My kids did NOT like getting trophies for things unless they won something. Dd just got rid of all her soccer trophies except for placing at state or winning district or winning a big event. My son really only kept his Superbowl trophy and a couple where they came in second. The rest are gone. Medals have been kept for placing in big events but not for just participating. They both felt it was a waste. They liked getting a cup or a bag or something else for participation, things they could use and get rid of when they wore out. They were both very competitive kids and minimalists (unlike their mom). It was ok when others got things and they didn’t. I do think that most improved is a nice award, (my D likes that one too). They both could not tolerate the leagues where everyone played and everyone got a trophy and it didn’t matter what they did. Now, do I think there is a place for that? Yes. There are kids that need that type of a team and thrive on them. Just not mine. So how has all that turned out? S is high achiever, great grades, super respectful, etc. D not so much but is super kind hearted, caring and respectful and very inclusive. She loves the underdog! But in sports she still plays adult league competitive soccer and plays to win!
Don’t get me wrong, competition has its place. However, not everything is a competition, and not even most things are competitions.
The problem is that not only are schools teaching kids that everything is a competition, but that winning is the only important thing. That is how you get parents calling colleges anonymously to tell lies about the other kids. Because, after all, since winning is the most important thing, it does not matter how it is achieved.
Moreover, the more disadvantaged a person perceives themselves to be, the more likely they are to cross that line. The more entitles that a person is, the more likely they are to cross the line. In the USA (and maybe elsewhere), we have a group of people in the high SES who have both of those characteristics, which breeds things like Varsity Blues.
We do not get them, as some people have claimed, because “everybody gets a prize”, we get them because we have privileged the wealthy in every aspect of our lives. If a parent is wealthy, powerful, and loud, their kid get a A, even if they did B or C work, their kid is chosen for the team. Their kid gets to compete with better equipment, better conditions, better everything. The get so used to have an undeserved advantage that they come to believe that the advantage is deserved.
They truly believe that they have no advantages at all. As we say today - they are privileged, but are blind to their privilege, often willfully so.
What has been said here is true - when everybody gets a prize, it ceases to have much value (which I think is the best reason). A kid for whom a prize is a meaningless concept won’t cheat in order to get one. Parents who don’t care that their kid gets a prize will not bribe admissions officers and SAT proctors to “win” the “prize” of admissions to an “elite” college.
Fast food restaurants are generally not based on a tip system, and it is not expected. McDonald’s actually prohibits workers from getting tips.
At other food places, though, the salary that the server is getting is often less than half of what their basic labor is worth. So, if pouring a cup of coffee and giving it to you takes 5 minutes, and minimum wage is $7.25 (ridiculous), the server’s work is worth, at very least 61¢. There are servers who are working for as little as $2.30 an hour, so they are getting 20¢ for their time. They need that tip just to hit minimum wage.
Of course a server’s work is worth far more than $7.25 an hour, but then again, it should take a server no more than two minutes to pour you a coffee and hand it to you.
On edit - to circle back to “prizes for all”, I think that it is, in general, a good thing for prizes to be worthless. Then, perhaps, kids will do thing for the reward of doing them and doing them well.
If everything is a competition, nothing is worth anything unless one can “win” a prize doing it, and anything that a kid does which does not win a prize is a waste of time.
That’s exactly what we see here - parents and kids saying that everything they did in the previous 17 years of their life was worthless, since it did not help them “win the prize” of admissions to an “elite” college.
More and more the fast food industry has tip jars or places on the cc machine to add a tip. In Denver, minimum wage is $15/hr. We have a pizza place near us that was take out only during most of covid but had returned with a dine in option. When covid started, they added a $2+ take out charge, plus raised their prices. Now a pizza is around $25. It’s good, but expensive. I just don’t think I need to add another $5 for a tip. If I ate in, of course I would but I assume the $2 charge wouldn’t be there.
My daughter works at Starbucks and she absolutely expects tips. She makes $17/hr, and double that on Thanksgiving and Christmas, when the tips are the best. I just think that paying $6 for a cup of coffee is enough. She, raised in the ‘trophies for everyone’ era, expects the tips. She used to work at Moe’s (taco place) and expected tips. Worked on a ranch and got tips for giving horseback tours.
I’m doing tutoring at a school right now, and today the kids asked me if I could ‘do points.’ Many of the teachers give points for behavior, straight lines, helping clean up, attendance, etc., and even for their classroom work (which to me is expected as that’s why they are in school) and then the kids trade in the points for prizes or treats (playing video games). A lot of the prizes are food (candy, pizza parties, donuts). Back in my day…we probably got one party or treat at the end of the year, but these kids expect them every week, for everything they do at school. They eat breakfast and lunch in their classrooms and you’d think they’d be responsible for cleaning up, but they expect points for cleaning up (and they do a pretty poor job of it if you ask me - there is trash all over the school and it drives me crazy). I have a reward planned for the day before the holiday break, but it’s not based on points or whether they completed the lessons. That’s expected.
While that sounds great in theory, it simply doesn’t correspond to real world behavior. Humans are competitive creatures, always looking for an advantage in social status compared to their peers. As H.L. Mencken said, “Wealth is any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of your wife’s sister’s husband.”
When objective measures of comparison are discarded or are no longer distinguishing (for example you can’t demonstrate your superiority by being wealthy enough to own a cellphone, unlike 25 years ago), social status becomes based on other factors. Hence the prevalence of luxury beliefs, which are costly and/or inaccessible to the lower classes (Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class—A Status Update).
You talk about the unearned privilege of wealth. By eliminating privilege based on objective achievement, whether through prizes for all or by abolishing testing, class acceleration, etc, you simply reinforce unearned privileges as the primary means of achieving social superiority.
For some that may be through buying their way into an elite education, for others it becomes about trying to secure advantages for themselves or their children in other unearned ways, eg quotas for someone with a particular set of characteristics. None of that seems likely to lead to better or “fairer” outcomes, whatever that means.
A work year has 2010 hours. 2080 X $15 = $31,200 per year. That puts them in the bottom 25% by individual income, and about 2X the poverty line for somebody living alone.
After taxes, that is around $26,000. Average fair rent Colorado is around $700 a month for a room on a shared house. Say another $50 a month for utilities. Another $270 a month for healthcare. That leaves them with $13, 760 a year. Then there is car upkeep, and delivery people pay for most of their own gas. So another $1,000 or so.
Of course, if their car breaks down and costs $1,000 in repairs, that is out of pocket. If some A-hole decides to play games with pizza delivery, that comes out of the driver’s pocket.
Since their health insurance is usually the cheapest, they better hope that they do not need new glasses, a filling, or the gods forbid, fall down and break a bone. That will cost them.
All that assumes that they are able to work full time. Often there is not enough work, and they work a lot less than 2,080 hour a year.
These people are living at the edge, and are one small bit of bad luck from not being able to pay the rent and being evicted.
I’m sorry about that extra $2.00, but it’s not going to the delivery people.
I’m not sure that many people realize just how little a minimum wage of $15.00 an hour actually is, especially in jobs that have no benefits and no overtime.
That is pop psychology, based on old outdated ideas in sociology. It belongs in the trash along with “man the hunter”, and “the killer ape”. It is maintained by people in positions of power who benefit from keeping employees is a state of competition with each other, and makes sure that they spend all their extra time and energy making each other miserable, instead of paying attention to the shenanigans of the upper executives. If the peons are too busy trying to compete against each other, they will not be able to do anything about the fact that their pay is being cut, while the top management are getting raises and bonuses.
Humans are, first and foremost, cooperative animals. The average human will prefer to have a beer with somebody than to fight with them. They would rather work with their coworker than compete with them.
If humans were primarily competitive, humans would have been extinct a long time ago.
Most competition is at the level of groups. A group of cooperating individuals compete against a different group of cooperating individuals. It is not individual against individual. people often like seeing competitions, but they do not really care if it is between people animals, or robots.
Humans are also, weirdly, very likely to behave in a manner that they are told is “the right way”, whether it is “natural” or not. How else do we have celibate priesthood in one of the largest religions in the world?
If you tell people that the right way to behave is to compete, they will do so, whether they like it or not, whether it is “natural” or not. So if you tell them that they should compete, they will, even if it makes them unhappy.
OK, move on, please.
Amen - drives me crazy in so many settings. The tips for doing their job at a take out place or for take out service (as a kid I worked as a dishwasher, a cook, a waiter. Waiter (or server) was paid far below minimum wage but earned tips and we would give a percentage of those tips to the rest of the staff as the team made the overall dining experience (clean table, good food, good service, etc.) The customer wasn’t paying a cashier a tip for doing his/her job. My wife is a school teacher and so many of her colleagues use a similar point system. She tells me stories and I want to scream. Johnny and Suzie get treats for sitting in the chair, doing their work, and behaving in an acceptable fashion. What? That is, or should be, the expectation. Rewards should be given for far exceeding expectations. She does it differently. Has a point system but uses it as an incentive to get the normal stuff like recess. “If you do all you’re supposed to, you get to have recess. If not, you only get half or none. You see your friends out there. That could be you if you learn to act accordingly.” Sounds old school but is always one of the most requested teachers. Unfortunately, she would tell you that so many of the kids are raised in the award for doing what’s expected environment. It’s like they’re parents just don’t want to do the hard work of disciplining their kids and have set the wrong examples prior to school. And it gets reinforced with all the participation trophies. When they were young, our kids would ask us what they get if they do X (chores related). I would always jokingly respond that they get to live in our house. They got the message pretty quickly. t
When S played baseball in HS he had an immediate culture shock. A. Having to make the team (which he did because he was good), B. Having to fight for his position every day. C. Valuable lesson that doing what’s expected and even surpassing doesn’t guarantee you anything, but not doing so almost guarantees failure (like not playing, having a lousy team, etc.) He thrived in that setting (not a cutthroat kid AT ALL) and was ultimately named captain (2 yrs) and learned the fun was about always trying his best, putting in tons of extra time and effort, etc. Still had to fight for his spot all the time and would have disappointing days when he was scratched from the lineup. That would drive him to improve.
I realize not everyone gets motivated that way.
Most kids realize participation trophies are meaningless as I’ve stated before. I certainly don’t think they are responsible for perceived deficits among young people. If you want to worry about something, how about the snowplow parenting that is ubiquitous among upper middle class parents or the pressure kids feel to perform (resulting in record levels of mental health issues, including suicide). My kiddo tells me that cheating is rampant in HS because kids are terrified of losing the 4.0. God forbid junior has to settle for old State U instead of HYPSM - where will he find his intellectual peers!?!
In this case, the $2 isn’t going to the delivery people at all. The $2 was for ME picking up the pizza, just an extra charge. If I wanted it delivered, there was another charge of about $7. Before covid, pizza was about $17, and as I said it is now about $25.
What do you think minimum wage should be?
The prices of everything around here have really gone up since minimum wage went up. Groceries, day care, eating out. It’s killing people on fixed income, like my mother on SS. She doesn’t make anything close to $31k per year. No one is giving her trophies. The aprox. $100/mo increase she’ll get in January will not come close to closing the gap in price increases.
My daughter does pretty well by your calculations. She makes about $17/hr but only works about 24 hours per week (she’s in grad school). Her rent is $400/mo. including utilities. She gets health insurance (and a $1300/mo stipend) thru the school for being a TA. She pays about $100 in car insurance and probably another $100 in gas (even though she doesn’t go anywhere). Lives in Wyoming so no state income tax. She does have above average expenses for winter clothing.
Yes, the lower income labor class is being pitted against the lower income retiree (probably dependent on Social Security and/or family and charity) class here, while the trophies mostly go to the upper capitalist class, as shown by the Wall Street party (stock market indices and the like).
Amen to that! We never considered rewarding D22 for any housework done - if we adopted that system, imagine how much D22 would need to pay her mom for all of the “extras” done for her!
If trophies for kids are equivalent to tips for hotel/restaurant workers, then I guess I’m all in. I like to assist people who are working for a living, esp when they are paid so little. We tip everywhere (fast food, maids, etc, included) and tip well. No regrets at all. I’m happy they’re making meals and/or cleaning up and I don’t have to. We make a heck of a lot more than they do on any given day, so it’s no loss to us.
When I train ponies (very much like young kids), I find rewards to be far better at giving them sane minds than punishment. Punishment is reserved for very bad/dangerous behavior. When it’s reserved for that they know it’s meaningful instead of just something expected that happens daily (or weekly) and they will not do that behavior again. Giving a carrot for good behavior creates a willing team member who is eager to see what they can do to please their human next.
One does have to draw the line at giving carrots for every little thing, esp once the behavior has been learned, but for actual learning, treats beat punishment (or nothing) most of the time.
Trophies are like carrots to me. I can see a point system working out well with young children. It would beat punishment as a general teaching system, with punishment reserved for something really bad that you don’t want to happen again.
I see nothing at all wrong with raising happy kids - or having happy adults who can pay their bills if they are working for a living.
Just because something has “always been done in the past” doesn’t mean it’s the best way to get desired behavior.
Enough that a person shouldn’t have to choose between critical medical care, eating, and living indoors in January.
So because the very wealthy have paid politicians to cut their taxes even more, while cutting your mother’s SS benefits, you want to punish the poorest people?
Seriously, you should focus your anger on the people who are making millions off of for-profit medical insurance companies, tax cuts for the very wealthiest, environmental destruction that the public then has to pay for cleaning up, etc, etc, etc.
Instead, you seem to choose to get angry at people who just want to have salaries that pay enough be able to eat, live indoors, and get basic medical treatment.
If people making upwards of $1,000,000 a year would be paying their share of taxes, your mother would be able to afford more. If the USA didn’t have the atrocity of for-profit medical insurance, medical costs for everybody would be much much lower. If the USA didn’t have an economy in which the highest paid executives are awarded even as their companies layoff hundred of lower-paid employees, we wouldn’t have so many people who are trying to raise a family at minimum wage.
I am sorry, but your ire is misdirected.
The only people who are getting “participation prizes” in the USA are top executives who get multimillion dollar bonuses whether they bring added value to their company or not.
It’s not ‘my ire’ at all, just stating a fact. If you set minimum wage at $30/hr, your McD hamburger would cost $10. The $15 min. wage is only in Denver (and other cities that chose to raise it, like Boulder). If I want to pay less for a Starbucks or McDonald’s hamburger, I can just go a few blocks away to a store in a different city where the min wage is lower and the prices are lower. My mother gets the same SS (which has’t been cut, just not raised to keep up with inflation) whether she buys a hamburger in Denver or in a neighboring county.
I have the option to drive to a different city or county and pay less (sales tax is less too) but not everyone can do that. I do it for big ticket items because the prices make it worth it, but I do notice it on the small items like a Starbucks coffee might be $5.20 in Denver but only $4.95 just a mile away. Some of that is minimum wage, some of it is sales tax. In Vail, that’s probably an $8 coffee just because it’s Vail and people are willing to pay it.
I think it costs $8 in Vail because at $15/hour you cannot run a restaurant-- you’d have zero workers- because of the high cost of housing. And if someone (most everyone in the service sector) cannot afford to live near Vail, they are commuting long distances so the hourly wage reflects the employees higher costs to get to work.
Where are people supposed to live when they get priced out of a resort community?
Calculate your gas cost in there. I’m amazed by the number of people who will drive to the next town (here that’s 10 miles away) to save 10 cents/gallon on gas. Most vehicles take a max of 15-25 gallons. That’s $1.50-$2.50 savings IF they fill up from nothing, but they forget that it took them a gallon to get there and back (or whatever part of a gallon - or more for trucks) - each gallon here now costs $3.55 (there $3.45). They’re saving nothing. They’re likely paying more and that’s without considering time and wear/tear on the vehicle.
I’d still rather pay more for something and have workers paid decently than support subsidies because they aren’t.
Thank you!
If you want to discuss tips or hourly wages, please start a new thread.
Just my two cents, but I think the tips/wages expectations came directly from the trophies for everyone idea and fits on this thread - esp since the thread is in the cafe. IRL cafe conversations aren’t always kept super close to the line (like one might want about a specific college discussion).