Bluey Blog | Robert Bluey » Blog Archive » Redistribution of Wealth Experiment
There is a voluntary custom of “tipping out” in many restaurants. That’s when the server share his tips with others working in the restaurant, including the bus boys, hostess, bar back and even some of the cooks. This is somewhat analogous to private charity. It would be interesting to have all the employees vote and force the server to share more of his earning and see what happens to: 1. the amount of ‘charity’ he now gives and 2. the effects this has on the servers quality of service.
The practice is common. However, it is not, in practice, voluntary, no matter what it might be called.
Try not tipping your bartender, hostess/maitre ‘d or busboy, and see what happens. Tipping the kitchen is somewhat less common, but a wise waitron will do it anyway.
Oh - read the original post, too. It’s pretty funny. And effective.
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
In NYC restaurants, tipping out is mandatory, at least according to a waiter friend of mine.
Agreed - if the guy’s being honest about what he did (and I most sincerely hope that he is):
- I’m thinking he’s probably not planning on going back to that particular restaurant - at least not for a very long time…
I’ve work a number of jobs in and around restaurants, though never as waitstaff (except a couple of brief times as a stand-in, which I don’t think counts). However, I’ve been well acquainted with some folks who did. My understanding from them was always that, though the details might vary widely, tipping out is invariably mandatory. Understandable, to me - when your income depends largely on tips, you want to do everything you reasonably can to protect your “income stream,” and this kind of “sharing the wealth” would seem to be logically useful.
Interesting question (to me, anyway): Would you expect most waitrons to tend to be liberal or conservative?
Those that I’ve dealt with tended to me “give me free medical care and other handouts” types, allegedly because they weren’t hauling in major cash. Not philosophically liberal that I noticed, only interested in what the government could give them.
These were staff in mid-level restaurants in the Albany, NY, area, around 15 years ago. (For half a year I was programming computerized cash registers, a job which tended to have a lot of sitting around time waiting to see if the changes worked properly.)
You waited to see if it worked? The “Tech Support” I’ve had when I worked a register left within minutes of making the changes. The last few years they did it remotely and then we’d end up on the phone for an hour or more to get it working.
Heh. Yah, the boss got on my case a lot about the “wasted time”. He didn’t bother to take into account customer frustration from not-quite-right jobs, or even the techs’ time wasted having to return (sometimes more than once) to fix little mistakes.
Well, if they actually call themselves ‘waitrons’, I’d expect them to be liberal. It’s one of those ‘gender-neutral’ words that is supposed to make everyone feel better about their crappy job that does far more to dehumanize and objextify than ‘waitress’ ever did–i.e. the typical liberal course of action.
Ever been a waitron, Jack?
I was still in the biz when the term “waitron” came onto the scene. It has nothing to do with political correctness - the PC term for waiter/waitress is “server,” or “service person.”
And we hated that. We regarded what most people think of as “service” as being uncomfortably close to slavery. Waitron is a humorous term whose cultural roots come from the movie Tron, as well as a sort of robotic connotation - “Hi, I’m your waitron, beep -”
Our bosses called us servers and looked mildly uncomfortable doing it. We called each other waitrons, and laughed.
And most waitrons are apolitical, to a great extent. For one thing, the fact that we make the huge bulk of our income from tips makes us, in effect, all individual capitalists running our own little business inside the restaurant. Most of our money comes directly from you, our customers, not our bosses, the restaurant owners.
And it is immediate feedback. Do a lousy job, get a lousy tip. Do a good job, get a good tip. And, of course, we know that the gubmint taxes the hell out of our business, because the taxfarmers assign a certain income to us, based on volume, and then take the taxes on it right out of our paychecks. For years, my take-home paycheck was under thirty bucks a week - and this was in the early nineties.
Restaurant people are odd ducks. It’s pretty difficult to characterize them as a group - it’s a lousy job in normal terms, and attracts people who like it for reasons beyond the usual.
Interesting.
I had thought, “Why a term like ‘waitron’? It makes me think ‘automaton’.”
I guess it was supposed to. It never made me think PC (unless, you know ‘personal computer’) for one second.
According to the IRS ALL tipped employees lie about their income. Oddly enough there are still some people that try to keep track of their tips and report them on their 1040.
I’ve never known any.
And an equal number of outspoken “the rich should pay more taxes” liberals who voluntarily send extra money to the IRS.
I guess my Mom really was one-of-a-kind.
That would be my guess.