7 Tips to Improve Your Pay in the Service Industry

According to Time magazine, the majority of the jobs created in the recovery period since the recession have been low-wage service industry jobs. So, while in years past, these jobs were a mere transitional phase before moving on to a career track position, it may now be time to make the best of this new low-paying reality by attempting to improve your compensation--or saying fuck it all and becoming a pirate.

Negotiate a Raise in Salary

It can be extremely daunting to ask for a raise in a service sector job. Since the positions are considered low-skill, you are often seen by your employer as replaceable. The unfortunate reality is that the economy has left a large pool of job seekers, and your employer has no legal restrictions to prevent them from terminating you once you reveal your dissatisfaction. You could well be fired for asking for a raise.

Or: You could be frigging a pirate because who’s going to fire you? The God damn ocean?

Ask for Paid Days Off

This is another situation where workers are extremely vulnerable. The majority of low-wage workers, roughly eighty percent, do not accumulate sick days or time off. As a result, when the exigencies of life emerge--whether you yourself are sick, or a family member is sick--you can legally be fired for failing to come to work. Further, as many of these workers are living paycheck to paycheck, missing work may push them over the brink into economic failure. There are, as yet, only four states which guarantee workers paid sick leave. Four states and one whole ocean. You sick? Need some time off? You’re on a pirate ship. Just chill. You’re still going wherever the hell you were going. It’s a damn boat.

Apply for Government Aid

According to a report from the University of California at Berkley, tax payers spend around 152 billion dollars subsidizing low-wage workers through programs like food stamps and Medicaid. This effectively means that employers who pay low wages are shifting the burden of supporting their employees onto the American tax payer. This is despite many of these laborers working 40-hour weeks. It is an unfortunate situation, as no worker wants to be in the position of having to accept government money... unless it’s the Spanish government with its fat galleons loaded with doubloons ripe for the taking, boys!

Demand a Better Title

If your boss won’t budge on your base pay or benefits, asking for a better title is a way of preparing your resume for the next step in your career. You could go from "shelf stocker" to "logistics manager," or from "line chef" to "executive chef," or from "dog walker" to "animal service technician," or from any of these bullshit jobs to "Captain," sir.

Make a Case for Transportation Reimbursement

When your take-home pay is hovering just above minimum wage, paying for transportation to and from work (and, depending on your position, transportation during the work day) can drive your net pay down below what you can effectively live on. In medium- to high-paying jobs, it is not uncommon for employers to pay for an employee’s public transportation or gas. However, when you ask your service industry boss to reimburse your travel, you will often be met with the same claims of limited means used to defer other possible compensations.

Not a problem if your fuel is God. Damn. Wind. Though.

Avoid Being Young, Female or a Minority

These are the demographics most often trapped in a cycle of low-wage work. One of the most effective ways to break out of a cycle of low wage work is a cannon.

Create Unions for Low-Wage Workers

The creation of unions for low-wage workers might go a long way towards addressing the basic problems that they face, such as having to put their jobs in peril when they ask for a raise or time off, or having to pay a significant fraction of what they make getting to and from work, or discrimination based on gender, age or ethnicity. Perhaps prices for goods and services would increase, but it would be because they were no longer being kept artificially low by a system of exploitation. Heck, Americans might have to start treating things like going to a place where they curate, prepare, and literally bring you your food as a luxury. But it would mean that the people preparing and bringing it might occasionally be able to afford to eat it, as well. Or. OR. And hear me out on this. We keel haul some assholes.

James Freetly performs with Snapdragon every Saturday night in the DeMaat as part of the Severn Darden Graduate Program. He makes up spooky tales with The Improvised Twilight Zone Wednesdays at the Annoyance and spooky tweets @JHFreetly.