You’re right about how the wealthy and entitled treat people with disposable jobs as disposable people.

We don’t have to accept and normalize the abuse though. Maybe when a man says to a waitress, “what are you going to sing?” the waitress says,

“ you start and maybe I’ll join in.”

or “ I’m not. I’ll give you 5 or 10 more minutes to decide on your order" and walks away.

or just ignores him and turns to the most senior woman at the table, lavishes her with attention and asks her for their order.

or just stands there looking at him until he becomes uncomfortable. My daughter is impressively good at this technique. She’s literally made it her thing.

Little push backs go a long way and they slowly work on a population similar to masks in a pandemic. They won’t keep you from the possibility of abusive behavior from entitled people, but they’ll help protect the next person because the abuser will pause before trying the same ploys. Eventually, like with masks, you reduce the overall spread of abusive behavior.

After all, it’s only funny when they don’t lose anything by behaving this way, when they’re not the one who’s being laughed at, when they don’t get booed by the audience instead of applause, when they don’t lose face by being an ass.

I don’t bring this up to diminish another fine article and this is not victim blaming or whataboutism etc.

My point is that it might be worthwhile to consider a two pronged strategy. In addition to continuing the fight for $15 minimum wage at the federal level, maybe pushing back against abusive customer behavior has a place. In the end, will it be harder to deny an increase to minimum wage when the people who work these jobs en masse demand basic human respect for themselves and the jobs/services they perform? Won’t increasing the value of these jobs and people on a societal level help lead to an increased and tangible economic valuation of these people and jobs?