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this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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Yes, about everything except tipping.
I've been a lot of things and done a lot of jobs, but I've been waiting tables full-time for over a decade now. And it seems like that's a valid place to come from to talk about manners in public, pink collar work, working-class economics, the training gap, gender roles in the workplace, and addictive personality types.
But for some reason, people just don't wanna hear it when I explain why and how tipping is a better system for all involved than a set wage would be.
Tipping rewards certain looks/demographics/personalities/hours of work. It’s also completely dependent on who walks through the door. Those have always been huge sticking points for me.
All sales positions reward charisma and effort; and depend on who walks through the door. Why is this a problem with tipped positions specifically?
spoiler
sdfsafNot at all, I thought you were singling out tipped positions from other sales.
spoiler
sdfsafCan you explain that argument here?
Sure. How it's better for the waitress: We make more money than we ever would under a flat wage, obviously. We also get rewarded proportionate to the work we do; busy, stressful weekend shifts pay more than calm weekday lunches, allowing us to tailor our work-life balance to suit our needs.
How it's better for employers: Lower labor costs are a benefit of themselves, of course, but they also allow greater flexibility in scheduling, something essential in an industry where the amount of business varies so significantly from day to day and month to month. And since the number one factor affecting tips is the subtotal of the check, servers are incentivized to sell more, driving up revenue.
How it's better for patons: The tipping system encourages attentiveness and better service; not so much in individual interactions (studies show that people tip what they're gonna tip, regardless of service) but rather by keeping restaurants with attentive, professional servers busy and keeping those servers in the industry. We all saw the dip in quality post-lockdown when the most talented and experienced cadre of servers left for other industries, right?
Unlike a wage system, tipping also puts more power in the hands of the consumer. As a "pay what you think is fair" system, it gives immediate recourse to patrons who feel like they didn't get their money's worth.
Why it's better for society: It allows the worker to sell her labor directly to the consumer without the capital class acting as a middleman and taking a cut. We all know that if prices were raised 20% across the board servers wouldn't see even half of that as a wage increase. The tipping system sidesteps around corporate greed by creating a direct financial transaction between consumer and producer of labor.
In short, we have this one industry that's figured out how to pay a living wage. It's not a system that was designed, it evolved over time, and it's very efficient; because if it wasn't, it would collapse on its own. Obviously as a waitress myself I'm personally invested in this system, but I also think that it's wrongheaded to take the system that, again, organically pays a living wage and tear it down because it doesn't conform to a preconceived notion of what an employment relationship should look like.
I'm not sure earning tips makes you an expert in socioeconomic dynamics of wage labor
Nor does reading Marx.
Definitely doesn't. Part of developing expertise is having your ideas challenged by another expert, working with them to flesh out your own thinking, and facing sone gatekeeping on the label "expert".
None of these things happen solely from waiting tables or reading a book!
Where does no ethical consumption fit?
in my butt