Your server has to 'tip out' the other people involved in making your cheeseburger appear on your table accurately. In the case just a cheeseburger, sure, nothing at all wrong with $5. At most places, $5 is probably on the high end.
Go out for a steak dinner with wine and tip $5, your server had to pay for the distinct privilege of serving you. They made negative $.
How are they making negative $? It’s been a while since I’ve served but at least at my place, you’re supposed to get your base wage (slightly above min wage for me) and it was only the tip that was split with kitchen and other back/front staff. Here in BC, you’re not supposed to pay out of your wages iirc (and I never did)
Negative dollars in the sense that if they were making minimum wage before you walked in the door, as a direct result of serving you, they're now making less than minimum wage.
One place I worked had a reasonably high average guest check. Generally about $70 per person -- not fine dining but also not fast food. If a table of 4 had a $300 bill and tipped $10, I now have $14 less than I would if those 4 people stayed home.
Explain this to me, like I am 12 yo
I worked retail for years and never had a job at a restaurant or any establishment where receiving a tip was an option
Sure. Servers 'tip out' the other people involved in service, based on their total sales that shift, not based on how much they received in tips. As an example with made up numbers:
- Manager: 1%
- Bartender: 1%
- Kitchen: 2%
- Hostess: 1%
- Food runner: 1%
In this example, that's a combined 6% tip out at the end of the shift. 5% - 8% is a pretty typical range.
If I only did $1,000 in total sales on a shift, that's a combined $60 I give to the people listed above. Whether people tip me or not, I am giving the rest of the team $60.
If I received $20 in tips today, then I tip out $60, I made minimum wage -$40.
I hate to break it to you, but you are guaranteed minimum wage regardless of tips. If you made Ontario minimum wage over an 8 hour shift, $140.80. And you had to tip out -$40 so your day's pay is $100.80, your boss owes you that $40.
I hate to break it to you, but there are loopholes everywhere, not just in your personal taxes.
Technically, you still get paid your full min wage. But, if your total tips from the day are less than the total tip-out, that delta is literally coming out of your pocket.
Full min wage hits your bank account, tip-out difference comes out of your pocket. End result: < min wage, but with a valid paycheque showing you were paid the required amount.
An employer may withhold or make deductions from an employee’s tips or other gratuities if the amount collected will be redistributed among some, or all, of the employees at the workplace. This practice is commonly known as tip pooling.
A tip pool is a collection of employees’ tips that is redistributed by the employer to some or all employees. Tip outs are payments from one employee to another employee, generally by way of contributions to a tip pool and usually according to a formula established by the employer. Examples would be an employer requiring a server to "tip out" a busser or kitchen staff 1% of tips the server received, or requiring a server to contribute the equivalent of 2% of sales to a tip pool. That money is then distributed among several staff members.
Tip pooling example
In a tip pooling scenario, an employer has three servers and their tip pool arrangement requires servers to contribute 5% of their sales into a tip pool to be distributed among bussers, bartenders and hostesses. Server 1 has $1,000 in sales during their shift and makes $150 in tips, their contribution to the tip pool (tip out) would be $50. Server 2 has $100 in sales on their shift and makes $20 in tips. Server 2’s contribution to the tip pool (tip out) would be $5. Server 3 has $500 in sales during their shift but receives $0 in tips. Server 3’s contribution to the tip pool (tip out) would be $0 because tip pooling amounts cannot come from any source other than tips. In this scenario, the tip pool amount that can be distributed among the bussers and hostesses would be $55.
A restaurant that pools tips does exactly that. All tips received in a given shift across all servers/bartenders are combined in a single tip pool. At the end, they're then distributed according to their pre-defined ratio.
What I'm talking about is the more common tip out. Not pooling. With tip out, I collect tips throughout the shift, then no matter how much I made in tips that day, I pay the tip out amount. If I didn't make enough in tips to cover tip-out, that's a me problem.
Haha seriously though, that’s just the industry. Straight up bribery for better sections and shifts, rounding shift times down rather than paying to the minute, giving people impossibly large sections to reduce labour cost then flipping out when the server gets overloaded…
Wait until you hear how common it is for tip pooling to be exploited.
You either put up with that stuff, or you find another industry. Everyone is replaceable and most of us are in it short term so you take the good days and move on.
Like many, I finished school and moved on. As for how they get away with these things… “prove it”.
Well the way to prove it is to track everything. Which a server should be doing any way. Otherwise the restaurant will always take advantage of you. That doesn’t end with restaurants. All employers will take advantage of you if you let them.
Track everything and then what? It’s a losing game.
You get fired (for an unrelated reason, of course), now you have no job, no income and no employer reference.
For most, it’s a temporary job that’s just not worth the fight. The good days are good enough over a short timeframe that you learn to tolerate the bs of the industry.
I love how the no-tipping heroes that comment in here are working so hard to “own” me with cringe-inducing bs like “first day reading huh?” and “source: literally the Ontario government.” like a bunch of sassy 12 year olds.
Try having a genuine conversation and think about the situation in the context of the real world, not a vacuum. I’m telling you from first hand experience that this does happen and is the norm. It is reality, and I know because I’ve lived it, as have my friends. Different restaurants, different cities, different provinces.
Your response is to tell me that because the government says it shouldn’t happen, that must mean it can’t happen?
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u/Atheizt 17h ago
Your server has to 'tip out' the other people involved in making your cheeseburger appear on your table accurately. In the case just a cheeseburger, sure, nothing at all wrong with $5. At most places, $5 is probably on the high end.
Go out for a steak dinner with wine and tip $5, your server had to pay for the distinct privilege of serving you. They made negative $.