Life from a different perspective...

This past month I have been working for my dad in Tennessee.  He sort of inherited a pizza place about two months ago from my step-brother.  I have been helping do the accounting (which is work I have done before) and also have made/delivered pizzas, done the dishes, and participated in business owner type discussions.  After working this type of job and seeing the other workers around me work hard as well I have a new respect for the hard work of "labor" throughout history.  However, I am somewhat disturbed by the way I have been tipped working as a deliverer of the fine good known as pizza.

I have found that the only really good tippers are the middle class.  The upper class, while usually giving a tip, do not seem to give anything above what they deem their social requirement is (as most of us citizens of the US know it is 10%).  When I deliver to a poorer house I am generally ecstatic to get anything since I fully understand how big of a deal eating out must be for them.  It is understandable, but I even get a sense from them that they do the best they can.  So for the most part, I am disturbed that those that seem to have the most in abundance do their very best to keep as much as they can to themselves.  While it makes *sense* that this is the case (you do not really get rich by being generous to others in a market economy - seeing as your profit is extracted from surplus from the work of others...I believe nobody has ever gotten rich purely on their own talents except for sports/media stars and artists but even they have a whole industry surrounding them giving a portion others' work to them), it puts a damper on the human experience to know that for economic disparity to begin to dissipate this type of attitude must be somehow counteracted.

However, there is one gleaming ray of hope.  The hope I see comes from both those at the bottom and those in the middle class.  To me they get it.  They know that we're all in it together.  Even though technology has continued to separate human face to face interaction through the phone, internet, television, and even the simple letter, there are still some people that inherently understand the social connectedness that civilization requires.  This is the thought that continues to give me hope.  To see people continue to work hard and struggle even though life is hard.  This gives me hope.  Seeing this struggle makes me believe that along with further education that we really can make the world into a better and more fair experience.  I think that if people who believe that others do not try and simply live passively would spend some time with these workers they would see how hard they really are working to make life work.  Anyone coming from a home with a single mother would truly understand the struggle of survival.  While there are obviously no easy answers to life, the more time we spend with each other, see each other, and understand each other the better we can truly make progress as society.