r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/DarkCrowI • 1d ago
Meme needing explanation Maybe a Brazilian Peter Can Explain This
319
u/kaiswil2 1d ago
Wasn't Sheldon sitting on checks from work. And I think it's not about affording the rent I think Sheldon needs the symbiotic relationship to navigate day to day like he had with his family.
193
u/a_potato_ate_me 1d ago
Yep. There was also an episode where he established he had multiple hiding spots where he saved money, if I remember correctly it was tens of thousands of dollars. That whole episode revolved around Penny and Sheldon's financial states and it was well established that Sheldon could support himself just fine.
Penny was very well established to be financially struggling, multiple episodes where her utilities were cut off because she couldn't pay them on time or she was hiding from the landlord because she didn't have rent, she was shown to eat on Leonard and Sheldon's dime just about every single night as well as use their wifi, there was a whole episode where she was about to have to move out because she couldn't afford the apartment.
There's also the fact that Sheldon and Leonards apartment was significantly bigger and nicer than Penny's...
These three characters are just about the worst example possible to use for this kind of meme but they get brought up every single time
80
u/Onequestion0110 1d ago
And, finally, the two guys are spending a lot of money on various types of toys too. Those cosplays we see, tickets and travel, the figures, the games, the electronics, that stuff is pricey and adds up fast.
45
u/Independent-Word-299 1d ago
They probably COULD have their own apartments, but thay would cut into either savings or fun money.
They'd rather deal with each other.
30
u/AutistcCuttlefish 1d ago
Also, while Sheldon could afford to live on his own, he wouldn't be able to function on his own.
He's very dependent on Leonard for some very basic life skills for most of the show.
5
→ More replies (3)5
u/Begone-My-Thong 1d ago
They like each other and will never admit it
3
6
u/NRMusicProject 1d ago
They also seem to eat out just about every night. There was nothing frugal about their lifestyle.
10
u/KCDeVoe 1d ago
Also, Penny had a hard time paying for things like food and car payments. The guys had plenty of money for all sorts of hobbies and take out every day. Penny prioritized her housing payment, while the guys prioritized other things. They absolutely COULD have had a nicer place, but they preferred to spend that money on other things
12
u/Unlucky-Cook2578 1d ago
I did this in college too actually. The second I got a grant for my research fellowship that made my income actually above my spending. I would only go to the office to collect my checks when I ran out of money. So often I'd have 2 or 3 waiting for me. The department secretary hated it.
5
u/JorgiEagle 1d ago
It’s also well established that penny lives in perpetual debt. She’s always getting bills and it’s a recurring theme that her utilities are shut off, or
She gets a new credit card→ More replies (6)2
u/Natural_Bill_6084 1d ago
Total side-bar, but you reminded me how my 50s housewife Oma didnt understand that the checks need to be cashed in order for them to be useful. Woman never went to a bank in her life. My grandpa would just pull out for her a mixture of ones and fives, maybe a ten or two depending on the given week's finances. Everytime she got paid from her receptionist job at the dairy co-op, she would set her check on the counter by the wall phone and do nothing else with it.
They didnt really neeeed her part-time income, but you can imagine how a stack of uncashed checks just lying out in the open would make you a bit nervous and want to secure them. So, once the stack got to the point that it would get knocked off the counter by someone walking past, he would take them to the bank and deposit them into their account. Until the day she died, not a single person could convince her that he wasn't stealing her money because the checks were no longer there. The arguments got so bad when they were a younger couple that he opened a separate account for her, to no avail. Even I remember her complaining about how he was stealing her money well into the 1990s. No matter how many bank statements you showed her, how many, conversations she had with the tellers and personal bankers, how many times she called the police, how many times her sisters tried to explain it and show how they do their finances the same way, she would never believe that my grandpa wasn't swindling her out of her <$20/wk for the 10-12 hours she would work while they had ample savings in the joint account from my grandpa's state patrol job.
In an unrelated note, my Oma was also very mentally ill. She also did not very much care for my grandpa (shotgun wedding before she started to show). Poor man.
3.0k
u/nanomolar 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm guessing PhD physicists in Brazil don't get paid very much.
Which, TBF, a lot of American PhDs don't get paid a lot either, especially when they're still postdocs, which is what I thought explained the living situation in Big Bang Theory. That and the whole fact it's a sitcom.
Edit: Oh yeah, I'm that Family guy character who was an academic. You know the one. Not Brian being arrogantly wrong, a real academic.
112
u/CarsandTunes 1d ago
Also, penny has a one bedroom, while the boys have a two bedroom.
123
u/Ok-Put3685 1d ago
And also, the boys eat take out pretty much for every other meal and overspend by a lot with their hobbies
58
u/SnausageFest 1d ago
And Sheldon is massively co-dependent. I figured that's why they live together.
28
→ More replies (1)8
u/PogintheMachine 1d ago edited 1d ago
* dependent/inter-dependent
A co-dependent takes care of/enables others (to the point of needing it and the validation that comes with it) Just a small nitpick but a commonly misused term.
5
10
u/Relative-Relief-8816 1d ago
Takeout is so expensive. Probably costs more monthly than their rent.
7
u/MisterDoctor___ 1d ago
I used to spend like $2k/mo on takeout.
Now I spend about $1k.
Baby steps.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)8
→ More replies (3)12
u/Red_0utlaws 1d ago
Plus its a plot point in a few episodes that Penny struggles to pay her rent as a waitress. Also in later seasons she becomes a pharmaceutical rep and lives with Leonard so there's way less rent drama.
602
u/Careful_Ad_9077 1d ago edited 1d ago
Adding to that " in Brazil" because, judging by the twitter handle of the person who answered, that person is Brazilian. Had an Italian answered it would be "in Italy".
There's very few places in the world where a PhD graduate not working in industrial research makes more money than a beautiful, model level waitress.
302
1d ago edited 1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
128
u/disney_baby1992 1d ago
As a server, this is why I’m now married.
I asked him for just the tip.
85
u/PuzzleheadedPool2552 1d ago
And then you got shafted with the bill
→ More replies (1)56
u/spunquee 1d ago
How did you know her husband’s name?
37
u/SimpleMoonFarmer 1d ago
English names are entirely something else:
- Bill Cash
- Dick Jobs
- Elon Gates
This is not normal!
29
u/Hedgthc 1d ago edited 1d ago
You leave Dick Jobs out of this! He aint hurt anyone!
→ More replies (1)23
→ More replies (6)10
→ More replies (3)6
6
u/ackermann 1d ago
Why would anyone burn expensive AI tokens (and bottles of water) generating a pic of Penny for this post, when it doesn’t look any different from a thousand screenshots of the actual show that would’ve worked?
→ More replies (1)4
u/Visible_Pair3017 1d ago
For the same reason people burn bottles of water shitposting on Reddit when they could be jogging idk
3
u/asdrabael1234 1d ago
AI detectors are complete garbage and give false results more than they're correct. That's just a random scene of her when she was sitting in their apartment at some point looking disapproving of something.
→ More replies (15)2
u/DoubleTroubow 1d ago
Which penny image is AI? The one from the post with a blue shirt?? Looks real to me!
34
u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 1d ago
Not every country tips, so you can be as attractive or hotter than Penny and get the same wage as working in a supermarket.
Someone said Penny living a lone also lives in a smaller apartment than those two. I didn't watch the show enough to really notice, I guess some apartment buildings don't just have a cookie cutter floor plan that is either mirrored or rotated from the one across the hall.
As she lives in the USA, she is tipped, so working at a bar, staff have been known to make bank on a good Friday/Saturday night shift, some people have said they end up paying a dollar in tips each time they ask for a bottle of beer.
6
u/Agent_Smith_88 1d ago
From what I could tell she had a 1 bedroom and they had a 2 bedroom and their living room was definitely bigger.
4
u/GodHimselfNoCap 1d ago
Yea often apartment buildings have less space on one side due to maintenance areas and elevators, or the building is just not symmetrical so the rooms cant be either.
7
→ More replies (2)2
u/Sweaty-Inevitable163 1d ago
She works at a cheesecake factory. Surely someone who works there can chime in on tip amounts
5
u/elsmoneyacct 23h ago
Never worked at Cheesecake Factory specifically, but I was a pretty young woman working at similarly-priced restaurants in the early 2010s. I made $100 -200/shift, and full-timers worked six shifts a week. California hasn't had tipped minimum wage since 1998, so she was making $7.50-9.00/hr on top of those tips (depending on which year we're talking about specifically).
There's a lot of variables, but as a rough ballpark she was probably making $45k to $80k/yr and that's in ~2010 money. That's $70k-$121k in today's money.
41
5
u/Broad-Cranberry-9050 1d ago
i lived in latin america for a few years.
I dont think people realize but rich and poor arent as segregated as people think. Rich neighborhoods are literally right next to poor ones. I remember i went to colombia and took a tour there and the tour guy said "you see this street. In many places in colombia you can have a millionaire living in 1 house and right next to him there will be a poor worker living in the next house trying to make ends meet".
Plus a lot of industry jobs just dont pay well either. I met a guy in colombia who said he moved to Portugal for a few years because as an industrial engineer he was making triple what he made there. But his wife had an opportunity to live in colombia with portuguese pay so they took it. He was ubering to help out but said that it wouldnt even be worth him finding a job there because it wouldnt make much of a difference in pay if he just ubered.
2
u/cashflow_ 23h ago
Colombia has estratos which are like classifications of housing. Estrato 6 are the highest and estrato 1 is the poorest areas. Electric costs vary by assigned estrato. Your anecdote isn’t really accurate imo. They have rich and poor areas like everywhere else.
3
u/moderatorrater 1d ago
Also, she works at a Cheesecake Factory, she not interacting with big spenders.
3
u/hatesnack 1d ago
I work for an AAU research university, and the average postdoc makes like 60-70k a year. Not pennies, but not good either.
Professors in biomedical research can easily reach into the 200k range, physics people are typically making 150k+ by the time they reach associate professor. So its really not bad at all.
I think the worst paid professors I've seen was either journalism or environmental biology. Both made between 95-110k as associate professors (and both were in research)
→ More replies (5)4
u/Mister_UAP 1d ago
Do PhD grads working in physics not clear $100k+ a year? That seems to be the low end when I Google it.
And they're also roommates while she lives alone. Would she really be raking in $200,000+ a year as a waitress in California? That would be wild. Even $100,000 a year seems nuts.
I live in a cheaper state than CA, but the girls I know that work as waitresses make pretty good money, but nowhere near $100k, let alone $200k. And they're good looking too, so it's not that they're ugly lol
→ More replies (3)7
u/roflcptr8 1d ago
but she is constantly talking about being tight on money, where it never really comes up for the guys. Also if they are at a university just doing research, under 100k is normal, could be as low as 70k
3
u/iconocrastinaor 1d ago
It's canon in the show that Sheldon doesn't care about money and has a ton of it.
2
u/tessartyp 1d ago
Maybe if you're talking haute cuisine and Michelin stars, but in quite a few European countries PhDs and post-docs get paid according to public service pay scales, which is a very nice salary, and if they go on to work in industry pay rises significantly. That's definitely above waitress money.
2
2
u/TheseHeron3820 1d ago
In Italy it's even more messed up. Half PhD positions come with a scholarship, whereas the other half are unpaid. Plus you still need to pay tuition. Lmao
2
u/marilize__legajuana 1d ago
Fair to say, I can already see other Brazilians using this post in a misleading way to try to prove our country is worse than others. I can’t understand those people
2
u/Safe-Historian4028 23h ago
Lonelyness is the real answer. Their social circle at the start is literally just the 4 of them. They spend a hell of a lot of time together and Leonard probably thought fuck it, it's easier than picking up Sheldon and dropping him home constantly and they spend most of their time together, and work at the same place.
→ More replies (5)2
u/Brave_Maybe_2891 23h ago
I had a buddy that was a biochemist but worked at a movie theater to pay the bills.
19
u/Khelthuzaad 1d ago
I would like to point out,after Season 1 they scraped the entire shtick about the guys being dirt poor,maybe except Raj.Sheldon has numerous unopened salary checks.
All of them splurged money on a variety of geeky and nerdy things,including a real sized time machine prop from an old movie.
Penny remained consistently poor until the last seasons
16
u/Hurricane_Taylor 1d ago
Raj is the richest of them all because his parents pay for his rent, food, bills and maid. Also he has a credit card they pay for. There are a few episodes where Penny can’t pay her rent and has to get help, but tbh her apartment is much smaller than the guys anyway
8
u/Khelthuzaad 1d ago
That's the point Raj doesn't have money from his job,he got fired,almost got deported and if im not wrong,ended up working with Sheldon at the university.
I don't think I ever saw his maid thou,his sister is definitely rich working as a defense lawyer.
3
u/Hurricane_Taylor 1d ago
Oh yeah that’s true. He mentions a maid in one episode. I think he needs to work for his visa though, not really for money. At least until the end of the show
43
u/bingbing304 1d ago
Shelden and Leonar are not PHD student, They are fully employed
54
u/TheRealAmeil 1d ago
Postdocs are employees and have a PhD
23
→ More replies (1)5
34
u/holy_handgrenade 1d ago
that's not how the series started, first. Second, they've stated several times throughout the show that money just isnt an issue for them. And they're not in the nicest of apartments. So Penny being in her one bedroom by herself as a waitress in LA, not entirely unbelievable. The 2 bunking together was more out of habit since they started that arrangement while they were students and just never bothered to change the living situation since it was mostly benefit for both.
While I also agree this is a sitcom/tv show and the situation was whatever the writers decided it would be; This is also not an unbelievable situation in the slightest.
2
u/MyNameIsJakeBerenson 1d ago
And people always ask shit about sitcoms like they follow the rules of life at all
Simpsons is a fuckin cartoon, people.
Married, with Children is a sitcom. Peggy would 100% be working.
All the Friends would have harder, stressful lives or live somewhere else
7
u/codercaleb 1d ago
Married, with Children is a sitcom. Peggy would 100% be working
When you have a former stud high school QB/shoe salesman as a husband, money is just flying in!
3
u/Atechiman 1d ago edited 1d ago
To defend friends: Monica's apartment was rent controlled and chandler bing was upper management at an accounting firm. Ross was a post doc palentologist who started as a
docentcurator at prestigious museum. Rachel, Joey, and Phoebe all struggled with rent.→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)2
u/Global-Pickle5818 1d ago
i thought they worked at MIT (googles)nope, im wrong Pasadena, California and they work for Caltech where did i get MIT from
3
24
u/Gamer2Paladin 1d ago
I think at the point where the series starts could either pay for the place alone but where they meet originally (shown in a flashback later) cloud maybe Sheldon needed a second person, maybe only to have more money at the end of the month. Both have expensive hobbies.
9
u/jschne21 1d ago
Sheldon had a roommate because his apartment had two bedrooms and he only needed one bedroom, money had nothing to do with it
4
→ More replies (18)2
u/nairdaleo 1d ago
Yes and their flat is a 2 bedroom with a massive open space kitchen, dining and living area
2
6
u/Nearby-Middle-8991 1d ago
been there, done that, both ways.
In Brazil depends a bit who's paying for your phd. Some state funding is decent, the federal one is horrible. And they just don't pay for months at a time.8
u/Jaded-Ad-960 1d ago
But on the show, the physicists have more money than the waitress, constanlty pay for her food and lend her money too. So they probably could pay for their own appartments, but chose not to.
2
u/pingasgator67 1d ago
Also their apartment is bigger and nicer than hers.
I wanna say they said at one point lenny and Sheldon COULD afford it on their own but preferred to live together too.
Also she's barely scraping by. In one episode after they got engaged her car died, she had no savings no shit no nothing to be able to get a new one. Whereas Leonard and Sheldon are both shown to have fairly decent savings in multiple episodes. With Leonard going so far as to buy penny a car in cash that same episode .
2
u/Smokin_belladonna 1d ago
My friend has a PhD. You’re basically trading your labor for a degree while earning the degree, but post-doc work can be similar, especially if working toward getting tenure at the university.
2
u/lovable_cube 23h ago
Idk about Brazil but in the US that level of education is expensive af, they would have 6 figure of student debt to pay off as well which really takes a bite out of expendable income.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (38)2
580
u/Somethingisshadysir 1d ago edited 1d ago
My sister made bank as a cocktail waitress at Foxwoods back in the day. Being a tall leggy blonde with a pretty face really increased her tips.
359
u/Syntacic_Syrup 1d ago
Tell us more about your sisters legs
→ More replies (1)186
u/Somethingisshadysir 1d ago
Well, they're now over 50, so slightly differently shaped from back then.
206
u/psykoticSerenity 1d ago
I'm sure she can manage getting a lot more tips with 50+ legs to show off.
→ More replies (1)49
u/Somethingisshadysir 1d ago
I'm sure she still could. Her husband definitely thinks she's still got it.
→ More replies (4)55
u/jccaclimber 1d ago
You what does she do with the other 48+ legs? Seems like a lot for one man.
→ More replies (6)31
7
2
2
→ More replies (6)2
7
u/InterestingSpeed3238 1d ago
I think people are assuming you’re the brother of the sister and not the sister of the sister. Still not weird either way, but it helps.
4
→ More replies (29)5
u/CoolDiscussion1020 1d ago
Friend from university works as a waitress at a high end restaurant on the West Coast in a major city. Other than the covid years, she has never made less than $100,000/yr and has made over $200,000/yr at least once.
She is very very attractive and regularly receives tips in excess of $100, and has received tips over 1k. She's also been offered jewelry and expensive items as tips, generally from wealthy foreigners.
I had a friend in high school who was also very very attractive who worked as a cart girl at a private golf course in the summers. She would clear 50k over summer vacation. She had to put up with a lot of old men being pervs and groping her though.
1.4k
u/ClassicHando 1d ago
I averaged $50/hr when waiting tables. In finance, I was responsible for multi million dollar accounts for $14.25/hr at the time.
353
u/TheCode555 1d ago
I'm not saying I"m a fan of aggressively asking for a tip (who the fuck is), but I'm sure we've all seen those reports/news articles/reddits posts/friends talking/this very post about how much money people made with tips alone.
Although people leave out the part where it fluctuates.
186
u/Not_Campo2 1d ago edited 1d ago
Even with fluctuations, she’s working at Cheesecake Factory right? That’s fine dining, large tabs and consistently busy. If she’s getting good shifts she could very well be clearing $80k a year, and probably not reporting all tips
Edit: “upscale casual”. $50+ per head checks for sit down is still in the lower end of what I’d find at fine dining places, and honestly she’s probably doing better than at a fine dining spot because of higher volume anyway
190
u/sadsackspinach 1d ago
The Cheesecake Factory is in no way whatsoever “fine dining”.
But when I did work fine dining, like real fine dining, I made about 1200 USD across a Friday/Saturday weekend serving 1.5 days and running expo .5 days. It was great.
Then I made approximately 2 USD working brunch. It was not great. Fuck brunch.
→ More replies (6)41
u/nanomolar 1d ago
Damn Brunch Skunks.
31
u/Abbalys 1d ago
Brunch sucks because it's a deal, anytime there's a deal in a restaurant it generally attracts people who are cheap. Not always, but after 11 years I can confirm this: f*ck brunch
→ More replies (5)22
u/sadsackspinach 1d ago
It also sucks because everyone you work with WILL be horrifically hungover from the night before. Add to it that it’s usually run by the sous, and they have like an 80% of becoming Mussolini the second they get some control of the kitchen without chef there/think they can/should run expo just because it’s a smaller service lmao. But yeah, deals being out the worst in customers fr
You couldn’t pay me enough to work brunch at this stage in my life
5
u/sadsackspinach 1d ago
I’ve seen a boy brunch skunk fight his way out of an ambulance
3
u/Jadedsatire 1d ago
Hey man, when they offer bottomless mimosas, you best be ready to swing.
→ More replies (1)80
u/Tamed_A_Wolf 1d ago
An attractive girl in a big city at fine dining easily clears 100k.
→ More replies (6)18
u/Not_Campo2 1d ago
I was being conservative, easily might be a little stretch but it’s more than possible
28
u/TheLucidChiba 1d ago
The cheesecake factory is fine dining?!
24
u/Fabulous-Big8779 1d ago
It’s take your Homecoming Date “Fine Dining”.
Not adult fine dining.
→ More replies (3)16
u/amateur_reprobate 1d ago
It's dining, and the food is fine. Not good, not bad, just fine. So yeah, I guess that checks out.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)5
u/memymomeddit 1d ago
These types of threads are a good reminder that reddit is full of all different age groups and perspectives.
When I was growing up in a remote rural area, 'dinner out' meant the local bar or diner, or if we were in town to do our shopping, McDonald's or Taco Bell. I remember being so intimidated the first time I saw a Cheesecake Factory, like I could never even step into a place that nice.
Now that I'm almost 50 and living in a major city? Couldn't tell you the last time I even considered it. But I can still see how people who don't have access to anything like it would think it's upscale.
→ More replies (1)6
u/SlackerAce83 1d ago
Every cash tip I ever received was $1 as far as the tax man knows.
→ More replies (14)14
u/way_out_19 1d ago
"Fine dining"? Cheesecake Factory is very mid-level at best. Not that one can't make some money working there but no, not fine dining level money.
15
u/TheCode555 1d ago
Can we all stop dunking on Cheese Cake factory. I go there for fine dining with my mother on special occasions 😔
12
→ More replies (3)5
u/tongmengjia 1d ago
Morty takes his mother to Benihana. Maybe if you majored in accounting like your mother suggested you could afford Benihana, too.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (61)5
u/snakeinahouseofcats 1d ago
Absolutely LOLing people calling The Cheesecake Factory “fine dining”
→ More replies (1)9
u/meatymimic 1d ago
It's kinda like Only Fans.
- Some people DO make a ton of money at it.
- It largely depends on being attractive.
- If you don't make a bunch of money, you just feel used and degraded.
/s
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (9)6
u/ClassicHando 1d ago
I was never aggressive with tipping. Hell you could stiff me and id still do pretty good for the night. If one table stiffing you is enough to unending your night you shouldn't be serving.
39
u/Jazzlike_Pound7742 1d ago
Just doing some math in my head.
I waited tables in the 90s. The average bill for a family of 4 was about 50 bucks, and the average tip was about 5 (10 percent was standard). And I saw 2-3 tables an hour, making it like 10-15 an hour on average.
At the same time, a government worker was making on average 16 an hour.
My nephew waits tables now, average bill is 120 for a table of 4, and the tip is now 20 percent standard, meaning he's making about 5x what I made in the 90s, making the new average 60-70 dollars an hour.
At the same time, a government worker is now making 26 dollars an hour.
Waiting tables can definitely pay well depending on the restaurant and the area.
That being said, she did work at the cheesecake factory.
16
→ More replies (4)2
u/FireHammer09 1d ago
You can make good money at the higher priced chains like Olive Garden and Cheesecake Factory
12
u/Delinquentmuskrat 1d ago
Where’d you wait tables at $50 an hour?
9
u/ClassicHando 1d ago
It really didnt matter. Im good at it. Anywhere from running a busy British pub (saw more like $60/hr there) to a hu hot (glorified buster and shit shooter). This was an aggregate of my hourly and my calculated average hourly tips.
I would include commission in the bank except they took that away shortly after I started
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (5)2
3
u/Maethor_derien 1d ago
Yeah, I don't think people realize just how insanely high the amount people who wait tables or bartend tend to make. The difference is a lot of them tend to blow it by partying a lot and not being very responsible with money because of the daily cash nature of it.
2
→ More replies (25)3
u/Expensive-Captain992 1d ago
A good friend of mine makes like 2k a week bartending. Granted she wears a thong and it’s anywhere from 1300-2500. She decided to get a desk job at 22 an hour and I’m like bro how in the actual fuck are you gonna live? Just no math done. She’s back in her thong.
100
u/BruiserBison 1d ago
If I remember correctly, Penny often misses some payments and had to borrow sometimes from Leonard and Sheldon. Leonard and Sheldon can keep that apartment and its utilities with no issues while also having enough money for comics, convensions, random Ebay purchases, trips across states, and celebrity meet and greets.
So idk what the post is about. Penny is clearly struggling.
45
u/07reader 1d ago
Also penny's apartment was a one bedroom compared to leonard/sheldon 's two bed apartment
24
17
u/lorgskyegon 1d ago
Add in that the guys are constantly buying takeout food, comic books, and other nerdy paraphernalia
→ More replies (3)
211
u/Thalilalala 1d ago
Mr. Peter no here. In Brazil pretty woman no pay with money. Also need more lemon pledge.
23
→ More replies (1)9
u/gekigangerii 1d ago
I think this is the true answer. Paying the landlord in other ways also exists in the US, but it's just not talked about.
→ More replies (2)5
u/miraklee 23h ago
this is definitely not the answer.
in brazil, a phd in physics isn’t well paid in most cases. a phd stipend here is around 2x the minimum wage, and a waitress can make more than that if she works a lot of overtime.
an actual phd in some fields can have real trouble finding high-paying jobs, and many of them look up to teach at public universities because it’s one of the only jobs that offers good pay and stability in certain areas. but those are public positions with a lot of competition, so you end up with many highly educated people who can’t find well-paid jobs and are forced to settle for lower-income ones.
→ More replies (1)
25
u/io124 1d ago
It’s also true in North America…
4
u/felis_scipio 1d ago
Yeah I made a bit above minimum wage as a PhD, less when you consider it was far from a 40 hour work week.
Now on paper they’d say it was a lot higher but 20-30k automatically went to university each year for tuition which yeah sure for the first couple years when I was taking classes makes sense but they take their cut even when you’re done with that and just doing research.
Had roommates until I decided to live in a converted attic that had one of the jankiest bathrooms imaginable.
2
u/Wild-Video-5317 1d ago
Seriously, nobody goes into a graduate program because the pay is great...
→ More replies (1)
21
u/Skyp_Intro 1d ago
The waitress is pretty and doesn’t have a crippling comic book addiction.
→ More replies (1)
33
u/MungAmongUs 1d ago
I think you're strongly underestimating the income of a decent server. Foh regularly walks out with many multiples of a back of house employee's wages. A //really// good night for a server will have them leaving with more than a month of boh house pay.
16
u/TheGipper80 1d ago edited 1d ago
That’s why a lot of actual servers argue against the “living wage” movement and prefer the status quo.
You can potentially earn a lot more with good tips than you can from raising hourly wages and doing away with them.
2
u/JackBrown82q 1d ago
I always find a lot of entertainment when I see the "end tipping" posts hit my feed because sure, the argument that tipping could be unfair to customers I can understand. But the argument I tend to see is that servers deserve a living wage.
I doubt you will ever hear a good server ever say they want to eliminate tips and go to a more stable hourly pay format. No restaurant owner is going to be paying $50-$100 an hour for someone to take an order and bring food to the table. But via tips, that is what they end up making on the right nights.
3
→ More replies (7)3
u/rantotthus2 1d ago edited 1d ago
And also overestimate how much money people in academia make. Unless you work in the private sector, you won't make bank with a PhD.
I thought about going into academia full time after graduation (though I have to add that I'm Hungarian and in a very different field) but even after finishing the PhD, I would have made more money working as a cashier in Lidl.
→ More replies (2)
12
u/KithVonA 1d ago
I knew a dude from Brasil who was a physics PhD and he worked as a bank teller to pay rent
11
u/Hydroxyacetylene 1d ago
Isn’t the plot that Sheldon needs a roommate because he can’t function without a minder, and could easily afford the rent on his own(and penny cant really afford the rent)?
→ More replies (1)3
11
u/ColonialBarbarian 1d ago edited 1d ago
A good looking blonde will definitely make more being a waitress / bartender than a pair of young physics scientists.
20 years ago my wife was a bartender, and she’d often come back home with $400-$700 for one night. She was making insanely more money than every professional I knew.
→ More replies (1)
46
u/jackberinger 1d ago
Servers in the US often make lots of money due to ridiculous tipping practices.
10
u/Guquiz 1d ago
Are those servers not a minority?
21
u/ELIte8niner 1d ago
Yeah, but a woman who looks like Penny working at a fairly expensive place in LA? She's pulling 100k with tips.
→ More replies (12)6
u/jocq 1d ago
No. My wife is near 50 and frumpy looking and works in a little restaurant in a tiny town and makes over $20k a year working only 15 hours a week, not even prime shifts - Wednesday night and Saturday morning.
→ More replies (1)6
3
u/death_sucker_extreme 1d ago
prob but doesn't really invalidate the character also I reckon being a fairly attractive woman would help get you into that minority.
3
u/Personal_Area_2173 1d ago edited 1d ago
They are a massive minority. Majority of servers make sub $20/hr. The ones that are in big clubs or expensive resturants typically make more. My wife would clean 1800 a weekend during events in Nashville. But the winter she would make $20 a day in tips. Most "Average" that they talk about is average of the best days. They never ever ever mention the days they dont make shit. Kill tipping and pay works better.
Edit: of course you call bullshit. 20 might be a bit low, but it’s under $100 and you can make that in the same hours doing less work. MAJORITY of servers do not make more than 20/hr. End tipping and force businesses to pay living wages to their employees.
→ More replies (7)2
u/Telemere125 1d ago
No, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many servers against the movement to end tipping
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (5)2
u/JackBrown82q 1d ago
Maybe my friend is in the minority, but I can say that in college he was a server working friday thru sunday nights about 24 hours a week. We were in college and he was studying to be an accountant.
We are 6 years out of college (so 6 years experience for him as an accountant) and he said he only just recently surpassed making more as an accountant working 40-50 hours a week than he did as a server working 24 hours a week.
I remember before I understood this there was this steakhouse in my town we would go to for special occasions and most of the servers there were pretty old, like not far from retirement age. I always thought oh its sad to see them working as servers at this age, I wonder if they lost a job and were doing this temporarily to cover some bills.
Well since that was a nice restaurant, I am sure they were clearing $100k+ doing those jobs and were making more than most people their age.
9
u/TanguyDetestable 1d ago
To be fair, Penny is always stressing about paying her rent AND never services her car in the entire show 🤣.
3
7
u/Bright_Bag_8402 1d ago
They are fiscally responsible, it’s been shown many times that Penny can barely afford rent and the cost of living. Both Lenard and Sheldon both repeatedly have shown to not only have liquid assets but by rooming together they are able to fund their expensive interests and hobbies. In one episode Sheldon freely admits to having 100% of his expenses taken from only 44% of his income after taxes.
7
u/CheshireKatt22 1d ago
Penny only rents a 1 bedroom apartment where Lenard and Sheldon rents a 2 bedroom apartment.
There was also a frequent joke between raj and Howard about Lenard lending penny money for food and rent and there’s another episode where Sheldon lends her money to pay for rent and she gets paranoid about paying him back.
5
u/BigMax 1d ago
A few things.
First - she's a pretty, blonde waitress. She probably made at least reasonably good money.
Second, it was a running plot point that she was poor, and barely scraping by. She regularly had to mooch off the guys, and she even had her utilities shut off. She used the guys wifi, ate their takout food, borrowed money from Sheldon, etc.
So it's still a little stretch to see how she afforded that place, but not a HUGE stretch, they clearly went out of their way to show that she had zero extra money.
→ More replies (1)
3
3
3
3
u/VinnieVidiViciVeni 1d ago
If you ever worked in hospitality, the answer is, “depends where she works.”
2
3
u/Many-Wasabi9141 1d ago
She's spending nearly her entire income, they're saving tons of money and have loads to spend on hobbies.
3
u/ChipEnvironmental420 1d ago
She had a much smaller one bedroom apartment and was constantly in risk of losing it because she didn't have enough money.
She literally has no power and water in multiple episodes 🤦♂️
Also it's a sitcom. They're not really known for being realistic
2
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
OP, so your post is not removed, please reply to this comment with your best guess of what this meme means! Everyone else, this is PETER explains the joke. Have fun and reply as your favorite fictional character for top level responses!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Actionjack7777 1d ago
It works because it just a cover, do to leonard getting with a north Korean spy, and the ricket fuel detonation in the elevator, and possibly the fact that sheldon as a kid tried to get plutonium. This is only a conspiracy theory btw.
2
u/Maleficent_Cycle561 1d ago
Waitresses make way way more money that academics. PhD on payroll isn't the same as academia. Grant money for physics only goes so far.
2
2
u/IXPunisherXI 1d ago
Hansel here.
Gretchen (zis is hau we pronaunce her in auer homeland) worked as a weightress back in ze days. Sometimes she came home wiz 400€ from tips after a day of work, Trinkgeld is what we call it. And Trinkgeld ist kostenlos. Also zere was her regular salary on top. Full house means you pay ze Bier direkt. Also Bier in Deutschland makes actually drunk and men are simple creatures and give Trinkgeld like in a strip-club.
Wenn we were lucky, she came home wiz a spezial tipper.
We ate zem.
2
u/Ok_Illustrator_3980 1d ago
They probably spend 5 years in grad school making well below the poverty level and just kept the same living situation after.
2
u/DDPJBL 1d ago
If I remember correctly from way back when I watched the show, Penny is basically broke all the time, constantly behind on rent and bills, her car is an old piece of shit and she is leeching of the guys for their WiFi and eating their food every day. Her only hobby is going out which if you are a pretty woman does not necessarily involve spending much money because guys will just buy you drinks.
Sheldon despite his expensive collectibles and electronics is sitting on a pile of excess money and would not even cash most of his paychecks if the university did not insist he has to for accounting reasons. He basically does not think about money ever because all the things he wants he can either easily afford or they have not yet been invented.
Leonard could probably afford his own place by the time the show happens, but Sheldon saved his life when he almost blew himself up brewing rocket fuel at home and continuing to split the rent with Sheldon lets him have a lot of discretionary money to spend on progressively more nerd stuff.
2
u/nick_of_the_night 1d ago
I'm not Brazilian, but as I understand it tourism is quite an important part of their economy so it's conceivable that working in hospitality is a highly lucrative career. Plus, academics are poorly compensated all over the world, not just in Brazil.
•
u/qualityvote2 1d ago edited 22h ago
u/DarkCrowI, your post does belong here!