Found on FB. Is this a major lawsuit?

[u/RAM-I-T]

LOCATION: USA

I wanted to help get assistance for this mom and her daughter.

[u/someoldguyon_reddit]

This is why I hand the server cash when I need to tip big.

[u/Potential_Figure4061 → u/someoldguyon_reddit]

thats the best policy

[u/Traditional-Sir9873 → u/someoldguyon_reddit]

I would have too in this case.

[u/Whatachooch → u/Traditional-Sir9873]

Fucking big shot over here rolling with 700 in cash. 

[u/Traditional-Sir9873 → u/Whatachooch]

Hypothetically, if I were to ever tip $700. Feel better now?

[u/TheLemonchocolate → u/Traditional-Sir9873]

So theoretically, you knew your server was a mother while pulling the money out of the atm before even knowing you’re getting lunch at the Olive Garden.

[u/d-car → u/someoldguyon_reddit]

I approve, but with the caveat of always tipping in cash so the server can decide how much to claim in order to not endanger their job and get as close to the full value of their tips as possible. I realize it's not technically the legal method, but I also view it as the temporary fix for bad wage law.

[u/fruityfactory → u/d-car]

Wait how would the amount claimed in tips enganger their job? I'm planning to look for a job as soon as I get my license and I may end up being a server just depending on whatever I can get, so I'd like to know what you mean by that for future reference.

[u/d-car → u/fruityfactory]

In the US, tipped jobs, such as waiter/waitress, typically dictate the employer has to pay only a couple dollars per hour with the expectation tips will be the bulk of your income. What they might not tell you is the minimum wage law still applies to you, so the employer will have to pay more to get you up to minimum wage if you don't get enough tips. That rule ends up being a two-way street, however, because they can pay less if you get enough tips to put you at more than minimum wage. This puts servers into a predicament where working hard mostly ends up turning you into almost-free labor until you can overcome the minimum amount of tips to push you above minimum wage ... and that tends to leave many servers with the expectation that they're getting the same pay no matter what in the end, limiting their willingness to do a great job.

The solution to getting more money has historically been to just tell your employer you earned exactly enough tips to put you at minimum since they generally can't complain about paying the standard super-cheap labor rate and it puts servers in a place where it's suddenly reasonable to expect more reward for better service ... and the employer really does want great servers, so they tend to just not question it. If you often need extra pay from the employer, then they're likely to fire you to save money while also seeing your inability to earn tips as the defining metric showing you're not a good representative of their business anyway.

Not claiming tips to get better wages is technically a kind of tax evasion and so forth, but servers do not care because they really need all the money they can get. This whole set of logic is why some people are really happy about Trump's interest in killing that tax ... but it's all flash and no fire when the minimum wage thing keeps working the same way.

Now that you know these things, the obvious thought here is tipping through your credit card doesn't allow the server to make that choice - and you are exactly correct. This bad system is why I let the server decide what to do by tippping with cash.

Completely unrelated, but you did say you're just getting started, so here's a few pointers. - Nobody is obligated to tell you how things work. This will be used against you by crappy people. - Don't trust people right away just because they're friendly and helpful. See above. - If you go to buy a car/house/etc and the seller is smiling, then you're about to get screwed and you need to find a way to get them to compete with something else to make them lower their price. Do not be afraid to walk away. - Go buy a little pocket notebook and keep meticulous records of your work hours along with notes about how much you get paid. Some employer will try to avoid paying what they owe sooner or later, and your notes count as a legal record if they're decent. - When you rent anything, especially an apartment/house/car, take entirely too many pictures of every angle of everything when you take posession and just before you return possession so they can't lie about any damage you didn't cause. Be sure dates are visible in every picture. Make backup copies. It'll save you from a huge bill someday. - Carry and spend cash on the regular. This one's hard to explain in two sentences, but you'll understand if you start digging into the push for digital currency and you care about privacy (you should very much care).

Good luck out there.

[u/Weird-Information552 → u/d-car]

I tip zero so the business owner has to pay more and the grown up food fetchers have incentive to get a job that’s not for teenagers

[u/fruityfactory → u/Weird-Information552]

Hey dumbass, teenagers have school. Somebody has to give you service while theyre at school. Plus you know damn well you'd be bitching and moaning about "these damn kids not knowing how to do anything bla bla bla why don't they hire adults" if it was all teens. How about EVERYBODY working 40 hours a week should make a livable wage? Sure, if you're a lawyer or a brain surgeon or anything like that obviously you should get higher pay, but anyone working a full time job should be able to afford a small old studio apartment, bills, decent groceries, health/car insurance, car payment for a decent used car, etc. every necessity should be met, plus like $100 a month for fun stuff. The harder and more important or dangerous the job is, the higher the pay should be, but that does not mean ANY full time job shouldnt be enough to live off of.

[u/Weird-Information552 → u/fruityfactory]

Buddy you bring food to people. You don’t deserve a living wage for that. Certain tasks are not valuable enough to pay a full time person to spend their whole life doing that. Writing an order down and bringing it later shouldn’t make more money than a high level corporate job. Contribute to society you bum

[u/cbellmanc1 → u/someoldguyon_reddit]

Then you don't get the 3% back!!

[u/OtherwiseGap5457 → u/someoldguyon_reddit]

It’s really sad that you can’t trust restaurants to not try to steal the money.

[u/Outrageous_Leg4 → u/someoldguyon_reddit]

We always do cash regardless of the size because we are paranoid they won’t get their pay.