Some restaurants take advantage of the fact that waiters only make 2 bucks an hour by piling on all kinds of extra sidework. Depending on how close it was to time to pay rent or how tight the job market was, I might put up with it for a while, but I usually wound up refusing, or just quitting. A lot of what determined if what was being asked of me was excessive depended on how much money I was making, the size of the business and how well they treated me.
I worked for a hotel that had, of course, a full housekeeping staff that regularly cleaned the community areas of the hotel, bar and restaurant until management decided they needed to cut back on labor costs. They cut the hours of the housekeeping department and made the waiters do the work at the end of our shift. Not only did the waiters not like cleaning for 2 bucks an hour, we didn't want to take hours away from our friends in housekeeping, so we made sure we did a really crappy job of it. The vacuum cleaner was always mysteriously breaking and we were forever losing the brass polish . . . Once, my friend Jill and I got busted for just leaving the vacuum cleaner running in the middle of the restaurant while we went to the break room to have a cigarette. The manager's office was in a little broom closet around the corner, and we figured so long as she heard the vacuum running, she'd never check to see if the floor was clean. I still think it would have worked, but we didn't count on her needing to use the restroom.
Is $2 the going rate? I have never heard of anything so crazy... I thought u guys got at least minimum wage + tips... $2 is slave labor...for that price I would of flooded the hotel..
ReplyDeleteKalei, my stories are mostly old. Current minimum wage for waiters in Texas is $2.13 an hour. That extra 13 cents makes all the difference.
ReplyDeleteman in arkansas we're booming...we make 2.63! hell yeahz we be ballin
ReplyDelete@Guy: THAT STILL SUCKS...omg....not fair, dude!. u guys work your azzes off...
ReplyDeleteThe difference between minimum wage and the server wage is made up for in what is called a tip credit. The law is written in such a way that employers are allowed to take the tip credit only during times you are doing things directly related to what produces tips. It is widely being abused and currently being litigated in Fast et al vs Applebees. Applebees is stalling like crazy, but when the decision is made on this case expect a rash of class action suits to come about from servers seeking lost wages due to abuse of the law.
ReplyDeleteThat is really good to know about the litigation. I wonder how "Fast et al" got up the money to take that into court? They are real heroes.
ReplyDeleteThe other day we had our coporates CEO coming in for a visit- you better believe the night before they had us cleaning like slaves- all for our measly base pay an hour. One job I used to have we used the card and time machine thing, when my boss would have me clean excessively- like polish tea kettles and mop- I would punch out and re-punch in for my time as a cleaning person. I demanded minimum wage for the state not the server minimum wage for my time cleaning and not serving tables. He refused to give it to me- so I quit.
ReplyDeleteThat sucks, Manda. But that's always been my response, too. I worked for a manager that wanted me to pick up garbage in the parking lot. He said, "If you don't like it, there's the door." I quit and took every one of the customers that were sitting in the restaurant with me. It was late - just 3 tables (8 people) but they all went out for coffee with me at another restaurant down the street.
ReplyDeletehi, guy, great stories! i have a similar issue: as long as the money is there, you don't even have to ask me to put in the work. but if it's not i get like "Russell" [above].
ReplyDeletei know i'm probably just making things worse. but when i'm on the bottom rung of Mazlow's ladder because an employer won't hold up their end of the deal, it makes the petty in-store bullshit seem so much shittier. i've used up all my suck-it-up mojo on my landlord, on struggling to take the bus to work in the rain while my uninsured car sits in the parking lot, on wondering whether the electricity will still be on when I get home.
i just wish i was better at keeping my mouth shut about it!