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| No | 24% | 75 votes | Total: 317 votes | |
| Yes | 76% | 242 votes |
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Add to FavoritesIf you are relating this to strictly restaurant servers I have to say no although we do have a minimum wage that is federally mandated. Minimum wage for a tipped employee whose wages come primarily from tips receive $2.33 as a base wage. That wage goes for paying taxes on what I earn in tipped wages but sometimes that is not enough to cover taxes and many end up paying at the end of the year. The general wage comes from the customer based on many factors. I wouldn't want that change as I enjoy earning what I do based on my performance and selling abilities.
On average I am able to make $18-$20 an hour which is amazing to most but people have to consider the many things as to why this may seem like a lot to some but in reality isn't what it seems. I base my average on the hours I am actually waiting on tables not set up time and close down time when I am making only $2.33 an hour. A restaurant may serve from tables for 5 hours on a night shift but there is at least an hour of set up and an hour of close down so my average wage goes down with those factors in place. There are also times such as Sunday brunch where the set up is 2 hours and the tear down is about the same so that is 4 hours at $2.33 but what I make in the 4 hours I am waiting on tables compensates me for that.
If the service industry adhered to the minimum wage of all other jobs you would have issues with service quality and people willing to work these types of jobs. I personally love the industry but mostly enjoy knowing I am making what I earn based on my knowledge of food and wine, my personality, my attentiveness, and my overall ability to create an experience to remember, bringing a customer back again and again. The money can be very good if you do your job well and isn't that part of dining out? If you had an server promised a wage no matter what the service would suffer. Why go out of your way when you are going to get paid either way? Wouldn't a diner rather pay what is earned and not just given. If a minimum wages is required and the diner would have to pay through higher prices anyway. I would rather pay what is earned rather than what is required. I believe if more jobs were based on this people would work a lot harder and the quality would be much better. If I was making an average of 10% I would know I am doing something wrong so if I want to make more I better work harder and learn what I can to do my job better.
There will always be a customer that doesn't know how to tip or doesn't believe in it for whatever reason but the majority makes up for it. The wages also vary depending on volume and night of the week but if it comes down to it a server is required to be paid the minimum wage. No server legally can be paid less than the minimum the government has assigned. If the business isn't there that night the owners are required to pay standard minimum wage. This rarely happens but it is insurance of sorts.
Servers have a harder job than most think and there is a lot more to it than just bringing a table their food. There are messes to clean up, rude people to accommodate, children's preferences, special needs and so many other things beyond what people see. There are no breaks, even bathroom breaks are hard to come by, there just isn't time. We eat as we go when we can, there are days where you are on your feet through lunch and dinner and most definately you must keep your emotions in check. Our job is to please however many people we serve during our shifts and each one is different. I will always prefer to earn what I deserve than just be given a standard. It is an evaluation from a customer every time I wait on them.
Learn more about this author, Brooklyn Taylor.
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Yes
These days the lowest level of employment for anyone trying to start out in business is the service industry. People move from small Midwestern towns to the big cities in the Northeast only to find out that it's the same service industry jobs that you're starting out with just with different people making a different wage. If your service industry job was working at a WalMart for $6 an hour in one town you might make $12 or $15 in another town, adjusted for the cost of living there, or to remain competitive because there are either a lot more companies offering the same job, or just other opportunities available in general.
So the service industry jobs are that first rung on the corporate ladder. If companies can afford to pay people twice or three times as much to do that same job, say like answering phones as a receptionist or doing customer service or tech support, why then should it be any different for working in a restaurant? A waitress in New York City or Chicago can't afford to live anywhere without a second job or shacking up with like 10 other people, or staying at home with their parents, pay those people some money!
You mean to tell me that a fine restaurant where people are already paying $30 a plate can't afford to pay their help the federally mandated minimum wage for everyone else? I'm not talking about Denny's, or Waffle House, but a decent place. Sure you might make a few hundred in tips if you're good but if you're working hard dealing with very demanding customers that are rude and obnoxious you should be compensated for the work. I washed dishes in the back of a restaurant and was getting paid under the table and wasn't keeping track of what I was getting paid, knowing what I know now I probably still would have taken the job but I would have searched a lot harder for another one.
When I saw the menu and the clientle I was bit ticked, but kept my mouth shut about it because we got to eat some of the best food I'd ever tasted and I quickly forgot about my problems in souffls and caramelized pork chops and, but you get my point. Needless to say I moved on and got a "real" job that summer but I was still in the service industry and still on that bottom rung. I dropped out of school and are somewhat in the service industry now, just in a different capacity. Service industry jobs are rough and in this entire region, not just the town but an agglomeration of cities constituting a metropolitan area these are the jobs you get if you want any future in computers here.
So you take them and shut up about it. I wasn't even supposed to be in the service industry I had some interesting jobs but then the economy soured and I found what I took for granted taken out from under my feet. Plus they're paying people over in India a fraction to do what I do, yet I don't see that much difference in it; I have to multi task, think quickly, have an answer for that I'm not totally sure about, remember a lot and keep mental notes, handle more than one issue at a time if I didn't resolve it for the last customer and get back with them, everything a good waitress has to do.
Everyone wants great service right now and you can't think too long about anything less you come off as being a bit inept or incompetent. No one wants to "see" you thinking; how different is it for a waiter? People talk about slim margins of profit in the restaurant industry and how the price of food would go up; stay home and cook a decent meal in the kitchen for a change, even warming up a frozen dinner in the microwave would be cheaper than eating out. That's one thing the customers of people in the service industry for other occupations can't do, exercise good alternatives to what they need service for. The majority of your cost as a customer is for service, not food; it's not what you're eating, but how well that waiter treated you, if they made your day a little brighter if they eased your mind a bit it is not any different than getting advice from a good bartender, pay that person something.
They can't rely on your tips, we're always wanting something for nothing in this society and too often look over the person that is doing everything to give what little bit we think that we're getting. They're working on an old antiquated system that may have worked well in 1970 but isn't realistic for the demands of trying to live anywhere in this country right now. If you have cheap rent you're either in a ghetto somewhere, living with your parents, living with strangers, or perhaps 100 miles from work with what they pay you on those jobs. Some waiters are going to be people persons and some aren't, as with any service job that's just the reality of the situation, but it doesn't mean that other person shouldn't get paid a decent wage.
Learn more about this author, Christopher Kendalls.
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