Oh, trust me, there's no shortage of retail jobs that don't do tips. You can work at a supermarket or a department store or any other store that employs cashiers. Even at a restaurant, you can always be a busboy or a dishwasher. If you're working a tipping job, it's because you specifically sought one out over other retail jobs.

People who work tipping jobs do so because they pay better on average, not because it's the only job available. Tips scale tremendously. If you work at a high-volume restaurant or, better, a restaurant with high prices, you'll be pulling in decent cash. And every once in a while, you'll get that mythican high-roller who decides to be charitable and drops a wad of cash on the table. Hell, a server at a fancy restaurant will be pulling in so much money that it would be absurd to categorize them them with other retail employees (once you get into super-fancy restaurants, serving is treated more like a concierge job than anything else).

Restaurant staff has a pecking order, much like high school. Of all the non-manager positions, servers are the most prestigious. Why? Because they make the most money.