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Comment by NikolaeVarius | Hacker News Reader

Making a killing is pushing it unless you're working at a high end place.

I really wonder how many HN people have ever worked in a waitstaff role. As much as you might hate it, tips keeps you just above minimum wage 95% of the time. Its not some money fountain like some people here seem to thing it is.

People who want tips of course want it because it gives them money on top of minimum wage, why the hell would you expect someone to sabotage their own income stream?

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I worked at restaurants through college, ~20 years ago. initially chains (og, bj's, etc) and later on some nice hotel gigs (fanciest having a private dining room that went for $10k/night). While today I'm less certain on tips, at the time I was 100% in favor. It was clearly beneficial. Other people i knew in college were making $8/hr working as security guards, or folding clothes in a mall and i was walking out of the hotel with $200+ in cash after a 6 hour dinner shift, and $100+ for a 4 hour weekend breakfast. This was not barely above minimum wage.

If you want a real look at things, I'd suggest looking at servers discussing places that try to eliminate tipping. When tipping is discussed generally, it's often discussed like in this article - talking about how restaurants are only paying $2.13 an hour, how this or that customer didn't tipped or tipped almost nothing, how on this particular night they made almost nothing, etc.

But if you talk about getting rid of tipping and replacing it with a living age? Look at the comments from this Reddit discussion some years ago (so the numbers are even higher when you factor in inflation) discussing Joe's Crab Shack's interest in getting rid of tips[1]:

> But if you are doing good volume and the prices arent insanely cheap I cant see how youre only making $15 an hour. Are you in a poor section of town where people dont have much money? Do you get a lot of foreign tourists as clientele? I mean, $15 an hour I can make while asleep. But Im in Philly. Prices arent insane usually but they arent cheap. Plus its one of the best tipping cities in the country. Personally I wont take a shift if Im not confident Ill make at least $20 an hour. For me its not worth my time.

> This may or may not be close to the industry standard, but my last restaurant, I probably made somewhere around $25/hr (tips + wage). Restaurant before that was way more high volume, and even though we didn't really get paid an hourly wage, I would guess we made about $30/hr or so. On good nights and the bartenders? Probably even more.

> I was bored out of my mind all 6 hours of my shift tonight and made $14X, so call it $150, aka $25 an hour. Oh, and that's with a stiff on $120, and a $6 on $94

> Because serving tables isn't a job anyone would do for $7.75 an hour. It's not an easy job to excel at. I'll stay making my $25 an hour. Thanks.

> This is what people outside of the industry don't seem to get. Strong servers arn't going to stick around for anything less than $20 an hour.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromYourServer/comments/4iuy2q...

The most professionalised elements are the ones who end up in high-end places, because they made a real career of it. Because of that, it's likely that they are also the ones most represented by unions and associations that might be consulted by policymakers. So when a policymaker puts forward an idea to improve their condition, and gets back an icy or ambivalent response (as well as a very negative one from employers, of course), he'll just shelve it very quickly.

I'd be surprised if that was true. Unions are good when there is an "we are all in it together", but with tipping a great server can make a lot more than a bad one, so all the great servers will defect from the union for more money. The bad ones want a union, but they are also the ones management should get rid of.

There are ways for unions to work around this, but the fact that some members see themselves as better than others in ways that are measurable make such unions weaker.

I worked at several restaurants, and not high end ones. on average, I probably made 25% over minimum wage. I had essentially zero marketable skills at the time, so my only alternatives actually paid minimum wage. I was a big fan of tipping.

One of my relatives worked as a bartender at a low end (but popular) place. She made a killing on cash tips.

What? I live in canada where tipping culture is not as present as in the US but still very widespread and it's universally known (at least before the lockdowns) that working in restaurants is pretty much the best job you can get as long as you don't work in the kitchen. I've had close friends work in a wide range of restaurants/hotels, and even those working in very normal restaurants still made way more than any other job they could get.

I like my student job since it's outdoors, and I have other revenue streams, but you don't get any tips. So my colleagues usually jump at the occasion to work in a restaurant whenever they can even if our workplace is extremely pleasant to work at.

They want to keep tips going because not because it allows them to barely reach the minimum but because it makes them way more money. Otherwise, they'd advocate for removing the different minimum wages.

I'm actually puzzled, and I'm wondering if you have ever worked in a waitstaff job because I've never ever met a waiter being against tips.

> As much as you might hate it, tips keeps you just above minimum wage 95% of the time.

At least here in California, I’m pretty sure there’s no special tipped minimum wage, so what you’re saying doesn’t apply.

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