Tip Reporting Question

Her W-2 is going to overstate her income. As I see it, you have three choices.

1) Request a corrected W-2. 2) Decided it's not worth it given the amount of extra taxes that will end up being paid, or 3) Consider it a wash because on some shifts tips were under-reported.

It's this third one I want to talk about, for being a waiter or waitress is not exactly the plush deal people sometimes assume it is. I worked for California Pizza Kitchen from Oct. 2000 to Jan. 2001. It's a well-run company. However, wait staff pay 3 and a half percent of gross for the person hosting that shift. We also paid an additional percentage for bar drinks and for coffee drinks. All of this I take is standard practice in the restaurant industry. Now, three percent may not sound like a whole lot, but when compared against a fifteen percent tip, that is twenty percent of your income. There are slow nights. People can become very impatient with dessert, and not leave much of a tip even tough everything else went smoothly, and it's the cold cook who does appetizers, salads, and desserts and who in unpredictable ways sometimes gets jammed up (I tend to like the math in any enterprise!, and if you had two cold cooks, both of them would be bored most of the time). People can sit with the check on their table for twenty minutes, which is fine, then suddenly decide they want to leave, and I'm supposed to be a mind reader and know that it's ready to be picked up right then and there. And then, frankly some people seem to have class-based preconceptions that waiters and waitresses aren't very smart, and to act on these! Whereas, in fact, at least five people there, myself included, had college degrees. It is a challenging job. In honesty, I only did medium. I remember talking with a more experienced waitress of how she choose between two seemingly right-now priorities. She told me she does the most important thing, and then sweeps along other things on her way out of the kitchen. Of course! I'm trying to do it ins ome perfect algorithmic way, and it just doesn't lend itself to that at all. It's like reading a poker book by Johnny Chan and playing in a clunky way and wondering what's wrong. What's wrong, what's lacking, is the sense of feel, the sense of touch. And you've got to give yourself time to develop your own personal way in this regard. Many customers were a delight. There was fun interaction with co- workers. It definitely had its good points. And on many shifts, it's

5:30, and next time I look down at my watch, it's 8:30 and where has the time gone. The time has absolutely flown by! And that's something to wish for in any job.

-Doug

PS I hope people don't mind me including some about being a waiter. That's one thing I like about taxes. You get to learn about a variety of businesses and occupations.

Thanks Doug. Agree with you points about the wait staff.

Alton