I'm reluctant to say that my experience is typical as this was a number of years ago, and things may have changed since I was there. Maybe it varies from location to location, too. However, I was hired to wait tables and ended up spending a lot of time doing things like filling jugs of salad dressing and folding silverware into napkins, all while being paid the tipped minimum wage, which is less than minimum wage. As a server, I'd thought I would make tips to supplement this very low amount, but every hour spent not waiting tables meant that my average earnings were decreased. I ended up making half as much as I would have if I'd been waiting tables during my scheduled hours. My training hadn't informed me as to how much time would be taken up with these activities and it seems that they were exploiting the fact that servers are paid at less than minimum wage. Again, with no experience in the industry, I don't know if this type of scheduling is to be expected, but it really turned me off to this job.
