What an Odd Morning

Today's lunch was /weird/. It wasn't really slow, but it wasn't really busy either. It was like...kind of slow-steady, but more like slow and then suddenly steady. It caught us a bit off guard, but everything still went smoothly. The only thing that sucked was the fact that we kept ending up not having ample time to fill out checks until it was time for the parties they were for to go. So yeah, that sucked.

Speaking of checks--or rather--speaking of what checks are all about--money--I have a little something I want to talk about this afternoon. Today while paying a check a customer gave me money to give to the chef. I handed it to the owner, told her it was meant to go to the chef, and she went back and handed it to him. That's fine. What bothers me is the fact that on top of that, he got almost half of whatever they tipped me as well because we are required to share regardless of whether they've already been tipped or not. This happens all the time. Chefs get tipped before they leave the table, the sushi chef has his own tip jar for people to put money in, and they still get a huge cut of the tips customers generally think are meant for us.

Now I do not hold any negative feelings against the chefs because they work hard and they do not make the policy. I do think the policy needs changing, though. Tips are generally for staff that interact with customers. If something has been cooked in the kitchen, I've delivered everything, and I bus the table, why do I have to share my tip with anyone? As servers we already make the least and we still have to pay the other staff regardless of whether they do their job or we end up doing it.

That may not have sounded like much of a rant, but I guess that's what it was. And it is currently over. I work a double today, so I'm going to try to spend a few minutes not thinking about the serving of Japanese cuisine. Thanks for reading.