Giving tips in Poland

Nope, it differs from state to state. The minimum wage for catering staff varies from $2.50- $5.00 an hour. That said, any bar tender, waitress or concierge worth their salt should be clearing $600-$1000 in tips per week.

crap - I was having a good ole time here last night, didn't I? LOL That's what happens when I'm stuck drinking home on a Friday night! I was abandoned!

I never heard that there was a possibility we could have had the state supplement if our wages fell below minimum wages. Maybe we were making too much money, maybe the law is new.

Either way, it's been long time since I was in service industry, and I'm glad. That kind of life is not good for one's health. Still I hate cheapskates, or people that give waitresses a hard time. And I've been known to sneak an additional tip as we're leaving, so no one can see. It must have rubbed off on my son, since he is an outrageous tipper as well.


You listed a great link! Here are some quotes from it:
"If you get awful service, talk to the manager. The manager cannot correct the situation if he doesn't know about it. Skipping the tip will not accomplish anything, and the next poor customer who gets that server will get the same service you did. (edit: or worse)

Restaurants report a percentage (around 12%) (edit: in my case it was 15%) of the gross sales for food and beverage to the IRS for their staff. This means that if you have a $200 food bill and $200 wine bill, the restaurant will report 12% of $400 or $48 as income to the server. In other words, the server has to pay tax on it whether you tip it or not."

Why tip for lousy service? :) I only tip if the waiter has dropped my food on his way not more than once!

Why doesn't it surprise me that F-stop thinks bad service should still get a tip since it won't fix it by not leaving one?

How about not tip the idiot....AND let the manager know?

That was a quote from delphia..'s link, and not meant for you, so how about you just move on and stop repeating yourself?

Follow your own advice if you wish others to. I guess you would like 15% for that "tip" as well eh?

That's absolute lunacy!

Now I understand why the American IRS is so loathed - that's a terrible deal for servers, though I suppose if you work in a place known for highrollers, you can easily get 20% tip on a $500 bill and be 5-8% up on the taxman. But it strikes me that someone can easily end up really badly off if they work in a place frequented by Europeans.

The UK system is much better in this respect - either there's someone appointed to collect all the tips and share them out (and sort out the taxes on them), or the individual server has the responsibility to declare the tips. Depending on how the restaurant works, they might use the tips to bring wages up to minimum wage.

The only servers in the US that do badly are the crappy ones or the ones that choose to work at some place like Golden Corral which is frequented by cheap dregs of society. Most servers in most places do fine.

They also have the advantage of not reporting a lot of their tips to the taxman...they all do this and there is no way to prove if they did or didn't.

Bingo!!! That is why I took the opportunity to highjack this thread, and try and explain!
As far as changing this system, I'll get right on it.

Why not work at a place where tips are higher?

Again...Europeans nor anyone else are obligated to subsidize your poor choice of salary.

You perform well you get a good tip..that is how it has worked forever yet some entitled servers are trying to convince or guilt people into giving them a service fee.

I am going to start demanding 30% more since that's how much the IRS takes from my paycheck....I bet that will go over well eh?

That is everyone's goal, obviously. And another one is for everyone to understand this system.

Everyone understands the system. Good service=Good tip. Crappy service=No tip. I have no shame about that at all. You're right, quite a few times, bad service is a result of bad management. Understaffing, etc.

Thing is, I don't only not tip, I don't return. If you're working at a crappy place, go find a better job. That's how it works in other industries, it shouldn't be different in hospitality. And just to put it out there, I tip ridiculously well.

OK, but did you know that your server pays taxes on 15% of what he served you, whether he gets it or not?

Yes I did, and I also know that no one forced that person into that line of work. I also know that quite a few of my friends in Austin go home at night with well over the minimum wage. I also know that roofers don't have to pay 15%. Road crews also don't pay 15%.

Some people don't like when you give them tips on how to organize yourself or tips how to clean your bathroom. I don't think it matters where you are. Really. A tip is a tip it depends on the individual because some people know everything and don't like tips.

Believe me, most would prefer for the tip to remain an expression of pure benevolence, but the system here bastardized it. Some don't believe it, some are unable to comprehend. Hopefully, even with all that yapping going around, maybe somebody found out something that he/she might have honestly not known.

I can comprehend fine you twit. I just believe you are wrong. The ONLY people who complain about it and claim it's deserved as you do are servers who can't do their job right and get merit based tips. The general public and those who earn good tips understand the system fine. People like you are why many customers are adversarial. They can smell your entitlement and fake friendliness from 10ft away.

Here is another secret about waiters: if you ask them how much they make, they will always quote their top nights earnings. Nobody will ever tell you about going home with ten bucks, or, as restaurants are known to overstaff in hope for the big crowd, about all the shifts they are sent home when the crowd does not materialize.

And yes, most of the time, the good tippers do make up for the cheapskates. That does not excuse cheapskates.
In some instances, like for tables of 8 or more, when the waiter's considerable chuck of income is on the line, the management will allow him to put 15% right on the check. Then it's up to the waiter - many Americans might have left much more but were put off by what they presume is an insult of the tip already included, or the table of nicest in the world Canadians that thought the tip is included, will send him digging into his own pocket for the privilege of serving them.

I take it as a joke obviously. But for the sake of clarity: we all here mean tip as German Trinkgeld, Polish napiwek ,n or bakshish. Not advice, porada...


I liked your last inputs F stop.

Let me just ask a quick question here, do you think that most waitstaff make more or less after taxes than a minimum wage job? Would you be happier at a set wage without tips?

Just a little side note, legally, all tipped employees have to make at least minimum wage.

dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs15.pdf

Delphiandomine wrote:


you don't get it because you don't know what you're talking (whining) about.

Waitstaff in America are on a different pay-scale. if you have a regular job, yes, there's a minimum wage, but waitstaff and bartenders are an exception. when I was bartending about 8 years ago, the waitstaff earned $2.15/hour, in the NYC area. The current pay rate in America is still under $3/hour for waitstaff/bartenders. Sure, some places pay a little more if they have someone that's been there a long time or if the bartender gets little traffic at the bar but does a lot of service bar work (meaning making drinks for all customers in the restaurant, they generally pay more because he/she wouldn't make as much in tips) but the restaurant is not obligated to pay any more than that measly sub $3/hour pay rate. THIS is why waitstaff and bartenders alike demand tips, because without it, after working an 8 hour shift and getting home at 4:00 a.m. they'd be earning about $20.....before taxes.

but it's ok Delph. If you had lived in America for a while, you'd know these kinds of things. I guess not everyone has the luxury of speaking from experience.

beelzebub wrote:


exactly. just like all us English teachers out here not reporting any of our private lesson income, proofreading cash, translations, etc. etc.

I bartended for years at several restaurants, and my job went like this: I get paid a small hourly rate and I keep ALL my tips. Most of it was in cash, and the bills that were charged, the customer would write on the receipt how much the tip was. At the end of the night, I simply took that tip money in cash from the register at night. That is what I was instructed to do by my bosses, and that's why I did. I walked home with hundreds of dollars in a single night in greenbacks, and paid taxes only on my tiny hourly wage every two weeks. The waitstaff operated in the same way.

And that's how most restaurants operate with tips in America.

I agree with FUZZY here in that tips are not included as an express term in a contract, it is an optional arrangement between 2 people. You pay the bill to the restaurant for their utility costs and costs of food preparation etc etc. The waiter gets his cut. However, a tip is sth often accepted by waiters/waitresses but he doesn't need to perform a specific action to get it, it's just appreciation for his/her general helpfulness and speed of service etc etc. It's more of a convention and binds no-one. The waiter could easily refuse it but he is contractually obliged to bring out those plates. Teachers can work 'na lewo' by doing the abovementioned work and nobody really enforces it.

It is illegal in the US to go home with less than federal minimum wage. If the difference is not made up in tips, the employer must close the gap. That's the law. Check out the DOL link.

Now, question remains, did you ever receive total compensation in a pay period that ended up being less than minimum wage?

J-walking is illegal too, but I've never gotten caught doing it.

laws shmaws. there are lots of laws convex. countless times I would work a shift and everyone would belly up to the bar to eat and drink while the waitress sat on her hands for the night, resulting in her literally going home earning maybe $12-$14, far below min. wage.

That doesn't make much sense though, convex. Tips can be perceived as gratuities, thrown in for appreciation. How can a convention, with no legally binding status, dictate a minimum level? You are no doubt familiar with wage setting, right? Then you set the standard wage higher than the minimum one. You also know that practice differs from theory too I believe. I'd surmise that there are many people working under the minimum wage in the UK through undercutting. Watch the film Outlanders by Dominic Lees. It outlines the plight of Polish builders in London.

I've also heard about making up the deficit but it doesn't have a sound legal basis.

Right, and that is illegal. If you don't decide to pursue legal action when you're getting screwed over, hey, fair enough. The law and the number to call is posted everywhere that minimum wage is paid.


The employers are responsible for ensuring that the employee is earning at least minimum wage per hour. Tips must be reported. I think if you ask most service staff if they're willing to trade a no tipping policy for minimum wage...well, you probably wouldn't have too many people chose the set wage.

Fuzzy, as a bartender, would you rather work for tips, or minimum wage? What is more beneficial to the average waitstaff?

That would appear to be the position. They can actually go as low as $2.13 provided that the tips make up the rest. It strikes me as strange, though, as tips are extra plusses and shouldn't be seen as an excuse for the employer to go down as far as that. They can pay younger workers even less I've heard. $4.25 or sth ridiculous like that.

convex wrote:


Tips, hands down, for both bartenders and waitstaff. Sure, if you get a job at a lamo restaurant with no traffic, getting paid a decent wage is better, but I simply never worked at such a place. I made my bones for the first year and then went to where the money was.

I knew bartenders in busy NJ clubs or, of course, NYC clubs, that would clear $1500 in cash just working Thursday/Friday/Saturday nights. Sure, during the off seasons they'd pull maybe $700-$900, but that's still above the national avg. salary.

Tips are considered income in the US. What is absurd is to expect waitstaff to earn minimum wage plus tips and expect McDonalds employees to earn minimum wage.