During WWII in Hawaii, on Pearl Street prostitutes worked in a set of rooms that went in a circle called the bull pen, in these rooms they would entertain a soldier for three minutes then move on to the next room. This is where the expression $3 for 3 minutes came from. This also helped to cement the term a 'working girl', because this was no ordinary 8 hour shift.
Very often I will work the morning shift at my part time restaurant job, and most of the customers are elderly and female. No matter how much you bust your butt making everything perfect during their two hour visit they will only tip you three dollars, and they are senile enough to believe they have only been there for three minutes. Performing these tasks day after day really makes prostitution look like an equal opportunity with the same job description, except you can be self employed and work from home, unlike the restaurant business.
Don't get me wrong, not everyday is a bad day, but every time I see those three one-dollar bills sitting on the table or that amount written on the credit card receipt, all I can think of is Pearl Street prostitution as I watch the old ladies hobble out the door. I am also very sure that they were protected enough in their youth and kept so busy with children all their lives that they never got around to learning more about history or where the expression $3 for 3 minutes came from. So now in their ancient age and blindness to all things (like inflation, minimum wage, and cost of living), they revert back to what they think was a good tip when they were younger.....like in 1960.
Don't get me wrong, I like talking with old people and making others happy, but my boss does not like it when I try to only spend three minutes with each table so that I can still pay my bills. It's is such a regular expectation for me to only be given the value of $3 that I have considered doing what other servers have already done...such as screening a table before taking it. There are two servers who I work with who do not wait on people who appear to be over the age of 45, and who do not dress as if they did not buy their clothes from Goodwill. I do agree, this is discrimination, but I get to keep my water hot and my lights on if I stop taking tables that only tip $3 because they are not from 2015.
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