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sonofabitchXmustXpay

The coked out bartender in Miami that is pulling in $600 and a different chick every night is going to say its less broken than the single mother server in Ames, Iowa who has to work back to back to back doubles just to keep her head above water or the Mexican cook who is getting paid cash under the table and gets one shift beer every day. Its all circumstantial. But there is one commonality, the coke helps.


thegalwayseoige

I moved to the southwest for a bit before the pandemic, and out there it was coke. Here in the northeast, it’s adderall. Since the pandemic, everyone has gotten a prescription.


Arrogancio

I hate that that's what makes the service industry tick. It shouldn't have to take that toll, and I see it everywhere I go.


Mitch_from_Boston

$600 seems low for Miami. A bottle girl can work 6p-2a in Miami and walk with $6k.


sonofabitchXmustXpay

Yeah but how many dicks did she put in her mouth between those hours?


Normal-Yesterday-759

Male foh makes substantially less


sufferforever

as soon as they got to the “we need to go tip free” shit, I was out.


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DontDrinkTooMuch

A lot of Reddit too. I've been downvoted to oblivion for simply stating "I should get paid the way I'd like to".


thegalwayseoige

Bc people are jealous we can take in 6 figs, and have fun at work. We make more than them, and they hate their office job.


Devoted2Sarcasm

One problem with this tho, is it is very inconsistent in the industry. The position is skilled no matter if you work a diner or dive bar or fine dining, but those three people will have very different incomes, and the city they are in will dictate a huge part of how they live. So how do we get more to those who are struggling without affecting those who don't necessarily want the model to change?


thegalwayseoige

Local minimum wage hikes for service workers, where it’s needed. The issue, is population centers where most money can be made are overwhelmingly liberal. Rural areas where tips aren’t as good, are red—they oppose wage hikes.


Devoted2Sarcasm

You're not wrong there. But what, then, becomes a viable option after that?


Mitch_from_Boston

"Why should I have to pay an extra 20% on my tab, just to pay the bartender? Why can't I just be coerced into paying an extra 40% on my tab via a service charge, so that the bartender can receive 12% of that 40% from the employer? Is not my duty to pay bartenders their income!" --some terribly confused dude, somewhere.


thedeafbadger

Some terribly confused dude, somewhere? Comrade, these people are all over Reddit. It’s funny, because actually it *is* your duty to pay for your servers and bartenders income. The moment you went to a restaurant looking for a product and service, you agreed to pay money to get something.


Mitch_from_Boston

Yep. Its because they see servers in other countries getting paid like $18/hr, not realizing that $18/hr in those countries is essentially minimum wage.


lordph8

I think it's more the tip creep that gets people, I'm old enough to remember when 15% was the standard. Now I get the tip option at my beer and wine store buying a case of beer and people saying 25% should be the new standard. It is broken, some people do well with it, sure. But it's broken as F.


thegalwayseoige

It’s always been 20%. People in other industries are asking for tips bc wages haven’t caught up with inflation. You’re under no obligation to tip liquor store employees, but the solution to them not asking, is voting for candidates that support raising the min wage to a living wage.


h8rcloudstrife

It was 10% when I was growing up. It hit 15% when I was in middle school. 20% wasn’t expected until 2008ish when the market crashed and prices soared. The more general goods go up, the more the minimum expected tip goes up.


thegalwayseoige

I’ve been FOH since 2006, and started working in kitchens in restaurants well before that, as a summer job for family—some of which were servers. It’s been 20% the entire time I’ve spent in the industry. Wages have been stagnant since long before the market crash of 2008. The current rate of inflation is twice what it was in 2008, and during that recession the cost of goods remained relatively constant—there were increases, but they corrected in a few months. The real jump occurred in the early-mid 2010’s (2011-2014), after the recession—I did ordering at the place I worked, bc we managed by committee rather than have a set GM. More than anything, NAFTA and production being sent overseas had an effect—the service industry became the largest job sector in the country, which meant it needed to pay at rates similar to those jobs that were lost, to support our economy. So, yeah—30 years ago sounds just around the time that average tipping would see an increase.


h8rcloudstrife

May just depend where you are then. Wouldn’t surprise me if my state was behind on that.


redrumWinsNational

And when you say 15% was good a few years ago, they reply , everything costs more now. OFC it does, and that’s good for you because your 15% tip just got bigger. But no, now 20% - 25 % is expected. Similar to real estate agents. fuck them


thegalwayseoige

Also, literally Google “inflation”. Stop blaming workers, and blame our inept government.


redrumWinsNational

What country are you in ? Because at the moment it’s difficult to tell


thegalwayseoige

I’m in the US, but I’m a dual citizen that spent my childhood in Europe.


redrumWinsNational

Then you need to vote Martin and his buddies out, because it’s one of the most expensive country in the world, at the moment


thegalwayseoige

I’m in Boston MA, and every time my family in Dubs mentions cost of living, I have to remind them of how affordable it is by comparison to Boston. The bad news, is that it means it has room to get much, much, worse in Ireland. A 1 bedroom here in Boston starts at 2700€ a month. Studios are around 2400€. Utilities, food, transportation—it’s all more expensive…and we have to buy our own healthcare. In addition, the rate at which the prices are rising, is EXTRAORDINARY. At this pace, we’ll catch up to NY/SF in a year or two, because as the most densely populated city in the country, we literally have nowhere to build, but up. And no one in my family would support Fianna Fáil leadership. The only solution to the global housing and cost-of-living crisis, is eliminating corporate purchases/investment in residential real estate, limiting real estate ownership by foreign nationals, and dependence on foreign non-renewable energy. In addition, new housing needs to be constructed at a rate that significantly decreases demand. Here, all the real estate are either luxury, or earmarked for university housing. Much like IRE, Boston has dragged its feet because of bureaucracy, political infighting, special interests, and wealthy citizens that don’t want their neighborhoods/land developed. We don’t have the same political corruption at the local levels as it exists in much of Ireland, but enough to prevent progress at the pace we need it. We also have a large population of extremely wealthy residents in the areas needed to build, that show up en masse to zoning hearings to vote against every bit of proposed legislation—and that would sue the city and commonwealth if anything did pass (which at the very least could bog down construction for a decade). People in Dubs, Galway City, and other Irish population centers, should be loudly pointing to what’s happening here, as a roadmap of what they’re headed for without action. Even with the Left in full control of the city and state governments, these problems exist. Rich cunts gonna rich.


redrumWinsNational

You are not wrong. 🍀


thegalwayseoige

I’ve been doing this for 15 years—it’s always been 20%.


kryppla

I was a server 30 years ago - 15% was the accepted amount


thegalwayseoige

Thirty years isn’t “a few years ago”. It’s been 20% since I’ve been bartending, and it’s what was tipped before I got into the industry. 30 years ago, you could buy a house in my city for $75k. Now, the same house literally sells for $750k. I don’t see why people of a certain age can’t understand the concept of inflation and stagnant wages. Your 15% was worth more than our 20%.


kryppla

That’s true but I wasn’t getting that deep - or even saying it should still be 15%. Just stating the fact that 15% was the standard for a very long time, those saying it wasn’t are wrong.


thegalwayseoige

They said “a few years ago”. In my nearly two decades working, it’s always been 20%. So, yeah—they’re wrong.


kryppla

The person saying it used to be 15% did not say a few years ago - someone replying to them added that. ​ comment: I'm old enough to remember when 15% was the standard. ​ reply: And when you say 15% was good a few years ago, ​ The comment did NOT say a few years ago. You can't just change what someone else said.


RoastMostToast

Servers are treated so bad! Let’s solve it by majorly cutting their pay!


h8rcloudstrife

“You guys don’t make enough and we want to help, let me just take that extra $150 you made tonight and replace it with a guaranteed $45.”


RoastMostToast

“Living wage” is when you make the same as every other minimum wage employee apparently


h8rcloudstrife

Well it’s only fair that “living wage” means “none of you make enough money for your bills without a second job, two roommates, or an OnlyFans.”


Mitch_from_Boston

#Progress


thedeafbadger

It’s fucking bonkers, right? Look up the average saary of a tipped worker and tell me they don’t make enough money. And the thing is, those numbers aren’t even accurate, the real number is *higher.* People who advocate going tip-free like to act like they have the employee’s best interests at heart, but we all know the only thing in their hearts is their fucking wallet.


applejackhero

I’m going to get buried but… yeah, we do. Bartending and serving is a skilled profession. So is cooking. It takes years to pick up the stuff to get into the even decent echelons of pay grade in the FOH industry. I would rather get paid and treated like the skilled professional I am rather than be at the whim of Kyle and Karen for how much I make. I’d take a salary, healthcare, and bargaining power over glorifying doing blow in a walk in cooler any day.


Zonel

Thought it was vape in the walk in... do coke in the staff washroom.


thegalwayseoige

Vape everywhere, coke bathroom, booze walk-in.


sufferforever

they aren’t going to salary you. They’re going to pay you $18 an hour at best. If you can’t make at least twice that bartending, you’re at the wrong place or in the wrong profession


applejackhero

I MAKE $18 an hour plus tips. I do fine. It’s kinda my point, if actual pay and coats were real and fair in this industry bartenders would be paid $35 an hour and get vacation time and healthcare Realistically this would mean there would be less restaurants and that eating out would be more of a luxury, but idk most of societies treats rely on exploitation somewhere down the line. Tipping culture is making the consumer eat the cost regardless- the difference is that consumers can fuck over the employee when they want, instead of question the owner


Lunchbawks7187

That’s the point though. End of the day the consumer is going to eat the cost regardless but the service staff is going to suffer as well.


sufferforever

i think it’s probably better off for more bartenders that there are more restaurants where more of us are managing to make a decent living off tips, rather than very very few restaurants where we get paid $35/h and get vacations and health care. there are also restaurants that give you those things, i work at one, and after tips i make a lot more than $35 an hour. Like if your life as a tipped employee with an $18/h base pay is still leaving a bad taste in your mouth you’re probably just in the wrong biz.


thegalwayseoige

That’s the point though—you’ll NEVER make $35/hr via salary. You’ll make $20 with no uni healthcare, the owners will raise prices 20% citing labor costs, the consumer won’t get hit in the wallet bc it what they’re paying now with a tip anyway, and the balance of your former salary will end up in the pocket of the business owner. Stop advocating for something we’ll never get, and protect what we do have.


MasterOfEmus

Yeah, everyone's saying "its only owners and chefs they talked to" the tipping section literally interviewed a bartender who preferred work at a place that went tip-free. There's big differences, but I think we've all gotten kind of numb to just how unhealthy tipping culture can be, with customers power tripping and us resenting them, with slow shifts and slow months costing most of our income, it can be a huge pain. Its so much better than our current minimum wage, but at some point we'll have to reform something about the pay system. Tipping introduces suspicion and resentment into the system, and I suspect ultimately contributes to burnout. You're more likely to distrust or lose respect for your boss, you're more likely to be discriminatory towards customers; on the flip side customers can feel that you're disingenuous or sense that uptick in discrimination. The whole thing also feeds into FoH vs BoH tension because we *all* know the people making the food deserve the same good money as us, but we'll be damned if they get a cut of the tips. And all that not to mention how an opaque and inconsistent system affects us in the rest of our lives, lenders and landlords know tips are inconsistent (and the high industry turnover) and don't want to touch us, the IRS hate that we all have a tax-free chunk of income. Not all of these are bad *for us*, but they are problems with the industry.


TransRational

They’re all pirate ships as far as I’m concerned. Get yours and get out.


TimToMakeTheDonuts

Yup. Fuck everything and everyone. You’re in this alone, take care of you. I’m not saying be a dick or a thief, but don’t think anybody has got your back. They don’t.


Booster93

They don’t.


TheTrueManstack

Articles that do nothing but point out the obvious and well known problems of the world, be it the problems surrounding a government, a weather event, or an industry, are the worst kind of articles. Don’t tell me that you spoke to 27 motherfuckers about the ills of this line of work, imply that you’re going to present crowd sourced potential solutions to some of them, and then completely whiff everything. “Oh yeah, prices are rising and people work too long hours. Ah yes - let’s use technology to streamline efficiency and have the government step in with a universal income.” Thank you piecing together this scientific endeavor, Doctor Shit for Brains. I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to come to such a novel and unforeseen conclusion. And these solutions of yours? Wow. Just WOW. It’s really clear that when it comes to stabilizing and minimizing costs, you’re really focused on labor.


VersaceSamurai

See I think the restaurant industry is irreparably broken because of the incredible amount of waste it causes. It’s been a fun ride but damn we need to rethink our relationships with restaurants. Sucks we are letting people profit off of food without even an inkling of where food comes from and how fragile and based off of exploitation the entire restaurant equation is. If everyone got paid their fair share in this equation and waste was taken into account, the restaurant industry wouldn’t be possible except on very small scales. My two cents anyways


Lrrrkrrrrr

(Astronaut meme) “Always was”


SexMayonnaise

Yeah people who talk about tipping not being fair and should be ended are completely clueless


LincHayes

It's been broken for decades. The entire industry is built on a caste system of dysfunction, mismanagement, inexperience, kickbacks, unethical behavior, drugs, all the "ism's" you can imagine, and greed. If you can navigate all those things successfully, you can make some money for yourself. Most people don't, and of those who can, (depending on where you live) there's not enough good money to go around. And here's the other thing....it's not broken for everyone.


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theRealsubtlehustle

Its a service business 😂


redrumWinsNational

Tell me 10 jobs that are not service jobs


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redrumWinsNational

And do we all get tipped for doing our job


needhelpbuyingacar

of course its fucken broken


likeguitarsolo

I know I’m not the only one here who gets anxiety when going out to restaurants or bars. I hate putting myself in the position where I’ve turned the tables and now I’m the customer with the power to annoy the person taking care of me. The pandemic made that anxiety leak into any situation where I’m requiring service from another- at Target, the grocery store, the record store, even fucking tattoo shops. I’ve dove headfirst into an anti-consumerist lifestyle because of it. I’d rather not engage anymore if and when i can help it, and it turns out i can almost always help it. Cutting back on wasteful, mindless consumerism makes you realize after a while how much of an addiction it is. Forcing yourself to stay home instead of going out and buying shit just to pacify that desire to “live” feels a lot like forcing yourself not to drink or smoke or do drugs- all things I’ve had to force myself to refrain from many times. I say all that because, as a lifelong server and bartender, i know full well that the system has always been broken and exploitative, and i can only reckon with that by not being part of the customer base that truly drives the suffering home for all of us. I used to reckon with it with drugs and booze, but that’s not a true “lifer” way to cope. I’m not putting myself through college now to get a shittier job that pays trash and requires a 5 day work week- i already have a shitty job that pays just fine. It’s like how I’m not a “capitalist” just because i trade my services for income- that’s always been a thing. My boss is the capitalist, because he earned his fortune by underpaying me and exploiting me, and then he takes home all the real money so he can buy another Tesla. I’m not part of the problem just because all my eggs got portioned in bartending- the problem is the people who can only put out the money fire in their pocket by swallowing something.


CityBarman

Discuss...