How bad is it ? very effin bad !!
Establishment: Columbia Tower Club
Location: Seattle
DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT WORK FOR The CTC!!!! Unless, that is, you enjoy being underpaid (honestly, you can make more money waiting tables at a f#&*ing Denny’s, people) for busting your ass in a fine dining environment while inept, Republican managers reap the benefits of your labor whilst they idle about the club’s environs shmoozing it up with the hoity toity membership. I suppose The Columbia Tower Club’s good as a boot camp for getting into fine dining and starting to learn about wine if that’s what you want to use it for, but there is really no way to make any kind of a living as a server there. NO TIPS! NO TIPS! NO TIPS! There, I said it.
Comments
This company is Corrupt! On every ticket there is a 20% service charge. Members are lied to and told that the wait staff gets that service charge!? What a bunch of bull!!!! Corporate jerks! Fortunately however, the staff is incredible and if you do work there you are likely to meet some pretty great people… but you’ll still be dirt poor. 
I actually got a job offer from the CTC in 2008 for a serving position. $14 an hour is CHUMP CHANGE to servers. Though the insurance, discounted bus pass, and free uniform cleaning was attractive, I quickly figured out that I would make about $400 a week before taxes. I can make that in 2-3 shifts in a tipped position.
The managers who hired me were really nice and disappointed when I turned them down, but I don’t understand how they can expect a service professional with fine dining experience to work for so little.
I as was involved as a shopsteward for QuestField/United Here Local 8 for this exact complaint about sevice charges and exactly where do they go. It took many people and many hotels and seattle resaurants to organize but we did! We led a grassroots effort and took it to our Wa. State Rep’s in Olympia. It was a long battle but the end result was Govenor Greguire helped us to PASS A LAW!!! That REQUIRES any establishment that charges a SERVICE CHARGE must PUBLICLY POST [whether it be on menu/table tent] so the customer is completely imformed where the service charge is going. Again I say as of Jan 1 2007 this became a state law! Contact United Here LOcal 8 or Wa St gov.org for more info
CTC AkA the tower of hell.
Underpaid is right. Don’t count on getting any tips. Their system is set up for failure since they had a commission based system that was hardly worth the effort.