Imagine if I were to walk into a restaurant and distribute the money in the cash register in the following manner.

1% to the hostess
5% to the bartender
13.4% to the busboys
26.8% to the captain
26.9% to the back waiter
26.9% to the restaurant owner (Chris’s employer)

What’s wrong with this picture?

Are you all to stupid to see how illegal this is?

Restaurants have no more of a right to distribute it’s customer’s tips as a customer, like myself, would have to walk into their restauarant and distribute the money in their cash register.

If I were to walk into a restaurant and begin distributing the money in their cash register, the restaurant would call the police, I would be arrested, and a judge would sentence me to jail. It would be obvious to everyone that I was stealing their property.

But when a restaurant does the exact same thing, takes my private property and begins dividing it up, people act as if it’s perfectly legal. Is this world insane?

How can anyone not see that such business practices are illegal?

Are they putting something in your water to make you stupid?

As a former server myself, I think George is WAY out of line. Once money exchanges hands, it is no longer “your money”.

I am not suggesting that the person I give a tip doesn’t have a right to share my tip with whom-ever they want. What I am stating is that I am not giving my tip to any business owner. Do you understand what I am saying?

While you can do what-ever you want with a tip I give you, it is stealing for someone other than you, namely your employer, to take my tip and share it with whom-ever your employer chooses.

When employers adopt a policy of pooling or sharing tips, they are taking my tip away from the employee to whom I intended to tip without my permission. They are stealing my tip and treating it as if I gave them the tip. When a business adopts a policy concerning how my tip will be shared, they are stealing my tip.

You see, I have a legal right to choose who my tip belongs to. It’s my property. As my property, I am the only one with the authority to decide who it belongs to.

Once I’ve determined who it belongs to, that person, and that person alone, can do what they want with my tip. It becomes their property after, not before, I’ve chosen to give them a tip.

As a consumer who tips on a regular basis, I am hereby declaring that any employer who adopts policies concerning how my tip will be pooled or shared is doing so without my permission and subsequently is illegally stealing my property to utilize for his own purposes. I have not authorized any business to appropriate my tips for me. I will choose who my tip is intended for.

Lauren, you are way out of line for asserting that I am out of line for attempting to protect my private property.

How can I be out of line for simply attempting to protect my private property?

It’s my tip. Please explain why a business owner, rather than I, should decide who my tip beongs to?

Don’t you see how ridiculous it is for an employer to decide who is going to share in the customer’s tip? It’s not the employer’s property. Customers have not authorized the employer to appropriate tips for them. On the other hand, an employee who is given a tip is authorized to pool or appropriate the tip in any manner he or she chooses.

It’s like restaurant owners want to pretend that customers are authorizing the restaurant to appropriate their tips for them. Of course, if I were to pretend that the money in their cash register was mine to use however I choose, I would be locked up in jail. Why the double standard?

Employers who mandate tip pooling should be locked up in jail. Is that straight forward enough? I say they are stealing my property. Who, other than myself, can accurately know whether or not a business is stealing my tip?

Yeah, well I think most of us could agree that Wayne is a blithering asshole. I’d like to see him live off a wage depending on the generosity of others- especially in the economic times we’re enduring. Also, I’d like to point out that my tips are OVER reported due to the computer systems utilized through most restaurants. My last paycheck (1/6/10) was for 55.42 hours and I was paid $71.16. Yeah, “tax free money” sure is nice to pay bills with.

It disgusts me to witness such blatant arrogance. Not tipping at a restaurant that employs “illegals?” I’d like to know how Wayne knows without a doubt there are illegals hired at a particular establishment. Wayne seems pretty confident and I’d like to enlighten him to the fact that depending on his jurisdiction, he himself could be prosecuted for not alerting the police. Instead of screwing the server, why doesn’t he turn the particular restaurant into the authorities? (On a side note, I’d like to know how a person himself can be referred to as an “illegal?” Political correctness aside, illegal or not, does that mean that your children, Wayne, are more entitled to eat than the children of someone you would refer to as an “illegal?”)

Many people assume that servers and bartenders are unmotivated and uneducated when in fact, many of us are quite the opposite. My serving job helped put me through 4 years of college and will also help put me through the next three years of law school.

If the service was rude and inattentive, tip 10% or better yet, nothing. But when the service is attentive, the server polite and the service quick, please remember these people have bills to pay, just like you do.

Sounds like someone has some issues letting go.

Fact is, once you GIVE me a tip, it is MINE. If I choose to share it, that is entirely my choice. If I work somewhere that requires me to share my tip, well…fact is I choose to keep working there. If you don’t want the tip you GIVE to be given to anyone other than the server, then stop CHOOSING to eat at a restaurant with that type of tipping system. You have complete and total control over YOUR choices, so stop b*tching.

Good servers know how much help they get from the others around them. Each restaurant is different, but it would seam that the servers should have some say in the distribution.

In a purely capitalistic approach, each server would pay the amount they see is deserved and the support staff would be allowed to give their support according to the tips they receive. If this was the way the system ran what % would you give the support staff?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you don’t know where your tip went seomeone must have stolen it.

If your tip not in the possession of the person that you gave it to then someone is stealing your tip.

Instead of asking where did my tip go, you should be asking who stole my tip? Who cars where it went? It was stolen.

The truth behind tips is that, as the customer’s private property, no one is authorized to distribute the customer’s tip unless the customer authorizes them to distribute his tip.

Giving a worker a tip does not authorize his employer to appropriate or distribute the customer’s tip.

The only one authorized to distribute the customer’s tips is the employee who was given the tip.

This is thr truth behind tips. Anything else is a lie.

If customers want tips shared among workers they can share them themselves.

I am a customer and my message to you is, keep your greedy hands off my tips. If I want my tip distributed among workers I will distribute it myself. If you continue to illegally appropriate customer tips I will call you out as a thief. I along with many other customers have given you no authorization to distribute our tips for us.

Your attempts to steal our tips will be exposed.

Yes.

It’s outrageously high. You shouldn’t be tipping kitchen personnel ANYTHING, much less 48% of your tips. I’ve never heard of anything that even comes close to that. You’re basically getting scammed.

Run away as quickly as you can (if you can).

I’ve had to tip a combined 45% before, but that was only to the server assistants, bar and food runners. And that was WAAAAY high. In most places, it’s illegal to force servers to tip out workers who don’t directly serve the guest. Oregon is one of the few states (if not the only state) that specifically allows this practice. You should check with the Michigan State Labor Board and see if this is allowed.

You’re basically getting screwed. I wonder if this is a rogue operation of an otherwise normally run chain.

4% to the bartenders
50% of what is left to the chefs
10% of what is left to the bus staff
Whatever is left goes to the server

For example, if I make $100.00 total tips:

$4.00 to the bartenders
$48.00 to the chefs
$4.80 to the bus staff
$43.20 left for the server

I am curious to see if anyone sees anything wrong with this tip distribution. It doesn’t seem fair to be to only take home 43.2% of the money I make each time I go into work. The tip distribution policy at work is giving me a headache and I am hoping for a solution soon.

Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

The simple answer is that it’s a commission-based system. There has to be a constant to level the playing field across different types of restaurants. The best way is using a standard percentage, equivalent to a commission. You might as well ask why a salesperson selling a Jaguar usually makes more per car than a Kia salesperson, even though both “do the same job”.

Don’t forget too that a waiter who sells $100 at a two top versus $50 at a 4 top might “technically” do “less work”, but also has fewer selling opportunities. The higher the check average per person, the fewer people can be waited on because of the higher standards and the fact that people spending more money stay longer. Someone waiting on 40 people at PF Chang’s can have the same amount of sales as a waiter waiting on 10 people at Morton’s. and waiting on those 10 people *can* (but not necessarily) require “more service” than waiting on those 40 people due to wine service, more intensive standards of setup and service, etc. A good lunch diner waitress can make far more than a lunch waiter at Jean-Georges due to the higher volume.

It shouldn’t matter if how your finances are if you are on vacation. You shouldn’t scream about the high prices at at airports for instance. You have the opportunity to save your money to dine out somewhere else. You shouldn’t expect to be able to buy a $500 diamond-encrusted Eiffel tower paperweight instead of the $10 one unless you have the money for it. If your budget is tight when you’re on vacation, you’re welcome to budget by eating at fast food if you want. Most people however budget to be able to eat at local restaurants as part of the vacation experience. If you have to forgo a different part of the vacation experience, that’s a choice you get to make.

And I remind you that in all of those “non-third world countries” where they pay a “decent wage”, you’re paying an automatic service charge on top of the food that you might forget is added to the bill. At least under our system, you have the opportunity to penalize poor service, something you don’t get when you have to pay a mandatory service charge.

Also, restaurant blogger wrote:

“Hi Eileen, there is no actual laws pertaining to the employer in regards to employee tips”.

That’s not quite true. Employers are restrained from forcing restaurants to tip out management (mgt. that makes hiring and firing decisions and schedules). They are also constrained from demanding that non-service positions are involved in tipout (except in certain states like Oregon, which allows the practice of kitchen tipouts). The labor code also differentiates between tips and service charges. Tips remain the property of the employee and cannot be “controlled” by the restaurant except in the application of a restaurant-wide tipout that is participated by all tipped employees *and* the dreaded credit card charge. In other words, they can’t withhold any of those tips for the restaurant. Service charges, to include autograts are considered the property of the restaurant and can be divvied up however they like. Most restaurants treat autograts the same as tips though.

Check out my “So You Want To Be A Waiter” blog at:

http://teleburst.wordpress.com/