A question nobody is asking about the ramifications a $15 minimum wage: what effect will it have on the underground barter network built by underpaid service industry employees now that they’d be paid a living wage?

Talk to any restaurant worker, ticket taker/doorman, bartender, or retail employee and they all have a pair of mile long lists: hookups they give out and hookups they receive.

When I worked in bike shops, I could get drinks and dine out seven nights a week for nothing more than tip money because bartenders and servers always got free bike repair and the “team” discount, a practice that has been passed down to generations of shop monkeys.

In turn, our bike shop crew would get the Henry Hill walking into the Copacabana treatment everywhere we went with free drinks, fine dinning, movies (with Hefty bags of free popcorn!), and even VIP backstage passes at concerts anytime we wanted them. (RIP, House of Blues.)

In fact, the first night out with my future wife was to a dress rehearsal dinner at a soon-to-open French restaurant that would go on to earn a Michelin star and it was all because the consultant hired to open it was a customer of mine and extended an invitation.

If I didn’t get that invite, there’s a good chance I never would have worked up the courage to send her an email with the subject line Do You Like Food? and who knows what bridge I’d be living under today.

Good times.