I asked servers why they think they're entitled to tips... Their reply

I asked servers (on another sub) why they should expect a tip rather than working for a standard "livable" wage for what most of us perceive as being part of their job requirement.

Most servers called me an ass for posting an "obnoxious" question and how dare I ask and question the kind of effort/skill it takes for them provide their services. There were many that defended the question.

I was struck by an "epiphany" of how the servers mindset view their job from my posted question ... They seem to think that they are "independent contractors" for hire by the customer when they enter the restaurant. The servers are accepting a lower wage to sit on standby until the patron comes in to be seated and served their meal/drink. They are saying the menu prices only reflect the cost of the food and the "service" is to be paid for by the customer, as we at that period of time become their employer , not the restaurant establishment.

Crazy thought process... But there you have it, they expect tips because they've been trained and conditioned that tips are to come via osmosis regardless of effort.

Jobadvisor

This is a topic with genuinely strong feelings on both sides, so let me give you a fair picture rather than just one angle.

The "independent contractor" framing you encountered

It's not actually a crazy or made-up idea — it reflects how tipped wages are structured in a lot of the US. Under the federal tip credit system, employers can pay tipped workers as little as $2.13/hour in cash wages, with tips expected to make up the difference to at least minimum wage (and employers are legally supposed to cover the gap if tips fall short, though enforcement of that is spotty). So in a very literal sense, the restaurant is shifting a chunk of labor cost onto customers by design. The server you talked to wasn't wrong that the business model is built that way — they were just describing it from the worker's-eye view rather than the legal one (the restaurant is still the employer of record, not you).

Why many servers push back hard on this question

• It can come across as questioning their income/livelihood rather than the system, even if that's not how you meant it.
• Many have worked in both tipped and non-tipped settings and report tips exceeding what a flat wage would pay, especially in higher-volume or upscale restaurants — so "just pay me a wage" can feel like a pay cut to them specifically, even if it'd be better for lower-earning servers elsewhere.
• There's real variance by state — a handful of states (California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, etc.) require full minimum wage plus tips, and workers there often have different attitudes than in tip-credit states.

Why the "just build it into the menu price" argument has traction

• Countries like Japan, Australia, and much of Western Europe pay full wages and either don't tip or tip lightly, and the restaurant industry functions fine.
• Studies (e.g., from Cornell's hospitality school and others) have found tip amounts correlate more with things like server friendliness, touch, or even weather than with actual service quality — undercutting the "tips reward good service" argument.
• Tipping culture has documented history tied to post-slavery labor exploitation in the US, which critics use to argue it's not a neutral economic tool.

The pushback on your framing specifically

Some would say characterizing servers as expecting tips "via osmosis regardless of effort" flattens a more defensive reaction (people get prickly when their pay structure is challenged) into a claim about entitlement or laziness — that's more of an interpretation than something the replies necessarily proved.

If you want, I can help you frame the question in a way less likely to trigger defensiveness next time, or dig into specific numbers (average server earnings by state, tip credit laws) if that's useful.

Ever had a recruiter bad mouth you?

I had that happened to me. The only reason I knew was because the hiring manager told me. Apparently in the recruiter’s notes she thought I was quiet, not confident, and inexperienced.

The HM still wanted to interview me anyways because she was curious on my resume and he said he thought otherwise. He said I sounded very experienced and charismatic. He wanted me to proceed onto the next step immediately.

I felt like the recruiter didn’t like that because she kept repeatedly ghosting me when I tried to contact her and the only reason I was able to schedule an interview was because I pinged the hiring manager to tell her.

Jobadvisor

That's a frustrating position to be in — you did the actual work of impressing the hiring manager, and instead of that being the story, you're left wondering what a recruiter wrote about you and why she seemed to be dragging her feet on getting you to the next round.

A few things stand out from what you described:

• The hiring manager going out of his way to tell you what was in the notes is unusual — recruiters and HMs don't typically share that kind of internal feedback with a candidate. That he did suggests he thought it was inaccurate enough (or unfair enough) that you deserved to know.
• The mismatch itself is telling. "Quiet, not confident, inexperienced" versus "experienced and charismatic" from two people who talked to you isn't just a difference of opinion — phone screens and interviews are different formats, and some people read as more reserved on a recruiter call (which is often shorter, more scripted, sometimes over the phone) than in a real conversation with someone who's actually engaging with their background.
• The ghosting afterward is the part I'd weigh most heavily. Recruiters are busy and slow responses happen for all kinds of boring reasons — but "responsive to the hiring manager, unresponsive to you" is a pattern, not a coincidence, especially since you only got the interview scheduled by going around her.

I'd be careful about assuming why she did it, though — whether it was about not liking you specifically, being overloaded, disagreeing with the HM's read, or something else. You don't have enough information to know her motive, and it doesn't really change what you should do next anyway.

Practically: the HM is clearly the one who's actually invested in you moving forward, so I'd keep leaning on that relationship rather than trying to repair things with the recruiter. If you end up getting an offer, this is also useful information about how this particular recruiter operates — worth remembering if you ever cross paths with her again in a future role search.

How'd the interview with the HM go, if it's already happened?

Job Offer Negotiation for a Better Position

I am probably going to get a job offer soon for a position I applied for. However, there is another opening at the same company that's similar, and I am a better fit for it. The only thing is, it asks for more years of experience in a specific area than I actually have, even though my experience itself is solid, just not that many years of it.

What can I say or do over the call I will be having with them?

Jobadvisor

This is a good position to be in — you have leverage because they clearly want you, and now you're aiming to redirect that interest toward a better-fit role. Here's how I'd approach the call.

Before you say anything, get clear on your own case

The "years of experience" requirement is often more of a filtering heuristic than a hard rule, especially for internal candidates or people already in the pipeline. Your job is to make the years gap irrelevant by making the depth of your experience obvious. Have 2-3 concrete examples ready that show you've done the substance of what that role needs, even if the timeline is shorter — projects, outcomes, specific skills.

How to raise it on the call

Don't frame it as "can I have the other job instead" right out of the gate — frame it as genuine interest plus a question:

• "I'm excited about this offer. I also noticed you have [other role] open, and it looks like it might actually line up even more closely with what I've been doing — would it be worth discussing whether that's a fit before we finalize things?"
• If they bring up the experience gap themselves: "I know the posting mentions [X years], but I've spent that time doing [specific relevant work] — I'd love the chance to talk through why I think the depth is there even if the timeline looks shorter on paper."

A few tactical notes

• Ask, don't demand. You want to sound like someone solving a puzzle for them ("I might be a better fit over here"), not someone negotiating up for more money or status.
• If there's already a hiring manager for that other role, ask if you could speak with them directly, rather than relying on the recruiter to relay your interest — as your last conversation showed, that channel isn't always reliable.
• Have a fallback plan. Decide beforehand whether you'd take the original offer if the other role doesn't pan out, so you're not negotiating from a place of "I need this to work or I have nothing."
• Timing matters — if you already have an offer in hand for role A, ask whether they're open to pausing that process briefly while you two figure out if role B makes sense, rather than letting the offer expire while things are ambiguous.

Want me to help you draft what you'd actually say, or work through how to make the "shorter timeline but real depth" case more concretely based on your specific background?

You just can't win anymore, not even at minimum wage jobs

I applied to a gas station yesterday and got rejected

Being rejected is not what's getting to me. Its that i'm a near perfect candidate for that role.

The gas station was only maybe a 20 minute walk. I basically had my schedule free except for the late nights (i need sleep). And could work both part-time and full-time.

And the work isn't that difficult to do. That position is just a glorified stocker and ringing people who want alcohol and soda and cigarretes.

Just has me down tbh.

If i am near perfect person for the position at a minimum wage job and still not even get a interview, the job market absolutely sucks

Jobadvisor

That's a genuinely demoralizing thing to sit with — feeling like you checked every box on paper and still didn't even get a shot at a conversation. That kind of rejection stings in a specific way, because there's no feedback to learn from, just silence.

A few honest things worth knowing, not to talk you out of how frustrating this is, but because they might actually explain what happened rather than "the market is broken" or "something's wrong with me":

• Entry-level and minimum wage postings often get flooded with applicants right now — sometimes hundreds for a single gas station or retail opening — and a lot of that filtering happens through ATS software or a manager skimming fast, not a careful read of fit. Being "near perfect" on paper doesn't guarantee you'll even be seen; it just means you'd have been a good hire if someone looked closely.
• Some of these jobs get filled through internal referrals or someone the manager already knows before the posting is even really "open" — so the rejection may have had nothing to do with your application at all.
• Retail/gas station scheduling often prioritizes availability for closing shifts specifically (since those are the hardest to staff), so your one carve-out — no late nights — may have been the actual disqualifier, even though it's a completely reasonable boundary to have.

None of that makes the rejection less discouraging in the moment, and you're allowed to be frustrated by it. But I'd gently push back on "the job market absolutely sucks" as the full conclusion — it's more that the hiring process for high-volume, low-wage roles is often impersonal and kind of random, which is a different problem than there being no jobs for you.

How many places have you applied to so far? I ask because one rejection, even a frustrating one, isn't much data yet — and it might help to think through whether there's a pattern worth adjusting, or whether this is just noise.

I rage quit my job yesterday. Oops.

I tried to make a slight adjustment in my career a couple of months ago, from product launch PM to program manager on a defense supplier. The company was a total shitshow. The expectations for program managers were completely insane. I mapped 119 tasks where the team was personally Responsible and/or Accountable.

Anyway, I experienced a lot of dismissiveness regarding my background, despite my PMP and 8 years of experience in contract manufacturing. The final straw was finding out yesterday that they had hired a new team lead, without even interviewing me, despite having told me several times they were going to.

The leadership and HR refused to speak with me again, and actively hid from me when I tried to discuss it with them like a rational corporate employee. So. I walked out.

My question is, do I need to put this fucking terrible segue on my resume?

Jobadvisor

That sounds like a genuinely maddening situation — being strung along on a promise of an interview while carrying 119 mapped responsibilities is bad enough, but leadership actively avoiding you when you tried to raise it reasonably is what would push most people over the edge. You didn't overreact in a vacuum; that's a company that mismanaged you on purpose or through sheer dysfunction.

On the resume question — a few honest things to weigh:

Do you have to include it? No, not legally or ethically, especially if it was short. There's no rule that every job has to appear on a resume. The real question is whether omitting it creates a gap or inconsistency that's harder to explain than the job itself.

• If it was a few months, many people leave short stints off entirely, especially if the jobs before and after it flow together logically (e.g., your PM background connects fine without this in between).
• If leaving it off creates an obvious unexplained gap (say, more than 2-3 months), it can raise more questions than including it would.

If you do include it: You don't have to explain why it ended on the resume itself — that's an interview conversation, not a bullet point. On the resume, you'd just list the title, company, dates, and maybe 1-2 neutral, competent-sounding accomplishments (like the responsibility mapping you did — that's genuinely relevant, useful PM work regardless of how things fell apart).

If asked about it in an interview: This is where the real work is. You want a version that's honest but doesn't sound like you're relitigating a grudge. Something like: "I moved into a program management role at a defense supplier, but found a significant mismatch between the stated scope and the actual operational expectations — including a breakdown in basic communication from leadership. I made the call to leave rather than stay in a role that wasn't being run in good faith." That's true, it's calm, and it signals judgment rather than instability.

Do you know roughly how long you were actually there? That matters a lot for whether the "leave it off" option is realistic.

In which I keyword spammed my resume..

I'm a laid off tech wagey, out of work 6 months. I had my first interview in quite awhile this last Thursday. I didn't remember the job well given how many jobs I applied to in June. Getting this interview did follow some intense resume work and an application spree, so I did feel I was seeing some small and logical reward for that effort. 

This resume work included some ahem keyword spamming sorry not sorry to try and hook into some interviews via transferable skills. My trade is as a SQL guy in the healthcare domain. So while I legitimately know a lot of EDI (835/837, HL7, JSON, XML), I stuck FHIR in my resume, that being a new term to me.

Job is at an HC insurer.  FHIR ("Fire") was not in the description for this job I applied but in my resume it caught the interest of the recruiter who gave me the interview, and she asked me about it.  "Tell me about your experience with FIRE?" I was a little tongue tied and my answer was weak, kinda revealed myself. Oh well, may not get a second interview, shrug emoji, and so it goes.

Jobadvisor

Six months out and finally landing an interview is real progress, even if this particular one didn't go the way you wanted — that's worth acknowledging before getting into the FHIR stumble.

A few honest thoughts:

On what happened Getting caught flat-footed on a term you added but don't actually know is an awkward moment, no doubt, but it's also pretty recoverable in the grand scheme — recruiters see candidates fumble specific acronyms all the time, especially in healthcare IT where the alphabet soup (EDI, HL7, FHIR, X12, 837/835) overlaps enough that people genuinely blur the lines. It's not the same as being caught lying about a job or a degree.

Is it fixable if you get a second interview? If you get a follow-up, you have a much stronger move available than "shrug, hope she forgot": be upfront in a low-key way. Something like: "I want to be straight with you — my direct hands-on experience is with X12 EDI (835/837) and HL7, and I'd said FHIR because I've seen it referenced as the newer standard those are evolving toward, but I haven't worked with it directly yet. I didn't want to overstate that in the moment." That kind of correction actually tends to land well — it shows self-awareness and honesty rather than doubling down, and recruiters/hiring managers often respect someone who owns a stretch rather than bluffs through it.

On the broader keyword strategy There's a real difference between:

• Using varied, accurate terminology to describe skills you have (totally fine, and honestly necessary given how ATS filtering works)
• Adding a specific named standard/technology you have zero exposure to (riskier, because it invites exactly this kind of direct question)

Given your actual background, you could probably get away with things like "healthcare data standards," "EDI transaction processing," or "familiarity with emerging interoperability standards" — true, keyword-adjacent, and defensible if asked. FHIR specifically was probably a bridge too far to name-drop without at least having skimmed what it actually is.

For what it's worth — do you want a quick, no-BS primer on what FHIR actually is? Even 15 minutes of understanding it well enough to speak to at a conceptual level (not claiming hands-on experience, just literacy) could turn this from a liability into something you can navigate honestly next time it comes up, given how often it's probably going to keep appearing in HC insurer postings.