People with Power

[Moosashi]

Re: People with Power

A note on IQ scores:

The Inteligent Quotent test (IQ test) is not designed to see who is smarter. It was designed to compare normal, average people's IQ (about 100) to the IQ scores of brain damaged people. So the test is designed to help determine how cognitively imparing the brain damage is.

That may have been true once, but modern IQ tests are designed to measure deviations in both directions from average (exactly 100). Indeed, some tests are designed specifically to measure the intelligence of people who are way above average.

***
Social skills don't necessarily trade off against intelligence. The best manager would be brilliant and a great leader or organizer.

***
I think for many people, power is its own reward. Money is a means to facilitate the attainment of your wants and needs. Power is just more direct. If you have power, people will seek your favor. They will do things for you and protect you. Also, the more powerful you are, the more secure you are. The bartender might make more money, but he's easier to fire than the manager. The favor and security would be things you'd have to purchase or do without if you didn't have power.

Another reason why the bartender's wage seems disproportionate to his status is that he effectively works for multiple people. Each tip he gets is transaction between him and the customer for his own special services, quite apart from the transaction between the bar and the customer for the drink.

 

[stillman]

Re: People with Power

Another thing to consider: the manager is getting smiles and phrases like "Thank you so much. We had a wonderful time!" whereas the bartender is getting people drunk, and perhaps has to put up with more rambling drunkards. It doesn't sound like much, but a manager seems to be doing only good by nurishing people (in the places I've worked at in the past, the manager had to do a lot of serving), whereas the bartender is technically poisoning people in mass.

I'm not saying bartenders are lacking morals; I'm just saying there are upsides and downsides to everything. There are greater moral implications involved when you make higher amounts of money. The bartender may have to boot out more customers who've had too much too drink. The manager, on the other hand, only has good things happen to him when people spend a lot on food.

 

[PFSS]

Re: People with Power

I wonder how the manager's benefits and bonus package stacks up against the bar tender's.

I'm still very suspicious about this - as I said - a 40% pay cut is a serious lifestyle change for most people. And given that managers were once bar tenders it would seem they all decided to make that rather drastic lifestyle change...