Kaitlyn Matulewicz

This is part two in a series exploring the construction of precarious restaurant work and the connection this has to women’s experiences of sexual harassment. See part one here. The practice of tipping dates back to Sixteenth Century pubs and coffee houses in England. Customers entering an establishment would place coins into a brass urn that read, “To Insure Promptitude” (TIP). Tipping has since become an institutionalized practice in Canada,…

A couple of weeks before my fifteenth birthday, I got a job in a restaurant working as a hostess. It was my first experience of paid work. During my training I learned how to greet and seat customers (or “guests” as I had been told many times to call them), polish and roll cutlery, take take-out orders, take reservations, and take a waiting list on a busy Friday night. Along…