[-23] Woke Up This Morning -- I Suddenly Realised...

Okay, I'll start this off with something relevant: my Confirmation of Enrolment (CoE for short, which is a document from the school -- the University of Melbourne, in this case -- confirming that I am indeed going to be studying at their institution for such and such a period of time. This is required to apply for my visa) finally arrived in my e-mail inbox yesterday. Fantastic. So I applied for my visa this afternoon (finally) and am waiting on the decision. I'm actually freaking out right now because I'm nervous I didn't fill it out correctly; it didn't ask for the provider code on my CoE, which I sort of expected it to ask for since the e-mail that came with the CoE specifically pointed out where the provider code was...

In other good news, I made bank yesterday [Sunday] on a swing, which is a double shift. I got double-tipped twice on large gratuities, and walked out at the end of a 10-hour shift with $200 in my pocket, which would have been $250 had I not had to tip out. I've officially made the $1,000 that I wanted to make for Australia and then some, and ahead of schedule, too. To celebrate, I gave up my AM shift tomorrow and instead am going to spend the day cleaning/unpacking from school/packing for Florida. I wanted to go down the shore, but no-one else is available.

Anyway. Apparently tipping isn't customary in Australia (as far as I can tell from my research, which consisted of approximately an hour on Google), but of course it is in the United States. Which is where the topic of today's post (read: rant) comes in.

It is a well-accepted fact in the service industry that sometimes you will meet bad tippers. In fact, sometimes, you will meet awful tippers, and even people who play the fun game of "Dine 'N' Dash" -- which, for the more decent people among us who have never heard of this so-called game, is a somewhat awful (and possibly illegal, I'm not sure) pastime in which people eat at a restaurant and then leave without paying their bill, thereby sticking their poor server with the bill, which is often quite large. (Last summer a FAMILY of five dashed on their bill of $120 at one of my tables. I was shocked and upset. What a wonderful example to set for your children.) And sometimes you meet great tippers.

Look, my views probably differ from many people's views regarding tipping for poor service. I always tip, even if the service is poor. $2.13/hr (which is what I get paid in NJ) is not something to which I would subject even the worst server, even if the service was really that abysmal. I still think you should always tip at least 10%. Tipping is an odd beast because it's sort of compulsory, but sort of not. Supposedly it's to reward great service. But it's become so customary that the government (and the industry) thinks it's fine to only pay servers $2.13/hr and expect them to make up the difference between that and "real" minimum wage ($7.15/hr or something -- I haven't worked for "real" minimum wage in a long time, and it differs state-to-state I think, though there is a federal baseline) via tips.

However, a few things I take offence with:

1. The generalisation that all servers are women. Furthermore, that (as one particularly intelligent YouTube commenter wrote) one should be "lucky enough" to get a "waitress who thinks the world owes her and her three fatherless children." Excuse me. I am getting a college education at one of the best liberal arts universities in the nation. I have no children, "fatherless" or otherwise, and I am trying to make a living here. I can't say anything for how good or bad of a server I am, but since I've been serving for two years now and I've been in the restaurant industry for nearly three, at least I haven't been fired yet, and trust me, my restaurant fires bad servers. Many of my coworkers are not only not women (i.e. men), and have B.A.s or Master's degrees. For many of them, serving is their second or third job, a supplementary income.

2. Treating servers like they're your servants. I am an intelligent human being (we can argue test scores and IQs some other time). I'm sure you have to deal with people in your job, regardless of what it is. Do you enjoy being treated like crap just because the person treating you like crap is the one who writes your paycheque? No? Then don't treat me that way either. Expecting good service is fine. Expecting me to do backflips for your entertainment is not.

3. Being ignorant to the fact that I really do only get paid $2.13/hr, and, worse yet, not caring if/when you find out. Furthermore, you might be surprised to realise that I never actually see that $4.26 for those two hours I worked. I do have to declare my tips, and the taxes you get deducted from your paycheque get deducted from my paycheque as well. Since I leave with my tips at the end of the night, I occasionally get a "white cheque", which is basically a $0 paycheque -- because there was nothing left after taxes were taken out of it. You might say that it was my choice to work a job that pays a low hourly. Fine, that's a valid point. But if no-one was willing to work a job with a low hourly, no-one would be around to put up with your bullshit, or to feed you when you don't feel like cooking.

4. Likewise, being ignorant to the fact that many servers (myself included) have to tip out of their SALES (not their tips, since those numbers can be changed easily and aren't really dependable anyway) to hosts, bussers, and other untipped staff who partially depend on tip-out to make a living wage. So if you don't tip me, that means I have to pay money out of my own pocket to put up with your bullshit. Fan-fucking-tastic.

5. Not understanding that a restaurant is a business. This sort of follows up to the points above. Look, if restaurants couldn't depend on tips to help them pay their servers, their hosts, their bussers, their service bartenders (for restaurants that have them, the service bartender is a bartender who spends his/her shift making drinks only for servers. They often don't get a cut of the tips that the rest of the bar makes, and the servers often tip out to them for their services), etc, then all of those people would have to be paid much higher wages -- "real" minimum wage at best, possibly higher. What does this mean? This means that each dish has to cost more money in order for the restaurant to stay out of the red. For the guest, this means that their checks are going to start being much higher. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that.

I just don't understand the idea some people have that not tipping is okay. I realise that serving isn't rocket science -- I know, because I am a server. It doesn't exactly take a genius to be a good server, but it does take a lot of work, even if you don't think that person gave good service. I would never presume to say your job was easy unless I'd done it myself. And even then I would never say you didn't deserve to be paid for your labour, no matter how poor a job you did. That's basically what you say when you don't leave me a tip. So I'd like to see you work a shift in my restaurant and then tell me you couldn't spare at least a dollar or two. If the service was that bad, you should say something to a manager, rather than just not leaving a tip. All that does is make the server think you were a total ass (which they might think anyway, to be honest, but at least you were a constructive ass), and perpetuate poor service. Furthermore, if you can afford a $50 meal, you can at least afford $5 more to tip me; and if you can't, you shouldn't be eating out.

The system sucks, okay? That busser who never bussed a single table of mine? I hate tipping out to him. And my poor server friend who was sick yet couldn't call out of work because she needed the money might have a terrible day because she was puking between taking care of her tables, and then she might be unable to make rent or buy groceries because she didn't make as much in tips as she needed to -- that's awful. Especially considering the rich guy at her table who didn't leave a tip can take a day or two off work to hang out with his kids and still make the same six-digit salary at the end of the year as he would have if he hadn't taken off those days. That's not fair either.

It's certainly not the guest's fault that the system could be better. Whatever happened to the "golden rule"? I'm not any less worthy of respect just because I'm a server, am I? If so, there's something wrong with the world. If not, then why, when I put on my uniform shirt and an apron, do people think it's okay to treat me like crap, to snap their fingers at me like I'm a dog and make rude comments bordering on sexual harrassment? I'm not asking you to surprise that server who gave crappy service with a 200% tip. All I'm asking is for you to show a little humanity; after all, what goes around comes around.

And, even if you don't feel like it sometimes,
we're all in this together.

[-34] Waiting

In the last few days, I've been reading the archives of a blog written by a fantastic writer who goes by the name Restaurant Gal. I'll admit that I have a weakness for restaurant blogs -- WaiterRant and the like. As a somewhat seasoned veteran of the restaurant business myself (I'll have three years under my belt at a well-known international restaurant chain in November), I enjoy reading the thoughts, experiences, and reflections of other workers on the "front line," so to speak.

RG's blog gives me pause of a different sort, though. She left journalism to try being a maitre d', and along the way has also worn the hats of hostess, assistant manager, event planner, and now waitress and bartender. Since she first began as a maitre d' in DC, however, her life has faced several huge changes and she's blogged faithfully nearly every day (thus my wading through three and a half years of archives), allowing her readers to come along for the ride. After she and her husband separated, RG picked up and moved to Ft. Lauderdale all on her own after twenty-some-odd years of marriage. A year later, she escaped Ft. Lauderdale for an as-of-yet unidentified location in the Florida Keys.

This I admire. Her ability to pick up, despite heartbreak and other personal issues, and move her life elsewhere and start anew. This takes courage -- a courage I'm not 100% sure I have.

This post was going to be about my love-hate relationship with my job; after last night's shift (which I picked up on my day off, by the way) I had a hundred and six things I wanted to put out there. Instead, I'm going to take this moment and admit something I'm not sure I want to:

I am terrified.

Granted, I am not starting my life anew in Australia. I'm simply spending a semester there and hoping to learn some new and interesting things, and to meet some new and interesting people. But even so, as always when going someplace new, I'm afraid that I won't like it there, I'm afraid I won't know anyone or make any friends. I'm afraid that the classes will over my head, that I won't be able to keep up. I'm afraid to live on my own -- at Denison at least I knew who my roommate would be, who would be living down the hall or in the next building. I'm afraid I won't be able to find a job, or, worse yet, that I won't be able to find my way around this unfamiliar city I'll be living in for five months.

All of these things scare me.

But for now, I'm reading about how this incredible woman I've never met managed to do it, and hoping, and praying, that I will be able to do it too, and letting the excitement take over rather than psyching myself out too much. And I'm waiting -- waiting tables, waiting for this next great adventure to begin...waiting for the fears to be proven groundless.