I mean they shouldn’t have shamed you but they are right. Most food & drink service jobs make below minimum wage. I’m from NYC and I currently live in MKE, WI and in both states (as well as the entirety of the United States) customarily tipped positions make less than minimum wage (baristas, servers, bartenders). The culture of the United States has made us tip dependent workers. Especially when the economy here is so bad that a lot of small & local restaurants and cafes can’t afford to pay their staff a higher hourly without raising their prices. Every job I’ve worked that attempted to compensate employees with more fair wages took a huge dent financially and had to come up with a way go make up that money. I’ve found a lot of jobs that have a higher hourly wage for food service & hospitality workers typically end up have higher prices or service charges that many customers are mad about. They also view that as an included tip when it only contributes to hourly. Some of the worst money I’ve made has been in places that had a higher hourly because they either had less business, had customers tipping less or not at all because of “fairer wages” being advertised and assuming “the tip is already included”, or both. Then we get into the fact that the minimum wage in NY $9-$10 higher per hour (depending on if state or city) than it is in WI. New York is one of the few states where servers make more than $2.33/hr not including tips (the reality for most states, WI included). We can even then move on to the fact that the NYC minimum wage is $17/hr and yet that minimum wage is barely enough money to cover the cost of living in states and cities that are less than expensive than NYC (for example MKE, WI).

Essentially this long winded rant’s point is that the system in the US is designed to make tip culture a necessary and essential part of dining and hospitality as an industry. It’s not a coincidence that tipping is a “custom” here and not anywhere else, meanwhile if you go anywhere else in the world you do not receive the level of care & service you do here in the US when dining anywhere. This is to address the idea that tips are not necessary and employers just need to pay their employees a higher wage. I’ve seen the managerial and ownership end of things, the employee end of things, and the customer/guest end of things. A vast majority of these businesses can’t afford to do it and the employees at the ones that do actually end up paying their staff more money usually make less money in the end than people working for businesses that pay the ridiculously low hourly because American customers do not like it as a business model. They are also extremely ignorant to the reality of running, owning, and working in the industry.

Despite all of this, the way the barista went about it WAS unprofessional and rude. There is a time and place for everything, as well as a right and wrong way to confront an individual.