Categories
Uncategorized

Am I in the wrong line of business?

As a programmer I make a decent living. But it seems like I make a pittance compared to certain kinds of labor that you don’t even need a high-school education to perform. Case 1: Barber I went to get a haircut today. The first place I went to charged $17. So I walked across the […]

As a programmer I make a decent living. But it seems like I make a pittance compared to certain kinds of labor that you don’t even need a high-school education to perform.

Case 1:
Barber
I went to get a haircut today. The first place I went to charged $17. So I walked across the street to this place with “Salon” in the name, as if that made it any different from any place that cut your hair. They charged

  • $28 for a junior haircutter
  • $35 for an experienced haircutter
  • $40 for a senior haircutter

Plus tip of course.

Lets give them the benefit of the doubt and say that a haircut takes half an hour. The senior haircutter then makes $80 an hour (plus tip). A 15% tip adds $12 to that. Lets say that the store takes half of that $80. That’s still $40 + $12 = $52 an hour which is pretty damn good considering you don’t even need a high school education to be a barber.
Hourly Wage: $52

Case 2:
Waiter
I took my wife to a fancy restaurant for our annivesary. The meal came out to be about $150 and we didn’t order wine. We took about 45 minutes but to make the math easy make it an hour (for cleaning the table and crap). There were 8 people total serviced from this waiter, including us. Assuming the average customer spends $75 on food, that’s $600 an hour on food. The wine there was between $50 and $200 per person. We didn’t order wine but the other 6 did. Assuming they each spent $75 on average on wine that’s 6 * 75 = $450. So the restaurant takes in $1050 an hour per waiter. If the waiter gets 15% of that as tip that’s $157.5 untaxed income, plus whatever their usual salary is!
Hourly Wage: $157.50 + salary.

Case 3:
Rental agents
When I was in Germany my wife and I were looking for apartments. We had a rental agent (the company got her) with us who did the following:

  • Unlock the door
  • Tell us about the apartment
  • Stand there for 15 minutes while we looked around

The apartment seemed OK. When asked the price, the agent responded something to the effect of “$800 a month, utilities included. [Pause] Plus my fee.”
Me: “Um… Fee? How much is the fee?”
Her: “2 months rent.”
Me: “So you mean $1600???”
Her: “Yes.”

Counting everything everything we spent about 40 minutes there. But to make the math easy lets make it an hour to count for incidental time incurred.
Hourly Wage: $1600

Case 4:
Real Estate Agent
This one isn’t by the hour so much as it is by the house – usually 6% of the selling price. Around here the average selling price is $750,000. That’s $45,000! I’ve read that they sometimes lower the commision rate after the first $100,000. So to give them the benefit of the doubt, lets make it $30,000. Lets say you are a discriminating client and look at 50 houses before buying one. Each house takes 1 hour to show around.
Hourly Wage: $600

Lawyers and recruiters are also overpaid according to the work they do but at least you need an education for that. These are all uneducated semi-skilled jobs, which shouldn’t pay more than $20 an hour at most.

One reply on “Am I in the wrong line of business?”

Wow. Where the heck did you learn math? Not even close to reality. Or was this intended as humor?

The barber & the waiter – primary income = tips. Majority of eateries not in the stratosphere of prices. Most barbers and waiters, if they are lucky, get minimum wage plust tips.

The rent and real estate agents: Total income = commissions. Your assumption that you are the only person they showed an apartment or house is absurd. They show to many many people before a sale is made and put in lots of time. In good real estate markets they may sell with fewer showings, in bad real estate times, many more. Unless the agent also owns the company, they get a very small percentage of a percentage of the sale or rental fee. Most goes back to the company.

Hopefully your posting was not intended as serious and my explanations were not needed. Otherwise, please try doing some checking next time.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *