I just finished a Master's degree in poetry, and last week, had to run out and get a restaurant job to tide me over money-wise until something field-related comes up. I'm 25 and I'm a single mother, with a two year old daughter, and my student loan money was/is gone. I have years of previous restaurant experience ranging from knowledge of fine wines, sakes, sushi, seafood joints, corporate chains, you name it.
I live in Tallahassee. If anyone you know lives here, or if you do, I'm hoping they or you will not be patron to this restaurant.
I'm also hoping someone can tell me if there's any worthwhile legal recourse I can take after experiencing what I just went through.
I'm highlighting the most relevant parts, legally. Thanks in advance for reading this.
I've been so angry and physically destroyed over the last few days, I've kept myself sequestered-- mainly in the kiddie pool in the back yard with a steady supply of beer (which hasn't helped in the least actually).
Last week I landed a job at a new sushi/hibachi joint here in Tallahassee.
It's called Nagasaki, and was to be the third of it's kind here besides Mori and Osaka. It's on Capital Circle and Mahan, which puts it in a prime location to do well because people on that side of town were having to drive 6-10 miles to get to the other places if they wanted such fare. And the inside of the place was brand new (obviously) and beautiful. The owners spared no expense in any design regard.
Anyway, the place seemed too good to be true. There was no training. They hired only experienced servers, and basically just turned us loose on opening night and let us feel it out for ourselves, which in my view, was the best way they could have done it.
The servers were myself, four Mandarin speaking Chinese girls and another American guy named Brett, who quit on the third night.
I was hired by the American bar manager, to whom they'd assigned the task of hiring additional servers. The Chinese girls were brought in from I don't know where right from the beginning. They all already knew each other.
The general manager was a Mandarin and horrible-English-speaking man named Steve. His only useful purpose from what I could see, was communicating with the Chinese girls and kitchen staff, which was entirely comprised of non-English speakers. Other than that, if I were a restaurant owner, I'd keep him as far away from the restaurant floor during business hours as possible.
Despite his limited English, anytime he'd get a chance he'd corner you and launch into his speech about customer service and the industry which played out like he'd memorized it from the back of a cereal box. He was a smoker, lanky, his breath was ostentatiously rank, and his cheap cologne preceded him before he'd even set foot out of the kitchen. He ate like a machine. More times than not he'd be meandering around the lobby with a plateful of food, and talking to anyone, including customers, with his mouth full (and I mean stuffed full), which was beyond disgusting. Not only would you get a whiff of whatever he was eating, but his stale breath with it.
On the second night he got the brilliant idea of hanging out in the hibachi room to ride my ass, as if it were some useful exercise. I set down a couple of iced teas on a table, and before I could reach into my apron to produce them, he asked me gratuitously if I had straws for the customers. I handed them out without a word, and went to go tell the bar manager, Brandon, the one who hired me, to keep that fucking freak away from my tables. If I made a mistake, he could address it when I got back to the server station. Attempting, let alone successfully, to call a server out over something inconsequential at a table just begs for a lower tip.
I started getting the sense that Steve was in there doing something else useful for the owners. They clearly hadn't hired him for his charm and communication skills.
The hostesses were college-aged, underdressed American girls. They were the ones with the most questions, and "Steve" (if that's even his name, now that I think of it) couldn't answer a single one.
When Brandon the bar manager hired me last week, I made clear with him what the gratuity policy was going to be. He told me that servers were most likely going to pay a small tipout, but that they'd be getting assigned tables and would be keeping the tips they earned. In other words, there wasn't going to be any tip pooling here.
I don't disparage tip pooling, but this place was clearly trying to set itself up as a fine dining establishment, the kind of place where it was more appropriate to have one personable server assigned to your table, and at your beck and call. Brandon even went further and described one night he'd been shucking oysters at Calico Jack's, and had had to share a $600 tip he'd been given, three ways. After that night, he said, it was his policy to be against tip pooling. You work the table alone, you take sole responsibility for every part of servicing the customers meal and needs, and you took home what they gave you when they signed the check. This was the same way it'd worked at Profusion, the sushi place I'd worked at years ago in Tampa. Busboys, hostesses and chefs were on salary and hourly pay, and the servers tipped out 3% of their sales to the house and walked with the rest. Each person had their good and bad nights serving, but in my mind, it was the best way to do it.
I took this job at Nagasaki with the understanding that this was the same policy.
I didn't meet Steve until opening night. At the end of the night I asked him about when I'd be getting my tipout (were they going to give me the tips I'd earned that very night (it'd been slow but I'd seen about $60 on my credit card slips), or like some places, have it ready the next day). It was then I learned, and in his words, which I'd hear over and over that "For first couple days, we pool work, pool tip, to see who stay, until server know enough about restaurant."
I was vexed because I'd been told the opposite by Brandon, so I went to ask him, and he said it was Steve's show. Since Steve had said the pooling was only going to be for the first few days (until Monday, he said, when he'd "make schedule, make seating chart"), I decided to stay because I'm a good server and I saw the potential to make a nice dime in that place, when I was turned loose and allowed to keep my earnings.
Steve also added that they were going to divvy up the pooled tips at the end of the next night. We'd receive our tips then, for both nights.
So I came back the next day, day two, Thursday. It was a bit more busy, and each server'd had an equal share of customers. After looking at most of my slips, I saw at least $80 in tips. At the end of the night, I forked it all over, and took a seat at the bar while Steve and some of the kitchen staff (?) sat down with a manual calculator and a stack of cash to divide up.
They laid out six piles of money, and told us servers to come claim our share. There were two quarters sitting atop each stack, and when I spread the money out in my hands, I was floored. I was holding $36.50-- supposedly, for TWO nights of tip earning, $18.25 per night, when not only did each server have roughly the same number of patrons, but after I'd SEEN $60 and$80 in tips on my slips ALONE. The quarters on top of the money shares were just insulting.
If they'd have only divided the $140 I'd seen in six parts, that would have come out to more than half of what we were each taking home. The Chinese girls didn't think a thing of any of it. They seemed perfectly happy to be getting what they got.
Waiting tables is hard fucking work, people. Even when it's dead, you're still on your feet for 7 plus hours at a time. I ran my ass off for a solid three hours to make what I earned, and when I got my tipshare I was more physically exhausted than outraged, it was already past eleven PM, and I just wanted to go home, so I did.
The next day, Friday, I came in a four, as usual, and went right to Brandon to find out what was going on. I wanted to know what the system was. How much was the house taking out of our tips before divvying them up? From what I was calculating, it was no less than 50%, which was outrageous (and illegal, right?). I asked him when I was going to fill out a W-2 form, because everywhere else I'd worked (I've worked in half a dozen restaurants) you fill one of those out on day one. Not only that, but there were no time cards, no clocking in on the computer, and some of the others were having to come in early.
I asked Mei, the Chinese server who spoke the best English, what time she was coming in. She told me that she and all three of the other Chinese servers were coming it at two. The place didn't open until five, and I was coming in at four. I asked Mei what they did when they came in at two. They were doing all the front of house sidework. Myself and the other American server came in at four and did nothing in the way of sidework or prep. If we were pooling everything, why were we ALL not each doing some sidework?
I went and asked Brandon what the deal with that was, and he said, "Do YOU want to come in at two and do sidework for server minimum wage ($3.15 an hour)? That's something we'll discuss later," he said. I guess the Chinese girls were happy to do that, but what about all the talk of pooling everything? And even though I was getting the better end of the stick, not having to do any sidework, I still didn't think it was right.
Like I said, I came in first thing on Friday, and went to Brandon with all my questions. He let me rattle them all off, and told me, as he had before that they were all questions better directed to Steve. Brandon had hired me, and after that, washed his hands of any managerial responsibility in question answering, or even inquiring on my behalf. I'd like to think he was as clueless as I was, but at that point, any asshole could see that what was going on with the tipshares was jacked. It was even more jacked that I couldn't get a straight answer out of anyone about the formula they were using to calculate how much they were taking from MY money. The only reason I was still there was because of the promise, on behalf of both Steve and Brandon, that starting Monday I'd be taking home what tips I made. I still had questions, though. Were they keeping track of my hours? Why no W-2?
I caught Steve in the server station after our first small dinner rush, and spoke as slowly and as simply as I could. I asked him if he'd made the schedule for the next week. I asked him why we weren't all clocking in even though our (first) names were in the computer and there was a "timeclock" option on the main screen. I asked him again, to make sure, that starting at the beginning of next week, I'd in fact be taking home my tips.
He ignored the first two questions, and simply said, "first couple days slow, everybody make little bit of money. Next week we advertise, get busier." I again tried to make sure that we weren't going to be pooling anymore, starting next week. He acted irritated and confused. I had to explain the question in detail, in various forms, because he kept answering about unrelated things. I said "checks--" when will I get to keep what the customer has written as a tip on the check, my own checks? He said that checks go out "every two week." A reference to paychecks. I said, no, not paychecks, and he became more and more irritated. It got to the point where I was following him toward the hostess stand because he was trying to walk away without having to answer anything. Finally, in the middle of the lobby, I said, "When no more pool tips?" To my utter frustration and disgust, he said, "we always pool tip. At Japanese restaurant, always pool tip." I couldn't believe it. So, I asked to be sure, next week, and the week next we're going to be pooling the tips? He shook his head and finally detached himself from me as if he were telling me something he'd told me fifty times. As if I were the one complicating things. What he'd just said was in direct contradiction of something else he'd said not twenty-four hours earlier, and more than once, I assure you.
I was livid. I marched right up to the bar, to Brandon. I said, "Uh, Brandon, when you hired me, I was under the assurance that I'd be taking home my own tips, that there was no tipshare. The only reason I'm still here, after being given $18 a day is because Steve has said that starting next week the pooling was going to be no more. He just told me we were pooling indefinitely." I'll add that Steve started lecturing me about how it's "done in Japanese restaurant." First of all, I worked in a Japanese restaurant before (I guess he didn't count on that), for nearly two years, and that was bullshit. Second of all, Steve and all the Asians in Nagasaki are Chinese. There isn't a single Japanese person in there. Even the sushi chefs are Chinese. I was fuming. Brandon actually looked concerned and said he'd assumed that we weren't going to be pooling forever too, and that he'd talk to Steve for me. I stood back in the server station fuming, and waited on more customers with a forced smile for another hour before going back to the bar to hear that apparently Brandon had been wrong. We were pooling indefinitely.
I'd been hosed. I told Brandon that this was my last night. "$18 a day?" I said, "are you fucking kidding me? What kind of a sweatshop operation is this?" He just kept nodding and saying, "I understand, I understand. You've got a little mouth to feed." Uh, having a child to feed is nothing. You can't even feed yourself on $18 a day, not to mention, they were BREAKING THE LAW, in paying less than minimum wage.
After I told Brandon it was my last night, I waited to collect my parting tipshare. We'd been exponentially more busy that night (Friday). I'd seen $90+ on my tickets. Despite my desire to go home and cry, I needed what little money they were going to give me. Again at the end of the night, there were stacks of cash, five this time because the other American server had quit. There was actually a quarter on top of each stack, again. I spread the cash out in my hand when I collected it: $27.25. Unbelievable. I'd worked three nights, for a total of roughly 21 hours, and had made a total of $63.75-- the equivalent of $3.04 an hour. Even if you add the $3.15 server hourly wage to that (which I DO NOT expect to receive in any form), it comes out to less than the minimum wage (which as of 1.1.08 in FL, is $6.79).
The Chinese girls, who each worked an additional 2 hours a day more than I did, made the same. What's more is that I never found out exactly who owns this place. It could be Steve or even Brandon for all I know, and I don't know anyone's last name anyway.
I'm sure there are legal paths of recourse I could take, but right now, I need to go find another job.
Mostly, given all of what's happened I'm not sure where I'd even begin trying to get the money I think I deserve from these people.
I'm just hoping that if anyone Google searches "Nagasaki Tallahassee" this post will come up. Customers should know that their tips are NOT going to where they think they are. Do not eat here. The girls who are still employed in this place are being exploited.
::
UPDATE:
I got three calls today, two from Brandon and one from Steve. Brandon's said there was cash awaiting me at the restaurant, and all I had to do was come get it.
My daughter and I just got back.
Steve paid me a $3.80 hourly wage for the 19 hours I worked, which came out to $72.
I surmise that it's their intent, then, to confiscate all tips except what would make it so everyone gets minimum wage. I ended up making, roughly, $6.80 an hour with what they just gave me added to the take home tips. Guess what minimum wage in FL is. $6.79.
I think it's a ridiculous idea to pay servers minimum wage, i.e. take away their service incentive to make a bit more, but hey, I aint working there anymore, so we'll keep it at that. I'm still not even sure if managers tinkering with tip earnings is legal, but I've got to get on to getting another job.
From what I understand, even McDonald's pays more than minimum wage these days, and I have no idea how the other girls at Nagasaki survive on so little. I felt sad saying goodbye to them when I walked out of there.