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A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

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Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#161

My summer as a dishwasher made it clear tipping, already deeply stupid, is wildly unfair even to service workers. A lot of people helped you get your meal, but your dishwasher is definitely not tipped.

Your dishwasher might be tipped depending on the restaurant. My wife served at several restaurants where expo, dishwashers, and kitchen staff got a portion of tips from the service.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#162
post #63
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much? Enough to live within 10 miles of the place they are working at sithout having to pinch pennies, while being able to safe something for the future. Sure it isn't a complicated job — but without it the likes of us would not be able to enjoy going to a restaurant. And it is a job that would be both mentally and physically too exhausting for many people. Let's stop doing as if jobs like these are not real jobs…

How did we go from asking what is the proper wage to suggesting its "not a real job"? All jobs are real but some are less valuable than others. There is nothing wrong with being a grocery store stocker your whole life but I am not sure how you set the wage for a 5+ year worker that never moved on/up from stocking shelves. I think its a fairly difficult problem to answer and throwing in classism and white collar vs bl…

A really long time ago, I had once visited a police station in Tamil Nadu (India). One of the lower level officials there had the rank "SSI". I was perplexed as I had never heard of this rank before. So I asked the Inspector about it. He said it stood for "Special Sub Inspector". He then smiled and added, "There was some court case involving some government official or union who complained about not being promoted even after serving for many years in the same post. The court ultimately ruled that was unfair, and said even if an official doesn't get promoted by virtue of merits, their experience also matters. Thus, any official who serves a certain number of years (I think it was 5-10 years or so), and doesn't get a promotion on merit during those years, should automatically be promoted by virtue of their experience. Ofcourse, some government bureaucrat in the Tamil Nadu civil service and police service weren't happy with this ruling as police officials who don't get promoted don't because they are either corrupt and / or incompetent. Thus, the government created a new rank (in between the ranks of Head Constable and Assistant Sub Inspector) to "comply" with the court ruling but cheekily called it "Special Sub Inspector" to convey their own disagreement with the ruling."

It was funny but it did make me think - Perhaps in the mid-levels, experience can compensate for the lack of special skills or motivations as an employee will know enough to do his immediate superior's job "well enough" (average or slightly below average) too.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#163
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone take the job then, if it didn't provide those things? Also, I have an employee Al who lives with his parents, so he doesn't need to pay anything for housing. Bob is single but has to pay for his own apartment. Carol is a single mom of 4 who needs to pay for her housing and everything for her kids. So should I pay Carol the most, Bob the 2nd most, and then Al the least, even though they're all doing t…

> Why would anyone take the job then, if it didn't provide those things? Because they are afraid of being homeless?

there's also the "everyone is essential to maintain society"

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#164
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a nice little tax dodge, at least back of the day when tipping was predominantly done in cash that I'm sure was never declared on the waiters taxes.

The thing with the no tax on tips thing pandered by both major condidates is that most waiters don’t make enough to be paying income tax in the first place. On the other hand, more regressive taxes on income (OASDI/Medicare/IL state income tax) would apply, but none of these would be covered.

That's not generally true. My friend worked at a waiter in the 90's and was making $200-$300 a night on tips on the weekend. Definitely not reported income either.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you tip your nurses and your bus drivers?

What exactly does a bus driver do directly for just you? Everyone tips private drivers though. Nurses don't get tips but it's very common for them to get thank-you gifts and treats.

[deleted]

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination of things, but it's similar to why online stores advertise a price, and then add charges at checkout (like shipping, or credit card charge, processing fee, etc). You entice the customer with the lower price, and once they have committed, you can hit them with another charge or fee without as much ramification. Restaurant customers can be price sensitive, so tipping is a way to advertise a lower pri…

Let me change that a bit: "it's pretty ubiquitous in the US". It's not common everywhere. My personal observation (in NL) is that with the transition from cash to contactless payment it seems to be becoming less common over time. Payment terminals here are not setup to ask for a tip (with very rare exceptions) - you just pay the amount on the receipt directly.

10%+ "service charge" added to the bill is almost ubiquitous in London now

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#167

My summer as a dishwasher made it clear tipping, already deeply stupid, is wildly unfair even to service workers. A lot of people helped you get your meal, but your dishwasher is definitely not tipped.

> A lot of people helped you get your meal, but your dishwasher is definitely not tipped.

AIUI, front-end servers are supposed to kick some money into a pool for back-end staff.

> Tip out is the restaurant practice where servers or bartenders share a portion of their collected tips with other staff members who contribute to the dining experience. This can include bussers, food runners, and sometimes even kitchen staff, depending on local regulations.

* https://www.7shifts.com/blog/restaurant-tipping-out-guide/

This could be legally regulated, or it could be social convention.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have soap residue: - Try running the dishwasher a second time with no soap, or on a rinse cycle - If you use soap pods, try putting it not in the soap tray, but directly in with the dishes. [0] [0] This video (starting at 11:40) explains how soap is used in a dishwasher. This guy (who has an excellent channel) gives tips to maximize soap exposure in your dishwasher, but you can do the opposite to minimize it i…

Unfortunately, it's other people's dishwashers (I don't own one) that are the problem and it comes across as rude if you accept a glass of water from a friend and then complain that it tastes nasty.

If I was your friend then I would love to know if the water tasted funky so I can do something about it, but maybe that’s just me.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#169
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that was actually true, minimum wage for tipped employees would be equal to the standard minimum wage.

Why? I'm not sure I see how that follows.

Because the employee tips are effectively taken by the restaurant up to the point where they make "normal" minimum wage. If tipped employee compensation was actually about compensating those folks for their effort, they should received the tips they earn. (Tipped minimum wage gets increased to standard minimum wage if you earn fewer than the difference in tips—which is functionally identical to having $5 and a bit of your tips withheld every hour)

As it stands today, if you're tipped and you work a shift where there are fewer customers, you implicitly get paid less (and have more of your tips soaked up by your employer) for exactly the same amount of effort. If you work a graveyard shift for eight hours and see $40 in tips from eight customers, you effectively worked minimum wage with $0 in tips, not minimum wage plus $40. For the people working those jobs, that's multiple meals or tank of gas.

There's no practical reason for having a lower minimum wage for tipped employees, it's literally just an excuse for employers to pay their tipped employees less. If we as a society actually believed that some professions should be compensated based on effort, there would be a different minimum wage for people compensated by commission. But that doesn't exist.

So to answer your question, you're not necessarily "directly compensating" the employee, because a non-trivial percentage of your tip goes towards subsidizing their employer.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#170
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that tipping is mainly to enable the restaurant owner to avoid paying their workers properly.

No, tipping is a way of directly compensating people who are directly doing work for you, even in the context of an organization managing the transaction. You tip people who are personally responding to your requests -- that's why the dishwasher and other people you're not directly interacting with don't usually get tipped.

Why should I be favoring the specific workers that get within 5 feet of me?

And why should they be getting less indirect pay?

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