I used to make more in tips than wages working in a very busy nightclub. Was on min wage, but was taking home about 50 quid a night in tips.

On new years day, we got triple pay, and the tips were like 5x more too.

I was very very well off, and only doing 20 hours a week.

Actually the majority of bar/waiting staff are on minimum wage, and majority of places do not ever pay double time on weekends/bank holidays.

Even on Christmas Day the place I worked for paid minimum wage and offered a £10 bonus if staff worked a minimum of 6 hours on Christmas day AND Boxing day! £10 is all they got (I refused to work for that day).

Yeah but people like shop workers for example serve you only very briefly. A waiter (a good one anyway) will look after you for the evening and make your dining experience a pleasant one.

Also the hours for shop workers are nowhere near as breaking as bar/restaurant hours. A lot of the time you can end up working 12 hours without a break.

You were one unlucky bartender lmao

It depends on what rank of bar you work at. I wouldn't say its the majority at all.

Not really, I raked it in on tips because I am amazing in hospitality (shame I hate it so much).

After I was made redundant from the business I used to manage there was not a lot of jobs going (as it was the recession). So rather than go on the dole I sucked up my ego and got a waiting job again.

Honestly it is. You get some bars that will pay more, but a lot of places at the moment will only pay minimum wage due to the demand for jobs after the recession.


They know people will work for that because they have no choice but to.


EDIT: Obviously if you are a supervisor etc you will be on more, I mean just basic bar staff and waiting staff.

Yeah, I used to work in a bar when I was younger, 5 days a week but it was all split shifts so I started at 11 and finished after closing with a two hour break in the middle, so I was working around 50 hours a week

The highest I ever clocked up was 102 hours in a week. I did 6 days in a row of 7am - midnight as loads of the staff were off sick. It killed me by the end of it.

:shocked: that's far too much, you couldn't keep that up. I didn't mind it at the time tbh infact I loved bar work but I was only 19 at the time. I still wouldn't mind doing it now, the only thing that would put me off is the unsociable hours

Yeah, after that week I was like a zombie. Lol.

But yeah, the unsociable hours suck. I think the only time I would ever want to even remotely considering going back to hospitality would be if I own the bar.

haha yeah, I wasn't overly keen on waitressing at all, I only did it the odd time when they needed some one to fill in, I preferred being behind the bar

why has someone put an exclamation mark in my title :conf2: