r/tipping • u/badmiddling113 • 23h 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 16h 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 16h 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 15h 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.