by Anna Cook

Created on: October 28, 2009   Last Updated: October 29, 2009

I was a waitress for years. If I learned one thing in all my years it is this. People rarely tip good enough and it make it very hard to even make ends meat. I was the bread winner in my family for a period of time and we barely made it week after week . If you have never worked in the serving industry before I will let you in on a few secrets you may no know. First, what you make off your tips, is your paycheck.

Yes, you do get a bi weekly paycheck at most places but you are very blessed if it is over forty dollars. Second, there is always tip out, which means a certain percentage (this is different everywhere) is taken straight out of your pocket and given to another employee. Third, it is not an easy job. It is long, hard, late hours on your feet making everyone else happy. So when you are serving a table of ten people and you have done everything in your power to accommodate their needs, including postponing other tables just tho get to them, and they leave you five dollars you want to cry.

So after your emotions have been crushed, you go over to another table hoping to reconcile what you have just done by blowing them off and you realize that they too are upset and you will be lucky to get the five dollars that they had planned on giving you. So, I do not only believe that tipping should be mandatory but I also believe that it should be twenty percent mandatory. This may seem high, but my philosophy is, if you can not afford to tip at least twenty percent, than you really can not afford to be eating out.

For example, lets say you are a mail carrier and you make fifteen dollars and hour. You are suppose to be at my house between three and four o'clock everyday. You are having a rough day, tired from he night before, and just can't get going today. You arrive at my hours closer to five and I say, "you're late. I was waiting on my catalog for an hour." Now should that person be aloud to decide weather you should make fifteen or ten dollars for that hour? It is highly unfair how people treat wait staff and they should be paid fairly just like everyone else. Am mandatory twenty percent.

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