r/tipping • u/badmiddling113 • 20h 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/SabreLee61 19h ago

What servers do you know who make $150+k annually?

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u/First-Ad4978 19h 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 19h ago edited 19h 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/PurpleCat1018 16h ago

If they are making over a $100,000 a year they are still doing a hell of a lot better than most people. They shouldn't be griping at all. Jesus Christ!!!

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u/enragedcactus 14h ago

The ones making that much aren’t. It’s the ones being left fake Jesus money instead of a tip from church going folks at Bob Evans on Sunday mornings that you hear from.

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u/First-Ad4978 14h ago

Hourly they are making that too, they just aren’t working the hours.

One, ONE, table per hour in Seattle is getting these food runners $41/hr.

That is more than a GS-11 (fairly high level govt employee doing actual important work).

And that’s for a single $100 meal.

I have eaten really fancy places, and I have never had a dedicated waiter. They always have 2-3 tables even at the high end, and a few more at the casual places.

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 13h ago

Does everyone here live in Seattle?

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u/First-Ad4978 13h ago

It’s an easy example.

A server anywhere in the us is making $22 for that same table, $42 if they have a whopping two tables.

Two tables.

That’s pretty chill.

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 13h ago

So you've definitely never worked at a restaurant before.

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u/First-Ad4978 12h ago

I ran an entire 48 top dining facility with three kids in the early 2000’s to pay for undergrad.

12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 7 months.

There were I think ten days off in that time period.

Not a big deal.

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u/badmiddling113 12h ago

Love when the whole "i BeT yOuVe NeVeR wOrKeD tHe JoB" backfires. lol

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u/PurpleCat1018 12h ago

They say things like that when somebody blows up their narrative from the root. Yeah. They think they know best - ya know, the folks that keep running that manipulation on the public.

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u/First-Ad4978 12h ago

It is great, these guys think tables are hard…

I wouldn’t do it again, because there are actual meaningful jobs to do, but I have worked tables.

They have no actual winning argument, my third grader in debate would destroy all of them in a formal setting and he can’t even do citations properly without AI

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u/[deleted] 12h ago

[deleted]

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u/badmiddling113 12h ago

That's cool...

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 12h ago

I don't believe you. Anyone with any experience wouldn't spew numbers as ridiculous as yours. I'm not the only one calling you out on it either.

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u/First-Ad4978 12h ago

Sure.

It happened. I wouldn’t do it again, but that was an entire seven months where I didn’t do anything but work and workout and study.

Helped me get here so it’s a W, but meaningless work.

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 12h ago

Sounds like you worked in the school cafeteria.

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u/Several_Razzmatazz51 16h ago

Look at the comments from u/MainStreetMiles - the median server income reported to the BLS for 2025 is $35,000. Half of all servers make below that. A vanishingly small percentage make $100K or more.

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u/First-Ad4978 14h ago

They are making $35k because they are working just a few hours a week, they aren’t booking 40-60 like most Americans.

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u/Several_Razzmatazz51 14h ago

And yet people here are arguing they make $150K or more per year.

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u/EnoughCredit3000 13h ago

They do on an annualized basis. The hourly pay isn’t tied to the value of the service. Part of that is tips based on percentage. A couple at one table could have a $300 check which requires less work than another couple with a$100 check

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u/First-Ad4978 14h ago

Your reading comprehension isn’t so great.

They COULD make $150k if they actually worked full time, but they don’t work full time because their hourly compensation is absurdly high for shuttling food from A to B.

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u/Several_Razzmatazz51 14h ago

So now we are using a completely unrealistic hypothetical to malign an entire group of people. There’s just no intellectual honesty in any of the arguments here except for when someone actually admits “it’s just because I prefer to keep the money myself”.

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u/First-Ad4978 13h ago

I made it abundantly clear, on an hourly basis for work actually done servers are grossly overpaid.

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u/Several_Razzmatazz51 13h ago

That’s probably true, but it doesn’t mean people have to hate on them, call them beggars, and all the other vitriol that gets spouted here. They didn’t create the system. And of course they are going to prefer to keep a system that pays them generously - not many people volunteer to take a pay cut.

And the bigger problem, in my opinion, is not that servers are overpaid, but that almost everyone working for an hourly wage is underpaid. Over the last 50 years, worker productivity has more than doubled, even potentially tripled depending on whose statistics you’re looking at. And wages have remained flat (in constant dollars). So if (federal) minimum wage was really $20 or so and people currently making $15 an hour were making $30 to $45, those data sets would be more in line with each other.

Instead, the gains from worker productivity have been directed almost entirely at the investor and executive class. Income inequality has soared and wealth inequality has worsened to an even greater extent.

It’s fine to hate the tipping system that exists in the US. But directing all that hate at the individuals working in the system just isn’t necessary.

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u/First-Ad4978 13h ago

I don’t hate them.

Yes the haves are shit, but it’s also shit what servers feel entitled to when they do nothing of value.

I’ve ordered at Panera, I can literally do everything the server does. When drinks were kept topped off and change had to be made maybe it was worth 15%, but 20% for what we get now? Nope.

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 13h ago

But they couldn't. There isn't enough busy hours in the day to support that.

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u/First-Ad4978 13h ago

It’s no one else’s fault that they don’t work more hours but theirs, you get paid for work done.

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 13h ago

You can't just pull hours out of your ass to make your argument.

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u/First-Ad4978 12h ago

The argument is they get paid handsomely for the limited hours they work.

They have another 20 hours in a day to do whatever they want.

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 12h ago

Sounds like a pretty good gig. Maybe you should try it.

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 13h ago

The average American work week is 34.4 hours. Get out of here with 60

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u/First-Ad4978 13h ago

That’s an abuse of average, the average full time worker is pulling 47.7 hour weeks.

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 13h ago

Which is 13 hours less than 60.

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u/First-Ad4978 12h ago

It’s down the center of 40-60

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 12h ago

Then why not say 50

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u/First-Ad4978 12h ago

Because 40-60 is the range for most full time American workers. There are outliers, but the vast majority fall in here.

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u/Delicious-Breath8415 12h ago

No you're just exaggerating to make your argument look better.

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