Waitress in Tears Shares Story on TikTok After Being Required to Give Tips to Cooks, Leaving Her with Only $15

The recent TikTok video posted by @__heylee_ about her experience with tipping culture went viral and highlighted several issues. While it is nice to reward good service with a tip, it is also unfair to expect someone to live off tips, particularly when their job pays them very little.

Furthermore, customers can sometimes be mistaken; they can even be quite unreasonable. Before criticizing someone for making only $15 in tips, it is important to consider the effort it took to earn that amount.

Therefore, before mocking @__heylee_ for her experience with tipping culture, it is essential to consider the wider implications. Namely, servers rely on tips to make a living because their wages are extremely low.

Tipping is also expected in other service-based industries, such as hairdressing, taxi rides, and hotel stays. In the case of hairdressing, the tip is usually based on the cost of the service.

For taxis and hotel stays, leaving a flat-rate tip is more common. Tipping is a way for customers to show appreciation for good service and is generally appreciated by service providers.

It is not mandatory, however, and customers are not obligated to leave a tip. But without tips, these workers would struggle to make ends meet and may even face homelessness and hunger.

Unfortunately, service workers rely on tips to make a living.

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"You guys wanna hear something messed up? All right"

@__heylee_ "Or a little bit more if we made more, you know, whatever. And so, lately, they haven’t been really happy with the amount that I’ve been tipping out because it’s been a small amount. I only work like two or three hours a day.""I don’t make that much money. So my boss made it mandatory to tip them out $25 on the weekdays and $40 on the weekends.""So now it’s Saturday, and I only worked two hours, and it was slow. They sent me home early, and she still expected me to pay out $40, but that’s like the exact amount of tips that I made. So I went to her and I told her about it.""She made me tip $25, and I only went home with $15. Do you guys think that’s fair?"

"I work as a waitress, and when I first started there, we tipped out the cooks 10% of whatever we made."

@__heylee_

Good service should be rewarded

Wiki

This is what people online had to say about this:

@__heylee_

This is illegal

@__heylee_

Trick?

@__heylee_

She should call the labor board

@__heylee_

Where is it written?

@__heylee_

Kitchen gets a wage

@__heylee_

It is

@__heylee_

Not common

@__heylee_

It cannot be a fixed amount

@__heylee_

Not fair

@__heylee_

Bus boys only

@__heylee_

Watch the video here:

Here is what people from BOH say:

@__heylee_

Never

@__heylee_

This girl should find another job

@__heylee_

Only

@__heylee_

Just the bus boys

@__heylee_

Unfortunately, service workers rely on tips to make a living. For example, a 15-20% tip is standard for good restaurant service.

However, customers may leave a larger tip if the service is excellent or the bill is exceptionally high. Conversely, it is also common to leave a smaller tip if the service is poor.

What do you think?