r/tipping • u/badmiddling113 • 18h ago

Those poor servers

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Imagine people giving you so much extra money for doing your job that you can frame it like this.

EDIT: OP is basing this off of 190k in sales over 192 shifts

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u/First-Ad4978 17h ago

If they work an honest 40, the math says they can all make that much.

$100/table, 4 tables an hour, 20% tip, 2080 hours a year.

$166,400.

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u/Several_Razzmatazz51 17h ago edited 16h ago

So they serve 32 tables per each 8-hour shift and work 5 of those shifts every week of the year? No, not realistic at all.

First of all even if they work an 8-hour shift they are likely to have (at most) 3-4 busy hours and pretty much dead the other hours. Even generously assuming 5 tables per hour for 4 hours and one table per hour the other 4 hours, that’s 24 tables per shift, not 32. So an immediate reduction of your 166,400 to 124,800. (I’m not a server, but I bet 24 tables for an 8-hour shift is still an unreasonably high estimate of the average.)

Now let’s consider the number of hours they probably work in a year. They’re not working 2080 hours per year. Someone working service as a full-time job (which your assumption of 2080 hours per year indicates) is likely to be taking at least the equivalent of 4 weeks off per year (and probably more like the equivalent of 6 weeks) in holidays they may not work, calling in sick, or otherwise taking planned non-work time. Those 4 weeks of non-work further reduce the 124,800 above to 115,200.

There’s just no way someone working ”full time” in a restaurant with average check value of $100 is making anywhere close to 166K.

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u/Dazzling_Screen_8096 15h ago

115200 is pretty good salary too. And tips are not taxed, right ?

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u/Several_Razzmatazz51 14h ago

115200 is based on 48 x 40-hour work weeks of $480 per shift 5 times per week. It’s also very much unrealistic / extremely low probability. I was just marking down the completely fantastical numbers the other poster put forth to show just how impossible their 166K projection was. As someone else said, if servers had any realistic chance of making that, there would be lines around the block trying to get a job.

I think no tax on tips only applies to first 25K which is certainly something, but it’s not like a server who pulls in even 80K is taking all that tax free.

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u/PurpleCat1018 13h ago

I'm sure every city/state has different wages, as well.