I certainly can't read minds, but I find it hard to believe that someone – especially someone who realized they could ask for higher tip options – would not realize that they could also ask for a higher salary. You have to be pretty savvy to make it as a server. I would be surprised if any of them were that out to lunch, but I don't have concrete data to go on.

I get higher salary requests too – and usually have to fulfill them, you don't have a business without staff – but that isn't the instance I was talking about. This doesn't really have any relevance to the topic at hand.

After all, if you are the server, you're going to want the highest tips you can get even if you also have a higher salary. Why wouldn't you? Let's be real. They are not doing the job of a server just for fun, they are there to maximize profit.

> Would you be able to give raises comparable in earnings to what they would make from higher "recommended" tips?

I wouldn't have much choice if that is what they wanted. You don't have a business without staff. I guess what you are asking is if it would bankrupt me? Who knows? There are too many hidden variables to even start to guess. I mean, you have to be pretty savvy to make it as a server. We all understand that there is some tipping point where bankruptcy becomes inevitable, so servers wouldn't push for a million dollars a year or something. But assuming you mean within reason.

> As a reminder, the original article concerned people selling "coffee or a muffin", and not "table service at restaurants". Where do your employees fall on the spectrum?

A segment of the staff would fit into that end of the spectrum. Unfortunately, the awful state of software in the industry means that variable tipping options wasn't a technical choice (absent of running two entirely separate system). As such, they got pushed into the same rates the other restaurant staff whether they liked it or not. I didn't hear any complaints, though. If they start asking for lower tipping rates, I might have to find a workaround for the technical limitations. But so far it hasn't come up (and I will be completely shocked if it ever does).

Are they savvy enough to figure out you wouldn't give them a large enough mass raise, but would raise the suggested tip levels and pass the issue on to the customers?

Are they savvy enough to rig things to get a higher tip, even though the overall effect is worse for the restaurant? (Which I've read about in previous stories about tippping/no tippping. Like giving poor service to people they know won't tip well, or telling lies about the state of the restaurant to get a sympathy bonus.)

Are they savvy enough to avoid getting a "worthless, over priced college degree", as richrichie suggests is the fundamental issue?

Is this request for higher suggested tip rates because they "now are "highly educated" with expectations"? Because your description to me sounds like they are correctly using their market advantage, which doesn't require a college degree.

That is, everything you say can be true, but not at all support richrichie's (deservedly, IMO) downvoted comment.

Your response also sounds like I am correct, and it's not the people who are behind the counter serving muffins who are the main driver of the change in your restaurant's policies, bur rather they are the secondary beneficiaries of changes driven by your (traditionally tipped) wait staff.

They're likely savvy enough to know that if I can cashflow what would have been the tip, it works in my favour. There is good reason the workers (and, quite often, customers!) prefer to keep it a separate transaction. Sucks for me, but what can you do? You don't have a business without staff (and customers). They hold all the power.

> Are they savvy enough to rig things to get a higher tip, even though the overall effect is worse for the restaurant?

No doubt to the extent that it is to their favour. They most certainly aren't there for my benefit.

> Are they savvy enough to avoid getting a "worthless, over priced college degree", as richrichie suggests is the fundamental issue?

Perhaps, but pursuant of a degree is always done for the feel good emotions, not rational decision making. Not even the savviest person alive is able to keep all emotions at bay. Sometimes you just gotta spend money to get laid.

> Is this request for higher suggested tip rates because they "now are "highly educated" with expectations"?

Well, if we look to the historical record it does not appear that servers always had savvy, but that the rise of savvy people taking serving positions has raised the bar (although that could be the result of not having good data rather than some actual change).

What we do know is that colleges flat out won't allow anyone without savvy into their halls, going to great lengths to banish anyone who might try, so as a result there is a strong correlation between having savvy and having college debt. Did savvy people start taking serving jobs because they had to in order to service the debt? It is quite possible.

> That is, everything you say can be true, but not at all support richrichie's (deservedly, IMO) downvoted comment.

Okay....? That's fine. I couldn't care less about what richrichie had to say, and I care even less about someone pressing an arbitrary button that does nothing.

> Your response also sounds like I am correct

Let's hope. As long as it isn't me that's correct. I can think of nothing more defeating than spending all that time writing comments, and then not being able to learn anything from it because I was already correct.

What historical record do you refer to?

Servers have always had savvy, and started unionizing in the late 1800s, including a wave of strikes in 1912 and 1913. This didn't require a college degree. https://restaurantworkersunion.org/allarticles/nycrestaurant... says three of the demands were:

"The first demand was for a $20 minimum weekly wage for waiters, which would largely eliminate the tipping system. The second was for a universal eight-hour working day, which would replace the much longer shifts that many had been forced to work. The third demand was for the abolition of private employment agencies, which often took portions of worker’s pay in return for securing a job."

As for "colleges flat out won't allow anyone without savvy into their halls".

How do colleges measure "savvy"? So-called "legacy admissions" are not based on savvy. If someone is admitted for being a good football, water polo, or lacross player, does that automatically make them more savvy than being a good Pokémon player?

If your parents are rich enough to pay for classwork, SAT, and ACT tutors, does that make you more savvy? (To say nothing of parents who have donated millions to the school over the years, and just happen to have their kid accepted there.)

I may have done well on my SAT and got good grades (which is enough for many colleges), but that did not make me savvy in any sort of business sense that would apply to a waitstaff position.

Acting and improv training would have been better, and that doesn't require a college education (likely one of those "useless" degrees).

The union leaders no doubt had savvy. Those who needed to lean on those who had savvy are not demonstrative of the sort. After all, that's the whole reason people join unions: To outsource savviness to those who have it, improving one's unsavvy standing within some kind of community.

> This didn't require a college degree.

Well, of course. Some jobs require licensing, but the "degree required" you see on job advertisements is just that: An advertisement. It communicates the idea of "You might like this job if you have an interest in this type of scholastic program." It has nothing to do with any kind of literal requirements.

> How do colleges measure "savvy"?

They try to measure sexual attractiveness. That is what college sells, after all: A community of people in their sexual prime that are prepared to regularly mingle.

It requires savvy to make oneself sexually attractive, though. While anyone can be attractive to someone, savvy is necessary to make oneself attractive to a reasonably wide audience. Being attractive to only one other person isn't typically going to get you admittance (of course, no measure of the nature is ever 100% perfect).

> If someone is admitted for being a good football, water polo, or lacross player, does that automatically make them more savvy than being a good Pokémon player?

Automatically, no. Statistically, those sports players do tend to be more sexually attractive to a wide audience.

> I may have done well on my SAT and got good grades (which is enough for many colleges), but that did not make me savvy in any sort of business sense that would apply to a waitstaff position.

I look forward to receiving your application. Someone with savvy, but not the right kind of savvy, would be the perfect hire.