Anybody here ever work banquets or special events? I hear ya, same here. I
have always considered my former work in banquet and event bartending among my
more lucrative gigs (with tending bar in casinos being the most lucrative for
me of any workplace), be it at a hotel or a catering operation (usually with a
catering facility). Sign on with a few of them, and if one doesn’t have work
for you, someone else will. Depending on how busy they are (I have NEVER had a
slow bar); if they’ll let you have a tip-jar (for me, that is the
deal-breaker: no tip jar, I have to pass); if your tips are yours to keep
(minus a tip-out to your barback, if applicable), you can usually make some
pretty good green. Put it in perspective: I used to cut hair. Fell back on it
after the IT field went bust for me. Work was steady, everyone needs a haircut
sooner or later, there’s some job security there, ya know? But I quickly
discovered, after falling in to tending bar, that I made more in one evening
tending bar, than I would in a day of cutting hair. Nothing quite like a
tip-jar full of cash for a few hours’ work to drive home the possibility that
you’re on to something good here.
However, the one conflict I’ve had in the banquet scene, at one employer, was
the almost-unrelenting need for a certain banquet captain (and alternatively,
from a certain banquet Maitre’D ; they did not seem to be working in tandem,
that I could see) had for trying to shake me down for my tips. I say
“unrelenting,” because, they just could NOT get a clue. The usual pretext
(always perpetrated just as I was calling it a night), if it was a hosted bar
or a cash bar or operated by drink tickets, was, “ah, you overpoured, how much
did you make in tips, because you’re gonna have to spring for the cost of a
new bottle(s),” and you know you didn’t overpour at all. Or, after counting
out your bank (if it was a cash bar), with them watching, it’s, “ah, you’re a
little short on your bank, how did you do on tips tonight?” And you just know
that they’re trying, at best, to con you out of your hard-earned tips, or at
worst, this was some informal extortion scheme.
And me being me, I’d refuse. I could see right through that. The usual retort
after my refusal would be, if I didn’t accede to this, I’d never work there,
or, even for anyone else in banquets, ever again. And me, I just refused. I
figure, I can’t do that. I earned my tips, and if I gave in just this once,
they’d come for me again and again. So I’d call their bluff, and just say,
nice try, guys, see ya next time. And ya gotta give them credit for having
some persistence: no matter how often I’d refuse, they just would not quit
trying to get their hands on my tips, time after time.
Anybody here have to deal with the old shakedown? How did you handle it?
Discuss!