My husband and my sister-in-law are both
currently working in food service, he a part-time caterer while he returns to school, she a table-waiting lifer. Both
have recently been involved in that dreaded of all most crooked food service behavior: the manager who wants in on the
tips.
For J., who usually tends bar and has a knack for earning a boatload of tips, one manager in particular has been tipping herself out of the bartender's pool at the end of the night. She's the only manager in the company who does it and he won't report her (though I've suggested it) because, he tells me, she's so miserable. Life is not treating her right - who is he to make it worse?
I say, though, it's a matter of principle. Food service workers may not share a very large body of common ethics, but there are two that are universal: (1) always tip generously when being waited upon by others and (2) managers may be paid less than they deserve but they never, no never, get tipped out.
