All of these things you name are not the servers fault, yet the server is the who gets all the hate and the reduced pay due to the problem people have with tipping. No-one says - wow fishermen get paid terrible but also they don’t deserve money for work. I am going to stop buying fish. Every one gets paid like shit, shit on the system not the worker. Fix the system, don’t punish the worker for working within the system.
IME, servers generally feel pretty firmly entitled to those high wages collectively at the end of the day, they live pretty well outside of work compared to BOH and it’s typically less serious work for them as it’s more likely to be a “stop” rather than a career (which is more likely for a kitchen worker).
Nothing stops them from having a personal policy to split tips out the kitchen 20-50% and/or organizing other servers and petitioning management for a formal process. I’ve seen some that do, but very rare.
It’s a hierarchy like anything else - the owners are doing wage theft at scale and collecting way more profit than they should, the servers are collecting tips as the final mile face representing a lot of people in back literally navigating knives, fire and very heavy lifting. On balance, they get more than they should (when I was in kitchens, the servers routinely cleared 3 - 4x more annually than the cooks - talking mid 30s for kitchen versus over 100k for servers all told). And the cooks are just working, sacrificing their bodies and personal relationships until their knees give out at 35 and the weaker ones are addicts to cope with it all.
We just live in a culture in the US where the predominant voices you hear are the public (customers) and servers themselves. The servers have selfish motivations and the public have an inherent guilt for making others “serve” them and for being half educated on the server’s “perilous plight”. And again, cooks are quieter in the mix by nature and busy working, so you don’t really hear their voice.
So yes , the system is fucked, needs major reform, owner class is the driver, but the servers are in the passenger seat silently enjoying the ride. The cooks are in the trunk, with a speaker playing an audiobook about how difficult things are for the servers.
I don’t think anyone in their right mind is tipping less or not at all due to beliefs about how dumb tipping is. Also, some servers are strong supporters of tipping so, depending on the person, it kinda is their fault.
All of these things you name are not the servers fault, yet the server is the who gets all the hate and the reduced pay due to the problem people have with tipping. No-one says - wow fishermen get paid terrible but also they don’t deserve money for work. I am going to stop buying fish. Every one gets paid like shit, shit on the system not the worker. Fix the system, don’t punish the worker for working within the system.
IME, servers generally feel pretty firmly entitled to those high wages collectively at the end of the day, they live pretty well outside of work compared to BOH and it’s typically less serious work for them as it’s more likely to be a “stop” rather than a career (which is more likely for a kitchen worker).
Nothing stops them from having a personal policy to split tips out the kitchen 20-50% and/or organizing other servers and petitioning management for a formal process. I’ve seen some that do, but very rare.
It’s a hierarchy like anything else - the owners are doing wage theft at scale and collecting way more profit than they should, the servers are collecting tips as the final mile face representing a lot of people in back literally navigating knives, fire and very heavy lifting. On balance, they get more than they should (when I was in kitchens, the servers routinely cleared 3 - 4x more annually than the cooks - talking mid 30s for kitchen versus over 100k for servers all told). And the cooks are just working, sacrificing their bodies and personal relationships until their knees give out at 35 and the weaker ones are addicts to cope with it all.
We just live in a culture in the US where the predominant voices you hear are the public (customers) and servers themselves. The servers have selfish motivations and the public have an inherent guilt for making others “serve” them and for being half educated on the server’s “perilous plight”. And again, cooks are quieter in the mix by nature and busy working, so you don’t really hear their voice.
So yes , the system is fucked, needs major reform, owner class is the driver, but the servers are in the passenger seat silently enjoying the ride. The cooks are in the trunk, with a speaker playing an audiobook about how difficult things are for the servers.
I don’t think anyone in their right mind is tipping less or not at all due to beliefs about how dumb tipping is. Also, some servers are strong supporters of tipping so, depending on the person, it kinda is their fault.