Here We Go Again...

So after work on Saturday night a gathering at a local bar took place.

There were servers and bartenders from three well known local restaurants and invariably the subject went to how our nights went and the usual bitching about customers and whatnot.

One waitress bitched about her twenty-top of prom kids that ran her ass off for Mountain Dews and Shirley Temples, with a bowl of cherries accompanying, of course.

I whined about my table of girls celebrating their friend’s birthday, along with the one entrée and few appetizers the whole table ordered.

One of the bartenders with us laid out his plight as he had his bar top customers toss him the occasional quarter rather than folding money.

We all understood.

Then Misty showed up, she works at a high-end steakhouse in the area.

“You guys bitching about work?” She asked.

“You know it,” we answered.

“Well I have the story of the night, listen to this bullshit.” She said.

“Tonight we had this thirty-top roll in and they put four of us on it, huuuuuuge party, they spent over eight thousand dollars.” She started.

“So they tipped us another $350 on top of the twenty percent gratuity.” Misty said.

“Well sounds better than my night, I only made forty bucks on my twenty top.” I said.

“Here comes the good part, since we made extra on the party the Executive Chef decided that we should tip out the kitchen four hundred dollars.” Misty said.

“Well that sounds familiar,” I said.

“Isn’t your tip-out already a third of your tips?” I asked.

“Yeah, we already had to pay five hundred dollars to the bussers and the bar, even though we had all the wine bottles out on the table and did all the wine service ourselves.” She said.

“So you ended up paying almost a thousand dollars in tip out then?” I asked.

“Something like that, I walked with about two hundred, but really should have made three after the tip-out.” Misty said.

“So what did the Chef say to you anyways?” I asked.

“He said that the kitchen really worked hard and deserved extra since we got extra.” She said.

“Was there any protest? I would throw a fit,” said another server at the table.

“Well we protested to the General Manager, but he talked to the Chef and agreed with him.” Said Misty.

“That’s bullshit,” another in our party added.

“Then the Chef tried to pull a guilt trip on us, he said we were all just greedy and implied that we didn’t deserve to make that much money.” Misty said.

“That’s fucking illegal, I just read about another place that was taking the staff’s tips, he just can’t do that.” I said.

“Well we called our human resources department and they agreed with us, but the General Manager still wouldn’t give us our money.” Misty said.

“Fuck that, management has no right to distribute your tips, the guest left it for you, not the kitchen. Kitchen gets salary and hourly, they aren’t tipped out employees, your Chef is a thief and it is illegal for him to distribute tips to non-tipped employees.” I said.

“He even gave the dishwashers $50 each, to wash thirty fucking dishes!” Misty exclaimed.

“Fuck that, call the state Attorney General’s office or the labor department, these fucks can’t get away with this shit, I quit a job because of this shit and these managers have no right to take away what you earned.” I said.

“I make three bucks an hour, where was management when it was slow and I was pulling fifty bucks a shift, that’s ok but if I make three hundred I’m being greedy and don’t deserve it?” Misty asked.

“They have no right to determine what you make, report them tomorrow, I swear I’ll call it in myself!” I said.

Misty sat there and sipped her beer with a pissed off look on her face, “fucking bullshit,” she muttered.

"And to end it all, we are allowed to take home wine that our parties don't finish as part of our reward for such a group, they had Silver Oak and Stag's Leap so we had some good bottles to take home, except the Chef wouldn't let us and took them home for himself." She said.

"Sounds like he's the one that's greedy to me, he's pretty liberal with other people's money, and other people's wine as well, fucking travesty." I said.

"Fucking bullshit," Misty said as she took another sip of beer...