Hike Minimum Wage? Robots Take Our Jobs.

Right after I posted my almost-leaving-for-Mexico blog from the United Club Lounge yesterday morning I saw this little number: a robot busing dishes.

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The first thing that struck me was, "Yeah, this is the kind of thing that happens when we raise the minimum wage." I'm not anti-labor or anti-paying people living wages. It's just the reality of the situation; actions have consequences. Increasing the cost of hiring people increases the number of situations where business find it more cost-effective to employ technology instead. That's a big part of why ordering kiosks are replacing workers at fast food restaurants, there's self-checkout (SCO) at grocery and hardware stores, and— here, for example— robots are doing menial tasks.

The second thing that hit me was, "I wonder if the screen on the back of the robo-cart is asking for a tip." 🤣 Tipping has gotten out of control... especially in cases where automated systems prompt for tips. Like, if I'm ordering from a kiosk and/or paying via SCO, WTF am I tipping for? Whom am I tipping? *I* am literally doing the work!

As far as the first point, this robot has not entirely replaced staff busing tables. There are still a number of people at the United Club Lounge clearing tables. It's likely this robot is an experiment on feasibility and cost-effectiveness.

Landed in Mexico! Now we wait... and wait, and wait.

Los Cabos Travelog #2
San Jose del Cabo airport - Sat, 4 May 2024, 1:15pm

Our flight to Mexico this morning was uneventful. It even went by faster than expected. The nonstop from SFO to SJD is scheduled at 3:15; we arrived in just 2 hours 45 minutes. Flights arriving early is no bonus, though, in modern times. Getting in early means the airport operation, which is running at full tilt because of how operations experts have optimized all the slack out of it, means you just have to wait until they're ready for you.



In our case, arriving 30 minutes early means they didn't even have a proper, modern gate for us. We parked 1/2 mile out from the terminal building and had to wait for buses to pick us up at the bottom of the stairs. I've joked before that boarding/exiting a plane via stairs makes me feel special. The Beatles and the Queen of England always waved from the top of the stairs. But I bet the queen never had to wait on a bus.



Once in the terminal the next round of waiting began. Though this was no idle waiting, like waiting for a bus. We had to walk about half a mile, zig-zagging through the tapes to get to passport control.

Mexico, or at least San Jose del Cabo airport, still has old-fashion human passport inspectors. Not computerized scanners like i Australia, New Zealand, and even the US.



Oh, but they do have automated passport scanners. They're all powered up but switched into "Do not use" mode.

Running the gantlet at passport control was repeated at baggage claim. ...Except there it was more of a 250 person scrum instead of hundreds of people walking through the tapes. But there were tapes again at customs. Yes, after waiting at the airport, waiting at passport control, and waiting at baggage claim, there was more waiting to go through customs.

Oh, but there's one last wait.



Now we have to wait for our ride to the hotel! For as many touts and shills hawking rides as we had to ignore just to physically exit the airport terminal, once we got outside and found the right transportation coordinator it's been another wait for our driver to arrive. I was hoping we'd get to the hotel by 1:30 even with an on-time flight.... It turns out even with arriving 30 minutes early we're not going to be at the hotel until 2. Well, at least the weather is clear and warm, with temps in the mid 80s, unlike the Bay Area, where today the weather has turned cool and rainy!

Wow, What a Room!

Los Cabos Travelog #3
Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos - Sat, 4 May 2024, 2:30pm

We arrived at our first hotel in Los Cabos, Mexico this afternoon. Yes, first because we are staying at multiple hotels on this five day trip. ...Though in this case "multiple" is only two, not 4-5. 😅

We opted to stay at two different hotels because we found an opportunity that was too good to pass up. President's Club is Mon-Thu and is at the Viceroy hotel in San Jose del Cabo. The Viceroy a decent enough looking four-star resort. We could have extended our stay there for the extra two days we're arriving early. The rate would've been a bit over $500. That's more than I've almost ever spent, cash, on a room, so we decided to look at options using the many points I have with hotel chains.



With Hilton I also have two certs— free night award certificates I have from my two Hilton Honors Amex cards. I found an opportunity to use them at a Hilton Hotel resort near the Viceroy. And getting around $400 value for the certs seemed like a pretty good deal. It's definitely more than I've redeemed Hilton certs for in the past. But then I checked Hilton again two weeks after making the booking and found a way better opportunity had opened up: the Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos.

The cash price on rooms at the Waldorf is $1,300++ a night. And I got two of them on free night award certs from my Hilton Honors credit cards.

When I booked at the Waldorf I knew that we were headed to a four and a half star, maybe even five star, resort. We've stayed a supposed four and a have star resorts before. But I was not prepared for what happened next.



After passing the main gate (first picture) and rolling up to the reception area (on the other side of the mountain!) we were greeted as we exited the car by our concierge. The concierge had been emailing me for the past few weeks. I mostly ignored his messages, figuring they were just semi-automated spam. Except here was the concierge, in person, greeting us by name.

Oh, and on a whim, late last week I admonished the concierge that my spouse is "Hawk", not Mrs. Her-legal-name or Mrs. My-last-name. "Just  'Hawk', like the bird," I wrote. And when the concierge helped her out of the car he addressed her as "Ms. Hawk". As did the porter who took our bags. 😳 At first I wasn't sure she heard it, but later I checked that she did— and was suitably impressed.

Being addressed as Mr. Walker and Ms. Hawk wasn't the big surprise, just a cherry atop the surprise sundae. The surprise was how totally swank the place is. It's so swank they took our drink order as we stepped out of the car. The drinks appeared when we were at the check-in desk. ...Which wasn't like a traditional check-in desk but was literally a beach club restaurant/bar overlooking the ocean (second photo above). And the check-in process was less like checking in to a hotel room and more like buying a car, witth the sales manager explaining all the options.

Then there's our room. The check-in clerk escorted us to it and gave us a walkthrough showing all the features. Here's a video walkthough I made after he left:

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O-M-f'ing-G, this room is amazing! It's an upgrade from the basicm $1,300 room type I booked. Yay, elite status! The biggest selling point is the private plunge pool ouside, on the balcony, overlooking the ocean. We quickly decided we're probably not going to make much use of the hotel's the next two days, we'll just stay in this amazing room!