Hey, what's up with Roy Wood Jr. Now it's time to go beyond the scenes. Now, how can I explain this podcast? You know when you go to a restaurant and you go there and you get the meal and it's a wonderful meal, and then at the front counter as you're leaving, they have that little bowl of peppermints or those little the green chocolate, the chocolate that tastes like a man. They got that right, and you grab on it those or a toothpick on the way out the door. That's what this podcast is. This podcast is the daily shows toothpick and Peppermint. You got the regular daily show and then you have us here going beyond the scenes, which is exactly what we're about to do this week. Today, we're talking about why restaurant workers are not running back to their jobs and some of the issues within their industry. Here's the clip. The pandemic gave restaurant workers a chance to reinvent themselves, choosing to leave for what they believe are better situations. Following pandemic shutdowns, when workers have been forced into over drive coronavirus exposing industry flaws, restaurant workers are considered essential workers, but we're not treated like essential workers. There's definitely issues with wages. I think there's issues with childcare. I think there's issues with benefits, health insurance. You're having worked like fifty plus hours a week, and it's just it's still not enough to pay your bills and to be able to take care of your family and people. It makes complete sense that restaurant workers are looking for better jobs, right because these are tough jobs. They're on their feet all day, they take care of everyone, they pretend not to hear when you guys are breaking up at the table, and after all of that, they have to rely on tips. I mean, you know a job isn't paying enough when every meal ends with a mini go fund me. Later, we're gonna be joined by two Daily Show staffers who helped bring this segment to light on the show. But first, it's my pleasure to welcome Potma loksh Me onto the program. And you know, pod her ear is to the street. If it's anybody knows who knows what chefs and restaurant tours are going through right now, it's Podma. He's the creator and host of Hulu's Taste the Nation. She's the host and executive producer of Bravo's Top Chef. That's an Emmy winning program. By the way, she's also most recently a published children's author, Tomatoes for Nila. We're gonna talk to her a little bit about that. She's also a best selling Arthur. You know her from her previous books, her memoir Love Loss and What We Ate and the Encyclopedia of Spices and Herbs Podma. First of all, thank you for being here. Thank you for going beyond the scenes with me. I hope I didn't share too much in the introduction, but I think it's important for people to know that you're not just hosting and executive producing and creating opportunities for marginalized communities, but also you do a dope ass comedy show benefit fundraiser that sometimes you book me on, and I'm very appreciative of that as well, in addition to the you know, children's books and best selling you know, authorship and all of that stuff. Thank you. I love having you on our comedy shows. You are always one of the highlights, even for the digital one, which you know it was a hitting miss and everybody was like trying to do something good yours was so fucking funny. I laughed my ass up. I was like, thank you with Junior, who always knocks it out of the park. So it is I who am privileged to have you on my little comedy show, sir. And I'm gonna play that snippet back from my mother who always has critiques for my joke. She loves taste the Nation And now on this particular episode, you know we're talking about, you know, the way COVID is kind of really torn apart. A lot of the restaurant industry and the workers that are still there are dealing with all types of wage issues, mistreatment from customers. You are someone that is often in conversation with a lot of chefs that run these types of establishments. In your opinion right now, what is the biggest what is what are some of the bigger issues facing the restaurant industry. I think labor is a huge issue. It's not as easy as people think to make a that in the restaurant business. To begin with, at the best of times, the margins are incredibly low, and most restaurants are paying the invoices from forty five days ago with the money they're making this week. And so you can see how almost instantaneously a restaurant would be behind if they didn't have deep pockets or really great investors who could afford to float them, because all you have to do is be shut down for a week or two in order to be in debt. And what people don't understand is that in order to offer you a menu of even just ten items and five apps, appetizers and three desserts, which doesn't seem like a lot, right um, they have to have all those groceries ready so that when you decide between the filet mignon and the chicken fricacy, they don't know what you're gonna pick. They have to have everything ready to make all of the things, and those things are perishable. So there are so many material costs aside from the fixed costs of restaurants just to run um in a positive, thriving economy. One of the reasons is because you know, the labor system in restaurants is really messed up. First of all, it's manual labors. It's very grilling work. You know, whether your server on the floor or your dishwasher, or you are a sous chef or just a line cook. All of it is difficult. The hours are terrible, which is another reason, not the only reason, that it really discourages women from taking leadership positions. You know, it's hard to have a family and be in the restaurant business. I do believe that restaurants will have to rethink how they do business. You know, a few years ago, Danny Meyer try to raise his prices a little bit in order not to have the whole tipping situation, and and you know, people really resisted that from both sides of the restaurant, both the customers as well as some of the wait staff, because not everybody shares their tips and things like that. So it's really really hard. And beyond the restaurant industry right now, what I am hearing is that everybody is having trouble finding help because nobody is really willing to put themselves on the line for what, you know, me or handful of dollars an hour if they're lucky. You can't give buye on that. You can't buy um a sandwich at the same place your Hacken sandwiches, you know, with what you get paid. I mean, I know, it's not just restaurants, it's even fast casual places. That are serving ice cream or boba. You know, these kind of high turnover places where you know, in the summer they were able to get by with um with with teenage help. There's so much. The other thing that I think that people forget about with this job is that food service, to a large degree, it was already, in my opinion, on the border and I was a server for four or five years. Golden Corral shown these Hello Baskin Robbins as well, but it was already borderlining on being thankless, and now it is for sure a thankless job. And I've seen you know, you've seen the stuff on social media with the owners basically putting signs in the window at their establishments. Hey, before you come in here, just know with short staff, shut your mouth for doing the best we can. So how a restaurant owners able to balance being fair and equitable to their employees while at the same time trying to meet the customers needs. I think what's going on also is that the whole economy is down and a lot of people are out of work, so they don't have as much as visible income to go out to eat, and then when they do go out to eat, they want more than ever they always did, but now they want even more value for their dollar. So you know, they want the cheapest pizza, the biggest size, the most amount of toppings, and they want it all with a smile, and and and they want it fast. Americans are conditioned to want, especially their food items. It's really weird. They're not willing to pay more for quality food. That's why I want to and they want it fast. They want to cheat. Milk needs to be much more than it is, otherwise you're going to get all this milk with all these antibiotics and this factory farming. You know, the customer decides. And I always try and educate people who don't understand the food business to say, you know, really, do you want that extra dollar fifty off of your pizza if you know that the person and making that pizza can't even send his kid to the doctor, Like you don't want that? Come on, now, you know, um, pay a couple more dollars for your food, like it's your body is precious, you want to put good food in it. I really wish that there was a larger conversation in this country just about portion size. Like I'm at a point now where if you send me too much food, I get annoyed. I'm like, who is eating this much of Like it's more for the show and the presentation of it, but I'm still going to take some of this home and probably not even eat it there. Like, I think the average person who's never worked food service doesn't understand everything that you've reticulated thus far. How do we get people to better understand the inner workings of the economics of all of this, Like are members of the culinary community are they speaking out about this? Like, how do we get more people because they kind of understand it? With nurses and doctors, I think they you know, we went outside and clapped for them at seven o'clock, Remember the good old days of kind of polite Yes I do, Yes, I do. It wasn't that long ago. How do we build that same bridge? It's hard. I mean, I think one of the things you have to do is you have to do you have to follow around a couple of servers, you know, at different levels of restaurants, at the top tier, at a family owned restaurant, at a chain restaurant, at you know, one of these Michel and starred restaurants, and really spend a day in the life of a kitchen and a server in a professional food establishment to really know and to film all of the food waste. Like when all those plates come back, you know from the dining room, you should just look at them, and you should look at them when they go out. You should look at them when you just have the camera pan in and out. You guys should do it on the Dyer Show. It's really it's crazy how much food wasted it there is. You know, two questions before we go to the break. Number one, let's talk a little bit about women's equity in the restaurant industry. And and you know we talk about inclusion in the larger conversation. And you know, ever since twenty we've been having a dialogue in this moment, in this unprecedented time. What are some flat out black and white things that can happen in the restaurant industry to make it more equitable for women workers. Yeah, we're all conscious now, but you know we're conscious in our speech. I don't know if we're if we're conscious yet in our actions. Well, I'll tell you one thing. First of all, there needs to be a better division of labor just in the hours. You know, you can't because restaurants are busy when the whole world is at meal time, you need to share the hours more equitably. The person who is distributing the hours to all the employees is usually a man, because they're usually a person of power at that restaurant. You know, even all these beautiful restaurants, these fancy restaurants in New York, often they'll have a male, a white male chef at the head. But you go and you look into any kitchen in any of these restaurants, and you will see that the whole kitchen is brown or black, okay for there's and they come in waves, like for a long time they were Mexican, then they were Bungladeshi, then they were Nigerian, you know. So so they're always immigrants. And the women often get the shaft because again it is manual labor. So women do get discriminated against because they are automatically assumed not physically qualified to do the manual labor of of kitchen work. But honestly, on top chef, when you once in a while you'll hear me say that a dish is so delicious and so beautiful, and presentation that it's almost feminine. I mean that in a compliment, you know, as a compliment, because it is true that women have more sensitive palates than men do. Um. And while yes, men have broot strength, it is also true that women have more endurance and tire less or tire later. Um. So I think that the first order of business is to look at the hours and make the hours a lot more family friendly for both men and women in the kitchen. And the other way is to make sure that the division of those hours, who's getting those hours, who's getting the busy shifts so they can you know, make the most tips or whatever as as service staff is also being distributed equitably. And you know a lot of a lot of big restaurateurs are also giving family time leave. Um. And you do have kitchens that are you know, also completely run by women. I don't know if it still is now, but I know up until a couple of years ago, you know, um cosme in New York was all female run kitchens. So it is possible it is happening, but it has been a real old boys club, um, no joke. Like, there's no industry other than maybe the military, that is more male dominated than the food industry, and yet most of the food in the world is prepared by women. It's only the professional food world that is dominated by men. What can a food loving person like me do to help other than being at tipper? What can I do? What can I do? Like do I order more food and my more kind? Like I've always weird now when I go to restaurants now post COVID where I give a profect example. I was just in San Francisco. I took myself up for breakfast on a Saturday morning, and I think on Saturday morning to read the paper, and you know, I read the paper and enjoy my coffee after my meal, and then I look up and there's like there's got a be at least fifteen people waiting on a table, and I'm like, oh my god, I can't sit here anymore like the old days. I have to get the hell out of here. Like does that help eat as fast as possible to increase table turnover? How can us the food consumer? What can we do to help restaurant workers just to make their experience better? Between now and clearly a lot of what you're talking about when needs laws. So between now and the laws, what can we do. We really do need laws. Um. I think you're doing great first of all by tipping as much as you are. That is really generous. I think you know understanding that people are staffed very poorly right now, Um, being clear, you know one thing. I mean. I was a server too when I was in school, and I think it's a great job for everyone. It teaches you such life skills and patients and empathy. I think everyone should have a job in the service industry at least for six months or a year of their lives as the young person, because it teaches you a lot of humility, you know. Um. I used to work at a pizzeria and there was a guy who came in every Monday and he would pay me in quarter rolls and dime rolls and stuff. And he always came alone. It's a big, large white man. He ordered a large pizza and a salad and a diet coke. Um, And that pizza had everything but the kitchen sink in it, I remember. And he would always pay and I'd be like, oh God, here we go again. I'd be cashing out at the end of the night. I couldn't even keep his tips in my apron because they would just weigh me down. So so you know, forget the coins. Um if you have them, uh tip, well make your reservation and keep it. And yes you know dot Also do not go with five people and give them four credit cards. Figure that ship out on your own before you go and say, all right, who's going to pay? Who has to go to the A t M. Because you're just creating havoc. He's going to have to divide that stuff run for credit cards. It's insane and stupid. And I think all those little things are are what you know you can do as a consumer. And also, yes, don't stay there for two hours or if you do, just you know, there is no harm in sending a message or or if you speak to someone when you're making reservations, say listen, I really want a leisurely, um slow lunch. When should I come in when you're not that busy? I don't want to stress you out? How cool would that be if you did that? Because also ps, the experience would be better for you because the restaurant wouldn't be as crowded, if your server would have more bandwidth to pay attention to you. You know, all of those things you can ask and find out restaurants are more than happy to give you that information. Well, you have given me more than enough of your time. I Taste the Nation holiday addition comes back to Hulu on November four. If I'm not mistaken, and you have a children's book, I want to hear about that. Tomatoes for Nila. Yes, Tomatoes for Nila. It just came out. This is based on a story I used to tell my daughter about when fruits and vegetables grew in what season, because it just occurred to me. If your kid doesn't live near um, you know, an orchard or a farm, they don't know when anything grows. Because in our land of plenty, everything is always available because it gets flown in or whatever. And I wanted her to have a connection to mother nature, understand that we should only eat certain fruits and vegetables when they're in season, not only because they're more tasty, but because they're better for you. The book is all about that, and the characters have brown skin because when I was growing up and when I first was buying books for my daughter, all the books just had white people in it. And you know, I turned out okay. But it's also nice to see all different kinds of skin colors and complexions in children's book characters, and so um this is all. This book is also for all the brown folks out there who are trying to show their kids that there's more than one kind of ideal um in narrative for children. Well, Tomatoes for Nila is on bookshelves now. Until you have an episode of Top Chef where you allow chefs to just only make hot dogs, I guess I'll have to wait to see you at another comedy show or another comedy benefit. You are always welcome on any of my sets anytime. Just let me know. And as soon as you know all these different viruses and variants go away, we'll do another comedy show and you will be our first invite. Rest assured, well, I love your old friend. Very good to see you again. Thank you so much for going beyond the scenes with me. Take care of roid, be well, be safe. Thank you for having me take care. After the break, we're going to go beyond the scenes with the Daily Show producer and researcher who had a hand in creating this segment. We're talking about restaurant workers and why they are not coming back to work. Will y'all, let come back to work. Please beyond the scenes. Welcome back. Thank you to Pat Malakshmi for that wonderful, wonderful first segment. We want to go beyond the scenes now and continue to discuss this topic of restaurant workers. First with Daily Show producer Madeline Coon's Madeline, how are you doing? Welcome back? I think this is what your second third time going beyond but oh my god, second second, hopefully, hopefully there's another one. Good to see you. Okay, your your neck and neck with c J. Hunt, and we're gonna pair you up now with the first timer. She is a researcher and a wonderful, wonderful stand up comedian Stephanie. Oh hello, I've been good, are you? Roy had no complaints, no complaints. It's it's weird when it's somebody you know, but the first time you see him his own zoom in a year, Yeah, yeah, so weird, but glad to be here all the same. So before we get into the origins of where this piece came from, and you know, and for the listeners who are kind of new to the podcast, I'm sure the die hearts already know this, but you know, stories come up a lot of different ways. Sometimes it's something in the news, sometimes it's with personal experience. And this one, I believe YouTube have experience. YouTube have both been in the trenches of food service. Oh yeah, absolutely, all right, Matelie, We'll start with you, Madeline Rundown. Run down your pedigree. What's all your When did you get metals in? Where did you earn your strengths. So I started in the service industry when I was sixteen, and I stayed for about, you know, on and off for ten years. It's something that you can always go back to, like it's always there. So I always feel like, you know, on one hand, you know, you always have like your service resume and then maybe you're like doing something else, but you can always go back to it and build it. And I did wait your scene for a long time. I was for the most part, I was a barista, so I worked with like in cafes making coffee, you know, being in there at early hours in the morning. So um, I'd like to sleep in now, that's like my favorite thing. I just don't like to get on the train at four thirty and like go and open up anything. So I was just like, I will sleep till noon, and I don't feel bad about that, but yeah, coffee shops for a long time, Stephanie. What about you, what what's your what food service branch that you served? Yeah? For me, it started probably, I guess I would say in college. I worked UM at the university's catering company. So it was like doing weddings, alumni events, um for carrying all of it, um, any sort of convention that was being held at the college I went to. All of the time. He was doing like the salad fork, the shrimp for dinner. Yeah, just like so many people and personalities and personalities that I was serving silverware and personalities. That's what I was circle exactly exist exactly all of that. Yeah, So I started with that, which was a nightmare. And then when I got out of college, I worked actually at a movie theater that served food in the theater, so you had to like it was just like a full service restaurant, but you had to take orders while people were like watching a movie or if they wanted to refill of a drink. It's like at the climax of the movie, they'd like pause you to be like hold on one second, let me just let me just see what's gonna happen in this moment and then you get to take the order. So it was a nightmare, a complete nightmare. Yeah. So in this segment, Madeline, I'll start with you walk me through the inception. What were you all hoping to achieve with this segment? Yeah, So it was something that had been on my mind for a long time. Also because um and I think like Padma touched on this really well, like in the last in the previous part of this where just you know, there was the restaurant worker industry has just been hit so hard in the pandemic, and like I think we've all been very lucky being able to like work from home, and you know for some people, like there was never like a shutdown. You know a lot of people lost their jobs, but there never really was a shutdown, and like kind of seeing how that you know, impacted just this like like massive industry that I think we all have, you know, either worked in and but we all rely on. And so then in May what was happening was there there was just this you know, businesses were trying to hire people, but again, like workers didn't want to go back because like a lot of times it wasn't safe, and they were getting paid a lot, right, We're treating them like essential workers and they were not. I mean, they were working as essential workers and we weren't treating them as So it was just one of these like news narratives of like big restaurants like McDonald's and Applebee's like struggling because like they're they're like lazy, entitled workers are like spending their unemployment checks and like you know, just like sitting at home, like taking care of their children, Like how dear them? Like you know, like restaurant workers were the Goliath and like Applebee's is the David, you know, And it was just like what is this? So um I talked to like my boss about it, and he was just like yeah, Trevor's already really interested in this, and so that like really made it easy to like kind of get deeper into the argument and like say, like what is behind this? Like where does this come from? And like this is when I knew that the restaurant industry was struggling. This is when I knew of some ship going on. McDonald's was offering free iPhones and then Applebee's was offering free appetizers just for the interview. Just just come a man, you ain't even got to work it, dog, I'll just give you cheese st if you just come and pretend you want to work here. But I was, Okay, something's going on, and I think, now, is it a Chick fil a that's offerings tuition? Like there's a couple of spots that are like, we'll even sing you to college. They're offering all these things, which honestly, I think they should just be offering the whole time. But they just this is like a perk. And I was like, health insurance is like a perk of a job. Like it's framed in this It's like, we're gonna sell you on this terrible job by giving you benefits you should have had that wouldn't have made it terrible in the first place. I would apply that, and I would apply and get an iPhone though, like I would just I was like where I was like taking. I was like, where is that roy, I'll go get an iPhone Depending on the app. I would apply at Applebee's too. It just depends, you know. I was like, yeah, I'll come in. What are we counting as an app? That's his link? Chicken I might, I might, I might apply. Not only would I go to Applebee's for a free job application appetizer, I'd take my girl with me and say it's a dating. We're dating on a budget. You pretend to need a job to let's both be quiet, get paid real quick, and be like, oh roy back again. Like you see these people subjected, people being the service industry workers being subjected to so much nasty behavior from customers, and the videos go viral of people going behind the counter to make their own burger or some anti mask, or yelling at a woman who's just enforcing her company's policy, not her own politics. What are some of the horror stories stepping I'll start with you. What are some of the horror stories that you've had working in the service industry? Oh? My goodness. Just from the I would say the basic thing is just the interactions, just microaggressions and interactions cultural microaggressions, read racism, um, just different things asking me where I'm from, um to yeah, yeah exactly, but we're really from exactly because of course I'm lying UM. I would also say, just like attitudes. Basic attitudes is like you're at a wedding, You're here to celebrate someone's Okay, why is your attitude so stank? I don't understand, like what you're asking me to bring you water? Why do you have to be so rude about it. I'll bring you water, Like it just doesn't make any sense. Just somebody bringing your food. You want this water is gonna be someth nails and make might be bleached, might be saliva. Let's I've heard some things from servers before. I literally have heard a servers say, uh, this person didn't tip me. I should have spit in their water. So you would think with that in the sort of discussion of like what happens in service industry, sometimes not justifying it, that people would have better attitudes. But Madeleine, I know you've messed up somebody's macho latte espresso and then they come back in, Hey, hey woman, you didn't put as the two percent milk and you give me one per cent milk. I asked for eight pumps of caramel, Like you're just like, Hi, why do you want that much? Um? Yeah, I mean definitely like yes to what Stephanie is talking about. I think there's just like people get like drunk on power, Like there's like the sense of entitlement if you're behind the counter, that they're just like I can treat you like however I want, and like there's like this, I don't know. I kind of think of it as like horror customer horror stories and I have like employer horror stories. So I don't know what like which one do you want? Well? I think both, because you know, the employers are just as bad. And this is something we didn't have time to get into with the PADMA, but you know, there's definitely a very odd militaristic mindset within food service, like do whatever it takes, stay all night, and like I remember, I give you a perfect example. When I work to go to corral. The busy day was Saturdays for Florida State home games, so if order to stay had a home game, we opened at seven thirty for breakfast. The line starts at six, so you have the big busses and the tour groups coming. Your shift is over with it too, I'm off it too, I'm off are you? Your last table is set at one in your section. You relinquish your section at one. You start sidework at one thirty. Any table that's still there after two, you can give to the server that inherited your section, or you can wait patiently for your tip at the break room. But while you're waiting in that like one thirty to two o'clock range where you're technically off the floor, a bus could come and then they'll go, oh, you gotta get back out on the floor. And if you don't do that, then you're not a team player. And then next week you're not working Saturdays at all, and Saturdays a money day because Florida States in town, so they'll take you. So it's those little, like you said, those microaggressions and these little passive I am a shift leader and I have ever been in charge of people, So I'm gonna hate you. You deal with that type of ship all the time, like and those are the things that really made that job hard. I mean, honestly, at least the customers, you don't know what they're going through. But you're my coworker, dog, You're supposed to support me like that to me is more damaging to the morale of you know, a food worker is having to deal with bullshit from your boss or from your supervisor, from you know, just other coworkers in general, especially from the perspective if it's like your supervisor, because you're you're not telling me that I can't leave when my shift is over, but you're implying that me leaving when my shift is over is going to prevent me getting those hours next time, or it's going to be making more money exactly, or it's indicative of my work ethic. When I've worked my shift, it's over, I should be able to go without feeling any sort of animus from you or any sort of guilt for taking my take, reclaiming my time. That's what I'm doing. I'm reclaiming my time and I shouldn't have to feel guilty about that. But it is what is. But with the customer, they're gone. You may never see that person again. So it's worse when it's your boss, I think. I definitely think so. Yeah. I think that's a huge aspect of just like these unwritten rules or like you know, there are laws, but there's like these spaces between them, so it's like, well, you had a shift, but you need to show up. Um, okay, So my my horror story quickly of just one thing that would happen, And I think Roy, you hit on this really well of just how long it takes, like when you come in, Like so like if you open a coffee shop, like sometimes like people are like out there like dawn of the dead, like you know, like banging on the windows, like like they want coffee and you're just like, we have no coffee yet. It's my thirty and we open it six and they're like can we just come in? And You're like, no, you cannot. So like on Saturdays, you know, for example, like you'd be busy all day. You're busy before you open, right, and so if you're you know, so if you're on the closing shift, and like you know, like you have to set up things for the people who are coming in, right, So closing is like a huge I have to clean, Like you have to clean the bathrooms, which all cafes are like public bathrooms because we don't have bathrooms in this country. Prep has to be stopped and done and ready clean. You got a mop, like you have to do everything. Yeah, we stock because like there's a new shift coming in at five thirtyes. So what my old so at this coffee shop which I will not name, but my bosses who owned the coffee shop, they would make us fill out our time sheets ahead of time, which is called wage what. Yeah, So they would be like, it's going to take your fifteen minutes to close on Saturday. I was like, it will never take me because people are in here until we close. Yes, So like they would like they would like be like, this is how you're going to work, right, And I was like no, but they would like make us fill it out. So they were like, this is how much we want you to work. Those are the things about food service that people don't know about. So how do we how do we get people to know more about? Like what are some other things that you think people like? I'll give you one. I wish that more people knew the amount of work a server has to do with the end of their shift. When you're someone like I feel a certain feeling of guilt when I know I'm someone's last table, like so much so to the point that I'll even close out, Like if I know I'm gonna be here another fifteen minutes, Hey man, just bring me the check now, an alcohol so you can go your free. You don't have an open check in the dining room that you're waiting on it, Like there's just these certain things that add more time to these people's lives that I just don't think. You know, a lot of people give a second thought to. Like I try my best not to go to any fast food restaurant that's thirty minutes from closing if you're within that, Like the first thing I'll ask before I order is what time do you close? What are some things, Matteline, what are some things that you wish the general public knew about this this life? In this world? I mean, this is like really hard work. And I know you guys talked about a little bit, but like, I think something that drives me crazy is just like the language that we have around service industry work in general, Like we call it like low skilled or unskilled, like we five all these like pejorative terms that we use when we talk about this work. I mean kind of like what I mentioned, Like it's like you have two resumes because people don't recognize the work you do in the service industry as like legitimate or like something that is on par with something that you would do in a different place. And I look, not all skills are transferable, but like you know, I'll say, like I'm better at my job that I do now because I worked in the service industry because like, definitely like what you were saying. I was like, you're like a diplomat, you know, you were a therapist to people, Like you were dealing with a lot of different people and like a very changing, fast changing environment and you have to think on your feet, you know. I agree with you. Med's about particularly about the skill sets that come out of restaurant worker, like working in the service industry in general. Um, the personalities alone on the front and the back end, like dealing with your management and dealing with customers. That will prepare you to work anywhere in corporate America. Literally you can work if you can go with the wide array of crazy personalities. You are prepared to work on Wall Street, like you can do it. You can absolutely do it because half the battle in corporate America our personality. So you you've already got a really good soft skill. Okay, not to mention mathematics. You have to people, what's what's why are you asking me to calculate the tim I mean, you know, don't you have a smartphone? Like all of these little things that are soft skills that can be applied to other things. People underestimate when they look at someone's resume and they see that, oh, they worked at McDonald's, which I think is probably the gates of hell in terms of service industry. Just one other thing to add to that too. It's just like, I don't want to sound like a dictator, but I'm also just like, we need a law that everyone has to work in the service industry, like for a year, like like you know, I mean, like that should be your gap year between high school and college. Be there for a year. I think we would have a lot better policies if people actually had to be treated by something like Bill and I want to like, I want to bind you can't even run for office if you haven't done it. If you haven't, yeh. Make it a requirement like not the military, mixed service, and just through the requirement to me, the two disciplines are food service, food retail or outdoors like food retailer. Those three will build character beyond your years. We've covered a lot right here, which leads me to a question that I want to ask you after the break, which is what stuff did not make it into this segment. Don't answer it now because we have to play commercials going beyond the scenes. We'll be right back now. You all were two of the brain trust of this segment. So, Madeline, how much do you think minimum wage plays into Oh my god, because with all of the issues surrounding why workers aren't going back, It could be COVID, it could be customers want to punch you, but it also could just be straight up there no benefits. How much do you think the wage itself and the lack of you know, a lot of states are still to thirteen or to whatever, still in the two dollar bracket. How much do you think that plays into a lot of the issues that the restaurants are having and getting workers back in the doors. Oh my god, I mean so many, because I know that there's been a push. I know what one failed. But like if you like, think of to thirteen, like think of how much or not how much money that is, Like you can't it's not h you know, we we talk a lot about jobs that you don't we talk. We spend less time talking about like you know, like the quality of those jobs. It's like, as long as you have a job, it's fine. But these are not I mean, these are just like not living wages like that that I mean these are and I know that, like Trevor had said it in the piece of just like these are starvation wages, right, these are not. And you know to your point about like there's you know, there's this whole range of ages is in the restaurant in service industry. It's just like I think part of what I found really interesting looking into this piece and like um researching this piece, you know, with staff, was that you really it felt like a mini like mythbusting of like what the actual restaurant worker is because like I mean, it was like there's like fourteen million people currently in the restaurant industry. It's it's a majority women workforce. Like you know, half of the moms, they are single mothers. I think the median age is close to thirty. Like these are adults. Like we're not talking about teens, you know, mowing the lawn or like working at a Sunday you know, ice cream shop to like over the summer. Like these are people who this is their job and this is their career. And the fact that we're not willing to set a min like a minimum wage or like have people like excluded from other like legal protections because they're in a certain industry is just so wild. And then that's where we get the people who And I think that's part of what the servers being paid less in minimum wage. I think it's part of what feels the sense of empowerment from a customer who can look at you and go, well, you're not getting a tip? Mr, Yeah, I'm gonna went hold my chip. What do you think about that way? Who? Like I remember a guy I don't. I don't know if any of you all have a not getting what's the worst? What's the worst tip? You'm the worst tip? I was working at Shawnees and I think I got a dollar on a thirty top. It was a bus and I think like I got like maybe a dollar and maybe two dollars or whatever, like whatever was left. Like let's say the bill was like one eight, Like the bill was one seventy eight fourteen, and they left one eight in cash or it's something like that, right. But I remember one time feeling so vindicated. We had a co worker. I can't say which restaurant, but his name was Glenn. That is his real legal because I didn't named the restaurant out. He knows roy it was one of those Florida State Saturdays, and fucking Glenn had like an eight top and they didn't leave him nothing, and this motherfucker ran. Glenn ran out to the parking lot on the gass and stood behind the car while they was trying to back out their parking space with his hand out, just like this is all kinds of wrong. This is like every servers in the window like, wow, he really did it because he went out there, held his hand out and they tipped him. I'm really happy for Glenn. Yeah, he should have been fired, but he was just he was such a great server. I just don't think they could afford to lose him. That's the other thing that we didn't even have time to get into is how much people as at runt owner, you can't really even afford to fire anybody right now. So you kind of got a little bit like if you were serving, now's the time to slap the shot out of a customer, if you really Yeah, because like he's an analogy for what has happened with these restaurants offering all these things. He what he did is what what is happening. It's what's happening now. So I here stuck their hand out and said pay up, you can do it. They obviously could dip to go back. Just the thought that I had on my head to go back to the too thirteen that Mad's was talking about. I just think that's such an important point because, um, if you think about it, it's you'd be hard pressed to find places in the United States where you can get gas for two dollars and thirteen cents to drive to that job that is just paying two dollars and thirteen cents an hour. So I hope that gives people some perspective, and I think that's the thing that often is forgotten is that by the customers that people were making to thirteen an hour, the least you can do is tip. Yeah, at a time where you know people are still pushing for fifteen an hour, but until that time, minimum wages still that same funky as seven dollars that has been since fucking Bush. But that's a conversation for another day, right. So Lastly, this segment as a whole, as a whole could have gone a lot of different directions with regards to restaurants, from the pay structure to the gender and equality and harassment, the way immigration and the way immigrants are treated in illegals and green card to the lack of benefits childcare. What were some of the things that you hoped there was room for in the segment that you weren't able to get to. It's not that we didn't mention this, but again, it's like I think sometimes when we're like in our department, just like, let's make it a twenty minute segment, they're like, you can not do that, like the length of the show. But I you know that because of because of how women are impacted by the industry and how many women are in it, like it would have and especially how much sexual harassment specifically of women in the service industry has just skyrocketed during the pandemic, and how they're affected by like things like child care of like people can't go back to work because you know, who's going to watch their kids, so like things like that. It would have I definitely would have wanted to spend like, you know, more time on if we would have had, if we would have had the room to to talk about them, because sexual harassment is so pervasive, and I think, you know, we don't. Again, it goes back into that entitlement of like you know, so often servers, like you said, like they're in it's like they're invisible or they're like overly visible, right, but they're never people who are just at their jobs. One of the things that really stuck out to me when we were researching this piece is just how often, especially again for female servers, is that, um I would say, for the most part, men would ask them to take their masks off when they're working so they you know, like see them smile, right, And it's just like, so you like, if you have to do that to get your tip, if you have to endanger your life to get your tip, like you know, that's that's shocking, you know, it's it's just awful. So yeah, just so like just keep it on, like just but again, it puts women in an impossible situation in this industry that is already like already just like rife with you know a lot of inequities. So I just need to do a whole episode of just All the Ship women go a whole months, just a whole year of episodes of just All this Ship a whole two years. I wish I had more time to speak with you all about this but I think we'll have to stop the discussion here because uh, I think my food delivery service just arrived with food. And thank you all for going behind the scenes with me, ladies, and I can't wait to have you back on another episode. Thank you, Roy. That's all the time we have for today, but hopefully we've taken you beyond the scenes. If you like the podcast, rate and review us. Please and review it. I'm just rate and review us. What is it? Just review? I should? It don't matter, you know what I meant. Just do it. Please respectfully. Listen to The Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.