat there regularly because it's affordable. i see the potential for financial complications with this plan to jump the minimum wage by so much.

 

Yeah...I said $15 for the sake of this conversation, but likely wouldn't pay that much ... unless it was some kid in the neighborhood who needed the cash, etc.

[Adam]

It takes Maria 5 hours to do something (amazingly well) it would take me 10+ hours to do (poorly). 

[1nutkruk]

Geeezzzz ... don't even get me started on landscaping prices out here! 

We are not meant to landscape here unless it is zeroscaping.  That is why it is so damn expensive.  

[nate]

I would assume by stating your time is worth more than $15 dollars and hour that would mean a marginally greater value not a Health Care overage for the cost of a bandage kind of value. All the same your time value would have to equate to $75 dollars an hour even if you are saying you employ two maids, you still have the costs to sit on your butt and ignore some light dusting.

 

Now you could easily reduce your costs by simply getting some Old English or Murphy's Oil and do a quick swipe across those surfaces a couple times a month. That cuts one maid out of the budget for not only base rate but also that stupidly ridiculous tip for doing the job you employed them to do.

 

In a couple months you will have saved enough to buy an X-Box or PS4 and play games while your daughter vacuums the floors. After all, you are in the Mid West these days, family values and women being women, so teach her right and introduce her to domestic servitude so you can marry her off to some nice guy that won't do any housework either. You guys can play Halo together while the women make some sammiches.

 

More than is infinite.

 

It isn't light dusting, its a decent sized house and as Adam said, it takes them 4 hours to do what would take me twice as much time.  Especially with my Wife and I working 60+ hours a week, having a 7 year old.  We would rather devote our time to her than spend hours polishing the floors, furniture, scrubbing the counters, etc.  We like to have a very clean house so it is absolutely worth it for us.

[mp170.6]

More than is infinite.

 

It isn't light dusting, its a decent sized house and as Adam said, it takes them 4 hours to do what would take me twice as much time.  Especially with my Wife and I working 60+ hours a week, having a 7 year old.  We would rather devote our time to her than spend hours polishing the floors, furniture, scrubbing the counters, etc.  We like to have a very clean house so it is absolutely worth it for us.

 

Are you saying your time is worth infinitely more than $15/hour? 

[nate]

Since I didn't say that... no

[mp170.6]

More than is infinite.

 

What then does this mean?

[Blarg]

More than $75 per hour plus tips.

[mp170.6]

Something tells me Nate doesn't make near the kind of cash he's implying. 

[nate]

What then does this mean?

 

It means more than can be 1 or it can be 1 million.  He had reading comprehension fail.

 

Also since when does spending 300 a month on cleaners mean you make a ton of cash?

[nate]

For some reason I am going to explain this further...

 

Last year both my wife and I got promoted, which is nice but it also meant we started working 10+ hour days.  We found that after working, cooking dinner, cleaning up dinner, helping my daughter with homework, girl scouts, chess club, sports, laundry, yard work, etc we didn't have any time to do anything on weekdays so my wife and I would spend a few hours every weekend doing cleaning dusting etc and we would have very little time to do stuff with my daughter so we tried hiring cleaners.  After trying a couple different services we found a good one and have stuck with it.  All in all we probably broke even $ wise with the cleaners and the promotions but that is a small sacrifice.

 

So to answer your stupid fixation with what I said, I absolutely consider the extra hours I have to spend with my daughter every month worth the 300 a month for the cleaners.

Edited January 15, 2015 by nate

[Blarg]

One of you should quit working so you can attend to the parenting and housecleaning chores.

[mp170.6]

Your time must not be very valuable if both you and your wife work 60+ hours a week.  I doubt you're being paid overtime for that. 

 

Between the two of you, that's the equivalent of one free 40-hour employee you're giving them.

[Blarg]

They should quit their jobs and go into the house cleaning business, those people rake in Wisconsin.

[nate]

Your time must not be very valuable if both you and your wife work 60+ hours a week.  I doubt you're being paid overtime for that. 

 

Between the two of you, that's the equivalent of one free 40-hour employee you're giving them.

 

With that frame of mind you must not be very successful.

 

When you put in the time, you are rewarded.  I don't get paid for overtime in the traditional way, I get paid in promotions.

 

Cals, I am sure the women that do it are only getting paid 15 dollars an hour.  The service probably takes the rest.

[wopphil]

i don't think $15 an hour as an entry level job is a good idea. $10 may not be enough, but $15 strikes me as too much as a starting point. my POV is that working at a job that pays minimum wage is not going to become a lifelong career unless you plan to go into some type of management position.

whether or not we want it to be so, we need places that sell cheaply priced food because we have people that can't afford nicer places. to jump the minimum wage of mcdonalds workers (for example) up to $15 an hour is going to eventually affect the price of their food, and that's going to impact the people who eat there regularly because it's affordable. i see the potential for financial complications with this plan to jump the minimum wage by so much.

Well said Tank, but I'd add that raising minimum wage to $15 per hour wouldn't "eventually affect" the price of the food, it would immediately affect the price. Policy-makers conveniently forget that basic economic fact.

[wopphil]

For some reason I am going to explain this further...

Last year both my wife and I got promoted, which is nice but it also meant we started working 10+ hour days. We found that after working, cooking dinner, cleaning up dinner, helping my daughter with homework, girl scouts, chess club, sports, laundry, yard work, etc we didn't have any time to do anything on weekdays so my wife and I would spend a few hours every weekend doing cleaning dusting etc and we would have very little time to do stuff with my daughter so we tried hiring cleaners. After trying a couple different services we found a good one and have stuck with it. All in all we probably broke even $ wise with the cleaners and the promotions but that is a small sacrifice.

So to answer your stupid fixation with what I said, I absolutely consider the extra hours I have to spend with my daughter every month worth the 300 a month for the cleaners.

Money well spent, IMO. You will never get that time with your daughter back. Edited January 15, 2015 by wopphil

[ten ocho recon scout]

Money well spent, IMO. You will never get that time with your daughter back.

my parents were clean freaks, and made us kids clean the house with them bootcamp style every weekend.....so, two birds.

[mp170.6]

With that frame of mind you must not be very successful.

 

When you put in the time, you are rewarded.  I don't get paid for overtime in the traditional way, I get paid in promotions.

 

Cals, I am sure the women that do it are only getting paid 15 dollars an hour.  The service probably takes the rest.

 

Think about this Nate. 

 

I'll assume you worked 40 hours/week before your promotion.  You are now working 60 hours, which amounts to working hour increase of 50%.  Did your promotion result in a monetary raise exceeding 50% of your old wage?  If not, you're being paid less to do more work, with more responsibilities.  That's the opposite of a promotion.  You've been cheated.

 

Besides, I thought this was about spending more time with your kid, not being successful in your career. 

[Ochocinco!]

Well this thread has taken a quick turn

[Brandon]

Yeah, MP needs to stfu with whatever crusade he's on.

Who gives a **** that Nate has cleaners and values his time to pay someone to do it.

Seems petty to harp on it.

[nate]

Think about this Nate. 

 

I'll assume you worked 40 hours/week before your promotion.  You are now working 60 hours, which amounts to working hour increase of 50%.  Did your promotion result in a monetary raise exceeding 50% of your old wage?  If not, you're being paid less to do more work, with more responsibilities.  That's the opposite of a promotion.  You've been cheated.

 

Besides, I thought this was about spending more time with your kid, not being successful in your career. 

 

Last I will post on this.  In the long run my success directly impacts my daughter's future, paying and supporting her through college, leaving her an inheritance, affording her some luxuries like studying abroad, going to out of state tournaments, etc.  I could have stuck around in an entry level job making 35k a year and getting OT on occasion or I can move up and make more money, earn a better retirement, etc.  It has been years since I was actually paid OT.

 

I honestly don't know why you got a stick up your ass in the first place.  Because I would rather spend time with my family than clean and I can do it if I spend 300 a month?

 

Anyway Adam/Brandon/Geoff/etc this thread gave me the motivation to check out some other services to see how much they would charge and almost all of them are more, in fact a lot more.  They offer more for the price, but nothing costs significantly less.  I guess that is a benefit to So Cal, cheaper labor.  The only time I ever hired cleaners in So Cal was when I moved and had to clean the old place.  Does seem like it was cheaper.