Woodland students, who currently hold jobs, whether they work at a restaurant or a clothing store, know how useful tips really are.

Nicole Root, senior, works at the Country Creamery, an ice cream store, in Oxford. Her employer handles the tips every month by dividing them among her employees, based on how many hours each employee worked.

According to Root, approximately every other customer leaves a tip of a dollar or so. Root explains the importance of tips, “When you make minimum wage, tips really matter.”

At other establishments, tips jars are commonly glanced over then ignored. For example, not many people leave a dollar for the worker at the gas station or the person who made their coffee at Starbucks.

Costumers at these types of establishments may think that their four pennies would not do any good for the employee but every bit counts.

Senior April Brouillette is a great example of a worker who does not get tips. Brouillette works at MTC, or My Tool Company, every day after school and wishes she had a job that came with the bonus opportunity to get tips. “It would definitely be helpful to get tips,” said Brouillette.

Clothing store employees usually never get tips or are not allowed to accept tips. A local Old Navy employee said, “It would be nice to walk straight out of work with money in my pocket.”

Most people leave a tip after dinner for their waitresses and to them tips are much more important.

In restaurants in Connecticut the waitresses get tips but they are actually part of their pay. According to the Connecticut Department of Labor, employers can accept gratuities as a part of an employee’s minimum wage as long as they follow several guidelines. For employees that this applies to, tips are all the more important.

To these employees it seems that these tips are not really tips. It is a part of their pay. The few dollars at the end of a meal really make all the difference.

No matter what the situation, tips are more important to employees as they seem. Maybe next time citizens should not simply glance over the tip jar and leave their extra change.

Photo Credit: http://oasisdesign.net/images/img_content/TipJar.jpg