Most people don’t know what they’re doing wrong because they haven’t had systems and/or mentors to point out to them what is right (do more of that) or wrong (do less of that). Pointedly that level of mentorship is one of the big things that separates people at the “bottom”-poverty from those moving to Working Class, Middle Class, Upper Middle Class, Rich and Wealthy. The current statistic is that 15% of all Americans are in what is termed generational poverty. Meaning that 1 or 4 people live below the Federal poverty line which is $10k to $18k a year, adjusted for taxes and inflation, and the size of the family—-individual or family of 2 to 4.
I know all of this because for about a decade I taught exclusively at non-profits and schools where I focused on both children and young adults/adults over 27 who were in Working Class to Poverty and a lot of them were interested in getting out of those situations/habits.
Two of the Habits have been outlined and illustrated above.
- Mentorship. Poor people tend to take advice, ask for information, get counsel——wait for it—-from other poor people. Crabs in a barrel. Not even necessarily the crab next to you have ill or malicious intent but the crab next to you not being any smarter than the crab next to him/her or than you. Think of it like that crab has half the alphabet, they’re just reading it from the opposite end than your half——but you both still have the same half—-no new information.
- You, you, the reader are reading this—-you’re interested in the above answer by accident, design or intent—-so you looked up this answer. That bears repeating—-you looked up the answer. You scrolled through mine and others and consider which parts work, reasoning that makes sense, the exploration of the answer itself. Which means that how you engage learning, thinking, considering new information, substantiating your own knowledge, taking in new knowledge—-reaching out to others, from the platform, reasonably learned others, for answers to big, broad questions that might require more, different, varied experiences, than your own. Most people in poverty don’t do this. They turn to the crabs next to them………
The above, not seeking mentors and not seeking better/more/superior knowledge and experience, become habits.
“I’ll ask my old grandmother. She’s 89 and has been on Welfare for 50 years so she’ll know email etiquette and what I should wear to a job interview.”
“I don’t go to Barnes & Noble or the library. Frankly, I know what’s inside them but I don’t know how to “use” books, so I just get all of my know how from TV. MTV, BET, HBO, Marvel and Disney movies. And Tyler Perry.””
Those are habits a lot of my adult students pass on to their children who then become teens and young adults, again in some of the programs/classes I teach. When I’m teaching professional Developments to teachers in schools and they ask me these kinds of questions about their students, I tell them that on the surface it appears as if they are teaching the children—-in actuality the mentality and habits of the parents are infused in the children and that’s the mindset/consciousness mostly showing up.
If your parents don't read regularly in the house, in front of you, for pleasure and education, then it becomes abnormal for the child to do so without the pressure, legal pressure, of school. Which is really what K to 12 is—-legal pressure to learn the basics.
But what if our parents are only adhering to the law but not really concerned with the art and exercise of learning, of understanding, what you learn but the ability of how to learn?
See, most people don’t understand what learning is unless they’re a trainer, teacher or have an advanced education. The reason why most people don’t understand is because only about 30% of the American adult population is educated beyond high school, college level, solidly. Most people don’t look at their jobs/careers, two different things ,through the lens of algorithmic or heuristic.
Algorithmic is low skilled and ceiled with directives of where to physically have one’s body and what to specifically do. Flipping burgers, serving fries, being a waiter or waitress, manual labor, retail, etc.. There are some advanced operations that can occur in those positions—-using computers, cash registers, etc. but that work is generally parsed off to those capable of the next level of work.
Heuristic work is low to graduating higher skilled problem solving work. Work where the supervisor leaves you alone after giving you general parameters and you solve the problems. If you’re working in retail and you’re given the keys to open the store and turn on the cash register and ring up customers—-that’s still algorithmic work because frankly, unless, you’re mentally impaired, pretty much a teen to adult can do this.
However if the supervisor gives you the keys for the week and expects to come back in a week, all in store issues—-returns, exchanges, fights, scheduling of staff, plus print outs and reconciliation of all cash (neatly sorted) and reports run plus inventory relayed and ordered from the main warehouse—-their job to simply check your work, make executive decisions—-then you’re a heuristic employee. Someone who is expected to solve problems.
Tammy The Waitress
Yes, a waitress, Tammy, who has excellent logistical skills in managing a crowded dining room, operating the POS system, has good customer service/issue resolution skills, can manage staff and manage schedules/inventory without constant or daily supervision, might be someone who has learned from her experience of observing others—-
- How the Head Chef purposefully sets overlapping kitchen staff scheduling so Tammy parallels that with front of house staff;
- or how the Hostess handles incorrect orders, upset customers, overbooking of tables-advanced Customer Service/Professional skills;
- or how a more experienced Long Term Head waitress creates a flow to delivering food/drinks along a corridor of tables, moving between them, so that everyone feels she is constantly aware and available (even though she’s really only being attentive to half of her corridor at a time)—-there is a form of advanced, spatial and logistical planning occurring;
- to how the Restaurant Manager has a filing system in his office clearly marking days, weeks, months and receipts, inventory, staff——she’s learned from all of them.
Now Tammy goes further and asks specific questions—-answers to potential problems or even what was their thinking in how they solved past issues? Those people, even if it’s a fast two minute explanation—-answer Tammy and explain:
- the Head Chef works his staff in threes: main, support, back up—-his support is generally the near equivalent of the main person so if someone calls out, it’s not a loss;
- the Long Term waitress explains that she coordinates with the Host to put larger parties farther into the back of restaurant so that it’s easier to use the rolling trays and always has drinks/water pitchers on the second level for the come back—-so she’s designed her work system in a circular pattern;
- The Host explains that from them listening to the wait staff they schedule larger parties to the back, smaller parties to the front because they’re more likely to leave earlier, so they can turn more tables faster—-sometimes 2–4x a night. The Host then deeper explains that each turn of a table for half the restaurant is $100 a table so their goal is to turn $400 per tables x 20 front tables=$8000 at least 3 nights a week. Tammy was never aware there was a benchmark goal for the tables, customers and then inversely, a ranking of the waitresses by the profit of their tables per night in the POS system—-that the Host shows they print out and pass on to the Manager..
- The General Manager then explains that things are broken down by days in his filing system because there are busier days for customers, deliveries and staff than others. So if you look in each one of his binders for days you can see a metric chart for the past months as well as special weeks and then he shows her the filing system on the computer for the numbers, inventory, customer count, staff pay and issues and then how it all sum totals. He’s showing her a framework/structure that is infused by the various sections-departments of the whole restaurant system. She now gets to see the entirety of the process and how the systems are interrelated. Seeing that she now truly understands the restaurant on it’s multiple deeper levels.
Say Tammy asked these 4 Key Staff people a pointed question, once a shift, 5x a week. 20 questions—-and she thought about it, took notes, memorized what they told her? She’d soon, over the course of months, 6 or more, be ready to manage or even improve upon the systems.
Tammy has learned the systemic framework of how Middle Class and higher managerial systems work for effectiveness—
- Thoughts become Experimental Actions—-
- Experiments are Watched and the Best Outcomes Repeated—-
- the Best Outcomes become Habits—-
- Habits are then reinforced and cleaned up to become Skills. Skills are what jobs, higher paying jobs and careers—-and therefore a “better life” are predicated on.
Now say Tammy’s from Poverty—-who is she going to get this in-depth, in-person thoughts to actions to habits to skills training from? The crab next to her? Even if the crab next to her works at the restaurant, unless they’ve interiorized all of the systems and habits of the Key Staff people, they won’t completely understand what is occurring or why—-mainly because they might be only algorithmically directed—-park the cars, bus the table, cut up the vegetables, put more chairs at those tables, go to Staples and get more manila folders….that’s directive—not being taught (learning).
Learning encompasses now just What to do and How to do it but most importantly, WHY to do something within a larger system framework.
Poverty though is algorithmic in nature so there isn’t the developed habit of learning heuristic skills. The 4 Key People have worked out all of the kinks to get done what they need to get done so they in effect teach Tammy the best way (so far, she might improve upon it) but she goes from seeing chaos around her—-controlled by a few key people to actually understand why the whole system works AND she might even be able to improve upon it. She has learned the habits of others and those others have learned habits that they have refined into skills—-so Tammy is learning habits that will become learned skills.
Tammy Is In One of My Non-Profit Programs/University Classes
Now say Tammy is in one of my classes to learn some basic skills and get the usage of the computer (and help to construct a resume) plus maybe a MetroCard to travel to job interviews (plus she has a professional program/university to act as a reference) and she built a knowledge level of skills by making it a habit, upon my recommendation, to ask good, pointed, knowledge-laden questions of the restaurant’s Key People.
I’ve taught Tammy, and lots of my students how to do something people in poverty don’t know how to do as a heuristic skill foundation—-become indispensable. I would give her the above and below, pointed advice, at how to get ahead at the restaurant.
Here’s what makes you worth more and a valuable employee:
What controls how much you earn:
- How good you are at what you do? Tammy has been at the restaurant for 3 months and has paid attention to the Head Waitress in how to not make it so physically demanding a job and use the dinner carts to carry most of the meals. She’s got a good attitude, smiles a lot and is friendly so she makes good tips and she makes it a point to remember the regulars.
- How high is the demand for what you can do? It’s easy to find waitresses at the pay scale but Tammy makes it a point to always be half an hour early, help clean up and upsell the more expensive dishes so her table tickets—-when run through the POS system—-tend to have an overall higher night’s totaling. That may or may not translate to higher tips every time but it does translate to when the Restaurant Manager is doing the nightly, weekly and monthly tallying-—-Tammy is always at the top of the three most high earning waitresses. It might be easy to find another waitress but not one who does what Tammy specifically makes and efforts to do—-think about the bottom line of the business. Kyle taught her to use business language when she casually expresses her goals.
- How valuable your work is to the marketplace? The tables used to turn at $400 a night with the Host manipulation but with Tammy upselling—-they’re totaling sometimes $600 to $1000 a night, per table. She’s almost as valuable as two waitresses.
- How easy it is to replace you. Tammy would be difficult to replace—-she’s, besides being young and pretty, smart. Pretty and young are easy to find but smart, is rare, especially someone starting at such a low position. The Manager AND the Owner have their eye on her for her future potential.
In my classes, Tammy is taking MS Office and I tell her that Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Access have been ubiquitous for the past 20 years, they’re going to be so for the next 20 years. We had advanced certification classes in them all at a program I was teaching so I tell her the class schedule and within 3–6 months she gets all the national certifications for the MS Suite.
Not only have I taught her what to learn and how to learn computers but I also explain to her to look around the restaurant—-the restaurant POS system funnels to the Manager’s PC into Excel spreadsheets and her converts that into Access databases—-this is why to learn it. He spends most of his time in there doing that—-imagine if she showed up with her expert/advanced certifications?—-he could suggest she pull together the slow night for him and she can stay two hours later but he’ll pay her double for those hours of Excel/Access work. Plus Tammy will always have that advanced ubiquitous knowledge/skill on her resumes for jobs in the future.
Then Tammy takes another one of my suggestions, to make a habit of something. She knows that the lead people have their staff meeting an hour before the other staff arrives. Could she come in, an hour early and just listen in to understand the full framework better? (Sure. They’re not paying her for it and it would be helpful to have a junior staff member understand what the senior staff members are trying to attain as goals every night. Tammy can then relay or correct junior staff members so that senior staff members can focus on larger issues.)
How you get good/ahead:
- Be better at what you do (than those around you): Tammy is a better waitress because she understands the full framework of the restaurant as an individual space and therefore, restaurants period.
- Be in an industry that is growing. Tammy reasons that people gotta eat so that if she likes people or logistics or the hours or food, she’ll always be able to support herself.
- Increase the value you are able to deliver. Tammy is now in a soft apprentice/internship for 4 other Key Positions, so she can get a sense of what she likes and doesn’t like about each and focus her energies accordingly.
- Be hard to replace. Tammy has become in a few months the Key Junior person for the whole restaurant that the 4 Key people rely on/translate through and can now take off nights (Host and Lead Waitress) because Tammy can fill in on slow nights; get some of the extra busy work done and only have to check it rather than do it all (Restaurant manager on Excel & Access); organize the inventory orders of the Head Chef and input it to the computer for the Manager to approve; all of this upline work cleans up a lot of the confusion that the Owner may’ve noticed when he came in once a week. He officially promotes Tammy to Assistant Manager—-making her a roving assistant to his 4 Key people and trainer for all new wait staff.
Kyle then gives Tammy a small notebook to have a: “What I Learned Journal” about her current work position.
- what Tammy did/does at the restaurant,
- what Tammy has learned,
- what Tammy likes
- and, what Tammy doesn’t like about particular jobs/assignments/projects.
I’ve now mentored Tammy in work “habits” that will metastasize into skills and a skill base. In a year’s time, asking more and better questions, including what's the building above them—-a hotel—-the restaurant is a subsidiary of, Tammy sees that she can have a career in hospitality. She dyes her hair—-I don’t know why—- and in a year is promoted to Restaurant Manager, then Guest Manager then Staff Manager then Hotel Manager in 10 years, effectively moving out of poverty, based upon just adopting micro habits of asking questions, taking notes, showing up on time and being thorough and learning (presenting) professionalism—-a Middle and Upper Class skillset.
Now in that 1st to 4th year, Tammy gets promoted to Junior Manager, taking my advice, doing the things I suggest. I then explain to her that she’ll get stuck at her current role unless she makes further improvements.
She has to get some sort of formal, deeper level training in restaurant management/hospitality than I can give her. But there are short courses or even full degrees at the university…and I walk her own to the department, where I introduce her to more restaurant/business mentors.
Further I talk to Tammy about the habits that keep people in poverty:
- Money Management. I’ve gotten her into the habit of saving 10% of her weekly take home and then half of all raises, so she lives below her means. We talk about how she can tolerate the trains for a few years and it’s better during the extreme heat of the summer and cold of the winter. She doesn’t need a car.
- We then talk about should she keep living with her mother and grandmother and for how long. Her brothers no longer live there so it’s just the three of them and they all have their own rooms and it’s rent controlled. The $500 a month she gives to her mother for rent, cable, utilities and food is a bargain and it’s a safe home. She doesn’t need to move. (If she did want to move, we would have a discussion about what was an acceptable percentage of her income to pay for housing. The recommended rate is 30% of Net pay, not Gross so in NYC let’s say that would be about $1000 with utilities in a safe space with roommates. Without roommates that would go to $1000 to $1300 but she would have to consider travel/safety/utilities. It’s a cost/benefits weighing option in NYC and the surrounding boroughs. But most importantly we would sit down and look at the three options and I would be actively teaching her how to evaluate between the three.)
- She’s sporadically had boyfriends and doesn’t want to end up like her brothers girlfriends, each has 3–5 children. So I get her an appointment at Planned Parenthood where they put her into a two week intensive class explaining birth control. (Now you might think this is basic but in GED/TASC classes for biology I teach about the male and female anatomy—-and birth control and STIs. pass around on a piece of cardboard—-stapled condoms, birth control pills, IUDs, implants, etc. and one student, who actually had a three year old son came up to me afterwards and said how angry she was that I, a man, taught her more about her body than her own mother and sisters…she was 27. She saw that she’d had her son too early and how it had derailed her life to having to work which was why she’d dropped out of high school.) So I’m teaching the habits of birth control and safe sex.
- Then I talk to Tammy about her support systems—-her family thinks she’s a a basic waitress at a fancy restaurant downtown so they might not be able to give her the advice or support that she needs to navigate becoming management (something that no one in her family has achieved.)
- What I’ve done with my students is I’ve taken them to Community Board meetings—-where as an elected member I’m on sub-committees with others and we handle all kinds of community/civic issues assigned to us by the Mayor and Borough President. I want my students/Tammy to see other people, men and women, particularly of color, as professionals and in managerial-administrative positions. I introduce Tammy to a young lawyer, Kesha who is a member of two interesting groups—-a networking group for women of color and a book club for women of color—-both fit into Tammy’s schedule so now she can go somewhere a few times a month and make friends/contacts with women like her. And more importantly, levels above her, where she’ll get mentorship and exposure to greater considerations for however she wants to explore/develop herself.
- For my own students what we did as they were completing their MS Suite certification classes is I made them up business cards with their contact info on it and a brief set of skills on the back so at the networkers—-full of 50+ professionals they had something to hand out and discuss along with their other skills and interests. What I was doing was breaking the ice in professional networkers and giving them a conversation starter. It might seem old fashioned or even hokey but Middle Class and Higher all have business cards (I have a portfolio book, big and small of cards form networkers and something I regularly do is send out Christmas cards, sometimes I do as many as 100 a year. Several contacts have come back with opportunities.)
- This is a big series of life changes for Tammy so I schedule two appointments every other week for her at the non profit (we had each at GMHC and at Phoenix House)—-a life coach and a social worker/therapist. The Life Coach helps Tammy to map out the near, mid and long term future and codify her interests. The social worker helps her to learn new habits and skills for dealing with her family (boundaries around money, modulating when and where and with whom she can hang out) and most importantly, dealing with the fact that all of these new habits mean Tammy is “changing” compared to her family/friends circle.
- Tammy registers for community college—-there’s an Honors program that I’ve gotten GED/TASC, graduated students into that after 2 years they can then transfer to Columbia University. Several have done so or gone to other 4 year colleges. Tammy does this and gets the support and education to slowly move along so that when the Restaurant Manager position is offered (so that her boss can move up) Tammy’s nervous but ready.
- Progression from one social class (poverty) to Middle Class happens for about 18% of all of those born into poverty. It’s possible but not easy because so many new habits have to be learned.
Going to college develops problem solving abilities because it keeps reinforcing the habitual use and reinvestment of the 28 Cognitive Strategies that a healthy mentality, educated mentality, thinking—-capable of cognitive, critical thinking and metacognitive thinking—-poverty is generally only habitually pressed into cognitive awareness—-the first, most basic level of thinking.
Moving out of poverty—-poverty is a multi-faceted system that holds people at a certain level, it’s not just economic—-that’s what people need to learn and be taught.#KylePhoenix
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Smile, Kyle
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Kyle Phoenix is a teacher, certified adult educator, sexologist, sex coach and sexuality educator with over two decades of intensive experience. He studied at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York University, and Columbia University. He has worked, consulted and taught individuals and focused professional developments for the CDC, Department of Education, Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health, non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and unions. He began his career facilitating on-campus workshops addressing a wide range of sexuality and sexual health issues and then moved on to teaching at universities, non-profits, private groups and clients, hosting The Kyle Phoenix Show on television and multiple online webinars, including YouTube and Sclipo and writing extensively through his blog, Special Reports, articles and other print and E books in the Kyle Phoenix Series on relationships, finance, education, spirituality and culture. He lives in New York with his family.
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