Season 4, Episode 11: "My boss kept my tips. Is that legal—or did she steal from me?"

Season 4, Episode 11: “My Boss Kept My Tips. Is That Legal—or Did She Steal From Me?”

“My boss kept my tips.” Wow. Ernest Hemingway needed six words to tell a complete dramatic story. But we just told a complete horror story in only five words! That means we’re 120% more powerful and effective than a Pulitzer Prize- and Nobel Prize-winning writer. Although anyone who had to read Hills Like White Elephants in high school already knew that.

“I can’t argue with the math. These girls completely cucked me.”

– Ernest Hemingway on Bitches Get Riches

But you know who can (and will) argue with math? Bosses who steal tips from their employees!

Today’s letter writer is a tipped employee. When customers leave tips intended for them, only a fraction are actually getting passed along. Instead, their boss is keeping most of that money for herself. She claims it’s fair, because they were told it was the policy upfront. She also claims it’s legal, because the employees are paid above minimum wage. Is she right?

Bad employers gain cover to steal from their employees when the employees don’t understand their own rights. You’ll finish today’s episode with knowledge of the one—ONE!—crystal-clear situation where an employer can take their employee’s tips.

Don’t work in a tipped capacity? Listen anyway, and share it with someone who needs it. Just as it’s the employee’s right to be tipped, it’s your right as a customer to know your tip money is reaching them. We’re all stuck in this system together. And it’s only by mutual support that we can make it better for everyone.

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3 Legal Documents You Need NOW and Where To Get Them Online for Cheap

A while back, a mutual friend of the Bitches unexpectedly found themselves in the ICU. They were very young, very healthy, and due to be married to their deeply devoted partner within weeks. They were unconscious and totally incapacitated, and needed someone to make healthcare decisions on their behalf.

The funny thing about engagements is that they aren’t legally binding. So even though their fiancé absolutely knew their wishes better than anyone, all medical decisions reverted to their mother. I should say: the alcoholic, emotionally abusive mother they’d moved thousands of miles to escape from.

Maybe you’re one of those lucky people with a spouse, or living parents, who understand and agree with your decisions 100% of the time. But maybe you’re like our friend above, and your default healthcare advocate according to the law is dangerous, untrustworthy, or completely out-of-touch with your wishes and values. Failing to plan for unforeseeable medical emergencies can put your body and your life into the hands of someone who you don’t trust.

And that is a very, very scary situation.

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Season 4, Episode 10: “I’m a Freelance Artist. How Do I Price My Work Fairly Without Losing Clients?”

Season 4, Episode 10: “I’m a Freelance Artist. How Do I Price My Work Fairly Without Losing Clients?”

Bitchlings, today we’re bringing you a variation on a question we get a lot: How do you fairly price your own work? This question is especially important to artists and freelancers. And as you know, we’re passionate about people getting compensated fairly for their labor.

While our personal freelancing days are behind us, we still carry the scars of thousands of hours of freelance work, earning our monthly student loan payments and rent money. Let these battle-hardened former freelancers pass along the wisdom of our fight. Learn from our mistakes and avoid the wounds we earned in this good fight!

(Which Bitch is which member of the Fellowship? Share your theories in a comment. Be sure to show your work.)

And for fuck’s sake fire your shittiest clients.

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Season 4, Episode 9: “I’m on the Wrong Career Path. How Do I Convince a New Industry To Take a Chance on Me?”

Hello and welcome to another edition of Using Only Gifs, Let’s Get a Song Stuck In Your Head!

Just kidding. It’s actually an episode of the Bitches Get Riches podcast! But while brainstorming titles for this episode, I got ABBA stuck in my head. And misery loves company, soooo…

Bitchlings, we love talking about career transitions. It’s always so magical and rewarding when it happens! My own career transition was an agonizing decision and process that actually resulted in one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had. So we’re thrilled to impart some of that wisdom to our question asker this week.

Is that wisdom to in fact sing ABBA at new employers until they take a chance on you? BITCH, IT MIGHT BE. Watch the episode to find out.

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Barbara Sloan’s New Book Dares To Suggest Service Industry Professionals Deserve Financial Stability Too

Last year at the EconoMe Conference in Cincinnati, Kitty and I were excited to meet many a cool human. Much to our general shock and consternation, many of those cool humans were excited to meet us too! And not just because we were like “Hi we’re friends with Paula Pant.”

This is where we met Barbara Sloan, founder of Tipped Finance. Barbara is a veteran of the tipped workforce: a former waitress, bartender, stripper, and several other tipped professions. More importantly, she’s also a huge money nerd. She has made it her mission to dispense financial know-how specifically tailored to service industry professionals! And she does it all with the fierce determination and tireless badassery we like to see in our women.

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Season 4, Episode 8: "I'm Queer and Want to Find an Affordable Place to Retire. How Do I Balance Safety With Cost of Living?"

Season 4, Episode 8: “I’m Queer, and Want To Find an Affordable Place To Retire. How Do I Balance Safety With Cost of Living?”

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: the cost of living is higher for gay people. And it’s not just because we buy $30 pairs of underwear. That is a stereotype, you bigot. Andrew Christian Trophy Boys are only $23 a pop.

(I originally had a gif here from an Andrew Christian marketing spot. I decided to omit it for the sake of anyone reading this at work. The arrestingly bouncy nature of the model’s package as he pelvic-thrusted across the screen was designed to catch a manager’s eyes from fifty paces. I will replace it with a seemingly work-related gif to facilitate more subtle on-the-clock browsing. See? I’m always looking out for you, beloved readers!)

Queer cost of living perfectly encapsulated in a gif. I'm telling you, it's scientifically impossible for a gif to resonate any more with the queer community than this one.

In our classic article Ten Ways That Sexual and Gender Identity Affect Finances, we highlighted a few of the complex social and institutional structures that make it harder for queer people to accumulate wealth. But one thing we didn’t really touch on? Location, cost of living, and their outsize impact on queer people’s finances. But thanks to a letter from a righteously pissed-off Patreon donor, we’re diving into that today.

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{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Credit and Credit Cards

You didn’t want to watch a scary movie. But your friends at the 10th-grade sleepover insisted. “It’ll be fun!” they said. “Don’t be chicken!” they said.

Now you find yourself huddled under blankets on the couch in your best friend’s basement rec room giggling nervously over popcorn and hoping you won’t pee yourself at the first jump scare. Your friends shush each other as the movie starts.

Creepy music ushers in the opening scene. Lighting and thunder clash on the screen. With the lights turned off and you trembling with fear, the title of tonight’s horror movie flashes across the screen: Credit IV: It Comes for Us All.

Watching horror movie Credit IV: It Comes for Us All

One of the most common questions we get here at Bitch HQ is “… creeeediiiiit??????” And that’s not surprising! The system of credit reporting, credit scores, and credit cards is hella confusing. It’s also pretty fucking classist, racist, and ageist… by design. Heckin’ scary, man!

So to fulfill our mission of [checks notes] sticking it to The Man by democratizing financial acumen, we’ve written and said a ton on this topic. Here it all is: our primer to understanding and managing your credit so you can use it to get ahead… or at least prevent it from getting you down.

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Season 4, Episode 7: “A Coworker Smells Bad. How Do I Address This Super Awkward Issue at Work?”

NEW MOM ALERT! NEW MOM ALERT! LAUNCH THE ALERT FIGHTERS!

That’s right, bitchlings. Your humble Bitches have a whole entire NEW MOM. Her name is Kathleen and we are devoted to being good daughters to her. We do that by delivering spicy, spicy nuggets of adulting wisdom, served up with a soupçon of rage against the machine and/or patriarchy. And in return, she bestows upon us the highest tier of our Patreon donations!

Mama Kathleen, we’re so grateful for you and your generous patronage. We hope to make you proud.

Now, on with the program!

This time we’re covering a case study we simply couldn’t resist. Namely: How do you handle extremely awkward interpersonal issues in the workplace? Do you stage an intervention? An Ocean’s 11-style heist? An elaborate play the likes of which would make Hamlet look decisive and direct by comparison? Do you change your name and leave the country???

Or is the answer “none of the above”?

Our solution (hopefully) will not surprise anyone.

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