The Mindful Marketplace with Joel Skene

Redefining Service Work Value in a Transforming Housing Market

• Joel Skene / Jen Hampton

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Discover what happens when strategic investments meet social transformation as we sit down with Jen Hampton from Asheville Food and Beverage United. We're taking a hard look at the post-pandemic surge in bicycle travel and why our cities need to catch up. But it's not all about the eco-friendly ride; we're also peeling back the layers on private equity's grab on single-family homes—how might this affect you and the housing market at large? From discussing global economic pressures to offering practical debt elimination strategies, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the balance between financial savvy and social conscience.

Ever considered the true worth of a smile you receive from a waiter or the effort behind your barista's 'good morning'? This episode taps into the emotional labor and undervalued dignity within the service industry. We're talking about the reality behind the façade service workers maintain the unpredictability of tipping, and the stagnant wages that leave many counting coins rather than paychecks. With legislative waves beginning to recognize the importance of these roles, we're highlighting why it's high time to re-evaluate and redefine what it means to work in service—with real stories from the front lines.

Change is brewing for service workers, and this pandemic has poured us a new cup of appreciation for these essential roles. We'll explore the transformation in societal views on tipping, tracing back to discriminatory roots and moving toward a world where the resilience and value of service staff are undisputed. With employers and patrons alike waking up to the worth of frontline service, the industry is reimagining its norms to prioritize dignity and efficiency. Make sure to join us again as we continue our conversation with Jen Hampton and take a closer look at the actions of Asheville Food and Beverage United in fostering these necessary changes.

https://sites.google.com/view/avlfbu/home
https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2023/11/15/asheville-food-beverage-united-becomes-labor-union-seeks-members/71583224007/

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Joel:

What if investing in each other could change the world? I'm Joel Skeen with bizradious and this is the.

Joel:

Mindful Marketplace industry leaders, investors and economic experts who are questioning the assumption that there's only one bottom line and who are not only solving a market problem to make a profit, but also solving a social problem to make an impact. It's where we learn how to connect our money and our businesses to our values, our community and ourselves. Today, I'm really excited to get to be talking with Jen Hampton of the Asheville Food and Beverage United with Jen Hampton of the Asheville Food and Beverage United. But first we got to hit the balance sheet the assets, liabilities, debts and investments. So in the assets column, I want to talk about the new urban order report on improvements in transportation. So, with the debate between remote work and back to office continues. One interesting but often missed part of the discussion is how bicycle usage remains up since 2019 and has stabilized at about 37% more trips than before the pandemic. It's a huge increase, no doubt in part to the acceleration by the growth of e-bikes during that same period. What should cities make of this data? I think they should lean into this trend and do everything possible to preserve the gains in biking. What should cities make of this data? I think they should lean into this trend and do everything possible to preserve the gains in biking. Too few cities are doing either of those things. Honestly, the benefits of walking and biking are incredibly well documented. Not only is it a zero carbon mode of transportation, but it's a benefit to people's health and their mental health, and it can promote the economy. Moreover, since walking and biking benefits everyone, from young children to senior citizens, from rich to poor commuter tourist, it is an equitable strategy. But big picture discussions about the direction of our cities rarely acknowledge that there are increasing barriers to people walking, like the rise of delivery or remote work and the decline of transit. Rather than focus on trying to manage delivery and remote work, what if cities put all their energy into making walking and biking irresistible? A radically different and better cities could emerge All right in the liabilities column.

Joel:

So I need to talk a little bit about private equity buying single family homes. So I don't know about you guys, but have you ever looked at the housing prices right now and wondered who exactly is buying these places? Well, it turns out that it may not be your neighbors, or even wealthy individuals moving to town. It may actually be Wall Street. The average worker in America only makes about $4,000 more a year now than they did back in 2000. But in those same 20 years, the average American home price has risen from an average cost of $168,000 up to a whopping $424,000. And in that same time, the average rent has gone from about $600 a month to over $1,200 a month. Renters now make up a much larger share of the housing market, and the average family spends 40% of their income just on housing alone. Funds like BlackRock and Vanguard, who both manage over a trillion dollars in assets, have been buying up not just apartment buildings and complexes, but single-family homes and becoming multinational conglomerate landlords. According to the MetLife Investment Management, unless laws are passed to restrict rent-seeking by these hedge funds and private equity groups, who already have an outsized control of US business, institutional investors may control 40% of single-family rental homes by 2030.

Joel:

All right, in the debts column. So I normally talk about the problem of debt here in America, either as a country or as individuals, but today I also want to point out what's happening with debt internationally. So the global economy continues to grapple with the lingering effects of historically high interest rates, particularly impacting some of the world's poorest countries. This phenomenon is a consequence of worldwide tightening campaigns that appear to be concluding. The aftermath is being keenly felt by low-income countries as global interest rates surge, making it more challenging to manage and pay off debt. Drawing comparisons to the debt crisis of the 1980s, the World Bank's chief economist has expressed concerns about the potential for these countries to face increasing difficulties if interest rates remain elevated. Over the past three years, there have been 18 sovereign countries defaulting on their loans, surpassing the total defaults from the previous two decades combined. Notable countries include Ghana, zambia, sri Lanka and, with Ethiopia potentially facing a similar situation. The ratio of external debt to gross national income remains historically high, particularly for the poorest nations, leading to an even higher interest payments for these poor, exploited countries. This trend is diverting resources away from essential sectors such as education, health and infrastructure, ultimately hindering economic growth and disproportionately impacting vulnerable communities.

Joel:

If you are trying to pay off your own debt, I want to remind you that the Mindful Marketplace is providing all of our listeners with a free, customized report on how to best eliminate personal and business debt, based on your unique situation. Lots of families and businesses are using this report to eliminate all of their debt, including mortgages, in nine years or less, without spending additional money. So get free from debt by going to mindfulmarketplaceshowcom money. So get free from debt by going to mindfulmarketplaceshowcom and in the investments column. So I am really excited and proud to announce that the Mindful Marketplace here is partnering with Kevin Jones of Neighborhood Economics and Michael Schuman of the Main Street Journal.

Joel:

Along with the American Independent Business Alliance and the National Coalition for Community Capital, we are going to be doing a twice-a-month webinar highlighting a different new innovative investment fund. Each webinar Funds are going to include innovative housing solutions, community-focused commercial real estate, entrepreneurship as a path to generational wealth for marginalized communities, and shared business ownership and employee ownership in all its forms. So the American Independent Business Alliance, the National Coalition for Community Capital, nc3, along with Michael Schumann's Main Street Journal, are all partners in this work that bridges race class zip codes to engage all groups repairing their local economies. So follow the Mindful Marketplace show on YouTube to plug into those live events. All right, I am excited now to get to spend some time here with Jen Hampton from the Asheville Food and Beverage United. Jen, thank you so much for joining us on the show. We're happy to have you.

Jen :

Oh, I'm so excited to be here. This is a unique opportunity to talk about food and beverage workers.

Joel:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited because I just saw there was a new news article about the work you're doing in the Citizen Times. There has been a lot of movement and kind of energy around this recently, but I guess I think it'd be good for us to start out a little more broadly. You know, a lot of us know that our economy has we've heard this all the time right that our economy has moved from a manufacturing economy to a service worker economy and more and more people in the workforce are doing service work jobs. I'm wondering have you done service work yourself? How did this become a passion for you?

Jen :

Oh yeah, I have worked in the service industry for 31 years, 17 of those years right here in Asheville in various restaurants and cafes, so I have a lot of experience. Up until just earlier this year, working in restaurants and cafes and it became a passion for me because basically during the pandemic, I started seeing that all of the issues I had internalized as my own fault you know, I had made this decision or that choice or you know whatever that led to low wages and no health care and all that stuff. I thought that was all my fault. But when I started talking to other workers I realized that it was systemic and that we were all facing these issues and that really fired me up to want to do something about it.

Joel:

Yeah, absolutely. What is it like, for I mean, you've been in that industry for so long what is it actually like day to day when it comes to either the work that's being done, the way that you know you kind of interact with your bosses, or your clients and customers, or, I guess you know, on the we can get into the pay side of things. There's a lot of things we could talk about, but I guess you know what stands out to you as most kind of indicative of the experience of working in the service industry.

Jen :

You know I've thought a lot about that, so I'm glad you asked me that question. There's this really strong tie in the community of, especially, you know, food service workers and other like retail and stuff where you deal with customers because something happens in. You know the interactions with people when it's a customer and service provider. You know interaction and we get to see, as service workers, a different side of people. You know, we get to see them in their downtime, when they're not in their professional setting, you know, and it's just really interesting kind of insight and perspective on a different side of society. Basically, and since we all deal with it, you know there's a sense of camaraderie, like you know we've been in the battlefield together because we've seen some stuff, we've heard some stuff and you know it's just like wow, you know, and so we you don't really understand it unless you've been through it and you know it's just it really fosters a sense of community.

Jen :

Yeah, I would say that that's the biggest thing that stands out to me and it also depends on, like where and what your customer base is and you want to have, like genuine interactions with customers. But you have to put up this wall, you have to put on this face. You know your customer service face, your customer service voice, because so much of your personality and the way you present yourself, especially for people who get tips, you know you're dependent on people responding well to those interactions for your living, you know. So it's also that kind of power dynamic where you understand that they have the power the customer does, because if they're not happy with the service you provide, or you know the smiles that you give, then you don't get paid.

Joel:

Basically, yeah, I was only in restaurants for maybe six, eight months, but I definitely remember that being the case and I remember a good friend and mentor of mine later in life who came from he started as a bus boy, worked his way up to GM of a you know of a corporate chain, and I remember he said that it always felt like, um, that in that work you are kind of the front line and you are working with people who a lot of times they sort of feel hopeless and powerless sometimes in their own lives and they feel like they've maybe been sort of talked down to or treated poorly in a certain way by either their boss or by something else.

Joel:

And so he's like you're interacting with the people the one time where they kind of feel like they have a little bit of power, and you know, and so he always, just, you know, suggested that we keep that in mind in doing the work we had on Amanda Claypool back last summer and she had a fascinating story where she went ahead and she actually took a job.

Joel:

She's a writer and a consultant and she had heard so much about this talk, about, you know, the lack of workers, lack of workers, that there was a labor shortage and so she wanted to find out kind of what it was about and she went ahead and took a job waiting tables at Waffle House. She said it could have been any corporate chain you could have she could have taken. It would have been about the same experience, but that was where she ended up. But that was where she ended up and she talked about just the economics and kind of just how much she really broke down the details of what it actually costs to be a worker and what it costs to work for tips. Could you speak a little bit about that, about the experience of service workers and who are full-time doing this as their full-time work but are working based on that tipped income?

Jen :

Yeah, it can be taxing emotionally because you're always having to present this fake self, you know, and just kind of take whatever people say to you and just kind of let it try to wash over you because you can't react, you know. So you do have to just keep a smile on and just internalize those things. So it can be really stressful. I remember thinking many times that it just didn't feel good to be selling my smiles. Basically, and after my last job working in Biltmore Village at a bakery there, or my last front of the house job, I should say I just vowed that I couldn't deal with it anymore. It was just too much.

Jen :

And the stress of it is is that you never know, even if you give your best service to people, they may not tip, you know, or they may not tip adequately, and you can end up having to actually pay to be serving them, because if they don't tip you at least 20%, then you're still getting taxed on what 20% of your sales would be. So you're actually losing money sometimes. So it was just a constant struggle, you know. And then if you don't get tipped, well, you know, I would internalize it and feel like I was a bad person, that I wasn't nice enough, that I did something wrong, and you know just that that really stands out to me is what affected me the most as a front of the house tipped worker was just having to rely on on that system as my source of income and feeling pretty powerless for that reason.

Joel:

Yeah, because tipped workers, in most states at least, and that's changing here and there. I just saw that the city of Chicago changed their tipped worker minimum wage to $15. I've seen that happening here and there, but in a lot of states we think of people making an income, but what they're actually getting paid from the restaurant a lot of times is just a couple dollars an hour. Is that right?

Jen :

Yep, that's absolutely right. When I first started working as a waitress, as we called them back then in 1992, I was making $2.03 an hour, and now people are making $2.13 an hour 30 years later. So it hasn't really changed, you know, in any substantial way. And many times you don't even get a paycheck because all of that money goes to taxes. I've even gotten a negative paycheck at times where you know I would owe the company money because of the taxes that I had to pay on my tips.

Joel:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess it kind of baffles me sometimes the way that we think about certain types of work as being more worthy of a living wage than others. You know, like David Graeber, the anthropologist and he wrote this book that I love called Debt the First 5,000 Years kind of points this out where he says that you know, we often think about creating new things, production of something, as something that's real work, but that the service work is not real work. But he says, really, if you think about it, you only have to make a glass or make a cup once, but it has to be washed thousands and thousands of times, and that's really where the real work is. I'm curious your perspective on the nature of service work and the dignity of it.

Jen :

Yeah, excellent. So since the very beginning of forming Asheville Food and Beverage United, a driving factor for me has been how many times I've heard people say well, if you don't like it, then get a better job. You know, and that's just infuriating because how dare you? You know, we work really hard. Service work is really hard. It's physically demanding, it's emotionally stressful and it's has been historically completely undervalued.

Jen :

And I feel like you know, especially like servers, like front of the house, that tipped workers and stuff. I feel like you know, especially like servers like front of the house, that tipped workers and stuff. I feel like that really ties goes way back to jim crow era. You know, when, um, that's when the really the tipped culture started and that was a way for people to employers to employ, um black workers and not have to pay them. You know. So that's where those laws really originated.

Jen :

And I feel like and then you know there was a time where it was like, well, it was the only kind of job that a single mother could get. Or you know, um a divorced woman, oh well, she's going to have to go wait tables, and that stigma has just been attached, you know, and I feel like that really changed during the pandemic because suddenly we weren't there to serve people and people really started to miss us and understand that we do provide a value. And not only did customers, I feel like, start to appreciate us more, but our bosses did too. Because I know during the pandemic I was working at a restaurant and we had to cut way down on staffing and one of the owners actually stepped in and started serving tables and helping out in the kitchen and she was shocked because she'd never done that in her life before and you know, since then she really appreciated what the front of the house especially was going through.

Jen :

And I've seen that shift in a lot of employers, thankfully, and in a lot of customers. You know they they have a sense of what they were missing, I guess, whenever we couldn't provide them that service. So it hasn't maybe completely shifted, but I am optimistic that it is shifting and that people are starting to recognize that service work is real work and that all workers you know if you put in a full hour, a full week's worth of work, you should be able to live on that, you know, because you've contributed to society and filled a need there. So why shouldn't you be able to live just like everybody else.

Joel:

Yeah, exactly In the second part of this episode we are doing a two-part episode for the listeners. Here we're going to get into a lot more about what exactly Asheville Food and Beverage United is, what your goals are and how you guys are going about that. But with the last few minutes we've got here, I am curious how you've seen things change so far since the pandemic. Obviously that was a pretty disruptive event, I guess. How has service work changed for the people, for yourself and for the people that you are connected with since then?

Jen :

Well, I would say there's a few things. The first thing that popped in my mind was the old phrase the customer is always right. That changed during the pandemic. Customers started behaving very badly the ones who were coming out to eat and stuff and I feel like a lot of owners and I know most service workers have shifted our mentality to no, the customer is not always right and we're allowed to take up for ourselves and maintain our dignity at work. So I feel like that's been a major shift. You know, I'm not saying we're not not trying to be nice and, you know, congenial and stuff, but if people mistreat us, we're allowed to stand up for ourselves now and I feel like more people feel empowered to do so and not put up with it. So that's been a huge transformation since the pandemic.

Jen :

And then also, like I would say like the way that people work has changed, because there was a lot, there was a staffing shortage, because a lot of people either left the area or left the industry altogether. You know, got educations that allowed them to, you know, transfer to a different industry. So we did lose a lot of workers in this industry and we had to start figuring out ways to streamline our work. So I feel like a lot of just the day to day logistics of how service workers do their jobs has changed a lot. There's been a lot of cut down on wasteful things like, you know, overpackaging or you know, just providing more stuff than you really need to. I was trying to come up with a concrete example of that concrete example of that, but you know, just it's. There's been a lot of like cost saving measures and work saving measures and just things that make your life a little easier for less staff. So I feel like that's been a big improvement for sure.

Joel:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's funny. You mentioned the the the customer's always right motto and we all know that. That that line.

Joel:

But what we don't know is actually the full phrase where it originates. It was originally in matters of taste. The customer is always right, so it was actually originally meant to be like hey, if you're selling something that people don't like, they're not going to buy it. And it has kind of morphed into this weird. If you're working with customers, then you have to kowtow to everything they say and you know, kind of weird this weird power dynamic thing, and so it's funny that that's not even what the original phrase even meant in the slightest, but so this is as I said, this is a two-part episode.

Joel:

Please tune in back next week here, same time here on Biz Radio US to get to listen to the second half, where we're going to really deep dive into Asheville, food and Beverage United with Jen Hampton here, and make sure to subscribe on YouTube. Now. We are now video on YouTube, but also to us on iTunes, spotify, iheartradio, stitcher, buzzsprout, wherever it is that you get your podcasts and follow us along, and if you can give us a rating or review, that always helps, of course. So tune in next time and please take care of yourself. And until next time, remember we are each other.