J**, the hostess, is mobilizing the support crew, with G*** gone she feels it's time to bring some fairness to the tip-out procedure. She doesn't feel well treated. I inquire what she would consider fair. "AN Even Split" she tells me, without hesitation, despite the obvious facts that she's lacking considerable of the skills to do our jobs, and all of us our possessed of the skills to do hers, that she starts 2 or three hours later than the rest of the staff, and leaves 2 or three hours earlier, despite the fact that she gets the same shift pay for a 4, 5, 6 hour shift that I get paid for a 12 hour shift...
I laugh. "Not gonna happen..." I tell her. She's a fucking idiot. She's given this shit to G***, I've heard all about it, she works in a hospital, for fucks sake, as a clerk, there's no way she'd walk in and demand the same salary as a nurse, or a doctor, yet her skills are roughly equivalent here, and yet she's asking the same.
I let the staff know she's forming the union. The other waiters, whom we split with. They're of the same mind, one, reasonably, the other (the Bosses Nephew, himself overpaid) as reasonable as she. I fume over this the entire night.
She's on crack, a fucking lunatic, I've been on every side of this, having worked every role in restaurants, when I started here I was a busboy with 30 years serving experience, didn't question the tip outs, appreciated there was more going on than I knew.
The next night I hold a meeting with her and the expediter.
To clarify, for those of you unfamiliar with the service industry, Hostesses, Expediters, Busboys, these are all support roles for the service staff. They are tipped, but seldom at the same level as the servers, they have less competence, responsibility, accountability. The servers tip them out. Generally it works out pretty fairly, just as it works out pretty fairly that customers tip what they think is appropriate. The whole system is flawed, this is the best we can do.
I confront her with the previous nights work - 5 hours, we tipped her $125.00, her shift pay of $70.00, this works out to almost $40.00 per hour, she thinks this is inadequate? I've made this - as an hourly rate - at this restaurant 1 day in the past 6 years. She thinks we're being stingy, cheating her? She made this on one of the slowest nights we've ever had here, let alone what she took in at the coat check, her business, we don't ask, yet I seriously doubt she's been so well treated here ever, even when we've been twice as busy, and her queries are creating offense...
She backpedals, defensive, bloody hell but I'm mad, I hate this, the vulgar discussions of money, I've always taken-or-left jobs based on what I perceived the fairness to be, that's the rule, if you can do better, than please do, she just wants to know what she can expect to make before she decides whether to come in to work or not...
Fuck that. This is a luxury the part-timers have, they feel sick, hungover, they're not so indispensable they can't take a night off. I've never been sick a single shift in 6 years there, she just finished up 2 weeks off, malingering at home with a sore throat...I'd love to take a night off, fuck what I'll make, I just want a Friday or Saturday night off to go out and party, maybe even on a fucking date. She's not helping her cause...
"No, no, no, I misunderstand..." she assures me... Actually, I don't at all. Not even a little bit. And while she hates it when I say that a certain portion of it's "discretionary" - meaning we - the others - decide how hard we think each other worked (because every one is a shitty judge of their own performance...) she argues this again, who am I - or anybody else - to judge her? Yet our very livelihoods in this place our discretionary, this is hospitality, if it's not coming together for you maybe you need to find another job... And I want to tell her, in our own view, we are all the hardest, most competent workers, but it's only in the eyes of others that we acquire any value...
I offer her the ability to switch roles - all of us, the other waiters, the Nephew, A*****, myself, we'll do their jobs, they can decide the tip outs, what's fair, we'll leave early every weekend night and come in if we feel fairly treated and think the money's worthwhile...they don't like this, I'm being ridiculous, there's no way they can be expected (the expediter, after 20 years here...) to do our jobs...
This says it all, really...
But she's too fucking stupid, and tempers are hot, and there are a variety of moot points now being argued, the expediter arguing that her shorter shifts shouldn't be reflected in her tips (and every waiter knows that the longer you work, the more tables you serve, the more money you make), but these are things that the simpletons will never understand...despite knowing we're salaried and that the longer the hours, the less we make, they're still convinced we should happily stay there 14 hours a day and share the spoils with the 5, 6, and 7 hour part-timers 50-50...
We bring back Stella, a Gypsy, another squeaky wheel soon to be replaced, but the Nephew has some hopes there...And so the Union is busted, for a time, to be shortly formed again.