Bonding with a (Chinese-American) restaurant worker.

The other weekend when it was nice out and my dinner plans had fallen through, I went out on a marathon newbarhopping session like across 4 neighborhoods, to hit up some new places that had opened up in each since the last time that I had been through them.

As I was walking from the subway stop up to the first new bar that I had planned on going to, I saw a (Chinese) restaurant off a sunken courtyard area with a row of shops, and though I had known of that place for forever, I somehow just then noticed that the sign out front also indicated that that place was actually a "Restaurant - Lounge".

So, I dawdled on down, and what did I see but a shitty-ass (Chinese) restaurant with a four-seat bar by the front window.

The place was kind of dead, and this (young) (fat) (Latinx) person with a baseball jersey on over all their fat got my beer order, but then a (late middle-aged) (Chinese) woman brought it out, saying that the (Latinx) person was too young to actually serve me.

Later, she sat down at the end of the bar, and we chit-chatted some.

As it turns out, the boss only paid her the state minimum wage, not the higher city minimum wage, so I wrote for her on a napkin the name of a local workers center and the type of records she should keep  if she ever left the job and wanted to go for backwages (= hours in and out, any paystubs).

She said that she had the paystubs with hours, and when she went to go do taxes, her accountant said that no taxes had been paid.

She was a citizen, too, she told me when I asked, since sometimes that can make people hesitant to go for backwages, though it doesn't technically affect their ability to do so

"I get lawyer," she was like, and I had to tell her maybe she could if she wanted, but if she had the records, the filing with the state was short and simple and she could do it herself.

"Thank youuuu," she was like, when I was going to leave and we said goodbye.

In any case, to think that this happened in a non-descript (Chinese) restaurant in the city's chi-chi yuppie neighborhood.

Wage theft is everywhere.