Tip Your Server and Save the World (Pitt)

[FiddyBeowulf]

Pitt uncovers something hideous. Apparently people are being forced to work at a job that only pays $2.65 per hour.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022328316

It's your fourth shift in a row at the restaurant, all doubles because you only make $2.65 an hour and need to pay for rent and heat and electricity, and your section is a set of booths and tables - six four-tops, four two-tops, one eight-top - that seat forty-four customers total, and it's been packed from start to finish across your whole rip with couples and clusters of workers from the accounting firm next door and families with children and foreigners who can't read the menu and have never heard of tipping, and twenty different people in your last two shifts have sent their meal back because the cook is new and in the weeds and can't handle the volume and keeps screwing up the orders, and that's not your fault, but the customers take it out on you because you're there.

There is a link to the original article (truth-out posting) in the OP over there but it is more of the same.  I know people that work part-time as waitresses and even after they split the tips still take home a good chunk of cash (tax free  ).


Again, if the job sucks get a different job.

Star Member babylonsister (142,792 posts)
3. Thanks, Will; apparently the reminder is needed.

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Stellar writing, as usual.

Small campfire destined to grow as more attaboys get posted.

[Chris_]

Fourth shift in a row?  Someone explain that to me, because most restaurants only have two.

As if Pitt would ever lower himself to actually working for a living.

[ChuckJ]

Fourth shift in a row?  Someone explain that to me, because most restaurants only have two.

As if Pitt would ever lower himself to actually working for a living.

He says at the end of his post that a large number of his best friends are in the service industry. I guess bartenders are considered as being in the service industry, but I do wonder how many of them are really his friends.

[USA4ME]

What's the point of posting that on Skin's island, or a liberal publication for that matter?  Most of the primitives have stated they can't afford to go out and eat at restaurants in this booming Obameconomy.  They've boycotted most of them anyway.  My guess is their experience with tipping extends to giving the pizza delivery guy a dollar or two, but that's about it.

.

[Gina]

If that writing is Stellar then we owe gnads an apology.

[thundley4]

In other news, Governor Quinn of Illinois wants to raise the pay of burger flippers to $10/hour.  A minimum wage that high will hurt unemployment for youth and minorities even more.


I give delivery drivers $5 , and tip in restaurants @20-30%.

[BlueStateSaint]

He says at the end of his post that a large number of his best friends are in the service industry. I guess bartenders are considered as being in the service industry, but I do wonder how many of them are really his friends.

He thinks they're his friends.  To them, he's just an easy tippler.

[Vagabond]

I know a woman who has been waiting tables since high school.  She started at a Pizza Hutt, took something called hospitality service or something, and now she works out of a Ruth Chris steakhouse.  She seems to make out pretty good.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Fourth shift in a row?  Someone explain that to me, because most restaurants only have two.

Yeah.  That one was real WTF.  Pitt's such an idiot.

[Chris_]

I know a woman who has been waiting tables since high school.  She started at a Pizza Hutt, took something called hospitality service or something, and now she works out of a Ruth Chris steakhouse.  She seems to make out pretty good.

They make a lot more money than the people cooking the food, that's for sure.

[Boudicca]

Fourth shift in a row?  Someone explain that to me, because most restaurants only have two.

As if Pitt would ever lower himself to actually working for a living.

Hey, easy now, propping up a bar stool is hard werk!  And we know of course old Pittstain tips his barkeep really well in unsold copies of CalPig's poems.

[98ZJUSMC]

If that writing is Stellar then we owe gnads an apology.

Beat me to it, Gina. 

[98ZJUSMC]

Yeah.  That one was real WTF.  Pitt's such an idiot.

..and a serious liar, but we already knew that.  I would bet he's the stingiest patron, on the few occasions he's out of a bar, there is.

In other news, Governor Quinn of Illinois wants to raise the pay of burger flippers to $10/hour.  A minimum wage that high will hurt unemployment for youth and minorities even more.


I give delivery drivers $5 , and tip in restaurants @20-30%.

Heard that yesterday.   , you Quinn.  I always wondered what a $20.00 Fillet-O-Fish tasted like. 

[GOBUCKS]

"four-tops", "your whole rip", "in the weeds"!

It's soooo cool that a hopeless, stumbling alcoholic like Pitt knows all those inside-baseball waitress terms!

I wonder if he heard them from Ty the Bouncer?

A large number of my best friends are in the service industry.

Whores.

[Chris_]

It's your fourth shift in a row at the restaurant, all doubles

I went back and read this again because it made no sense the first time around.  Now, it's just looks like bullshit.  No restaurant is going to schedule the same waitress four sixteen-hour shifts in a row unless they're so desperately short-staffed that they can't keep the doors open or she requests it.

I'll admit I've done it (as a cook), but that's because I asked for it or I was covering for someone who was out.  My longest stretch without a day off was 37 and that included double shifts.

[Dori]

Fourth shift in a row?  Someone explain that to me, because most restaurants only have two.

As if Pitt would ever lower himself to actually working for a living.

Maybe they have four hour shifts.  When I waitressed ours were ususally 6 and sometimes 5 if it was slow.

I don't get the $2.65 an hour.  Is that even legal in the U.S.?  

[Chris_]

I don't get the $2.65 an hour.  Is that even legal in the U.S.?  

It is if your primary income is tips and gratuity.  It's called sub-minimum wage.

[Dori]

It is if your primary income is tips and gratuity.  It's called sub-minimum wage.

Had not heard of sub-minimum before.  If her section was busy and she had 44 seatings, and even if the kitchen was slow, she still should have made about 20-50 dollars an hour or more.  That doesn't sound like peanuts to me.

[Chris_]

Had not heard of sub-minimum before.  If her section was busy and she had 44 seatings, and even if the kitchen was slow, she still should have made about 20-50 dollars an hour or more.  That doesn't sound like peanuts to me.

That's a whole lot more than I ever made as a cook.  I don't even make that much now.

Most of the servers I talked to said they put their checks away in the bank to cover taxes on their income at the end of the year.