Crazy idea: pay them both more so the public doesn't have to
The public is going to pay them regardless. The money for wages has to come from what customer's spend. Being said, I agree with you wholeheartedly because tipping is a leverage point that enables a lot of racism, sexism and sexual harassment.
I think the lost nuance is that the previous guy means that with tips, the public pays for tips directly.
You're technically correct, the public, by buying food and service, is paying the company, creating a pool of money from which the costs of business are to be paid, ideally including staff in full. And currently, wait staff has to be paid by the customer directly.
(This mostly holds for most of the US, in many places, it does work according to the more ideal model)
This should really be the norm.
In some countries, it is!
Abolish tipping. Living wages for all, no exceptions.
That username/profile pic/comment combo is immaculate.
I used to work as a line cook. The waitresses would give us a percentage of their tips which was nice. But really, we understood that it was much better to cook the food than be the one dealing with the idiot customers and rude Karens, so they deserved that tip. The girls would be all smiles, and as soon as they'd walk in the kitchen they'd let out all the rage. Then back to smiling once they go back on the floor, whereas the cooks could just behave like the animals we were, and nobody would see us.
No, they deserved to be paid appropriately by their employer and the customers deserve to have a predictable bill, not one based on the quality of the service they received or the pity they have for the employee.
I've worked for tip for 10 years, tipped jobs shouldn't exist.
Until some asshole went and invented the "open kitchen" concept
Cries in an open kitchen
dealing with the idiot customers and rude Karens
Of course the customers behave as entitled brats because they're paying for the entitlement with a tip that can be withheld for any reason. It creates a rage inducing power dynamic.
As someone who has worked in customer service, customers don't need to tip to act like entitled brats.
Exactly! I mean just watch the movie "Waiting". It is such an accurate portrayal that it should be classified as a documentary.
There's a separate level of unfairness here:
Right side is making $16-$25 per hour.
Left side has an hourly rate that's almost always less than minimum wage. This is allowed because of the assumed tip income.
Depends on what state you live in. For example, CA requires wait staff to be paid at least minimum wage. Also, many cooks are also receiving minimum wage.
Plus, waiters have to deal with client bullshit directly.
Plenty of low paying jobs make you deal with clients and not receive tip.
You're saying we should tip IT support?
Left side has an hourly rate that’s almost always less than minimum wage. This is allowed because of the assumed tip income.
This part depends on the state, thankfully. Seems phased out on most of the West coast, to my knowledge. I know it's still pretty widespread in the south.
Being phased out in DC too. That said, the transition period has been rough, many places are now using service fees to cover the costs, which makes sense but the fact that it’s still so inconsistent causes great annoyance.
Then again, so do tipping expectations, what exactly am I paying for? Can I opt out? What legally constitutes a tipped employee? WHY ARE THERE TIPPING OPTIONS AT FAST FOOD PLACES NOW!?
Overall, a clusterfuck that I’m happy to see is dying out, (I’ve also heard that it’s racially and sexually unjust.)
And depending on where you are left side has to pay a portion of their tip to the kitchen and runners as well.
Here in Ontario everyone has to be paid minimum wage but, tips are still very expected. Kinda bugs me since they prob make more than I do lol
Kinda bugs me since they prob make more than I do lol
No idea what it's like up north but the highest hourly job I've ever had was serving tables in college. Over a week it averaged out to $25-45/hr depending on the season and some other factors. Did it for about a year before the stress and irregular hours made it not even worth that much money. But it definitely changed how I perceived wait staff.
Waiters where I used to work were some of the best paid employees in the place even when including directors that were making 130k+... if they had included all their tip on their paycheck (instead of the default 10% of every bill under their name) they would have ended up getting a 0$ paycheck every two weeks and would have still owed taxes at the end of the year... and that's while making above minimum wage from the get go...
Is this a USA-thing? In Europe tips are most usually split between front and back of the house.
In the USA there is a "minimum" wage, and a tip wage. The tip wage means your employer pays you $2.17/hr and you make nearly all of your income from the kindness of strangers. It's mindnumbinly aweful.
To be clear, if you don't make enough in tips to reach minimum wage, your employer pays the difference
Some places do pool a percentage of tips and pay them out to the kitchen and/or bar. Usually kitchen is paid more than waitstaff, and waitstaff is also likely to be cut if it’s slow, so may get less hours. Some states allow employers to pay tip based workers below minimum wage.
The fact that there are laws about "tip based workers" is insane to me.
Also to clarify, the rationale for tip based workers having a lower default minimum wage is that if they do not come up to the regular minimum wage with their tips+salary, then employer has to make up the difference. But usually they end up making more than minimum wage with the tips.
When I was in Seattle the servers got min. state wage (15? at the time) & you could not split your tip unless the other person had interaction with the guest (no cooks got tips unless they did tableside cooking). Our best server for one restaurant group rolled in last, got 300+ tips, and was cut first- usually a 3.5/4.5hr shift. Kenny was a fucking legend.
CTRL F "union"
0 results>:-(
You're looking in the wrong country.
I see the corollary to this as the actual injustice, i.e. “the dish was bad so you get a low tip”, because the server can’t control the quality of the cooking and yet depends on the tip, whereas the cook actually gets a full wage no matter what.
I’m starting this off with I hate tipping culture, but it’s required as an American, so I tip based on the service I receive from the server, not the food I eat. I rationally know they don’t control that. I assume most people do this, except OP who apparently tips waiters based on the food quality for some reason.
Yeah, I'll give good tips for good service of mediocre food. The Alamo has some of the hardest working servers in the industry. I don't care how good or bad the food is (usually good, but the overall amazing buffalo cauliflower can be inconsistent) if you crawl on the floor to give me my bill without blocking the movie for the person next to me, you get a good tip.
I don't get this meme. The phone has a back light and the book doesn't.
The cook already has a tip: he ate half the customer's dessert ;-)
Every reputable place I ever served at had front of house tip out the service staff.
Can we leave these shit memes by people who've never worked in the food industry (but get butthurt social conventions suggest you tip) and the resulting awful cavalcade of tired, predictable responses back on reddit?
That's your experience.
I have worked in very reputable places and none of that tip would reach the cooks. If we were lucky they would pay us a beer at the club later. I think it's regional though. I know in Quebec waiters won't share because the government assume they get 15% tip from everything bill and taxes them accordingly.
Tips are imputed and taxed from sales in the US too.
That sucks. I did work at one place where the percentages weren't set and it made for some friction because not every server tipped out BOH/ support at the same rate. The best places I worked set minimum percentages (ie, 5% to kitchen, 3% to dishwashers, etc which ended up being 15% of your sales) and got could go above if you wanted such as if the kitchen saved your ass. It made for better morale. I worked at a couple places where it was a free for all and BOH/FOH were always fighting and turnover was high
Doesn't sound very reputable. Sounds like a Buffalo Wild Wings.
I've been in the restaurant industry for over 15 years and the least I ever had to tip out to the kitchen was 2.5%. Never, did they not get tipped out.
Also, I'm not complaining, I love the back of house, but don't spread bullshit cause you had a bad go
Real "the system can't be bad, I've had nothing but good interaction with cops" energy.
Tipping as an institution is an outright scam with a rich history of systematic racism.
The jobs we tip and the jobs we don't really don't make a whole lot of sense, honestly.
Fifteen years ago, working master control at a small local television station, someone called in just furious that a baseball game their TV schedule said would be on was not on. It was a TV station, ads paid the bills, but the person felt really entitled to baseball over free over-the-air television. This wasn't the only time this happened, but this has always been the one I've remembered most vividly, because the guy was just so angry, like he'd had his whole day planned around this.
I remember thinking about tipping jobs at the time, and how I was earning federal minimum wage to do this relatively skilled job (edit: not saying waiting/chefing are unskilled), and people were harassing me because the wrong thing was on the TV. With all due respect, I was master control, I literally had the finalized schedule in front of me. Nobody was tipping me when the thing they wanted on TV was on. I mean, I didn't expect it since ads paid for everything, but the entitlement of some people for something they essentially didn't pay for was so weird to me, and made me think of the disparity.
Agreed. Tipping is stupid. Abolish it and charge what the service costs.
Correction: Left guy is the boss because most food service companies will (usually illegally) skim tips. Tipping culture is fucking awful.
Hm. I see what this is pointing at, but I find it odd that the guy in the shade has a phone, not a paper book. He doesn't need the light to begin with.
Maybe, but THIS is one step beyond madness.
Cooking is long hours for low pay doing something you love. Serving is whoring yourself out for money. If the money isn't there I won't whore myself out but i can fall back on cooking at any time and it's hard thankless work, but we love it...
Fuck off, loving your job doesn't mean you should be paid less for it.
I didn't say that, you did so you can fuck off. Are you in the industry? What are you doing to change things? My point is only that serving isn't worth your soul unless you're paid handsomely and the kitchen is rough but the cost on the soul is bearable. And these are my opinions I'm not asking you to share them, don't be an ass. I wish the kitchen paid more so i could afford to do it longer and more often. It doesn't. 🏴🏴🏴 Capitalism blows
The wait staff deserve those tips for having to interact with the customers and deal with all the assholes. I say this as an ex line cook, I would rather be in the kitchen than have to fake smile and socialize with customers all day
🤘🏿👆🏿
