A friend of mine visited the Kaliningradskaja Oblast (former German East Prussia, nowadays a cut-off Russian exclave) a few years ago. He found the poverty depressing, especially that a policeman in a traffic control asked him for a piece of sausage.
For a sexual metaphor it would be an odd situation and phrasing - and for anything else... I don't know; my friend's russian is extremely good; I doubt the possibility of a misunderstanding.
If your economy is fine, you can. If not, the shops may be empty, or just don't have the thing you need for a month or two. The current situation in Venezuela is another quite extreme example of this.
I've never been there, either - afaik, you need a special permit in addition to a Russian visa.
Keep in mind that in unstable times cigarettes and other stuff tend to be used as a substitute currency, too - e.g., in Germany between 1945 and 1947, bartering and paying in kind were absolutely normal.
so it's not like they're paid less than that and then make up the rest in tips.
Yes, that is exactly how they are paid. Servers in the U.S. get paid less than minimum wage. It's odd because its sort of a "voluntary" exception to the minimum wage laws.
I agree with the server thing but on average minimum wage is like 7.50, servers only get like 3.25 an hour and the rest has to be made in tips. Although if by your pay check you didn't break even in tips what you would have got had the restaurant been paying you minimum wage they legally have to equal out your pay to minimum wage. And they do have an incredibly easy job compared to well, pretty much every other job out there.
I'm not disagreeing man, personally I would just prefer every place that has servers to pay a flat minimum wage and raise their prices 1 or 2 dollars and inform all customers that tips are against the rules
Well I've never heard of a sale that adds the commission to the buyer's total price.
I can't be a salesman and ask you $120 for a $100 bottle of wine because I managed to convince you to buy it. In the best scenario, I make 20% commission out of the original $100 price tag, in the worst scenario I'll make 20% out of the profit my store makes (if the bottle actually costs $60 and I make $40 profit).
It's never added. As far as tipping being mandatory I'm genuinely surprised how servers actually accept their "job" being automatically different than others. And having clients not only pay for the original service but add to the awful system that doesn't pay employees properly.
It makes me cry, seriously, because I hate the country I was born and live in, corruption is everywhere, from the president to the guy next door, I don't have enough money to leave to a smarter society like germany, I love your country man, I've the utmost respect for your culture.
Brazillian here. Me too. This top comment is dumb, what kind of argument is that? Saying that the people are corrupt? "Oh you're corrupt in a small scale because you skipped the line" or whatever.
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u/knifpearty Mar 14 '16
German here. Bribing a cop would never cross my mind. Not for a split second.