Server Quits After Learning That Her Boss Was Taking Her Tips

For servers, tips make up most of the income they make while working at restaurants. At the end of the night, many servers are required to give all of their tips to the manager, who will then distribute them among all of the staff.

However, one woman, who had worked as a server at a dumpling restaurant, revealed that her manager had been lying to her about how the gratuity was being handled at the end of every shift for the entire time that she had worked there.

She quit her job after learning her boss had stopped paying out her tips without telling her.

In a video, TikTok user Maia Dobbs told viewers that she had just "rage quit" her waitressing job after finding out that her boss was going to suddenly switch her pay from tips to minimum wage. Dobbs' boss hadn't even told her, she said, but rather she had found it out from one of the other staff members.

The cherry on top? Dobbs had also learned that the new policy wasn't going to apply to every server. "They offered my male co-worker who started working the same time as me $18.50 an hour." In Connecticut, where Dobbs works and lives, the minimum wage is set to go up to $15 an hour on the first of July.

When Dobbs heard about that, she proceeded to "ignore them" for a week and wasn't coming to work. To appease her, her boss had offered to pay Dobbs $17.50, which she agreed to since she knew that's what she had been making before with tips included.

However, when Dobbs eventually went and looked back at all of her old paystubs, she noticed something peculiar. "I actually looked back at my paystubs and I was making exactly $17 for like… almost every month. Except [for] two random months, it got different, but it was exactly $17."

"There [are] no hours listed on my paystubs either. Nothing’s listed, it just says salary, $17 an hour. That’s not right. I make tips, I don’t make salary," Dobbs said, adding that she will work different hours each week and was only looked at her total amount, so she had never noticed before.

While discussing the issue with one of the restaurant's cooks, Dobbs learned that the cooks were receiving tips.

When Dobbs goes back to work, she said she had been speaking with one of the cooks, who was trying to talk her out of being angry about the fact that she hadn't been receiving any of her tips for several months.

Confused, Dobbs asked the cook if they were getting tipped, to which they said that they were. According to the legal site Nolo, Connecticut employees can't be required to share their tips with employees who don't usually receive their own tips, like dishwashers or cooks, unless the employer doesn't claim a tip credit and pays the employee the minimum wage directly.

"Why are you trying to talk me about of being angry? Oh, I understand now, because you're benefitting from this," Dobbs said of the restaurant's cook. Later on in her shift, Dobbs noticed that the owner of the restaurant had come in.

"I just had a feeling and you know who walked in? The owner,” Dobbs explained, noting that she was already suspicious since the owner is usually never around. “She walked right in, she started working, and she tried talking to me, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to talk to you unless it’s in writing.'”

Dobbs continued, saying that she hadn't put the tip jar out because she apparently doesn't make tips anymore, despite that agreeing to be paid the server wage, which is $6.38 with cash and credit card tips included instead of an hourly wage.

"The owner kept putting the tip jar out. I kept taking it back. Because at this point if we take tips and you’re paying your employees a set wage, that’s stealing from your customers," she recalled. When she brought it up to the owner, it only ended in disaster.

"I was like, ‘You can’t put the tip jar out if you’re paying a set wage.’ And she’s like, ‘Well, that’s part of how we make money is tips,'” Dobbs said. “And I was like, ‘You’re supposed to make money from the product, not the tips.’ And she was like, ‘Really? Who said?’ And I was like, ‘If you put the tip jar out, I’m leaving.'”

The owner didn't seem perturbed by Dobbs' threat and proceeded to put the tip jar back out with a smile on her face, which was Dobbs' breaking point. She quit on the spot and left, but not without informing all of the customers in the restaurant where their tip money was actually going.

Server Learns Boss Has Been Paying Her $17 An Hour But Kept All Her Tips — 'I Just Rage Quit'

She said her boss had suddenly changed her pay from tips to minimum wage without telling her, but was still collecting tips from customers.

She quit her job after learning her boss had stopped paying out her tips without telling her.

While discussing the issue with one of the restaurant's cooks, Dobbs learned that the cooks were receiving tips.

Server Learns Boss Has Been Paying Her $17 An Hour But Kept All Her Tips — 'I Just Rage Quit'

She said her boss had suddenly changed her pay from tips to minimum wage without telling her, but was still collecting tips from customers.

She quit her job after learning her boss had stopped paying out her tips without telling her.

While discussing the issue with one of the restaurant's cooks, Dobbs learned that the cooks were receiving tips.

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