Taking the Scenic Route

Some of the comments inspired me to write a little more at length.

I am in Kansas.  I used to wait tables and have worked as a Restaurant Manager (although most of my work history is working in Hotels, from front desk, night audit, to Reservations and Revenue Manager).  The minimum wage for servers (and other tipped professions) has been considerably lower than the federal minimum wage.  (our state doesn’t have a sperate minimum wage like some states do).  I think it is around $2/hour now, but I am too lazy to look it up.  In theory, the business is supposed to make up the difference between the server min. wage and the federal min. wage when there are not enough tips to fill that gap.  In reality, most servers will rather over-report their tips to make sure the business doesn’t have to make up the difference because if you show that you aren’t making that much you will probably be fired.  BTDT.

Now, in a nicer restaurant, that is rarely an issue.  (although there aren’t many places here you can wait tables and make a ‘real’ living like you can on the coasts, you can sometime find a place with a pretty decent income).  However, in the family restaurants that are so prevalent around here, especially in areas where the economy isn’t great, it happens quite regularly.  In those areas, because the economy is so bad, people need the job so desperately that they keep it even though they sometimes end up being taxed on money they don’t even make in order to be employed.  When you are a high school kid just making ’extra spending money’ it isn’t as big of a deal.  When you are trying to actually live off the money, it is a huge deal. 

The other crappy practice a lot of servers are subject to is split shift scheduling.  The less brutal way of doing this is to basically force a several hour unpaid “lunch break” between the rushes, so you aren’t on the clock, but it is generally expected that you will stick around so that you can be called upon to go back on the clock just as soon as it gets busy enough.  The more brutal way, that my manager kept pushing me to do (and I resisted…I was always in trouble because my labor was often ‘over budget’), is to keep pulling people on and off the clock all day, according to how busy things were.  (even if they had active tables, but they were in a lull)  It is also standard (and this is the thing that I got yelled at for a lot) to make the servers do their side work off the clock, under the guise of ‘getting ready for their shift’.  I think it is bullshit that they should have to do the really icky work and not get paid.  Side work sucks enough, but side work off the clock is demoralizing (and illegal, but that seems to be beside the point much of the time).

The industry is ripe with abuse to the employees.  Part of the reason is that it is often the only place people can get jobs.  They hire the people who have a difficult time finding employment elsewhere and are therefore, more likely to take the abuse because they feel like they have to.  The people that work in the kitchen and back of the house (well, except the chefs, who are often paid very well and have huge egos….those reality television shows that are so shocking to the general public because of how much the chef’s screamed at people seemed pretty par for the course to me) usually put up with a lot more crap than the front of the house people. 

I do agree that it isn’t like this everywhere, but it certainly does exist.  I saw it over and over and over again, from the crappiest ‘2am drunk rush’ is the biggest shift, to 5 star restaurants on the coast of California.  It was considerably better at the high end place (because the tips make it more worth it), but it still existed.

That is why I am really sensitive to people’s tipping practices.  I am especially horrified when people who are reasonably well off don’t tip well.  For instance, our former neighbors.  We decided to all get pizzas delivered and watch a movie together one evening.  Now they make $50K/year compared to the $10-12K we made at the time, but when they got the pizza, they didn’t tip.  at all.  I was mortified.  Our meal was about half the price of theirs because they got a huge array of sides, and it made me feel like I needed to make up the difference, which just pissed me off because we couldn’t afford it (which is why we didn’t order that much).  

I strongly believe that even if you can afford the menu items, but you can’t afford the tip, then you can’t afford to eat there.   Period.  No “they should pay them better” or “I deserve to be able to eat out” or other lame excuses.  It is that general sense of entitelment and ‘the rules don’t apply to me’ attitude that hurts real people, but still allows the business to stay open.  (after all, it is no skin off their nose if you pay them for the food but stiff the server they aren’t paying much for).   We have literally gone years in between visits to restaurant (unless a parent offered to spring for a meal) at certain points in our lives because it just wasn’t in the budget.  Eating out is not a life neccessity, it is a luxury.

Even though it has been a while since I have worked in the industry, the reality of how people are treated will never leave me.  I think it is important to always remember that they aren’t *just* my server, they are human beings who deserve to be respected and treated the same way you would treat your friends.  I might not be able to make a difference in the *big* issues in the world, but I can make a difference in the people’s lives I touch, even if it just having the basic human decency to be kind to them and let them know I value their work.