It’s somewhat bullshit that the people who did all the work making the tasty meal get nothing, while the person handing it to you gets 20 percent. Especially when Seattle minimum wage is $15/hour and tips cannot count as part of that.

Tip sharing as a concept is well extended.

Having seen the wrong people get rewarded bonuses, RSUs and raises all the time. You are just better off with a salary band/pay grade and give money uniformly across the band.

Ideally 'top performers' are supposed to be rewarded for 'top performance'. But in any subjective evaluation you are just dealing with cooked up documentation to prove a person did something, therefore deserves extra. Pretty much any and anyone's story can be twisted and narrated in a way that could sound positive or negative, to reward or punish respectively.

You are better off with a tip pool and paying it across the band.

I've also wondered about it (though I know that bring a server is still by no means an easy task). I think Freakonomics had an episode on topping and reported (advertised?) some restaurants that split the tip between servers and cooks, or just don't let the customer tip but pay their employees more, upfront.

Yes, tips are bullshit

Tips are a holdover from the days of slavery. That's why it's so terrible.

https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/post...

Farming is a holdover from the days of slavery too. Almost everything is.

Yes, minimum wage for servers is lower than for people who don't get tips. But it's still illegal to lower a person's wage below what was advertised because the person got a tip.

I think you're confused.

You're describing "server wage" laws, in which employers are free to steal tips up to the difference between real minimum wage and server wage per hour. In effect, servers in these states make above minimum wage during peak times and at most minimum wage off-peak. But they have to work off-peak or they don't get scheduled for peak hours.

In WA, this form of wage theft is illegal. Your statement, "minimum wage for servers is lower than for untipped workers" is false in Washington state, which is where the wage theft in TFA took place.

I don't see how my previous comment was confused. It was drawing a distinction between "server wage" and what Instacart is doing.

I never claimed "server wage" laws apply to this situation.

Also, the term "wage theft" seems like it doesn't apply to "server wage", because "server wage" is a construct specifically created by the law, whereas wage theft is something that's illegal.