How Resturants Abuse Their Workers

It's time for me to bash something here. I want to piss and moan for a minute on the treatings of my wife at her other job. But first we need some background. I'm going to educate the masses on something that they may not know. If you do know, post a comment and tell me how I fucked it up. Since I haven't decided whether or not to name the resturant my wife works at, I'll simply call them wifebeaters anonymous.

Most humans have seen reservoir dogs. The breakfest scene rings a bell. Mr. Pink doesn't want to tip because he "doesn't believe in it." Mr. Pink is fully within his legal limits there. Mr. White says that the reason they can make a living is because of their tips and they get in a big fight over it. To the point where they pull guns and threaten each other with physical harm. This is the way it works when to discuss this issue with a real waitresses as well. It's a very touchy issue and I wouldn't go there unless you were ready and willing to start a war. Either that or were ready to adapt to the same opinion.

Not to shit on Mr. White's cereal or anything, but wifebeaters ananymous (and several other beating establishments as well, but WBA is going to be shown as the one of the worst and I'm hoping a certain member of this forum will clear up what I fuck up later, plus that's where my wife was working and was getting the shaft) has taken what waitresses should make and uses it to pay others.

This concept is called a tipping pool. Certain percentages of waitresses tip money is siphoned off and given to others that are not tipped directly by the customer. This practice is common in many establishments, but there is a wide range of how it is handled.

Mr. White's favorite would be where the waitress' decide for themselves what to give to the others. If the cook's really put forth the effort, the waitresses would hand over what they felt was deserved.

I think Mr. White would be less happy with the next option. Where the employers decide a percentage based on sales of what goes where. This usually is bracketed. The bar gets 5% of alcohol sales and so forth. Thus they still make based on the work they do, but waitresses have no say in the amounts.

Mr. White would probably pull his gun on me for the next one, but don't worry Larry, it's not my fault. WBA's current favorite is as follows. The management decides what goes where on a whim, without telling anyone, and it isn't based on anything logical. (Hostess gets 1% of total sales period or 3% if sales happen to slip that day)

This may not seem like a lot, but they give percentages to many different groups. Hostesses, Busers, Bartenders, Food Prep. Everybody needs their cut on the server's income. Why would any resturant do this? That's an easy one. Here's a few concepts of why resturant manager would do this.

Better for the Corporate: The government has a problem with people making less than minimum wage. There's a law or something that says you have to make so much. This also goes for servers. If they drop below minimum wage on average over the course of a week, the establishment is required to pay the difference. This means a loss to them and they would rather have a communist society where the customer's money pays everyone in the resturant rather than just servers.

Management is stupid, but replacing management is work: I used to work in the food industry a while back. It was fast food which are never tipped by the public. During my time there I learned about scheduling. Scheduling is based on store volume vs wages. There is a certain profit margin that must be met and if the revenue dips below a certain amount, somebody goes home. It never hurt anything since if volume was down, work was light. When you have the benefit of not actually paying your employees, you can decide not to relieve labor and not give a shit. Better management would mean happier empolyees. They could afford cut X2 and pay X1 more money to save the tips for the people that deserve it.

The boss needs his bonus: That dickbag that runs the place? He gets a kickback at the end of the year if his profits were high enough. It's called "Lemme hit my bitches with this pipe so I can feel like a real man." He pays workers less, he gets paid at the end.

The boss has his pets: Every evil entity has its minions. Part of the job is to pamper his loyal followers. In WBA's case, the boss has his unofficial employee girlfriend working with him picking up tables when he knows it will be a good haul. It's called, "Here sweetheart, you take this monster table and make your monster tips and don't forget I wear the french maid outfit and you hold the paddle tonight." The idea that the boss gives favors to people isn't new. It's an old story. Having it rubbed in the faces of the workers isn't really nessessary though.

The establishment caters to mutants: I'm going to blame this one on management too. Mr Nuts posted a bit not too long ago about how if customers bitch enough they'll get their way. Most management fold under this in resturants. What they get is repeat offenders that know full well how to get a free meal. Why is the revenue down? You gave away whole fucking meals you dumbshit. It's a resturant not a soup kitchen. You don't clean out the riffraff and you're going to end up with mutants eating ribs 5 nights a week. You don't want return visits from these people. Call them every name in the book so they never return.

In closing, I'll say this. Mr. Pink was within his rights. Mr. White just needed an eye opener. And resturants need not hire Mr. Blonde to run the place. Work smarter you idiots.