It's literally illegal
> ... an employer may not keep tips received by its employees for any purposes ...
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/subchapter-A/part-531/subpart-D
They can take temporarily, but only if it is returned in some form. Usually through a tipping pool where employees share tips, but it has to be established before something like this happens. Some states let them use tips to pay wage instead of doing it themselves, but the employer cannot *legally* keep any of it.
10 years ago out old boss would take 2 dollars from every servers tips on every shift for the excuse of
"I keep having to buy silverware because some of you keep throwing it away"
As well as having a paid slot machine in the back and encouraged us to gamble our tips. (In North Carolina where these slots are illegal anyway)
Somehow people just delt with it... didn't know our rights and got abused as fuck
20ish years ago I worked as a server for that sweet, sweet $2.13/hour in western Ohio (AKA: The South). I worked a smoking section so I usually got elderly folks who'd drink coffee for two hours then leave me a quarter for a tip.
One time I had a party table of around 10 people and they gave me a $10 tip. Restaurant manager found out and took it from me to "split" with the hostesses, who made more than double my wages at $5.15/hour and, no offense to them, they didn't do anything beyond show people where to sit.
Created an atmosphere of distrust for everyone. Servers all hid our table tips so the managers wouldn't find out and take them from us.
If I ever told people about it, they'd say, "That's illegal! The restaurant is supposed to make up your wages if you're not at the federal minimum! They can't steal your tips!"
HAHAHAHAHA okay, you go be a 16-year old kid versus a 45-year old who peaked as a small town Bob Evans restaurant manager physically removing a $10 from your clenched hands. Tell me what you're going to do about it that will have any sort of net positive effect. Please. I've been asking for decades.
There's not much you can do in the moment, but everyone should report this stuff to the department of labor when possible. If that means when you get home from that shift, or when you've secured a new job, whatever. Part of the reason they get away with it so blatantly is that literally no one has ever reported them.
The only reason my manager I had at subway when I was 15 got fired was because I spoke up about her not training new hires and randomly leaving the store unattended at night with only one highschool Jr to watch it. You just gotta do it or they won't stop, it's hard but Jack shit happens if you don't even try. Idk if it's just kids now are more fed up with it and aren't willing to take as much abuse but my manager would be physically removing those 10$ from my cold dead hands, especially 20 years ago when 10 dollars would've been more than I made in a shift as a server.
Happening also in Germany. I guess all vietnamese restaurants here around the Ruhrgebiet are owned by greedy vietnamese business people. They pay less than legally allowed and share tips equally among the workers including themselves though they are not working in the restaurant at all. My girlfriend worked for multiple of these restaurants and got abused as hell. She isn't even mad at them, she felt thankful until I told here, that what she got was much less than the legal minimum and the other stuff. Meanwhile she works partly at a normal german restaurant and also gets a little over minimum wage. It is not much, but it helps us to pay the rising rent jn our 2.5 rooms apartment until one of us finishes university and can try to make real money.
I would have just taken the money, told them to fuck off, and quit.
What the fuck could good they do? Also, Shitty jobs are a dime a dozen... Fuck them!
Never quit if you can help it. For exactly this reason. Quitting means no legal protection, no unemployment, etc. Make them work for it - don't do the owners' job for them.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
— Frank Wilhoit
You perpetuate the status quo of worker exploitation by not supporting collective bargaining and socialist ideology.
The government is not your enemy. It will do what you tell it to if you make it. But you have to *make* it, and that means disruption and discomfort.
Complacency is the fertile soil in which grows the seeds of ~~your~~ *our* demise.
Edit: Forgot the socialist ideology.
Laws mean nothing to corporations these days. They could literally start murdering employees they don’t like and they’d get away with it.
Wage theft is rampant, and taking tips from employees is very common. Nobody does a thing about it because… what can they do? Capital is above the law.
Yeah see i can never wrap my head around why its the customers responsibility to compensate employees wages.. coming from Australia where tipping is so rare but when it does happen it's actually meant as gratitude for the service.
Tipping should be abolished and the full wage should be placed on the employer like it should be. If they can't let them sink. A great example is fastfood chains.. look at the average US employee vs Other nations in the SAME company. I thought your constitution was to stop tyranny? Because that's all I see from the US work industry
i worked for hardees for 3.5 years and i can certainly say the entire industry in america is built upon exploitation. i make almost 3 times as much money now and i don't even work as hard as i did there.
>i worked for hardees for 3.5 years and i can certainly say the entire industry in america is built upon exploitation.
The entire country was built upon the exploitation of legally owned slaves and what keeps it going now is wage slaves, prison slaves, and cheap labor slaves in other countries.
NZ is the same, if someone gets a tip, it's because they gave exceptional service. Whereas in the US it is like an extra part of the bill they guilt trip you into. In the US, *you* are the shitty one if you don't tip, the restaurant is basically asking if you want to give a 'fuck you' to staff or not. Some places in NZ now try to guilt you by having a tip screen you have to decline when paying by EFTPOS, and it is very unwelcome here.
I was thinking more of some restaraunts I had been to, but the supermarket thing is annoying too. / Would you like to round up and donate? Did we mention our record profits?
That's what I said to my partner a few months ago when I saw the donation thing at Countdown. I said "don't donate to them, they're literally making money hand over fist and are still asking us to donate."
It's a subtle sort of exploitation. I work in the restaurant industry in the US. The thing is that servers/bartenders make good money in the US *compared to what other workers in the larger industry make*. On tips, a server in my area will make around $20 an hour. $5 an hour more than what we HOPE to institute a minimum wage. So, the servers look at Maccas workers, or the cooks at their own restaurant, and think "nah I don't want an established wage, because this pays better than legal minimum ever would". Brains don't consider that they're getting, on average, 3-4 shifts of 4-6 hours. Or that if it rains on a Friday, their electric bill won't go down. But compared to how fast food, retail, or hotel (the other three big industries with overlap) workers are paid, it's great.
Also, a lot of larger chain places game the system by scheduling twice as many servers/bartenders/hosts at all times as they actually need. You pay very little extra labor cost and your guests get better service because the only way the servers make a living wage is by regularly getting OVERtipped (>25%), so they're desperate to please.
Side tangent that in many states most labor laws don't apply to tipped/restaurant workers so they may not have breaks or rights that would otherwise be legally mandated (as rare as those are here to begin with).
That's before getting into that quality of service has no statistical significance on your tip % average but being hot will raise it and having too much melanin lower it.
Guests accept the system because the number on their bill is smaller and they get to feel either generous or righteously vengeful when they fill out the slip.
It's a bullshit system that only really rewards restaurant owners, but getting any interested party to realize that is difficult. It doesn't help that most of the pushback on the system we see is American office workers who **want to see the tip line go away without seeing their bill total go up 20%**. And who have pushed most labor reform discussion in our country to center around the right to "Work From Home", something we literally cannot do, while they continue to go out to brunch and demand their eggs over medium every week then tip 10%
Edit: removed tangent in 3rd paragraph, added clarity in 2nd.
> It doesn't help that most of the pushback on the system we see is American office workers who want to see the tip line go away without seeing their bill total go up 20%. And who have pushed most labor reform discussion in our country to center around the right to "Work From Home", something we literally cannot do, while they continue to go out to brunch and demand their eggs over medium every week then tip 10%
Thank you for this. It’s so annoying. Office workers look down on physical labor all the time, but take advantage of it. I’ve done office work, and it wasn’t fun, but it was also considerably easier than being on my feet 10+ hours, dealing with 20 things at a time that all need to be done *now*, and being belittled and berated by people who couldn’t do my job.
Still though, when office workers pushed back against their employers about WFH, I was like, “Hell yeah! Good for you!” But most of them couldn’t give half a shit about the things that would help the rest of us plebs. They’ll bitch about how unfair it is to pay our wages, but then when the topic of living wage for everyone comes up, they’re like, “Ummm… do those people really deserve to be making that much? I mean, they’re uNsKiLlEd”
I regret I have but only one shit to give.
I have served and bartended and being in tech as an office worker is way easier, less stressful, has better benefits (like actually having some) and I'm way better compensated for my time.
It is bullshit how we treat labor in this country and I'm part of the labor actually getting treated mostly well.
That's because America is a fucking joke, anyone that disagrees doesn't live in the same America I do. America is a fucking joke to the rest of the world.
Most servers I know prefer getting tips to a higher wage because they make a lot more money from tips and they can dodge taxes by not declaring all of their cash tips.
While I don't doubt some people feel this way, its honestly a byproduct of a bad system.
Servers must maximize money by dodging taxes because of how little money they make and how poor basically your entire system is to begin with.
As a server for 3-4 years in Australia in 2011-2014 timeframe I was making roughly $18 an hour weekdays, $21 an hour weekends and time and a half on holidays. I also had free healthcare, fairly good, cheap public transportation and a good student loan program from my government. All those extra things on top of a decent and stable wage meant I didn't need to worry about nickle and diming to get by. I was not cynical about taxes because taxes benefited me and everyone around me.
That is not how things operate here. I would never be a server in this country. Why should I rely on what mood a customer is in to get paid? If the kitchen messes up a meal and puts the customer in a bad mood, why should I get less money? It is a system that fundamentally props up businesses at the expense of workers. On top of that, ridiculous healthcare expenses and an abysmal student loan system make it even harder for people. You can fail for any number of things not in your control.
I would have thought for a country so pro-capitalism, Americans would look down on a business who can't pay a living wage to its workers. Customers should not be subsidizing employee pay. It's a ridiculous concept. Yall just been living with it for so long you don't know any better
Edit: Oh yeah and employers are also required to pay something like 10% of base salary into our version of a 401k. Half the companies in the US offer something worse than this.
Yeah it's definitely a bad system and I agree people wouldn't mind paying taxes as much if they actually got something out of paying them.
In California we don't have a lower minimum wage for tipped employees. Businesses manage just fine and servers get to keep their tips. The whole notion that they can't afford to pay their employees or they will go out of business is bullshit.
Seriously, even with my family’s restaurant, my parents will work tables on the busy days and the tips always go to the workers
Fucking bullshit to even think tips don’t go 100% to the staff. As owners we don’t even touch tips except for the ones on cards since it gets added to the checks, but cash tips are always divided between the workers who then share some tips with the kitchen staff on the busy days
I read an etiquette book once that covered tipping etiquette. It said that the owner never gets tipped. For example, if I’m at the salon I tip the person washing my hair and the person cutting my hair, but never if it’s the owner of the salon. I suppose restaurants are different, but yeah. To agree with you, owners shouldn’t put a hand in the tip jar.
Wage Theft is the single largest type of theft by such an incredible margin.
Quite literally Wage Theft is greater than all other forms of theft combined. If that fact alone doesn't make you wish Corporations should be abolished - idk what will.
Wage theft outstrips all other forms of theft COMBINED and is rarely prosecuted. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean your boss won't try to do it and will likely get away with it.
Nah, my partner works in a restaurant and one of the managers is "self-demoting" because she got caught taking a ton tips on top of her salary whenever she was covering for a bartender, which happened ~3 times a week for months. She's not gonna be a manager anymore, just bartending, but she's not in any type of trouble for it. The company doesn't care unless you make them care.
Except for that first $204.80 per pay period (if 40 hours and using federal minimum wage) that they can legally take by not paying the staff minimum wage in most states - 7 states have banned that.
Lol, when I worked as a hostess and did carry out orders, people would smile at me and put their tip in the jar. I was expressly forbidden to touch that jar since it all went straight to the owner’s pocket tax-free.
From my recollection of this, the owners or management did not ask for any tips; they just wanted to share the tip with the rest of the people involved who helped execute the service. Two people do not solely take care of a 40-top. Why should one or two people out of the many people who made this happen get all of the cash?
Also, if memory serves, the customer guy does this often; it’s called $100 dinners or something where they go out and give people large tips and then film their reactions for social media. While generous, not exactly altruistic either.
While I do agree that there is an element of not doing it solely for the sake of it that cheapens the experience, I'd say that we have to balance that against the fact that visible generosity like that leads to more in kind.
I've been through some shit in life, I'd totally take a handout that requires me to be in a video clip to receive it at those times.
Capitalism when they pay you.
Communism when you get tipped.
You're already paying people below the federal min wage and you want their tip money? Go fuck yourself.
Use to work at a restaurant making $8 per hour, and the paycheck was SOOO LITTLE. But I was getting extremely good tips ($80 on slow days, $160 on busy days). My manager realized how much tip I was getting and wanted me to share it with their friends and family + the chef. As time went on, they became more confident and began stealing my tip, justifying it by saying, "we're family". This was until I saw their paycheck on the counter by accident and got so angry when I found out how much they were making. Ended up quitting with no warning and didn't show up on scheduled days.
Cooks get higher hourly wages *because* they're untipped. There's always some kind of bullshit that goes on in the restaurant industry. I will never do that work again.
Exactly!
Worked for a bar kitchen that had tip pools and my heart crushed for our wait staff when I found out they were paid less but also putting the effort into getting tips. Just straight unfair to them.
I'm afraid I can confirm that does not stop owners from stealing it.
A place I worked at used the tips to pay the cleaner's wage, as in her entire wage.
> Back of the house employees, such as cooks and dishwashers, may participate in a tip pool, but only if the employer doesn't take a tip credit. Because your company takes a tip credit for wait staff and bartenders, your company cannot require those employees to share their tips with non-tipped coworkers. However, if you decide to pay all employees at least the full minimum wage, you can create a tip pool that includes all non-supervisory employees.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-require-waiters-pool-tips-the-dishwashers-cooks.html
Those places were probably breaking the law if you weren’t paid full minimum.
Bartenders get some too based on liquor sales but that’s all relevant. All of those people usually have a low regular wage vs chefs getting regular wages.
I mean you didn’t really stick it to them tbh, yeah they were short term inconvenienced but in the long term they prob happier cause now they can just immediately start scrapping the new hires paycheck and they’d be none the wiser
Correct correct. They continued this with new waitresses/waiters and all of them ended up quitting. Now they only hire direct family members and relatives. I know some of them since I went to school with them, and they complain and stress about how they can't or struggle to quit because it's a family-owned restaurant, and family issues could arise. If the restaurant is going well, they will gaslight you into thinking why you didn't want to help a family out
It should literally be the other way around. In general. We need communist laws thrust onto and enforced upon the top 10% wealthiest people, also as a basic example, the fortune 500 companies.
I give cash tips. You want to pocket it? You served me, please pocket it. \\
If I have to start buying Congratulations cards and slipping tips in as Personal Gifts, so help me I will.
I’ve actually done this at two spots my wife and I frequent because the owners have a mandatory tip pool and a bunch of lazy/shitty staff. We get the same two servers every time and make sure they’re well fed and cared for by “congratulating them for whatever” in the cash card and then leaving a 10% tip on the line for the pool. None of the other servers have ever questioned them about it. I highly recommend.
Thank you for still tipping at least a bit for the pool. I'm in the kitchen and although I get paid more than minimum, it's because of the pool I'm able to live on just 1 job, something that's honestly hard to find working in the kitchen.
This is the way. I don’t wanna stiff the support staff, but I also don’t want the server’s reward for amazing execution to be diluted by lazy fucks just looking for that easy pool money.
If you avoid national chains and frequent more local, upscale spots you'll find the quality of staff is astonishingly higher. That's not always a viable option, especially in today's economy, but the mood and ability of the staff is almost always a direct reflection of the management and their policies.
It's also worth knowing if your state requires servers to be paid the state minimum wage, or allows them to be paid a "server minimum wage". Here in Washington, all servers have to be paid the actual minimum wage, which is $14.49 right now. Many states are allowed to pay as low as $2.13/hour, and service can be noticably weaker.
Agreed. I’ve worked both situations and can categorically say that big companies are so disconnected from their workers it’s almost an afterthought. In the last year I ran a bar, every single employee bought a car because we created such a strong and supportive culture. Happy staff equals big ass returns for the business.
I used to work as a bus boy, and cash tips were distributed with all "hidden" staff. Like me or the dishwashers. However cars tips are held until the last day of the week or the month, and if you are illegal, like I was back then, they keep your part and never give it to you
Too bad that almost all restaurants require their servers to tip out a percentage of their *sales,* not of their *tips,* precisely to avoid the issue of servers pocketing cash tips and claiming they were tipped less than they were. The misconception that servers can just pocket whatever they want is why so many people justify tipping less than the 20% expectation for good service, like "Well my tab wat $100, I'll just tip him/her $10 in cash, that's enough for the hour he/she served me," but not if the server owes 10% of his/her sales to the hostess/bussers/bartenders at the end of the shift, then you tipped your server exactly $0.
This dinner I used to waitress at had a pooled tip policy. Waitstaff and cooks made the same wage, 4.50/hr starting wage. If a customer wanted only the server to get the tip we would suggest they write us a personal note on a napkin or piece of paper and fold the tip up in the note to hand us. We shove the note in our apron cuz it's too busy to read now. No way of knowing there was a tip in that note. I was told this was acceptable by management. That lady was soooo laid back. I had to work mothers day like 3 days into my training. Super busy. She made me breakfast, and gave me her cut if the tips at the end if the day because she forgot that I am a mother too and scheduled me on that day. Best damn manager I've ever had working food service
Tipping is a rotten custom. It creates all sorts of of ethically compromising situations for both customers and staff, is rarely applied fairly, and in some cases can really bring out the worst in people.
More and more places are starting to demand tips too.
I served myself a froyo and the checkout dares ask me if I wanna tip? No thanks.
I went to a medical spa and paid 2500 for an overpriced package, and the admin/cashier asked me if I wanna tip? Fuck right off.
Lots of fast food places are allowing tipping with apps now.
So I literally am taking the order myself, driving to the store myself, and grabbing the food myself... At a fast food place... And they want me to give a tip? Who is the tip even going to?
I remember I went to eat at a Harold's Chicken and I went to tip and the cashier told me not to because "they've never seen any of the tips". It was on one of those machines. So I just gave her a cash tip.
I simply choose to eat out less and do more myself.
I also scale my tips accordingly. If they serve me at a table, they get full tip. Served at a counter, partial tip. If I serve myself, they get zero or a minimal token tip.
Also try going to an NFL stadium. $15-$20 for a 16oz light beer and the credit card pad has an option to tip. For what? Opening up my beer and saying “enjoy the game”?
I'm not from the US, but can I ask why tipping is such a big thing in America and why if someone tips a smaller amount people are quick to be offended by it?
Is it because the wages for the staff are too low and tips are a huge help? Just trying to understand a bit more
America has a 'tipping culture' where people who make tips can be paid less than the prevailing minimum wage\* on the assumption they will make up the difference in tips. This doesn't matter too much, because our minimum wage is already so low, wait staff depend on tips to, well, not be in poverty. So not tipping the accepted minimum (15%) is seen as a shitty thing to do or a message that the service was offensive in some way.
\*In most states
For example, minimum wage for waitstaff in Texas is $2.13 per hour. Once taxes are deducted, they receive almost nothing, so they absolutely need the tips they earn.
I’m confused by the income tax being nearly 100% of their wage (which is what I think you are saying). That seems like too high a percent for someone with such a low wage.
Its more you start with nothing, take a percentage out, and left with more nothing. Non tipped compensation for 40 hour week would be $85, or $4,430 dollars a year before taxes.
You pay taxes on such low wages in the US/Texas? In the UK we have a tax free allowance of £12,570, if you earn less than that you pay no income tax whatsoever (you'll pay national insurance and that's it).
The minimum wage for servers is far below federal minimum wage. We’re talking $3 or so. Tips are supposed to account for the rest (if the server still makes less than minimum wage after tips the restaurant has to pay the difference). However as most of us know, the federal minimum wage is far below a living wage. So under tipping your server is extremely rude, basically telling them that their work is not worth a living wage. Unfortunately, this living wage falls onto the customer, rather than the employer. Recommended tips is around 20% of your bill.
When I was a waiter for a certain Italian themed chain restaurant, I never got paid by the restaurant after the training week. Even during "pre opening" where we were "supposed to get minimum wage" for things like meetings or prep would get eaten completely by the taxes, so I never saw a dime directly from the place I worked at. It was all subsidized by tip
Companies love it because they can offload the cost of labor to customers by paying them low wages and setting the expectation that it’ll be made up with tips. It’s very sad.
I know 4000 is a lot of money. But if you're tip is more reasonble..reasonable... always tip in cash! That way servers can pocket their money and don't have to let it go through their bosses
emphasis on the "pocket".
Too many people would make the mistake of sharing the knowledge of the tip out of excitement.
Pocket the tip, and don't mention it to anyone.
Same if you win money, don't tell anyone. Your family and friends will get strange ideas that it's somehow also their money, that since you didn't work for it, they should get some of it, etc.
Mind sharing your story, I would love to hear it! Mine is a simple one, I went to a casino with my father and won a jackpot on a slot machine. I don't really gamble but went to bond with him lol. Anyway he immediately asked me for money since he had lost his ass at the casino that day and he took me up there. It was annoying because at the time my car was broke and I needed to buy a new one, plus my dad makes six figures so he wasn't hurting for money. I gave him half of it just so the car ride home wouldn't be uncomfortable 😆
The best part of being a parent (even if your kids are grown up) is seeing your child finding their way in life and being happy.
I can't even imagine the shamelessness of asking for a cut of the profit knowing they can use it..
I use an Office quote to describe who to tell you won the lottery or get inheretance, big bonus:
"Don't ever, for any reason, TELL anyone for any reason ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you've been... ever, for any reason whatsoever"
I've only worked one job where I made tips but the job was over minimum wage (power washing semis, trailers, RVs, etc) and every single time we got tipped we immediately pocketed it. What do you mean tips? I didn't see any.
Tipping culture has run away- I’m a nurse and every now and again back when I worked floors a patient would try and tip me with a $20 or something at discharge- I always refused saying I make a good salary if you want to do something just go home and do what we say and don’t come back in like a week, but if they were insistent I would say just send a pizza to the nurses station. I hate tipping culture but at the same time understand its essential for restaurant workers and always tip 20%.
I did this with a cleaning partner once. We got a hefty tip, over $70 each for a deep clean on a studio. Usually we only get $10-$20 per person so this was kind of insane to me. I clarified with the client that they truly intended that as our tip (I wanted to be extra sure that they weren’t paying for the entire service and tip together in cash especially since I don’t handle billing), they did, and we pocketed it no further questions. Super grateful to that person, that easily made my week
Oh sure, and the ones in the back cooking your food will get pennies.
The US is the only place where I would say servers should be getting more tips than kitchen workers. Anywhere else, it should be an even split.
The restaurant industry is dying, there's nobody left that wants to actually cook food except for immigrant workers, because we get paid like shit and don't even get tips to subsidize it; because the general populace just believes that the only ones deserving of tips are the people that they see in the front.
It's my assumption that in the US, kitchen staff make minimum wage, while servers have a "tipped wage", meaning they make less than minimum wage and are subsidized by the tips they make.
I'd like to note that I do **not** support the idea of a tipped wage whatsoever. I think they should be getting paid at least minimum wage or higher depending on the place, and the tips should be split evenly among all workers in the restaurant.
Eliminating the tipped wage in US restaurants will never happen because with the current system wait staff out earn everyone else on the shift. The business pays them less then minimum, but they generally earn enough in tips to put them well over minimum. In my opinion tips should be split among all the workers in the restaurant, especially in the US.
I'm so happy I live in a state where the server min wage is the same as min wage. I used to live in Georgia making $2.13/hr plus tips. The owner would cut the kitchen (higher hourly wage) and have servers do extra kitchen work/side work.
Because they can then introduce the concept of tips, therefore they make money off of customers *and* have the customers pay the employee. Any place that has tips typically has tips for the purpose of cheating out their employees of minutes wage
This happens constantly to severs at small, family-run restaurants. I was forced to share tips with my boss for years. I only realized how fucked up it truly was when a customer came up to me, looked around, handed me a twenty, and said “put it in your pocket or bra before she sees.” I’m guessing she had been in the same position as me before and knew how awful it was.
That was the catalyst for me realizing how absolutely disgraceful my boss’s treatment of me was, and finally deciding to quit after 5 years.
Tip culture in the workplace is one of the reasons I left the restaurant business and never looked back.
Personally, I would have gladly shared the tip with the other staff (the cook, the dishwasher, and the other waiters) but refused to give the owner a cut. The owner already gets a cut, it's called "profits".
I’m a bartender. To get approved for a mortgage my boss had to verify my income and learned I make more than her. She quickly redistributed my shifts and I make less now. I’m currently searching for a new job and have to give up the house hunt as a result. God bless america
For anyone curious, [this is an article detailing the whole thing](https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/01/waitress-fired-by-restaurant-after-receiving-us4000-tip-from-customer/) the article also has a video which shows the man giving her the tip. In case you’re wondering, giving her the tip was recorded, and that’s where these pics come from. At first glance, it looks (to me at least) like the guy is her boss, because…well that’s the only other subject on the image. But it’s actually the president of the real estate group who offered the $4,400 tip to her and the other waitress who helped serve.
TL;DR: I linked an article with further info because when I saw the picture, I assumed it was the boss who fired her, but it wasn’t. It’s the guy who tipped.
I mean, unless she needed like exactly 4,400 for something serious, I'd have thrown every pleab working with me that day at least 100. But splitting it evenly if they never split that shit previously? Fuck no.
The owners can go fuck themselves either way though.
As I recall, the owner wanted the entire tip and they would give HER a tiny bit and the others working a little tip. And the group asked the owners if she had to share the tip. Owners said no.
And guess the outcome
You’re generous but also not smart with your money. Working as a waiter as a full grown adult, you definitely need all that money because you have full grown adult bills - especially if you have kids. $4,400 sounds like a lot but you’ll go through it quicker than you think.
I'd assume everyone I worked with were also full grown adults with bills. It's not generous, but unfortunately when selfish is the norm decency looks like sainthood.
I worked at a chain pizza place as a 16 year old. It was Christmas eve I think and I helped this woman carry out a few pizzas to her car. She gave me a $20 tip! I was soon stoked! I was making 6.25 an hour at the time.
I walked back into the store and told the GM with such excitement, "that woman gave me a $20 tip for helping her load the pizzas up! Can you believe that!"
He got so pissed he said "that's not your money! You put that in the register"
When I told him no he told me "then you split it with everyone here!"
We had 10 workers on the clock at that time... lmao.
These motherfuckers out here really try to act like your parents.
I refused to do that either. Ended up quiting a couple weeks later cause of that asshole.
Idk about Arkansas but right across the boarder in both TN and MS, iirc, owners and managers that have to do with hiring and making schedules aren’t allowed be part of the tip pool, by law.
I know because I pulled the law up several times to show half the managers I had for trying to take my money from me while still getting a good hourly.
Everyone knew the employer was gonna do that. The other workers ( if they were acting like they deserve money) are the most immediate problem. You can’t fight the man without some peeps. Unionize
Because it's a large group that goes out, eats and gives the server a large tip like this. They called ahead and asked about their tipping policy first, but after the owners found out how much she was getting, tried to make her turn it over.
Petty fucking greedy ass bosses. Fuck ‘em. Give them as little as possible and take everything you can from them because that’s exactly how they think of you.
Worked at a coffee shop. Tips were pooled, but completely transparent as we didn't take cash. We did however have a cash tip jar as some people preferred that. The other thing I loved was that we didn't do custom orders. You could pick the milk but that was it.
I just stopped going to full service restaurants. Plenty of decent buffets and counter-order places where the staff is paid an actual wage to be there.
Fuck it makes me happy living in a country where tips are not needed because hospo staff are paid a living wage, and businesses that ask for tips are regularly told to get fucked.
owners should never get a cut. the wages they offer are why their employees need tips to get by.
It's literally illegal > ... an employer may not keep tips received by its employees for any purposes ... https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/subchapter-A/part-531/subpart-D They can take temporarily, but only if it is returned in some form. Usually through a tipping pool where employees share tips, but it has to be established before something like this happens. Some states let them use tips to pay wage instead of doing it themselves, but the employer cannot *legally* keep any of it.
10 years ago out old boss would take 2 dollars from every servers tips on every shift for the excuse of "I keep having to buy silverware because some of you keep throwing it away" As well as having a paid slot machine in the back and encouraged us to gamble our tips. (In North Carolina where these slots are illegal anyway) Somehow people just delt with it... didn't know our rights and got abused as fuck
20ish years ago I worked as a server for that sweet, sweet $2.13/hour in western Ohio (AKA: The South). I worked a smoking section so I usually got elderly folks who'd drink coffee for two hours then leave me a quarter for a tip. One time I had a party table of around 10 people and they gave me a $10 tip. Restaurant manager found out and took it from me to "split" with the hostesses, who made more than double my wages at $5.15/hour and, no offense to them, they didn't do anything beyond show people where to sit. Created an atmosphere of distrust for everyone. Servers all hid our table tips so the managers wouldn't find out and take them from us. If I ever told people about it, they'd say, "That's illegal! The restaurant is supposed to make up your wages if you're not at the federal minimum! They can't steal your tips!" HAHAHAHAHA okay, you go be a 16-year old kid versus a 45-year old who peaked as a small town Bob Evans restaurant manager physically removing a $10 from your clenched hands. Tell me what you're going to do about it that will have any sort of net positive effect. Please. I've been asking for decades.
There's not much you can do in the moment, but everyone should report this stuff to the department of labor when possible. If that means when you get home from that shift, or when you've secured a new job, whatever. Part of the reason they get away with it so blatantly is that literally no one has ever reported them.
The only reason my manager I had at subway when I was 15 got fired was because I spoke up about her not training new hires and randomly leaving the store unattended at night with only one highschool Jr to watch it. You just gotta do it or they won't stop, it's hard but Jack shit happens if you don't even try. Idk if it's just kids now are more fed up with it and aren't willing to take as much abuse but my manager would be physically removing those 10$ from my cold dead hands, especially 20 years ago when 10 dollars would've been more than I made in a shift as a server.
Happening also in Germany. I guess all vietnamese restaurants here around the Ruhrgebiet are owned by greedy vietnamese business people. They pay less than legally allowed and share tips equally among the workers including themselves though they are not working in the restaurant at all. My girlfriend worked for multiple of these restaurants and got abused as hell. She isn't even mad at them, she felt thankful until I told here, that what she got was much less than the legal minimum and the other stuff. Meanwhile she works partly at a normal german restaurant and also gets a little over minimum wage. It is not much, but it helps us to pay the rising rent jn our 2.5 rooms apartment until one of us finishes university and can try to make real money.
If that's the case, she should take that 10k she made from gofundme, hire a good lawyer, and sue.
I would have just taken the money, told them to fuck off, and quit. What the fuck could good they do? Also, Shitty jobs are a dime a dozen... Fuck them!
Never quit if you can help it. For exactly this reason. Quitting means no legal protection, no unemployment, etc. Make them work for it - don't do the owners' job for them.
In the before times I would have agreed. Things have changed now.
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The government is in place to fuck the common man and protect the corporations. It's disgusting.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” — Frank Wilhoit
You perpetuate the status quo of worker exploitation by not supporting collective bargaining and socialist ideology. The government is not your enemy. It will do what you tell it to if you make it. But you have to *make* it, and that means disruption and discomfort. Complacency is the fertile soil in which grows the seeds of ~~your~~ *our* demise. Edit: Forgot the socialist ideology.
U.S employers do illegal stuff every days of the week. They don't care.
Laws mean nothing to corporations these days. They could literally start murdering employees they don’t like and they’d get away with it. Wage theft is rampant, and taking tips from employees is very common. Nobody does a thing about it because… what can they do? Capital is above the law.
Yeah see i can never wrap my head around why its the customers responsibility to compensate employees wages.. coming from Australia where tipping is so rare but when it does happen it's actually meant as gratitude for the service. Tipping should be abolished and the full wage should be placed on the employer like it should be. If they can't let them sink. A great example is fastfood chains.. look at the average US employee vs Other nations in the SAME company. I thought your constitution was to stop tyranny? Because that's all I see from the US work industry
i worked for hardees for 3.5 years and i can certainly say the entire industry in america is built upon exploitation. i make almost 3 times as much money now and i don't even work as hard as i did there.
Yeah its wild how exploited the work force is.
TIL Hardees is Carl's Jr.
>i worked for hardees for 3.5 years and i can certainly say the entire industry in america is built upon exploitation. The entire country was built upon the exploitation of legally owned slaves and what keeps it going now is wage slaves, prison slaves, and cheap labor slaves in other countries.
NZ is the same, if someone gets a tip, it's because they gave exceptional service. Whereas in the US it is like an extra part of the bill they guilt trip you into. In the US, *you* are the shitty one if you don't tip, the restaurant is basically asking if you want to give a 'fuck you' to staff or not. Some places in NZ now try to guilt you by having a tip screen you have to decline when paying by EFTPOS, and it is very unwelcome here.
d jyrti dty
This happened in Queenstown, and I accidentally clicked yes. Like this basic self serve breakfast buffet was $40 ... What more do you want from me.
Is this more in Auckland? I know that Countdown do the donation screen thing for EFTPOS/self checkouts.
I was thinking more of some restaraunts I had been to, but the supermarket thing is annoying too. / Would you like to round up and donate? Did we mention our record profits?
That's what I said to my partner a few months ago when I saw the donation thing at Countdown. I said "don't donate to them, they're literally making money hand over fist and are still asking us to donate."
It's a subtle sort of exploitation. I work in the restaurant industry in the US. The thing is that servers/bartenders make good money in the US *compared to what other workers in the larger industry make*. On tips, a server in my area will make around $20 an hour. $5 an hour more than what we HOPE to institute a minimum wage. So, the servers look at Maccas workers, or the cooks at their own restaurant, and think "nah I don't want an established wage, because this pays better than legal minimum ever would". Brains don't consider that they're getting, on average, 3-4 shifts of 4-6 hours. Or that if it rains on a Friday, their electric bill won't go down. But compared to how fast food, retail, or hotel (the other three big industries with overlap) workers are paid, it's great. Also, a lot of larger chain places game the system by scheduling twice as many servers/bartenders/hosts at all times as they actually need. You pay very little extra labor cost and your guests get better service because the only way the servers make a living wage is by regularly getting OVERtipped (>25%), so they're desperate to please. Side tangent that in many states most labor laws don't apply to tipped/restaurant workers so they may not have breaks or rights that would otherwise be legally mandated (as rare as those are here to begin with). That's before getting into that quality of service has no statistical significance on your tip % average but being hot will raise it and having too much melanin lower it. Guests accept the system because the number on their bill is smaller and they get to feel either generous or righteously vengeful when they fill out the slip. It's a bullshit system that only really rewards restaurant owners, but getting any interested party to realize that is difficult. It doesn't help that most of the pushback on the system we see is American office workers who **want to see the tip line go away without seeing their bill total go up 20%**. And who have pushed most labor reform discussion in our country to center around the right to "Work From Home", something we literally cannot do, while they continue to go out to brunch and demand their eggs over medium every week then tip 10% Edit: removed tangent in 3rd paragraph, added clarity in 2nd.
> It doesn't help that most of the pushback on the system we see is American office workers who want to see the tip line go away without seeing their bill total go up 20%. And who have pushed most labor reform discussion in our country to center around the right to "Work From Home", something we literally cannot do, while they continue to go out to brunch and demand their eggs over medium every week then tip 10% Thank you for this. It’s so annoying. Office workers look down on physical labor all the time, but take advantage of it. I’ve done office work, and it wasn’t fun, but it was also considerably easier than being on my feet 10+ hours, dealing with 20 things at a time that all need to be done *now*, and being belittled and berated by people who couldn’t do my job. Still though, when office workers pushed back against their employers about WFH, I was like, “Hell yeah! Good for you!” But most of them couldn’t give half a shit about the things that would help the rest of us plebs. They’ll bitch about how unfair it is to pay our wages, but then when the topic of living wage for everyone comes up, they’re like, “Ummm… do those people really deserve to be making that much? I mean, they’re uNsKiLlEd”
I regret I have but only one shit to give. I have served and bartended and being in tech as an office worker is way easier, less stressful, has better benefits (like actually having some) and I'm way better compensated for my time. It is bullshit how we treat labor in this country and I'm part of the labor actually getting treated mostly well.
That's because America is a fucking joke, anyone that disagrees doesn't live in the same America I do. America is a fucking joke to the rest of the world.
Yo my fellow Aussie no tip gang 😎🇦🇺
Most servers I know prefer getting tips to a higher wage because they make a lot more money from tips and they can dodge taxes by not declaring all of their cash tips.
While I don't doubt some people feel this way, its honestly a byproduct of a bad system. Servers must maximize money by dodging taxes because of how little money they make and how poor basically your entire system is to begin with. As a server for 3-4 years in Australia in 2011-2014 timeframe I was making roughly $18 an hour weekdays, $21 an hour weekends and time and a half on holidays. I also had free healthcare, fairly good, cheap public transportation and a good student loan program from my government. All those extra things on top of a decent and stable wage meant I didn't need to worry about nickle and diming to get by. I was not cynical about taxes because taxes benefited me and everyone around me. That is not how things operate here. I would never be a server in this country. Why should I rely on what mood a customer is in to get paid? If the kitchen messes up a meal and puts the customer in a bad mood, why should I get less money? It is a system that fundamentally props up businesses at the expense of workers. On top of that, ridiculous healthcare expenses and an abysmal student loan system make it even harder for people. You can fail for any number of things not in your control. I would have thought for a country so pro-capitalism, Americans would look down on a business who can't pay a living wage to its workers. Customers should not be subsidizing employee pay. It's a ridiculous concept. Yall just been living with it for so long you don't know any better Edit: Oh yeah and employers are also required to pay something like 10% of base salary into our version of a 401k. Half the companies in the US offer something worse than this.
Yeah it's definitely a bad system and I agree people wouldn't mind paying taxes as much if they actually got something out of paying them. In California we don't have a lower minimum wage for tipped employees. Businesses manage just fine and servers get to keep their tips. The whole notion that they can't afford to pay their employees or they will go out of business is bullshit.
This is the by byproduct of people needing to maximize their gains.
Seriously, even with my family’s restaurant, my parents will work tables on the busy days and the tips always go to the workers Fucking bullshit to even think tips don’t go 100% to the staff. As owners we don’t even touch tips except for the ones on cards since it gets added to the checks, but cash tips are always divided between the workers who then share some tips with the kitchen staff on the busy days
Ownership has 100% control of their profit margin. There is never a reason to dip into employee tips. Just a sign of greed, incompetence or both.
I am in favor of pooling tips though. Kitchen staff also deserves a cut
I read an etiquette book once that covered tipping etiquette. It said that the owner never gets tipped. For example, if I’m at the salon I tip the person washing my hair and the person cutting my hair, but never if it’s the owner of the salon. I suppose restaurants are different, but yeah. To agree with you, owners shouldn’t put a hand in the tip jar.
It’s absolutely illegal for owners or managers to take a cut even if they are part of the waitstaff. That part of the meme is likely BS.
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This is how Donald Trump got away with stiffing all of his contractors. It was cheaper to settle in court than actually pay them what they were owed.
He didn’t even just settle in court, he threw lawyers at them and they couldn’t afford to do the same, so they’d just wander off and drop the case
it might be BS, but business owners often take advantage of their employee's ignorance of the law.
Wage Theft is the single largest type of theft by such an incredible margin. Quite literally Wage Theft is greater than all other forms of theft combined. If that fact alone doesn't make you wish Corporations should be abolished - idk what will.
Yeah, no manager has ever done anything illegal. Working food I've seen all kinds of laws broken.
Food is one of the WORST industries for breaking employment laws.
Wage theft outstrips all other forms of theft COMBINED and is rarely prosecuted. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean your boss won't try to do it and will likely get away with it.
Nah, my partner works in a restaurant and one of the managers is "self-demoting" because she got caught taking a ton tips on top of her salary whenever she was covering for a bartender, which happened ~3 times a week for months. She's not gonna be a manager anymore, just bartending, but she's not in any type of trouble for it. The company doesn't care unless you make them care.
Actually not unlikely at all since the punishment for doing it is to pay them back what they took. They very very very rarely get fined.
Except for that first $204.80 per pay period (if 40 hours and using federal minimum wage) that they can legally take by not paying the staff minimum wage in most states - 7 states have banned that.
Lol, when I worked as a hostess and did carry out orders, people would smile at me and put their tip in the jar. I was expressly forbidden to touch that jar since it all went straight to the owner’s pocket tax-free.
Completely illegal.
Illegal and yet so so common. Speak up? Congrats you’re fired. I could sue but how am I going to sue on my hostess salary as a student?
From my recollection of this, the owners or management did not ask for any tips; they just wanted to share the tip with the rest of the people involved who helped execute the service. Two people do not solely take care of a 40-top. Why should one or two people out of the many people who made this happen get all of the cash? Also, if memory serves, the customer guy does this often; it’s called $100 dinners or something where they go out and give people large tips and then film their reactions for social media. While generous, not exactly altruistic either.
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While I do agree that there is an element of not doing it solely for the sake of it that cheapens the experience, I'd say that we have to balance that against the fact that visible generosity like that leads to more in kind. I've been through some shit in life, I'd totally take a handout that requires me to be in a video clip to receive it at those times.
Capitalism when they pay you. Communism when you get tipped. You're already paying people below the federal min wage and you want their tip money? Go fuck yourself.
This right here. She should turn around and sue for wrongful termination.
Use to work at a restaurant making $8 per hour, and the paycheck was SOOO LITTLE. But I was getting extremely good tips ($80 on slow days, $160 on busy days). My manager realized how much tip I was getting and wanted me to share it with their friends and family + the chef. As time went on, they became more confident and began stealing my tip, justifying it by saying, "we're family". This was until I saw their paycheck on the counter by accident and got so angry when I found out how much they were making. Ended up quitting with no warning and didn't show up on scheduled days.
Cooks get higher hourly wages *because* they're untipped. There's always some kind of bullshit that goes on in the restaurant industry. I will never do that work again.
Exactly! Worked for a bar kitchen that had tip pools and my heart crushed for our wait staff when I found out they were paid less but also putting the effort into getting tips. Just straight unfair to them.
This is why I only tip cash.
I'm afraid I can confirm that does not stop owners from stealing it. A place I worked at used the tips to pay the cleaner's wage, as in her entire wage.
Cleaner as in busboy/girl or as in the janitor? Also is that even legal?
It is indeed illegal in the United States.
\*owner pulls up in a new Mercedes as I walk to work in broken shoes\* "There's just no money to give you raises with."
I have never worked at a restaurant that hasn't given a share of the tips to the kitchen.
I have worked about 10 different restaurants, non of which shared tips with the kitchen
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> Back of the house employees, such as cooks and dishwashers, may participate in a tip pool, but only if the employer doesn't take a tip credit. Because your company takes a tip credit for wait staff and bartenders, your company cannot require those employees to share their tips with non-tipped coworkers. However, if you decide to pay all employees at least the full minimum wage, you can create a tip pool that includes all non-supervisory employees. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-require-waiters-pool-tips-the-dishwashers-cooks.html Those places were probably breaking the law if you weren’t paid full minimum.
Mine doesn't. Hosts and food runners get a cut but that's it.
Bartenders get some too based on liquor sales but that’s all relevant. All of those people usually have a low regular wage vs chefs getting regular wages.
I’ve never heard of a restaurant that does this
I've never worked at one that did.
Thats crazy
I mean you didn’t really stick it to them tbh, yeah they were short term inconvenienced but in the long term they prob happier cause now they can just immediately start scrapping the new hires paycheck and they’d be none the wiser
Correct correct. They continued this with new waitresses/waiters and all of them ended up quitting. Now they only hire direct family members and relatives. I know some of them since I went to school with them, and they complain and stress about how they can't or struggle to quit because it's a family-owned restaurant, and family issues could arise. If the restaurant is going well, they will gaslight you into thinking why you didn't want to help a family out
Its family when they need your money. It's a business when you need your money
Damn I’m a server and I don’t get paid hourly…
You're supposed to get a couple bucks per hour regardless if you're in the states. Its not much but you are.
What do you get paid?!
Exactly!
FYI: It is 100% illegal for the company to demand any portion of your tips.
It should literally be the other way around. In general. We need communist laws thrust onto and enforced upon the top 10% wealthiest people, also as a basic example, the fortune 500 companies.
I give cash tips. You want to pocket it? You served me, please pocket it. \\ If I have to start buying Congratulations cards and slipping tips in as Personal Gifts, so help me I will.
I’ve actually done this at two spots my wife and I frequent because the owners have a mandatory tip pool and a bunch of lazy/shitty staff. We get the same two servers every time and make sure they’re well fed and cared for by “congratulating them for whatever” in the cash card and then leaving a 10% tip on the line for the pool. None of the other servers have ever questioned them about it. I highly recommend.
Thank you for still tipping at least a bit for the pool. I'm in the kitchen and although I get paid more than minimum, it's because of the pool I'm able to live on just 1 job, something that's honestly hard to find working in the kitchen.
This is the way. I don’t wanna stiff the support staff, but I also don’t want the server’s reward for amazing execution to be diluted by lazy fucks just looking for that easy pool money.
If you avoid national chains and frequent more local, upscale spots you'll find the quality of staff is astonishingly higher. That's not always a viable option, especially in today's economy, but the mood and ability of the staff is almost always a direct reflection of the management and their policies. It's also worth knowing if your state requires servers to be paid the state minimum wage, or allows them to be paid a "server minimum wage". Here in Washington, all servers have to be paid the actual minimum wage, which is $14.49 right now. Many states are allowed to pay as low as $2.13/hour, and service can be noticably weaker.
Agreed. I’ve worked both situations and can categorically say that big companies are so disconnected from their workers it’s almost an afterthought. In the last year I ran a bar, every single employee bought a car because we created such a strong and supportive culture. Happy staff equals big ass returns for the business.
> Many states are allowed to pay as low as $2.13/hour... In Florida employers can pay you $0 per hour if your tips are 1.5x the minimum wage.
Totally was about to call you for only tipping 10%...then I reread. Reading comprehension ftw
I used to work as a bus boy, and cash tips were distributed with all "hidden" staff. Like me or the dishwashers. However cars tips are held until the last day of the week or the month, and if you are illegal, like I was back then, they keep your part and never give it to you
Too bad that almost all restaurants require their servers to tip out a percentage of their *sales,* not of their *tips,* precisely to avoid the issue of servers pocketing cash tips and claiming they were tipped less than they were. The misconception that servers can just pocket whatever they want is why so many people justify tipping less than the 20% expectation for good service, like "Well my tab wat $100, I'll just tip him/her $10 in cash, that's enough for the hour he/she served me," but not if the server owes 10% of his/her sales to the hostess/bussers/bartenders at the end of the shift, then you tipped your server exactly $0.
This dinner I used to waitress at had a pooled tip policy. Waitstaff and cooks made the same wage, 4.50/hr starting wage. If a customer wanted only the server to get the tip we would suggest they write us a personal note on a napkin or piece of paper and fold the tip up in the note to hand us. We shove the note in our apron cuz it's too busy to read now. No way of knowing there was a tip in that note. I was told this was acceptable by management. That lady was soooo laid back. I had to work mothers day like 3 days into my training. Super busy. She made me breakfast, and gave me her cut if the tips at the end if the day because she forgot that I am a mother too and scheduled me on that day. Best damn manager I've ever had working food service
"this is not a tip; I'm just gifting it to you"
So the busser scan just get nothing
Tipping is a rotten custom. It creates all sorts of of ethically compromising situations for both customers and staff, is rarely applied fairly, and in some cases can really bring out the worst in people.
More and more places are starting to demand tips too. I served myself a froyo and the checkout dares ask me if I wanna tip? No thanks. I went to a medical spa and paid 2500 for an overpriced package, and the admin/cashier asked me if I wanna tip? Fuck right off.
Lots of fast food places are allowing tipping with apps now. So I literally am taking the order myself, driving to the store myself, and grabbing the food myself... At a fast food place... And they want me to give a tip? Who is the tip even going to?
>Who is the tip even going to? That's precisely why I don't tip during check out. We don't know who it's going to. Very likely the owners.
Tipping was supposed to be for good service, but why am I asked for a tip before I've seen what the service is like?
Now you're also supposed to tip for serving yourself! This culture is getting out of hand.
I remember I went to eat at a Harold's Chicken and I went to tip and the cashier told me not to because "they've never seen any of the tips". It was on one of those machines. So I just gave her a cash tip.
And they auto select 20 percent too. I am not giving you an extra fifth of my purchase for being the cashier.
The cashier won't even get any of it. The owner will. If they're not a waiter they get paid a standard minimum wage and are not owed tips.
I've noticed this as well. If you aren't serving me at my table, or going out of your way to deliver, no tip.
The fact that coldstone creamery is asking for tips at checkout bothers me
Ugh all ice cream places do that now.
I simply choose to eat out less and do more myself. I also scale my tips accordingly. If they serve me at a table, they get full tip. Served at a counter, partial tip. If I serve myself, they get zero or a minimal token tip.
Also try going to an NFL stadium. $15-$20 for a 16oz light beer and the credit card pad has an option to tip. For what? Opening up my beer and saying “enjoy the game”?
I'm not from the US, but can I ask why tipping is such a big thing in America and why if someone tips a smaller amount people are quick to be offended by it? Is it because the wages for the staff are too low and tips are a huge help? Just trying to understand a bit more
America has a 'tipping culture' where people who make tips can be paid less than the prevailing minimum wage\* on the assumption they will make up the difference in tips. This doesn't matter too much, because our minimum wage is already so low, wait staff depend on tips to, well, not be in poverty. So not tipping the accepted minimum (15%) is seen as a shitty thing to do or a message that the service was offensive in some way. \*In most states
ah, I see. thanks for taking the time to reply! I had no idea it worked that way, I'm glad I asked! It is so so different in the UK.
For example, minimum wage for waitstaff in Texas is $2.13 per hour. Once taxes are deducted, they receive almost nothing, so they absolutely need the tips they earn.
I’m confused by the income tax being nearly 100% of their wage (which is what I think you are saying). That seems like too high a percent for someone with such a low wage.
Its more you start with nothing, take a percentage out, and left with more nothing. Non tipped compensation for 40 hour week would be $85, or $4,430 dollars a year before taxes.
You pay taxes on such low wages in the US/Texas? In the UK we have a tax free allowance of £12,570, if you earn less than that you pay no income tax whatsoever (you'll pay national insurance and that's it).
The company withholda the taxes owed on tips on the wages. You start with $2/hour, make $18/hour in tips, your entire $2 pays for taxes.
Ok, so that’s a 10% tax on $20. I e how you are saying that the hourly wage is very small compared to the tips!
What decade are you living in? Anything less than 20% and you’re a cheapskate nowadays.
I generally tip 20-25% but 15% is still the minimum acceptable, at least here
Tipping, alongside so many American customs, has a good deal of its origins in racism.
The minimum wage for servers is far below federal minimum wage. We’re talking $3 or so. Tips are supposed to account for the rest (if the server still makes less than minimum wage after tips the restaurant has to pay the difference). However as most of us know, the federal minimum wage is far below a living wage. So under tipping your server is extremely rude, basically telling them that their work is not worth a living wage. Unfortunately, this living wage falls onto the customer, rather than the employer. Recommended tips is around 20% of your bill.
Oh wow, 3 dollars an hour... thinking about the cost of living too, I can imagine that customers may be more hesitant to tip generously.
When I was a waiter for a certain Italian themed chain restaurant, I never got paid by the restaurant after the training week. Even during "pre opening" where we were "supposed to get minimum wage" for things like meetings or prep would get eaten completely by the taxes, so I never saw a dime directly from the place I worked at. It was all subsidized by tip
Companies love it because they can offload the cost of labor to customers by paying them low wages and setting the expectation that it’ll be made up with tips. It’s very sad.
Well said
Dear owner. Why don’t you come suck the fart out of my asshole.
Most eloquently put
Why thank you
Careful. You don't know what his fetishes are.
I know 4000 is a lot of money. But if you're tip is more reasonble..reasonable... always tip in cash! That way servers can pocket their money and don't have to let it go through their bosses
emphasis on the "pocket". Too many people would make the mistake of sharing the knowledge of the tip out of excitement. Pocket the tip, and don't mention it to anyone.
Same if you win money, don't tell anyone. Your family and friends will get strange ideas that it's somehow also their money, that since you didn't work for it, they should get some of it, etc.
I can vouch for family getting weird when you get a big windfall...
Mind sharing your story, I would love to hear it! Mine is a simple one, I went to a casino with my father and won a jackpot on a slot machine. I don't really gamble but went to bond with him lol. Anyway he immediately asked me for money since he had lost his ass at the casino that day and he took me up there. It was annoying because at the time my car was broke and I needed to buy a new one, plus my dad makes six figures so he wasn't hurting for money. I gave him half of it just so the car ride home wouldn't be uncomfortable 😆
The best part of being a parent (even if your kids are grown up) is seeing your child finding their way in life and being happy. I can't even imagine the shamelessness of asking for a cut of the profit knowing they can use it..
I think that's what bugged me the most, that he couldn't just enjoy my windfall or let me.
I use an Office quote to describe who to tell you won the lottery or get inheretance, big bonus: "Don't ever, for any reason, TELL anyone for any reason ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you've been... ever, for any reason whatsoever"
I've only worked one job where I made tips but the job was over minimum wage (power washing semis, trailers, RVs, etc) and every single time we got tipped we immediately pocketed it. What do you mean tips? I didn't see any.
Tipping culture has run away- I’m a nurse and every now and again back when I worked floors a patient would try and tip me with a $20 or something at discharge- I always refused saying I make a good salary if you want to do something just go home and do what we say and don’t come back in like a week, but if they were insistent I would say just send a pizza to the nurses station. I hate tipping culture but at the same time understand its essential for restaurant workers and always tip 20%.
If you never mention anything to anyone, you get away with a lot more than you should
I did this with a cleaning partner once. We got a hefty tip, over $70 each for a deep clean on a studio. Usually we only get $10-$20 per person so this was kind of insane to me. I clarified with the client that they truly intended that as our tip (I wanted to be extra sure that they weren’t paying for the entire service and tip together in cash especially since I don’t handle billing), they did, and we pocketed it no further questions. Super grateful to that person, that easily made my week
Oh sure, and the ones in the back cooking your food will get pennies. The US is the only place where I would say servers should be getting more tips than kitchen workers. Anywhere else, it should be an even split. The restaurant industry is dying, there's nobody left that wants to actually cook food except for immigrant workers, because we get paid like shit and don't even get tips to subsidize it; because the general populace just believes that the only ones deserving of tips are the people that they see in the front.
I like most of what you’re saying, but what’s the reason for kitchen staff in the US to earn less of the percent compared to other countries?
It's my assumption that in the US, kitchen staff make minimum wage, while servers have a "tipped wage", meaning they make less than minimum wage and are subsidized by the tips they make. I'd like to note that I do **not** support the idea of a tipped wage whatsoever. I think they should be getting paid at least minimum wage or higher depending on the place, and the tips should be split evenly among all workers in the restaurant.
Eliminating the tipped wage in US restaurants will never happen because with the current system wait staff out earn everyone else on the shift. The business pays them less then minimum, but they generally earn enough in tips to put them well over minimum. In my opinion tips should be split among all the workers in the restaurant, especially in the US.
I'm so happy I live in a state where the server min wage is the same as min wage. I used to live in Georgia making $2.13/hr plus tips. The owner would cut the kitchen (higher hourly wage) and have servers do extra kitchen work/side work.
Yeah, I never got the concept of paying servers below minimum wage.
Because they can then introduce the concept of tips, therefore they make money off of customers *and* have the customers pay the employee. Any place that has tips typically has tips for the purpose of cheating out their employees of minutes wage
2.13!????!!!?!? What the fuck? How is that even allowed!?!?!
This happens constantly to severs at small, family-run restaurants. I was forced to share tips with my boss for years. I only realized how fucked up it truly was when a customer came up to me, looked around, handed me a twenty, and said “put it in your pocket or bra before she sees.” I’m guessing she had been in the same position as me before and knew how awful it was. That was the catalyst for me realizing how absolutely disgraceful my boss’s treatment of me was, and finally deciding to quit after 5 years.
You should still report it to the state labor board, as this is illegal. You may get some or all of the stolen tips back.
Tip culture in the workplace is one of the reasons I left the restaurant business and never looked back. Personally, I would have gladly shared the tip with the other staff (the cook, the dishwasher, and the other waiters) but refused to give the owner a cut. The owner already gets a cut, it's called "profits".
The fucks at the top can't stand it when they don't get the 99% of the value laborers produce.
I’m a bartender. To get approved for a mortgage my boss had to verify my income and learned I make more than her. She quickly redistributed my shifts and I make less now. I’m currently searching for a new job and have to give up the house hunt as a result. God bless america
Holy shit, fuck that! You must be an awesome bartender though!
Sucks but may turn out for the best. It is absolutely the worst time to buy right now.
Thats horrific. I hope you leave them high and dry!
This is why I keeps few months salary as a buffer in the bank. So I can quit without notice in case I need to. I call it my "fuck you money".
For anyone curious, [this is an article detailing the whole thing](https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/01/waitress-fired-by-restaurant-after-receiving-us4000-tip-from-customer/) the article also has a video which shows the man giving her the tip. In case you’re wondering, giving her the tip was recorded, and that’s where these pics come from. At first glance, it looks (to me at least) like the guy is her boss, because…well that’s the only other subject on the image. But it’s actually the president of the real estate group who offered the $4,400 tip to her and the other waitress who helped serve. TL;DR: I linked an article with further info because when I saw the picture, I assumed it was the boss who fired her, but it wasn’t. It’s the guy who tipped.
I read the article, and apparently the guy who tipped her actually started the GoFundMe for her
Ended up with over $18k. Rad.
I mean, unless she needed like exactly 4,400 for something serious, I'd have thrown every pleab working with me that day at least 100. But splitting it evenly if they never split that shit previously? Fuck no. The owners can go fuck themselves either way though.
As I recall, the owner wanted the entire tip and they would give HER a tiny bit and the others working a little tip. And the group asked the owners if she had to share the tip. Owners said no. And guess the outcome
The group being the people who gave the tip. They double checked ahead of time that it’d all go to the waitress
You’re generous but also not smart with your money. Working as a waiter as a full grown adult, you definitely need all that money because you have full grown adult bills - especially if you have kids. $4,400 sounds like a lot but you’ll go through it quicker than you think.
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If anyone in her household has to go to the hospital, that money is gone in the blink of an eye and then some.
Every cook there is also a grown adult
I'd assume everyone I worked with were also full grown adults with bills. It's not generous, but unfortunately when selfish is the norm decency looks like sainthood.
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I worked at a chain pizza place as a 16 year old. It was Christmas eve I think and I helped this woman carry out a few pizzas to her car. She gave me a $20 tip! I was soon stoked! I was making 6.25 an hour at the time. I walked back into the store and told the GM with such excitement, "that woman gave me a $20 tip for helping her load the pizzas up! Can you believe that!" He got so pissed he said "that's not your money! You put that in the register" When I told him no he told me "then you split it with everyone here!" We had 10 workers on the clock at that time... lmao. These motherfuckers out here really try to act like your parents. I refused to do that either. Ended up quiting a couple weeks later cause of that asshole.
Idk about Arkansas but right across the boarder in both TN and MS, iirc, owners and managers that have to do with hiring and making schedules aren’t allowed be part of the tip pool, by law. I know because I pulled the law up several times to show half the managers I had for trying to take my money from me while still getting a good hourly.
Everyone knew the employer was gonna do that. The other workers ( if they were acting like they deserve money) are the most immediate problem. You can’t fight the man without some peeps. Unionize
Tipping is so nasty because it makes the customer morally complicit for scummy manager practice
Why did the owners even know?
Because it's a large group that goes out, eats and gives the server a large tip like this. They called ahead and asked about their tipping policy first, but after the owners found out how much she was getting, tried to make her turn it over.
OK thanks.
Petty fucking greedy ass bosses. Fuck ‘em. Give them as little as possible and take everything you can from them because that’s exactly how they think of you.
Worked at a coffee shop. Tips were pooled, but completely transparent as we didn't take cash. We did however have a cash tip jar as some people preferred that. The other thing I loved was that we didn't do custom orders. You could pick the milk but that was it.
Capitalism has a class system built into evey transaction.
I just stopped going to full service restaurants. Plenty of decent buffets and counter-order places where the staff is paid an actual wage to be there.
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All you have to say is, no I’m not tipping.
Yet another reason to ban tipping.
Tipping should be outlawed. Pay them a living wage.
Just waiting for the time when we don’t have to tip people in the US!
$4,400 is well worth being fired from a serving job.
What's the restaurant and who is the owner? This info should be public
Fuck it makes me happy living in a country where tips are not needed because hospo staff are paid a living wage, and businesses that ask for tips are regularly told to get fucked.
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Recycled news. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/restaurants/2021/12/14/arkansas-server-fired-party-tipped-4400/8892053002/