Yelp Follows in Walmart’s Footsteps
by Miki Saxon
Have you read yet the story of Talia Jane?
She is a customer service rep at Yelp, whose pay puts her right down there with Walmart and bank tellers.
“I got paid yesterday ($733.24, bi-weekly) but I have to save as much of that as possible to pay my rent ($1245) for my apartment that’s 40 miles away from work because it was the cheapest place I could find that had access to the train, which costs me $5.65 one way to get to work. That’s $11.30 a day, by the way. I make $8.15 an hour after taxes.” (Minimum wage in San Francisco is $12.25 an hour.)
She was fired two hours after writing an open letter to Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman on Medium.
Yelp, of course, says the letter had nothing to do with her termination.
Stoppleman has a solution.
“The reality of such a high Bay Area cost of living is entry level jobs migrate to where costs of living are lower. Have already announced we are growing EAT24 support in AZ for this reason.”
Stoppleman’s solution seems to be to kick out everyone who doesn’t earn a fat salary — how dare “them” have the temerity to want to enjoy the pleasures and opportunities of life in San Francisco/Silicon Valley.
That said, I’ve never understood why Walmart, banks, Yelp or all those who follow in their footsteps, pay their front-line people—the actual “face of the company”— what can amount to starvation wages in urban areas and then are surprised when those same people lie, cheat, steal or speak out publicly.
Tony Hsieh, of Zappos fame, Costco and Trader Joe’s are a different story.
What it comes down to is that the further away from contact with customers the greater the money, perks and benefits.
Crazy.
Flickr image credit: Javier Morales
