Minimum Wage

Last week my Sales Manager and I made a presentation to a very large Company. The purpose of the meeting was to present our products and services to a very important potential new client and although I have made hundreds of presentations like this during my career, I still get nervous because I take pride in what I do. I always want to do my best to present our company in the best possible light. (Pun intended!)

The meeting was held at noon at a beautiful glass skyscraper in Irvine and a few minutes after we got there, a pizza delivery man showed up with the food we ordered for our lunch meeting. I signed for the Pizzas and tipped the Pizza man generously because back in the day I delivered pizzas myself and I know how hard it can be to deliver hot pizzas to lots of locations and not get lost. Five minutes later the Pizza man came back up to the top floor meeting room because apparently, although I had written in a decent tip, I had added up the total way higher than it was supposed to be. The Pizza man wasn’t sure if I meant to write in that high of a total, so he came back to ask me if I wanted to correct it. I thanked him for catching the mistake and praised him for his honesty. He smiled and as he headed off, I was instantly reminded of one of the first Pizza deliveries that I ever made that taught me two huge life lessons.

It was 1974 and I was 19 years old. I was attending UC Berkeley during the day and delivering food at night for a combo Pizza Man/Chicken Delight Restaurant. My second day on the job, I had a long list of stops including a large delivery to a mansion in Burlingame Hills. When I arrived, I set a bucket of chicken on the roof of my small Datsun pickup. When I grabbed the pizzas and shut the door, the bucket of chicken slid off the roof and hit the ground, spilling several pieces of chicken onto the driveway. My first thought was to wipe off the chicken and put it back. My second thought was to throw those two pieces away and act like it was a full bucket. My third thought and my ultimate decision…was to tell the customer what happened and go back for more food. When I told the customer what happened, he didn’t seem that upset, which surprised me. When I returned a half hour later and completed his delivery he gave me a huge $20 tip. Considering I was making minimum wage ($1.65/hour), that tip was a ton of money in those days! Not only did I receive a huge tip, I also received praise for my honesty. Apparently the customer had been watching me through his window and saw me spill that food all over his driveway.

I learned two important life lessons that day. The first one is obvious; honesty is the best policy and will reap you major rewards. The second lesson was more subtle; an appreciation for the working class people in this world. I have never forgotten how hard it was to go to school all day and work long hours at night. To this day, every time I meet someone who is making minimum wage, I smile and sincerely thank them for their service. Minimum wage doesn’t necessarily mean minimum effort!
 

Without honest labor nothing prospers. 

~ Sophocles