Negotiate Your Hourly Rate in Wendy's $5 Biggie Bags
Is it interesting? Yes. Should you use the Biggie Bag Indicator (BBI) during salary negotiations? No idea.
At some point in the last few months, I went to Wendy’s with my son. With a family of five, dining out can get expensive, and I started to consider how much I get paid… in Wendy’s Biggie Bags. I’ll keep my specifics private, but do the math, and whether you get paid $15, $50, or $150/hour you may just be impressed with yourself!
As for the $15/hour floor, Florida’s minimum wage is now $14/hour. It’s supposed to go up a buck next year, so that’s not too far off where I live.
To tie this back into business/technology, as a self-employed person I constantly have to consider how far my money goes. I’m not sure if Biggie Bags are a perfect inflation indicator, but it’s fun to think about, especially if you get a little discouraged occasionally.
What has helped me get a better grasp on what I should charge for services is talking to people in my own and related industries1 and comparing notes. No, you (usually) shouldn’t throw your salary or pricing out there for everyone to see, especially in a braggadocios manner, but a limited comparison of notes can be healthy.
Also, subscribing to financial-centric publications like the Wall Street Journal, or those that discuss business and finances every once in a while… like Tech Adjacent can help keep you aware of overall inflation in your area and beyond👇
As for the question you’ve all been asking:
Does the Biggie Bag Indicator (BBI) have any practical use?
Actually, I think it does. For at least two reasons:
#1 - How much is something worth in another country/region? Last US summer/ZA winter, I visited South Africa. While there are many things I could say about the trip, one of the more interesting conversations that I had happened at a rather nice restaurant where we were having dinner. In my mind, the prices there didn’t seem to properly reflect the environment.2
I commented to an Afrikaner with whom we were dining that — even though there is a set conversion from USD to ZA Rand — it was difficult to really get a feel for how much things cost to people there in terms of their labor/versus other items. I.e. did this restaurant seem expensive to someone that lived there?
His response was that good way to get such gut feeling for prices is to convert them into how many McDonald’s Big Macs you could buy for the same amount of cash in a given country/region. Given the Big Mac’s near-universality, and consumption — or at least familiarity — by pretty much everyone, it’s a good way to at least get a general feeling for things.
Perhaps the BBI isn’t as useful as a Big Mac Indicator, but you get where I’m going with this. Also, there’s no strangely ironic BMI abbreviation to contend with.
#2 - If you wake up one morning and find that the number of Biggie Bags that you can buy with your paycheck has gone down, you’re past due for a raise. Go demand what you’re worth. Feel free to use this very post as supporting evidence, and to claim that you want at to be paid at least X Biggie Bags per hour from now on.
Or maybe you’re not performing well enough, and you’re actually worth fewer square slices of beef, cheese, onion, condiments, and bread. Either way, it’s time to make some changes. Also, I’m getting hungry.
#3 - Appreciate that we’ve got it pretty good. While not everyone around the world can afford multiple biggie bags per hour or the equivalent, I’d hazard to guess that most people reading this can. So if you make $40/hour, you’re pulling in 8 Biggie bags/hour, or 64—64!!—Biggie Bags per 8-hour shift, enough to feed a small private school.
And if you still don’t feel sufficiently valued, consider that Checker’s3 has had, until recently, a $4 meal deal, consisting of a drink, burger, fries, and a fried empanada filled with apple-flavored molten lava that they call a pie. You might even be able to sue if you crack one in your lap and spill the 500ºC (est) filling.
If that’s not enough of a bargain, you can get a soda and hot dog at Costco for $1.50, though I believe you’re supposed to have a membership. A private supper club, one might claim. I usually want a hot dog when I go to Costco, but about halfway through said hot dog, I typically start to reconsider.
Finally, if you are reading this and go by the abbreviations RFK,4 you might argue that the negative health effects of eating 64 Biggie Bags, 80 Checker’s molten lava apple pie meals (formerly), or 213.33333 Costco hot dog combos per day far outweigh their nutritional value in any fiat currency.
But are these combos good to eat? Who knows. Probably in moderation. Eating them is certainly better than starving! -JC
Thanks for reading! I hope you will follow along as I post weekly-ish about engineering, technology, making, and projects. Fair warning: I am a native Florida man, and may get a little off-topic in the footnotes. Maybe I even had an alligator or two as pets growing up. Perhaps they are alive today and could be used to test earth-wormhole pet friendliness. -JC
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Addendum/Footnotes:
H/t to Jason, Carl, Chris, and certainly others for your candor!
Admittedly, I didn’t work out the conversion factor
Checkers: a restaurant chain mostly in Florida that seemed to be growing like crazy in the 90s, but has dropped off in recent decades. They famously(?) feature double drive throughs straddling the RV-like structure that forms the restaurant itself. Make whatever Florida jokes that you wish, but their fries were/are really good. It’s probably best there’s not one nearby, otherwise I might be eating there more than I should.
As to their decline, a friend of mine in Florida briefly worked at a checkers that was just across the street from our neighborhood. According to him, there were so many rats in the AC system that you could see the conduit flex under their weight as they ran from one section to another. Also, there was reportedly some illegal substance usage in the bathroom by the employees.
After I heard about conditions, I still ate there per its proximity to my house. Teenagers have very low standards. Just don’t ask for extra mayonnaise.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you get paid the $14 minimum wage in Florida, you can get ONE combo meal at Chick-Fil-A. However, rodent content is minimal AFAIK. You often get what you pay for.
👆 photo via this WSJ article. CFA’s new mega-drive through concept that just so happens to look like an aircraft carrier. This particular location (unofficially called the USS Fil-A*) made its debut in 2024, a mere two years after Top Gun: Maverick came out in theaters. Coincidence? I can’t be the only one that sees it. I also can’t be the only one thinks it looks awesome. They could really lean into it with a replica F-16 or two in the parking lot. Maybe even an F-35 flyover or VTOL drive-through pickup.
*unofficially, i.e. I just made up the name USS Fil-A. I can’t be the first.
RFK: First off, thanks for visiting. Also, stop working out in jeans. Finally, why are you so tan? Please let me know in the comments.