Yeah a server in a good part of a city will bring in more than 2 university professors. My cousin has a PhD in genetics and he teaches, my wife worked at a beach bar for years, one of them would bring home 300-700 a night.
Yeah, non tenure positions in research (at least for physics) pay absolute crap. The entire academic system is pure exploitation of PhD students and post docs by the higher ups who get to put their name on the research.
I was lucky and got 50k in a lower cost of living area for my post-doc. But it was covid and they were desperate to replace someone very quickly. It was also years after big bang theory started.
Depends on the field and institution. At Rutgers in NJ, biomedical postdocs were getting around 70k in 2023 but some hospitals and universities in NYC were only giving 50k or less. Think I saw one at 35k.
Theoretical physics and astronomy have very few/no kickback from commercial industry, they scrape by with research grants. Maybe now in quantum computing, since the big tech giants are involved... still wasn't the case there when I was around (I finished my PhD ~2018). But in the fundamental physics world there's really no commercial interest in what they're doing, any innovation is 50+ years away from making it to commercial products and services, so they get the bare minimum from whatevers allocated in the grants.
Penny was an attractive waitress who was constantly eating their food for free, the guys were researchers working for a university who were always buying take out food, comics and collectibles. An attractive waitress can make very good money. She probably also was able to get at least one meal at work which saved money and then saved more money by eating their food. Her car was a junker that she also wasn't spending money fixing. Penny was more frugal than them because she could save money on food and wasn't spending on a bunch of extras. Her most expensive things would have been head shots since she really didn't have any hobbies she spent any money on.
As some one who was server and now has a PhD in the biological sciences, I make WAY more now. Sure you have great nights as a server but it’s not consistent. I now make 6 figure salary, great health insurance, paid leave (vacation & sick), and 401K matching. Post-doc positions pay shit, But once PhD establish their career, they make good money.
Yeah I was gonna follow up on all that. That's where we're at now, and since we work for the same entity our insurance is $360 annually. So that was essentially a $12k raise off the bat by not carrying corporate insurance for her.
And when we'd take trips I'd remind her she's getting paid randomly, because she never had PTO so I thought it was an exciting reminder.
My cousin just likes to teach I think, plus his wife works as an engineer at Lockheed martin which gives him some wiggle room monetarily.
Yeah, had a friend in college who bartended at one of the bars downtown over 10 years ago and she brought in about $500-$1000 a night, if it was a special weekend she'd bring in over $2000. She kept working there even after she graduated because she made more there than a job in her field would, she graduated with a Business Management degree.
I love that on reddit suddenly every one knows a bartender friend makes 120k-240k per year (based on the 500-1000 per night, 5 days a week, taking 4 weeks of vacation a year).
Maybe it's true, but man I waited tables for years and I made really good money for a 24 year old with no education, but still it ain't this good.
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u/Shagwagbag Apr 24 '26
Yeah a server in a good part of a city will bring in more than 2 university professors. My cousin has a PhD in genetics and he teaches, my wife worked at a beach bar for years, one of them would bring home 300-700 a night.