I had always thought that tipping was a bizarre practice until I learned how much servers at restaurants are actually paid and the different ways tips are handled by management. Some let the server keep the entire tip, some pool the tips and split them among all the staff, some skim a bit for themselves, and some just make it up as they go along.
When you tip your waiter or waitress, you are actually subsidizing the owner's labor costs. Front-of the-house workers are typically paid way less than minimum wage - about $2.60/hr. The tips are supposed to make up the difference between that and minimum wage, and if they don't, by Federal law the owner is SUPPOSED to make up the difference. Some do, some don't - it's a regulation that is rarely enforced.
And so we have this story of a waitress who was SUPPOSED to receive 50% of a $4400 tip - but the owner took it away from her, arbitrarily (because it had never been done there before) deciding that a tip that large should be shared with everyone, and that her share should only be 20%. When she complained about it, she was fired. Exactly who said what to whom is in dispute:
http://www.today.com/food/restaurants/server-says-was-fired-restaurant-receiving-4400-tip-rcna8391
So I guess the moral of the story is: Tip your waitstaff, but not too much...
|
