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Old 08-05-2009, 08:52 AM
 
748 posts, read 2,879,414 times
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I bought a sofa from Costco once. Unfortunately, Costco does not transport or hold things for you, so I had to rent a Uhaul to take it out. But the Costco employees were helpful in getting the sofa loaded onto the truck. When I asked them if they can come by in the evening and help me unload the sofa to my living room, they said no. When I offered them a tip, they refused and it looked like they were afraid to take it.

I was taking to a yellow cab driver once when he picked me up at JFK. He said he was making over 8k a month ( that's close to 100k), and he was very careful not to violate any traffic rules since any loss of license will mean loss of revenue. But he worked 12 hours a day to earn that.
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Old 08-05-2009, 10:01 AM
 
347 posts, read 1,348,238 times
Reputation: 101
Quote:
Originally Posted by WJFM View Post
I bought a sofa from Costco once. Unfortunately, Costco does not transport or hold things for you, so I had to rent a Uhaul to take it out. But the Costco employees were helpful in getting the sofa loaded onto the truck. When I asked them if they can come by in the evening and help me unload the sofa to my living room, they said no. When I offered them a tip, they refused and it looked like they were afraid to take it.

I was taking to a yellow cab driver once when he picked me up at JFK. He said he was making over 8k a month ( that's close to 100k), and he was very careful not to violate any traffic rules since any loss of license will mean loss of revenue. But he worked 12 hours a day to earn that.
I tried to tip someone at Costco too for helping me load something into a truck, and he declined the tip. Must be a company or store policy. I like that, actually.
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Old 08-05-2009, 10:14 AM
 
270 posts, read 967,295 times
Reputation: 62
Some companies have policies that can get employees terminated for taking tips. It wouldn't surprise me if Costco was one of them.

I remember getting some cable install done and as the guy was leaving, I offered him a tip (I had very specific cabling requirements that weren't very straightforward and he accomodated them to the best of his ability). He sheepishly said "You know I can lose my job for this..." but went ahead and reached for it anyway.

I'd hate to think that I could've gotten him fired, but I'm guessing that's just one of those things that can't really be caught since they're at my residence instead of their facility (like a Costco Warehose with cameras aimed at the parking lot).
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Old 08-07-2009, 06:20 AM
 
Location: Suffolk County, NY
874 posts, read 2,867,576 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WJFM View Post
I was taking to a yellow cab driver once when he picked me up at JFK. He said he was making over 8k a month ( that's close to 100k), and he was very careful not to violate any traffic rules since any loss of license will mean loss of revenue. But he worked 12 hours a day to earn that.
I find it hard to believe that a yellow cab driver in the city makes that much money. When I was in my late teen years I worked as a mechanic for a yellow cab company in Long Island City. The drivers rent the cars for twelve hour shifts and the majority of them were not making much money at all. There were often times that the drivers would make little more than they had to pay for the twelve hour shift.

There were some drivers whom made good money but not the majority of them. From what I remember, the ones whom did make good money tended to have a lot of steady customers whom they would drive to and/or from work each day. The drivers whom relied on just being "hailed" used to complain that there were simply too many yellow cabs to make any real money.

The complaints that a number of drivers had about waiting by the airports were that they are made to wait in a line of cabs there which would get really long. They said if they were to spend their 12 hours each day doing the airports they would not make money because of the amount of time wasted waiting on the taxi cab line.
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Old 08-07-2009, 06:52 AM
 
13,507 posts, read 16,971,242 times
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I know a cab driver that was pulling in close to 100K. It's not that out of the ordinary. I think he had his own medallion, though.
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Old 08-07-2009, 08:02 AM
 
15 posts, read 44,669 times
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Just a thought, but a while ago I saw a show on 20/20 and it profiled the CEO of Costco. I believe he was making $350,000 a year, far, far, far less than most CEOs. This could explain the higher hourly rate. Let's face it, when the CEO of a corp is making between 400 to 800 times more than the guys at the bottom, there simply isn't much left to pay a living wage.

Here's the 20/20 profile I watched:

Costco CEO Finds Pro-Worker Means Profitability - ABC News

Here's another interesting article comparing Wal-Mart and Costco:

http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/The+Costco+Challenge:+An+Alternative+to+Wal-Martization%3F+(July+5,+2005 (broken link))
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Old 08-07-2009, 09:57 PM
 
Location: Suffolk County, NY
874 posts, read 2,867,576 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dman72 View Post
I know a cab driver that was pulling in close to 100K. It's not that out of the ordinary. I think he had his own medallion, though.
It is possible but it is not the norm. If someone owns their own medallion it is definitely easier to make more money since you control what hours you drive as well as how many hours you drive as well as not having to pay to use the car each day. The down side is the cost of the medallions. When I worked at the taxi cab company as a mechanic a medallion was over $100,000. I am sure it is more than that by now.
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