The Pink Flamingo

The service industry in America is one of the few industries where employees rely on tips for the majority of their paycheck. Often, front-of-house workers are paid as little as $2.13 an hour by restaurants in the U.S. For owners, this essentially means having a free workforce. But the dynamic created by relying on tips fosters an imbalance of power between staff, management and their guests. Often leading to the exploitation of lower-level staff like issues of sexual harassment, an unsafe working environments and lack of job security. This collection of nonfiction essays was meant to be an analysis of my personal experiences in the service industry as a bartender and server, especially at a job that seemed to be the epitome of this exploitation, the Pink Flamingo. I focus on the people, often unseen, who live on a tipped wage.