A few things to add here. First of all, the people who take jobs with tips are the smart ones. During high school and college I worked at hotels - all of which had restaurants - and I made the mistake of going for the front desk type positions. I made a measely 6 or 7 bucks an hour, and got to listen to every whiney, bitchy, !*%^%$#! who didn’t like how the shape of the toilet seat fit her oversized ass. Meanwhile the bellmen and waiters walked out every night with a pocket FULL of cash, and directed any problem customers to the front desk so they could air their greivances. At certain times there were automatic tips set up - such as when buses of tourists came in, and they made even more money.
Thankfully I’m long out of the hotel business, but my little brother was pressured by our parents to get his first job at age 17 this year. I begged him to get a job as a waiter, rather than the retail positions he was looking at. He got a job at Ruby Tuesday’s and just recently told me that his peers who work at Marshall Fields in the same mall come in for lunch and look down their noses at him. Since he applied for those jobs he knows that they are making 7 bucks an hour while he’s pulling down 14 an hour on average with his tips. He’s loving it. Now I’m trying to convince him to take a job at a higher priced restaurant.
So, yes, tips are that good and it isn’t slavery by a long shot.
Back to the OP, I know that restaurants are very difficult to run profitably. I’ve been told that a large number 90% of new restaurants go out of business quickly.
This site says 87% go out of business in the first two years.
Most hotel restaurants lose money hand over fist. They only stay open because people won’t pay as much to stay in a hotel that doesn’t have food service. The hotels make money on the rooms, generally.
So perhaps this is the reason for the lower minimum wage for wait staff…who then need to be compensated by tips. If restaurants had to pay the full minimum wage, even fewer would be able to stay in business.
In my Canadian city it depends on the place whether the tips are shared or not - mostly not. When my mom worked as a waitress, she would even sometimes see servers swipe the tips off a table that another person was waiting on as they went by… scumy? - yes, would anyone ever admit to doing it? - no, but many people (as some posters here have reflected) do that job for the money, not for life experience or to pad their resumes; hence my usual custom of watching to see that the server is in fact the same one who picks up the dishes, then putting the tip under the side of the dish or some other not-so-visible place so it’s less likely to be swiped by another employee.
Yes, the tips do end up being as much and often X times the hourly wage, especially when working full-time at a higher end place. In my job as a tax preparer this past season, I did a few returns for restuarant employees. Here, you have to report the actual amount you got in tips, or at least make up a number that looks plausible. This year in particular CCRA is auditing these types of workers, and we have in our manuals that tips usually make up 100-400% of their income, and isn’t reported on tax forms, so that’s the number we ask about reporting.
Of course due to the first bit I mentioned, not everybody here working in a restuarant makes tips, such as busboys, cooks, dishwashers, etc. I saw many people with T4’s from 2 or 3 restuarants or bars, and of course EVERYONE’S a dishwasher or cook and don’t get ANY tips at ALL when you ask :rolleyes:. I actually thought it was kinda amusing to see them think I actually beleived them when I get the same story 95% of the time… see this 6’ georgous 22 yr. old blond in fancy cloths and a leather jacket looking like she just walked off a movie set with 3 tax forms from the most popular bars in town known for having hot waitresses like her and watch her try to convince me she’s a dishwasher and only made $8000 last year… somemtimes it was hard not to giggle. But we did the returns like they wanted, and if they get audited, that’s their problem…
Really? my experience is quite different - we’ve had servers come across a restaurant and say “hey, didn’t I wait on you over at Ruby Tuesdays?” Just last night, we were at a ‘major chain’ (where we hadn’t been in several months), and the server recognized us from his last encounter w/us. (of course, we actively engage in conversations w/them. "hi my name is Justin, I’ll be your server tonight. " “Hi, we’re Wring and Snookie, we’ll be your obnoxious customers for the evening” )
I’m surprised that nobody else has addressed this yet. If the business were providing the living wage, then we, as customers, would still be paying the same amount for it. Where do you think that the restaraunt gets the money they pay to the employees?
I’ll skip the living wage part, as others have addressed, it but will add in that no U.S. business - restaurant or otherwise - is federally obligated to provide paid vacation or group medical coverage.
To most Europeans, the American obsession with tipping is amazing. I have been fascinated by the detailed discussions - how much do you tip if the service is lousy, how much if it’s good?
I remember being pursued for a tip by an American waiter, who had given poor and rude service, and should have paid me to stay in his restaurant.
If service is lousy, Europeans don’t tip. We see the tip as a gift, a reward for good service, not as some kind of contract between us and the tippee. If someone gets no tip, he/she will serve better next time - or ask for better basic pay.
As previous posters and Cecil have indicated, most restaurants here add a service charge. If they do not, they explicitly say so, and leave it to you to decide what to give. If we give something, we estimate about 10%
Apart from restaurants, tipping is rare. Our view is that people are already being paid to do the job. If they are not, they should change jobs soonest.
Well, then how do restaurants in non-tipping countries manage to stay afloat? Maybe we should follow their business model.
And to all the foreigners who come to America and don’t tip (especially after having read what a server’s base salary is), my advice is - don’t go out.
I also would much prefer to be charged a flat service fee on my bill rather than having to mess with this silly tip business. Basically, it amounts to nothing more than a way to piss of my server.
Anyway, I always wonder about the lunch buffet. I don’t think I should have to tip a full 15 percent, when I’m doing more than half the service myself, but I don’t have the guts to tip lower.
my job was boring, but had good parts too :D)
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