$2.13.hour is a wage employers in the service industry like to justify by telling you they provide the tools you need to make tips. Well, that’s all fine and good until you start requiring your employees to do all kinds of side work before they start picking up tables, while they’re taking care of tables and before they clock-out. Opening duties, side work and closing duties are a total scam!
A typical day (opening) shift, at my old waiter job, consisted of the following, from clock-in to clock-out:
- A list of opening duties to be split up by a staff usually consisting of hungover, lazy employees who couldn’t possibly be motivated to do more than the bare minimum given the current wage while performing these duties can be no more than $2.13/hour. For those unlucky enough to be required to show up a full hour before the first table could ever be sat, this means an hour full of cutting lemons, flipping chairs, rolling silverware, setting up the salad and soup area, checking/cleaning the bathroom, stocking the bar, brewing coffee, brewing tea, and/or sweeping/mopping messes on the floor left by the night shift.
- Pre-Shift meeting bullshit. Hearing a frustrated, tired robot tell you what to upsell, what the specials are, etc.
- Waiting on a table to show up in your section. This could go on for up to an hour. Just because we opened at 11 AM, doesn’t mean you were going to be sat a table in your section at 11 AM. If you weren’t given a table to wait on, you get to be hounded by the manager to stay busy doing side work. This means you’re still getting paid $2.13/hour after the restaurant has opened for the day’s business. side work is usually a mix of house keeping, janitorial and bus boy duties.
- Closing Duties. You can’t leave until you’ve completed chores like rolling endless amounts of silverware, cleaning and stocking your section as well as other fun stuff like restocking the wait station, cleaning the bathroom, etc.
- Think you’re leaving? Think again! you’ve finished your chores, “done your money” but you can’t find the manager to “close you out”. This could be another 5-15 minutes of hounding the manager to sign off on your money and allow you to clock out.
In all, most employees working the day shift at that restaurant spend about 2 hours doing chores while being paid only $2.13/hour. Does that sound fair to you?
Opening Duties, Side Work and Closing Duties: The Biggest Scam Ever!,
I think that people who haven’t worked in the food industry or any service industry don’t understand how painful and terrible it is to come to a hell hole. Some people think serving is easy. “All waiters do is take the order, and bring out the food.” Well, it doesn’t work like that.
The art of serving is a challenging job. I will probably never do it ever again after I finish college. There are other things too other than side work. Although, I have to admit, I HATED side work. It’s monotonous. When it’s busy, if it gets busy, typically you don’t have just one table to look after. There are multiple tables that want refills, need to put their order in, want their check, and so on. It’s difficult to keep track of that especially when you know the kitchen is backed up. If you put in the appetizers with the entrees at one time, the chefs will make it at one time. Servers have to keep in mind a good time when to put in the order. Not to mention, the other tables. Let’s say you have 4 tables. There are on average 2-4 people at a table. You have 12 people to look after all at once who all want different things in a certain way. And after you’ve wasted your entire day bending over backwards for these people, you are too tired to do anything, not to mention you had to skip 2 meals, you just go to bed, and wake up in the morning to do it all over again.
Multitasking is an art that has to be mastered to be a good server, which is why I call serving an art.
I thought I was the only one who thought “side work” was a bunch of bullsh*t. Why should I scrub toilets? I work for Communists so if I’m not getting tipped they don’t care. I work in a Chinese family restaurant. Before the lazy “I don’t know where my life is going, I need to find myself” brother left for China, I was working as the waitress or aka The Bitchmaid. I live in rural Georgia, and these people DO NOT know what a tip is. I told the manager it wasn’t cutting it, and I refuse to waitress now. Instead, I work in delivering which pays better. The fee is already included for each delivery so I bring home good money for them being lazy. If you want to be a lazy black ass and not tip me, I get my money anyway when I drive two blocks down the street to deliver your sesame chicken.
From a manager’s eye, side work is a pain for all my staff. I do however run a restaurant where we pay our servers 7 an hour plus all tips (we pay that because in middle Tennessee people are not good at tipping). When I was a server (just 3 months ago) working at the largest Hotel in Tennessee i was paid 2.13 an hour and had a two page list of side work and closing duties everyday, but the things on that list really help my tips…. If guests enter a clean restaurant and all the small details are perfect then people tip more! But lately I personally have realized even though we pay 7 an hour, my staff still hates sidework and closing duties. I think its because everyone likes talking to the tables and socializing with co-workers instead of cleaning, which I cant blame them, I hate cleaning to begin with but I have never and will never ask my staff to do something that I personally am not willing to do (I cleaned the restrooms last night!)
Just my point of view though.
$7/hour + tips? Wow, that sounds awesome. But then I guess that means you’re not bullshitting when you say middle Tennessee folk don’t tip well.
California pays 8 plus tips, which is nice/ but the cost of living is ridiculous so it all balances out…
where in tennessee do you manage?nashvillian right here
Let’s start by saying that I actually really hate having to depend on people’s generosity to get by. It’s a flawed system, so I really don’t enjoy complaining about tips. Except tip-outs… I understand the concept, but it’s really just another way for you to pay certain positions for the restaurant with your hard earned tips. But that’s another argument.
The sidework IS ridiculous at many restaurants though for $2.13 an hour. I understand the during-shift stuff that helps yourself and everyone work smoothly…ice, make more tea, refill the ranch, etc (though at another restaurant the bussers did all of that). The setting up/closing down stuff does get all little excessive and the constant harassment from the managers about selling features or getting the guest to go online later to fill out a survey gets a bit taxing as well…BUT.. What really bugs me is when the management keeps tacking extra stuff onto the servers so that they can cut the hourly waged people sooner, or to get out of hiring a cleaning crew. Examples: breaking down the kitchen’s boxes (the SERVERS do this?!), High dusting, extra cleaning projects like scrubbing floors and walls and grates with harsh chemicals because in 2 weeks a regional manager might visit your location, and the list goes on. AND THEN, the managers have the audacity to talk to US about LABOR COSTS??
It just gets to much. I get heated… sorry for the rant
I like it when you can’t pick up a shift because you’ll be paid overtime. If $3.19/hour as opposed to $2.13/hour is hurting a business’ finances……
On the contrary, proper overtime is not 150% of the after credit wage. It is 150% of the minimum wage – tip credit. (it is based on “regular rate of pay” which by law is at least $7.25 per hour) Thus, if the credit is say $5.12 with a minimum wage of $7.25, then overtime is NOT 1.5 x $2.13 or $3.20, it is $5.76. This is $7.25 hourly rate x 1.5 overtime rate = $10.88 minimum overtime rate. THEN you take out the same tip credit of $5.12 to arrive at $5.76 per hour. If the employer elected to take only a $3 instead of $5.12 tip credit for a normal 40 hour week, they have to only take a $3 tip credit for any overtime hours as well. The employer doesn’t get a higher tip credit for over time hours.
Additionally, they cannot take a tip credit that is more than actual tips received. And it is the burden of the EMPLOYER to prove the employee actually received those tips. (that equal or exceed the tip credit taken)
Finally, beware of employers who shave mills. (as you did in your $3.19 figure) Some large corporate chains save 1/2 ¢ by paying $2.125 instead of $2.13. It doesn’t make much difference to the employee. (it amounts to all of $10 over a full 2000 hour work year) but that can be significant for a company having thousands of employees. While it doesn’t mean much to you, it shows they are sneaky and apt to scam you on the little things – beware how bad they will rip you on bigger ones.
I think that congress should get together and make it MANDATORY to pay minimum wage PLUS tips to service employees. Why? Because I’m black and blacks run America. Plus we don’t tip. So if we don’t tip, then the waiters really only make $2 an hour! he he! Payback for slavery.
Springs,
I’d really love to type a thoughtful response to your last post, but I’m too exhausted from spending the last 10 hrs. kissing the asses of arrogant assholes like yourself. I need to get some rest so I can get up tomorrow & do it again.
I will say though…you honestly & truly don’t have a clue what the fuck you’re talking about.
anita
“And also to get a decent tip we have to work very hard”
Do you honestly work VERY HARD? Do you check EACH plate, EACH item on the plates for correctness? Do you check the prices against the menus BEFORE giving customers the check? When you deliver another server’s food, do you compare the tickets to the food?
I bet you don’t do ANY OF THAT, then you wonder why you get a bad tip, well LOOK at WHAT *****EFFORT***** you put into the job!! Ask yourself WHY did a person give you 10% for example? Was it that a person was cheap or did you do things wrong that were easily preventable? Did you TRULY TRY YOUR VERY BEST?
“you think its so easy to make money as a servers… we get 15 dollars tips ones in a while.. you make it sound like people throw money at us.”
Well, I know a server that sometimes cooks in the kitchen and he says he makes MORE as a server than working as a cook. So cooks make probably around $10-$12 an hour, which this is a VERY GOOD, CARING, VERY EXTREMELY HARD WORKER that WORKS for his money and RARELY EVER, EVER, messes up anything in my dining experience. What does that tell you? Maybe that you aren’t TRYING your best? I can’t say for all, because some people ARE truly just CHEAP, but the ones that are FAIR like us, you will get your fair pay. You KNOW what you did wrong most of the time in general. If you forgot something, brought out obvious things wrong, etc., you KNOW what happened and WHY the tip is what it is in mostly all cases.
People just don’t understand how hard it is to make $ serving.
Yes, there’s the occasional $20-$30 hr…but then there are 4 more hrs. where we make $5…& we’re right back to min. wage (or, not far from it). Also, alot of folks like to think we go in & work lunches or doubles & make alot of money. Well, lunches (at least at my restaurant) are crap. The lunch rush is over quick & unless you were blessed with generous businessmen, you won’t make much. You get up & come into work for maybe 2 hours to make $20 & then you have an hr. of side work before you leave…you do the math on that. Doubles are just about as bad…you come in for an hr or two, get cut early & have the next 2-4 hrs. off before you come in for dinner. You’ll (probably) do better at dinner…but by now you’re spent your entire fucking day & a good part of the night at the restaurant…to make $60-$70.
It’s not alot of money & anyone who thinks it is needs to try it for just one week. It’ll open your eyes.
Springs1: you think its so easy to make money as a servers… we get 15 dollars tips ones in a while.. you make it sound like people throw money at us..
I can`t stand when people says stuff like that, we dont always make lots of money their are days that we barely make minum wage and dont forget that we get tax on our tips.
And also to get a decent tip we have to work very hard and we are under pressure the whole day putting up with people like you and our managers up our butts!
And also we DONT make 30 dollars an hour!
“In all, most employees working the day shift at that restaurant spend about 2 hours doing chores while being paid only $2.13/hour. Does that sound fair to you?”
While I agree is sucks and unfair, at the same time, you are making more money than a fast food restaurant in most cases, so either you work there or you work at a fast food restaurant where you will get less money.
I guess what I am saying is, at all jobs there are down sides. Think at some points even with tipping out, in one hour’s time you may make $10-30 in one hour, so it kind of evens out. Sure you aren’t really getting paid for that side work, but in a way you are if you are making that much money in one hour in your shift.
It does suck that you can’t leave to go home, but I have been through that when I worked at a 24-hour donut shop, meaning, I had to get ready for the next shift(z-out and count register), sometimes wait for a late employee to come in, etc., so I do understand when you want to go home and you just can’t.
If you want the good money, you have to live with the bad parts of the job. Think if just one table gives you $15 as a tip and let’s say with tip out, you make $10 or $11, that’s still a decent amount of money per hour with just one table, so if you have 3 tables in one hour at times like that during your shift, you are making as much as someone that has a professional career that went through many years of college to get that amount of money per hour so look at it that way if you want to keep that type of job. I know you won’t make that every hour in every shift, but at least you aren’t just receiving $2.13/hr with no tips, assuming that most people tip SOMETHING in general.
Managers typically try and squeeze every minute out of their lowest paid employees…. servers… side work is to no exceed 20% of duties, therefore after working four hours, your side work should not exceed an hour before or after your shift. Unless your hourly pay is changed to a non-server pay, after the 20% there lay the grounds for a lawsuit.
Oh, def…it’s like “legal” slavery. I’m wiping shit up, hauling around 50 lb. bags of sugar, sweeping, & getting down on my knees to clean shit up…for $2.13.
Last time I checked $2.13 an hour was better than $0.00 per hour. Dont be mad because the “system” doesnt send you a check every month for you to sit on your ass and do nothing.
Benny Hill, are you a server who works part-time and makes $50k/year, or an owner/gm as mentioned in a previous comment?
Amen! While I understand why restaurants pay $2.13 per hour while we’re waiting tables (I said I understand it…not that I liked it!), I can’t for the life of me understand how or why it”s legal to pay $2.13 for all this other BS. We don’t have to do pre-shift work where I work, but at the end of my shift I generally have about an hour of stuff to do before I can go home. I think once the last table in your section leaves you should be able to clock out at $2.13 and clock back in at $7.25 to do the rest.
I realize that will (probably) never happen…but it should.
Joey, that’s a good idea but seems impossible to get that to work. I envision restaurant owners just laughing their asses off when they have managers handing down huge lists of side works.
That really does happen at restaurants that know the law. If yours isn’t doing this, you need to bring that to their attention or go work for someone with a clue AND turn the indignant owner from the last job into the labor boards. (State and federal) Of course, don’t go the nasty route till you calmly and politely attempt to inform them of their error. You’d expect them to give you the opportunity to correct a mistake or do a better job. Afford them the same courtesy. If they refuse to do what’s right, then do what you need to to make it right for you.