r/antiwork Jan 14 '22

So sorry, I'm broke so I can only pay you $77 for my food. You were great though.

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u/sortaangrypeanut Jan 15 '22

As an American, two things can be true:

  • Tipping culture is absolutely horrible here. The fact that a waiter has to rely on tips to even barely scrape by is horrible. Employers should be held responsible for living wages, not the customer, and the customer should not have to give more than their bill says

  • Right now, waiters are legally paid less than minimum wage due to the assumption that they make up to a minimum wage with tips factored in. They depend on tips to scrape by. As it is right now, when you pay for food at a restaurant, you are only paying for the cooks, the bosses, and partially for the waitress's services. A tip is what pays for the rest of its services, so you should tip until it changes

The way tipping culture sucks doesn't change the fact that a waiter needs them to pay rent. You're only hurting your waiter when you don't tip. I don't know this person's circumstances, and I won't assume anything off a $77 order. I assume they're not homeless cuz they're paying with a card. So I think that, even if you're broke and get to treat yourself once a year, you should factor at least like idk $5 into what you're going to spend as a tip.

It's insulting to me that you think we want tipping culture to stay. We don't want it to stay, but individuals choosing to not tip isn't "sticking it to the man". It's not changing anything. If they can afford to tip and they don't, knowing that this is how waiters have to make a living, they're just a dick, man.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '22

First, servers should be paid a lot more than they currently are however if your hourly wage + tipped wage doesn’t equal the minimum wage, the employer is required to pay the server until their wage is the minimum wage. So servers aren’t paid less than minimum

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u/Ellie__1 Jan 15 '22

That's the law, yes. In practice, this doesn't happen. Servers are paid less than minimum all the time.

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u/DL_ Jan 15 '22

I refuse to believe this. If they don't pay up they face many penalties. And there's a fucking paper trail with paystubs so its easy to prove.

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u/Ellie__1 Jan 15 '22 edited Jan 15 '22

Okkkk then 🙋🏻‍♀️

Edited to add: where on a paystub do you think tips go?

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u/DL_ Jan 15 '22

I assume there's a line item called tips or something. What's your point?

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u/Ellie__1 Jan 15 '22

Tips don't go on paystubs.

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u/DL_ Jan 15 '22

If they don't then what are they basing the tax deductions and other things off of?

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u/Ellie__1 Jan 15 '22

Their paid wages. Restaurant workers are expected to self-report tipped income on their W2s.

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u/DL_ Jan 15 '22

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u/Ellie__1 Jan 15 '22

Which is different than tips going on a paystub.

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u/DL_ Jan 15 '22

The tax deductions are calculated based on what they report so there is a record one way or another.

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u/itslo89 Jan 15 '22

When I was a server my paystubs always documented my tipped income from credit cards and my self-reported cash tips. At the end of the night when cashing out the POS system would ask you to self report your cash tips which is how they had that information. It has to go on the paystub and further it ultimately ends up on the W2.

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