That's What The Money Is For!

I stare at my inbox, flooding with crowdfunding emails. They come from restaurants, seeking aid in compensating the waitstaff. However, before the days of quarantine, isolation, and pandemic chaos, going out to dinner was a one-time, transactional experience. Perhaps it began with setting up the reservation with a hostess I knew by name, arriving early for a drink, and enjoying a steak with friends. I could slip cash to the Ma?tre D' for a nicer table, consider a high tip if waitstaff was excellent, and come back another time if I loved the experience. Once the tab was paid, the experience was filed away as a memory. But crowdfunding flips that idea on its head by suggesting that the patron pay again for an experience they’ve already had. And while I can appreciate the uniqueness of the times and understand that a charitable donation is a nice way to say thank you, I can’t help my inner Mad Men from shouting, “That’s what the money is for!”...

I can recall Don Draper yelling the line at Peggy when she tearfully points out that Don doesn’t show her enough appreciation at work. And he’s right, that is what the money is for. She had a job, did that job, and got paid. This crowdfunding phenomenon isn’t the restauranteur’s fault, and it doesn’t seem like appreciation is what they are really after here. It’s the veil in which they use to shade the desperation from the waitstaff. Restaurateurs, who are often somewhat paternal to the staff, know that the staff needs to feed their families. It’s no secret that most of them were living week to week, paycheck to paycheck pre-pandemic. But, why is the responsibility falling on the patron? And, if not the consumer, who should it fall on?

So, let’s start at the top. Currently, the White House is being put under the magnifying glass, dissected like an ill-prepared junior high science project. Government officials are racing just to keep heads above water and please everyone. Corporations want the US to reopen, while many are fearful of the repercussions. And so, like a hot potato, the responsibility of whether or not to reopen is passed to state governors. Let them take the heat.

Take Georgia for example. The Governor of Georgia, when presented with the opportunity to reopen, took it. Did he do it to save the economy? There’s an argument for that, but more than likely it’s to shirk responsibility yet again, and here’s how: While forcibly closed, restaurateurs get emergency funds to pay their staff. However, once quarantine regulations are lifted, those restaurants are now technically allowed to be in business. No matter how unsafe, they have the freedom to re-open. Emergency funds disappear. The wait staff is orphaned. So, the responsibility is on them: to open or not to open? Foot traffic will undoubtedly go down, but more than that, if they open and their staff doesn’t want to work, the waiter’s unemployment will go against the restaurant in the form of Employers Contribution. If they don’t open, they go bankrupt. Like an overcooked souffle, they’re fucked flat. Pardon the French. 

So we’ve reached this moment in time where cardboard signs and soleless shoes have gone digital, in the form of crowdfunding. And, due to the downstream responsibility, it has now fallen on the customer to decide to either spend money on an already-paid-for experience or be an asshole. We are all struggling, and it seems par for the course that the government is hoping for the good faith of consumers to float the economy. But this is just an inflatable life raft, and we’re running out of air. There are experts out there who suggest that this pandemic is going to have its nails in our backs for three years. And so, who is going to take charge then? Who is going to be the parent to this orphaned society when the liferaft is out of air? Is crowdfunding the proverbial band-aid, and if so...what was the money for?