All of the people in that comic get paid for their labor. The server doesn’t.
Everywhere in the world the restaurant pays the server for their labor, in the US they make the customer do it and guilt them of they don’t.
So pay the server then!
I agree. Some US states do just that.
Though for this comic I’m just pointing out how the server is being singled out and shamed without the context of how their labor is compensated in comparison to everyone else in the comic.
The Server gets paid exactly the price they agreed to when they took the job
This excuse for worker exploitation has always baffled me. 1. The contract was signed under duress: “Take this shitty job or continue to be unemployed.” Consent made under duress is not consent. 2. It was agreed to under an extreme power asymmetry: If you refuse the job, your family will have to go hungry, but the company will easily find some other desperate soul to fill the position. 3. I haven’t even begun to touch on all the class, racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination that workers face.
There’s nothing even close to meaningful or fair negotiation under such conditions.
The threat of going hungry is in the vast majority of negotiations. And if you’re working all day, and go hungry anyways - does it really matter?
But clearly that isn’t happening.
You’ve have the vast majority front of house who would never do anything else because **it does in fact pay well **. Very well
Ahh, they agreed to it! Perfectly acceptable then
Well if they all said “I’m not working for that shit wage” or they joined a union, did literally anything at all. NMaybe they would get paid more. Instead they do nothing, and bitch
Nevermind that Servers make more money than every single person in the supply chain. I don’t understand why everyone feels so bad for them. Ask any of them if they would rather work back of the house. Forget about logistics, or in agriculture?
Source: I was a server for almost a decade.
Nevermind that Servers make more money than every single person in the supply chain.
FYI, the restaurant owner is in that same supply chain. So no.
Also, I think commercial fishermen make decent money in the US.
Yes let’s also include the CEO of Longhorn Steakhouse in that supply chain. Or better. Let’s compare the server to Mr. Warren Strawman Buffett since he owns shares in Darden Restaurants Inc. “They’re all part of the chain”
Commercial Fishermen make ~ $15/hour.
Any server worth their salt makes more than $15/hour after tips. The mean is $17/hour and that’s assuming the US government knows about all of their tips - they don’t.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes353031.htm
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/farming-fishing-and-forestry/fishers-and-related-fishing-workers.htm
The fact is they do make more than the cook in the back, and they often make more than management.
Damn everywhere in the world the server works for free except in USA they get tips for salary. Why do they even work as servers in the rest of the world without tips for paid labor? Are they retarded?
They’re also required to be paid minimum wage in the US by the restaurant if tips don’t cover it
Minimum wage being below poverty in the US is, of course, a separate issue
It’s required, but ask any servers you know how often that actually happens. Last restaurant my friend worked at would carry over tips from previous days in their books so it’d look like they made exactly 7.25 an hour every time. Only reason they got caught is because they always made it exactly 7.25 an hour on those days.
They got a meager fine and were told to pay the money back. They filled for bankruptcy rather than pay out like $4000 in back pay. If you or I had stolen $4000, we’d be in prison. A business does it and it’s a slap on the wrist and a quick bankruptcy and reopening under a new name
The servers I know all end up with way more than minimum wage, but I completely agree any restaurants getting away with that should have to pay at least 10x the stolen wages, and all court fees, plus a fine that is a percentage of their revenue
In a lot of the US, service workers are exploited similarly to how overtime labor goes without compensation.
Say if someone works 12 hours in a shift, but remains at or under 40 hours for the week, they don’t get any OT. It only kicks in after 40 hours.
The same goes for a server working full time. Without even needing to cook the books, a server could work a few $40 weekday shifts then one busy $300 weekend shift. Rather than being bumped up to minimum for the weekday shifts, the weekend shift is counted against their overall pay and they get nothing. The weekday shifts eat the tips from the weekend shift.
All perfectly legal.
they must be retarded if they’re working for free as slaves when they clearly could be working for tips.
dude, would you use a different word please? i have had a rough past with it. you usually make good points and i like upvoting you
yes, but they all get paid way below the value of their labour.
Buy Fairtrade. Cook your own god damn meals. Pay FUCKING EVERYONE a livable wage. The planet is on fire and the like 50 to 100 people responsible are also the reason why nobody’s getting paid enough and why people are getting annoyed at servers asking for tips.
Oh, we’re pitting the working class against each other today are we?
Yes, but the author of this comic turns out to be a real moron. Third comic in the row that is just stupid.
Bro thank you for saying this. I was gonna say I’m starting to dislike this yes but person. No surprise since they’re probably popular on Instagram. Not many Instagram popular people that aren’t kinda stupid. Gotta be peddling stupid to appeal to a majority of that crowd tbh
I don’t know if intentional or not, at the beginning I liked the comics, as they were showing how ironic certain situations are. But the past three ones were not ironic, not funny and just the result of a person who is very naive.
Maybe just the result of being successful, now they force themselves to produce, desperately looking for new things to draw, while forgetting what the core message should be.
IDK how common it is but in the sushi restaurant I worked at the server and the chef split the tip but you also had more than one chef, not that it changes the point of the comic much.
Country dependant. Some places it’s highly common some with up to 50/50 split, where I am 2% pay out to the kitchen is typical / required, other places it is illegal as management to even ask the server to split tips.
I’ve worked as a chef many places.
It’s because everyone except the wait staff gets paid a living wage. The waiter probably gets paid $2.75/hour because the shady restaurant owner wants YOU to pay the rest of their employees wage for them.
The problem is not overly entitled wait staff, it’s tipping culture in general. Any other job would pay at least normal minimum hourly wages.
I keep seeing this repeated in the comments. Apparently no one on Lemmy has actually worked in a restaurant before (because you’re all bots?), otherwise you’d know that a lot of cooks, dishwashers, etc don’t make a living wage either and split tips with the front-of-house staff. It’s not just the wait staff.
In my state and many other places it’s actually illegal to share tips with back of house
My point still stands though that it has nothing to do with overly entitled wait staff as the cartoon would suggest but an issue with tipping culture and the restaurant industries unwillingness to pay anyone a living wage
I’m not trying to single you out, like I said it seems like everyone here has the same misconception. But even if your point could stand on its own, it’s weakened when you support it with an unrealistic example. It hurts your credibility.
I may have overgeneralized because the cartoon was so silly in its implication that the wait staff are somehow cheating fishermen out of tips
Ok but some people argue for paying tips outside the US too where this isn’t the case.
I have also heard owners ask about making a service charges mandatory instead of optional. They don’t like it when I point out they will now have to pay tax on it and try to ask about any other options in the POS software. No, if must be optional or tax must be paid.
You ask wait staff if they prefer a stable wage or receiving tips. The overwhelming majority of them will want to keep tips.
It would be better if we eliminated tips overall and paid fair wages. But the people who directly benefit will still fight you on it.
I’d much prefer a stable, livable wage over recieving tips.
The problem is that no one is making a livable wage. At least as a server, there’s (on average) a pretty direct correlation between skill & effort and your income, so a decent server is probably making enough to live on. If you’re working retail, you’re barely making enough to survive on even as a low level manager.
That’s what I meant by fair wages.
I completely agree.
Having worked in food service, and having many friends who do, I don’t know a single person who would rather keep tips. The majority have openly talked shit about tipping. Everyone I know hates tipping except the management that benefits from it.
I live in a very HCOL area and that probably has more to do with attitudes on tipping anything. Wait staff in this area can easily earn wages that are much, much higher than minimum wage with tips.
For example, the state in the US I live in does not have a lower base pay for wait staff. They’re making at minimum $17.13 an hour without tips.
And that’s why. For a lot of states they’re making like $2.75 before tips.
Plus, it’s also very relative to what exactly you are doing. A decent bartender can pull like $200+ a night on a weekend in tips.
Yep which complicates the conversation because all wait staff aren’t the same.
So you have bartenders in big cities scoffing at the idea of eliminating tips while there’s waiters in small diners barely surviving on minimum wage.
Plus then there’s the variance of the individual. If you’re naturally good with people, you’re likely to get tipped better. If you’re a pretty young girl, you’ll probably make decent money even if you’re not good with people, etc.
It’s such a complicated situation to talk about.
Which is why I think tipping should be eliminated.
Cool. That restaurant, also being in a HCOL, could afford to pay those people a living wage without tips. You’re advocating for them to not have to do that.
Read more of my comments. I support fair, living wages and eliminating tipping.
Holy fuck I’ve got a friend that will die on the hill that you (customer) should tip, and generously every time. Given his experience with it, I agree to a point, but only because he willingly chose to dig heels into that job for better or for worse. I do tip because I feel it’s earned in most cases. I just don’t agree with being over the top about it for sure. Part of that is his personality too… And the more I think about it; fuck that guy.
People also choose individual lines at the cash registers rather than one shared line that splits into the next available opening. It doesn’t matter that it’s better on average, human intuition is really bad at statistics.
But the people who directly benefit will still fight you on it.
Is that still true? Even back when I has tipped workers as peers, their attitudes were mixed. If you have any polling data, that would be appreciated – but, I don’t have any data either, just vague memories.
I’m admittedly talking from a personal experience living in a HCOL area that does not have a lower wage for wait staff. Wait staff are paid $17.13 at minimum here and that’s before tips.
So it is area dependent. Probably.
When I had tipped peers, wait staff got $2.15/hr + tips. It certainly changes the calculus.
Cant speak for the rest of the country but in my state there was a vote on this, and many workers actually supported it, but there was also a huge astroturfing campaign from restaurant owners claiming that tipped workers want to stay tipped when that wasn’t the case. They succeeded.
I’m sure there’s some of that as well.
There’s a restaurant in seattle facing this issue right now. Walrus and the Carpenter. The staff is on strike because they want to keep tips as they feel they don’t make enough on salary. The restaurant just released their books and the owners arent making much more than a bartender at $90k. And that’s across all their restaurants.
It’s a complicated topic, complicated by different areas and laws, and complicated by both sides having good and bad points.
I absolutely believe that astroturfing happens on this topic. But natural opposition does as well.
While the waitstaff has particular challenges in U.S. labor law (lower effective federal minimum wage), it is not safe to assume any of the other workers in the chain are still paid a living wage either.
Correct, except for saying everyone else is getting a living wage. I bet most of them are not. Still higher than the server.
Every step of that chain is nickel and dimed. Only the public facing employees get to ask for tips.
The waiter probably gets paid $2.75/hour
In a specific country
I’m not sure if that is the reason. In Ontario there is no separate minimum wage for servers, it’s $18/hour. But servers expect 20-25% tip.
Small correction, $2.75 an hour against tips. In a lot of states it’s legal to withhold that $2.75 once they’ve made more than that in tips per hour. They only have to guarantee that you make minimum wage they don’t have to actually pay you it If you’re getting it paid by somebody else.
A “yes, but” like this, but instead all the countries where servers get a (relatively) decent wage vs America where tipping is mandatory.
American tipping culture is so arbitrary though. You tip your taxi driver but not your bus driver. You tip at a coffee shop but not at a fast food shop. Your hairdresser gets a tip but not the people looking after your children.
Have you been in fast food recently? Half those places are asking for tips now
I haven’t lived in the US for a few decades now, so I might definitely be off for some!
People like this artist are why if I were ever elected President I would mandate 2 years of retail service for the entire population. They simply do not understand the stress of dealing with people in a customer-facing role in a service industry.
There was a study on job stress done a number of years ago now (I wanna say in the 2018-2020 range) by psychologists on determining the most stressful jobs, and much of the top of the list is what you would expect: firefighters, EMTs, non-active duty military, EOD technician, active duty military, etc. But the top 3 on the list, above everything else including jobs that have life or death situations, were all customer service related - baristas, customer support techs, wait staff, that sort of thing.
And the reason for this ranking was simple: jobs like bomb defusal, active duty soldiers, and firefighters are incredibly high stress but with long periods of little to no stress in between. A soldier is only on duty a few months out of the year, and in active combat for a small portion of that time. They have tons of low stress time to allow them to destress and heal from the time they spend fighting for their lives. Meanwhile, your average wait staff is in a medium to high stress environment of having to handle the abusive general public every day of the week, day in and day out. They have very little time to recover from a consistently stressful environment that only mounts higher and higher as the years go on.
As somebody who worked a job for 10 years that could basically be described as all 3 of the jobs in this comic rolled into 1 (I worked at a fish market), if there’s one group of people that I will bend over backwards to help have an easy time, it’s the kid at the grocery store, the cashier at Walmart, and the waitress at the restaurant. They don’t get paid anywhere near enough to deal with the shit that they do.
I worked half a decade in customer service, between restaurants and retail. I agree with the artist. just pay the fucking staff wages like every other service job, servers aren’t more special than any other service job.
I mean, I agree with you, but the comic comes off as complaining about wait staff “demanding” tips for doing their job when the other jobs in it don’t despite the fact that the waiters get paid a fraction of what the others do and are expected to make up the difference in tips.
It comes off as complaining about the workers being greedy and not the system that abuses them, and that’s what I was responding to. It’s the kind of opinion frequently held by people who act like “unskilled labor” is a real thing.
wait staff make the same minimum wage here yet expect tips
Oh wow, they make $7.25/hour?!? Well shit, never mind then.
And here they make $2.75
To me the issue seems to be that they are blaming the server for asking tips and not the restaurant for not providing a liveable wage to their employees.
2 year mandated retail service so people respect the job more isn’t the fix, though it might indirectly cause change, provide a real wage if lawmakers and their kids where subjected to it.
To me the issue seems to be that they are blaming the server for asking tips and not the restaurant for not providing a liveable wage to their employees.
Yes, that’s my entire issue with this comic. It seems like they’re upset about wait staff “demanding” tips for just doing their job, when the real issue is that restaurants don’t pay their servers what their job is actually worth. It’s often an opinion of people who look down on “unskilled labor” like service industry employees. Fun anecdote: airplane mechanics were considered “unskilled labor” throughout WW2 and into the early Cold War, when the profession was suddenly rebranded as “skilled labor” due to a pressing need for aircraft mechanics with the rising demand from fighter jets and airliners and a lack of people entering the field. There’s no such thing as “unskilled labor,” just undervalued work.
And my second bit that I always make about the 2 years retail service is that it would either destroy the country or make it a nicer place where people respect each other more, and at this point I don’t know which is better.
i would also add that what makes customer-facing jobs so stressful is that you cannot know the outcome. some people behave like assholes, demand to see the manager, then tell them that you did a bad job, and there’s nothing that you can do about it.
if you’re working as a bomb defuser, you either pull the right wire or you don’t. it’s simple laws of physics. you follow them, and that’s it. when you’re working with people, however, there are no rules. that’s what people don’t get. people seem to think that well, working with other people is just natural. however what makes it so stressful is that there are no rules. no matter what you do, you can always get shit on. that possibility drags on your brain and eats a lot of your energy.
The service I got was slow. I come here all the time, so i should know how things should be around here. My waiter sucks, I demand that he be fired.
[Paraphrased, but this is actual feedback I got the day before mothers day, when our dishwasher was broken. And yes, he stiffed me, because of course]
I’ve also had a father tell his children that “tipping is optional and they should be happy with 5%” after I spent an hour and a half busting ass for his family’s ridiculous requests. After taxes and tip out 5% can literally be less than zero into your waiter’s pocket, fwiw.
Y’all suck. I assume anyone I see bitching about waitstaff getting tips, or implying they dont tip, is an asshole, because IME those are the complaints of an asshole. Tipping culture in general is a whole other topic that there can be reasoned and nuanced discussions about, but if your take is “tipping sucks and I don’t have to,” then you are willingly taking advantage of a system that denies people of the fruits of their labor.
Happy cake day
Ya filthy animal
Ty
every step is about 30% of the total cost so far
so, it might cost $1 to get the equipment for getting fish out of the sea (buying nets, buying ships, etc.)
- then, it costs 30c to pay labor to get the fish out of the sea, making $1.30 in total
- 30% of that is 39c for packaging so it makes $1.69 in total
- then 30% extra for processing it (cooking) which is 50c, makes $2.19 in total
- the waiter wants 30% tip so that’s 66c making a total of $2.85
every step seems to get more expensive than the one before it
Well yeah, because the waiter is getting a tip based on a percentage of the cost of all the work done before him.
It’s one of the few jobs in which an untrained and not especially strong person can make good money right off the bat without exposing themselves to extremely dangerous conditions.
I worked with a bunch of 40-70 year old women without many qualifications to put on a resume who earned decent money (they were often homeowners who paid for their kids to go to college). I don’t know of many industries where that is the case.
It’s very easy for an employer to exploit tipped workers in places with a difference, but I don’t know if getting rid of the tipping culture would make anything better. Restaurants constantly take advantage of their employees, whether they’re tipped or not, and if menu prices go up, that increase in revenue is not going to just be distributed among the employees. My guess based on how restaurant owners treat their employees is that prices would be raised by 15-20%, servers would be bumped up to minimum wage or just above it, and the rest would be pocketed by the owners.
In that scenario, customers are paying just as much as before, but now it’s mandatory, while servers are poorer (as are kitchen, dish, and bar employees who used to get tipped out [in some restaurants, each server gives 5-20% of their earned tips to various other sectors of the restaurant*]), and restaurant owners are richer. I don’t see how that’s a better situation than the one we have today. It’s definitely less hassle for consumers and it’s fairer in the sense that now nobody makes good money (except of course the owners), but I don’t think it’s an improvement that would stand alone.
If we were to improve the whole system for workers in general, I’d want to get rid of tipping, but not until then.
- I worked somewhere where the servers each tipped 20% to dish and kitchen (total, so if there were eight people in the kitchen, they each got 2.5% from each of the servers), and the employers used that as justification for paying everyone in the back as a tipped employee. The kitchen begged the front of house not to strike, because they were working quasi under the table and didn’t want to lose even a really shitty job. Just a fun anecdote about restaurant exploitation.
we can’t possibly do this, it will make everything worse says only country that does this
From my original comment:
If we were to improve the whole system for workers in general, I’d want to get rid of tipping, but not until then.
I now live in Germany and people with little training, strength, or desire to risk their health are able to support themselves at all types of jobs, plus they’re able to gain qualifications in their chosen field if they want, to further increase their wages. That just requires reworking the whole system.
The US absolutely could do that, but do you think they’re going to?
Artist is either not American or an Asshole
But if you’re an American you’re an asshole by default, so I’m confused
First off, fuck this artist for implying that working in the service industry is not difficult nor requires skill.
Second, I make a very good living as a tipped worker in the service industry. There’s no way in hell that a small business owner could afford to pay a wage even close to what I make in tips.
There is an established system in place in certain industries the US and it works. Otherwise people wouldn’t do those jobs.
That being said, I don’t think we should be adding that system to other jobs. Everyone knows to tip your bartender. Not everyone is going to know that now you have to tip your supermarket cashier just for them make a decent wage.
There’s no way in hell that a small business owner could afford to pay a wage even close to what I make in tips.
Sure they could. All they’d have to do is set the prices to include what would’ve been your tip.
Even if they could there is no bar in the world that is going to pay its staff $50/hr.
Why not? That’s what you’re saying it costs. What’s the difference if it’s listed on the menu instead of hidden behind some obscure social contract?
Yeah, customers are literally already paying that amount.
As someone who lived off of tips for a a couple decades, I agree with all of this despite the down votes. It’s a skill. The people down voting would be flabbergasted by how hard the job is working in a nice, busy place.
None of the down votes are for the opinion that the service industry requires skill. They are because tipping culture is anti-consumer, anti-worker, predatory and just generally terrible, yet the comment is advocating for it because apparently it works for them personally.
Thank you! I think most people commenting here don’t understand how the industry works as a whole.
Servers are just sales people. Their pay is commonly not from wages when in corporate world built up by commissions. Tips are effectively commissions but rather than an agreed upon amount from the employer it’s with the buyer. I hate both equally.
Sales commissions are still paid for directly by the business. Why do restaurants not have to pay their “sales people” directly?
Not always. There are sales jobs that are 100% commission, but I’m the same way they do have to ensure you are paid a minimum. The person making the exchange is arbitrary.
No sales person was ever paid directly by the business’ customer. It’s always paid from the company’s account.
Yes and this was stated in my initial message. Thanks for reiterating?
Ok, If I squint really hard I can kind of see where you were trying to say that. Let’s just consider my comments to be a clarification rather than a correction.
The person making the exchange is arbitrary.
No, it’s really not arbitrary. That’s how commission works, it’s paid to you by your employer, not the customer directly.
It’s not a good analogy.
Tips were introduced because employers refused to pay their newly freed slaves.
I dislike tips as much as probably any of us here. I have worked for tips, and distinctly remember how much I wished I could just make a consistent amount that basically came to the average even at a loss of what I was making with them. There were tipped jobs I was working that I made well over some of my first jobs in software engineering even when I worked at fine dining. I still wanted that stability at a loss. Now it’s been a few years removed, but my sentiment remains the same. I’m not saying they should be paid $15/hr or something here but this holds for any job; any person should be able to pay the median low end apartment without gov assistance, should be able to save or invest, should be able to afford food, and a second bedroom for a child with only a single full time job. I want that amount as the low bar even if it’s through the form of welfare but they should still be able to invest in their futures to some degree. This all of course assuming they are semi competent with finances, but I’m not talking high level.
That made as the assumption yes fuck tip systems and fuck commissions. Why am I including commissions when it’s the employer that pays unlike tips? Because of the reason these two are kinda similar both of these jobs incentivize the individual to perform better for higher pay. In theory and practice when averaged together this holds true. It benefits both the company and the individual; at least on paper. This does also leave room to exploit and abuse. Usually this is seen with people in sales who look out for themselves only and will exploit the system even if it costs their peers. For example insurance sales in the US they get some commission or deal as long as the deal is sold. It doesn’t matter if that feature they sold it on was non existent or years in the future they made that sale and get the perk of commission at least for a while until they get canned when the customer realizes what happened. Serving tables isn’t exactly like this but there are things an individual can be rewarded for that may hurt others if they are unwilling to share certain burdens because it lowers their bottom line like idk filling soy sauce containers after hours. They should be getting paid some higher rate of course but that rate is often much lower than what they make with tips so they may not want to do it.
So I do see a practical reason for tips and commission, but I feel they both are bad for different reasons and should not be expected.
The solution is to cook at home. It’s better, cheaper, and you only have to source the food, learn the recipes, understand the techniques, own all the equipment, serve yourself and your family, and clean up after yourself. Fuck tipping.
If you have a family you can divvy up those tasks to all care for one another. You can make a fine meal without a lot of specialist equipment. One sharp knife, one big spoon, and one pot can make a good soup with the right ingredients.
Sure, but it won’t be restaurant quality, which is the whole point of going out to eat.
