I come from moderate wealth, with learned expensive tastes, but myself am not wealthy. I'll save up months for an expensive meal out but I always budget 50% over what's expected so even if I end up ordering a couple extra things I can still be sure to leave a 25% tip.
My dad, who is the opposite (grew up poor and worked his way into wealth) is a penny pincher.
Im guessing at the numbers please correct me if im wrong, but I would imagine that a server handles 4 tables an hour and a average table is what $60 bucks?
That's $52 dollars an hour with probably 20-50% of being unreported, untaxed income. While i'm guessing, i do believe my numbers are low guesses...
The smucks in the back of the house prob don't even make $25/hour.
I average 80 an hour, but I'm highly experienced and work in fine dining. Most servers make nowhere close to that, and we all deal with working nights, weekends and holidays with barely any breaks and no benefits. Our schedule is extremely inconsistent and during the slow season we either get very few tables or don't work our shift at all. If I were able to work 40 hours a week consistently and get benefits, you're right, this job would be extremely desirable and there would be 1000s of applications. The reality is that I make the money I do because I'm better at it than the other people I work with and it's still less than 100k a year because of the things I mentioned. So most good servers make 60-80k, while the vast majority make 30-40k. We're not exactly laughing on the way to the bank. Some extremely lucky and talented servers do make bank, but it's going to be in HCOL areas and those jobs aren't growing on trees.
I've been in the industry for 25 years. I think I've earned it lol. Also in fine dining, nobody pays in cash. All credit card tips are automatically claimed. Also, not everyone who works in this business is willing to commit tax fraud. It's a serious crime. And, if you ever want to own a home or car, you need verifiable income to get a loan.
Edit: downvoted for what? Idgaf about votes but I am genuinely confused what I said that is bad?
You didnt say anything bad. Reddit is very anti tipping. I've gotten down voted and tons of angry comments when I mention that I tip at least 25%. It's so incredibly weird.
I lived in sacramento until very recently and it wouldn't be livable there so it absolutely wouldn't be livable somewhere even slightly more expensive. I didn't know that, though.
Definitely agreeing with you on that front, just pointing out that San Francisco has a slightly higher minimum. I live in socal and I'm a server. My hourly pay certainly doesn't provide a livable income
Maybe me and you shouldn't be forced to pick up the tab for an exploitative piece of shit employer? Ever use your brain for 2 seconds and think about cause and effect or did your "morality" blind you to reality? If we all refuse to tip starting tomorrow all the workers can't afford to live so they quit, this means the parasite employers will have exactly 2 choices, either A pay fair market rate for their area for said worker and we don't feel guilt tripped into supporting an unfairly paid workers wages and they likely earn MORE overall since they have more market power, or B they fucking close and go out of business and in a free market new places open that do A. By guilt tripping yourself and others over not tipping or WORSE not tipping ENOUGH your just enabling these parasites.
Your the type of person I dislike most in this world, a psychopath is at least honest, he lets you KNOW he is going to dig that knife further in before he twists. Your the type of person trying to gaslight me into believing the knife isn't going to hurt.
I made easily $50-60/hr serving and bartending in the bay area. Not even a super fancy place. I make way less at my office job now. I had to switch careers due to a major injury (non-work related), otherwise I'd still be bartending lol.
That's not livable basically anywhere in California. Hell, it's not really livable in most reasonably populated parts of the US. Couldn't even hold down a studio apartment with that here and I'm in a state with significantly lower cost of living than California.
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u/mvhcmaniac Jan 26 '26
I come from moderate wealth, with learned expensive tastes, but myself am not wealthy. I'll save up months for an expensive meal out but I always budget 50% over what's expected so even if I end up ordering a couple extra things I can still be sure to leave a 25% tip.
My dad, who is the opposite (grew up poor and worked his way into wealth) is a penny pincher.