I used to work as a janitor for minimum wage. I never got a tip. How was that fair?

Did I not provide a service?

You sound like someone who used to work as an employee who received tips.

I wasn't saying that was fair, and have supported raising the minimum wage every time it's been on the ballot. A key difference is that in most of the U.S. restaurant workers have a much lower minimum wage with the expectation that tips will make up for that. That's why I mentioned the difference between what you should do before anything changes and afterwards: if someone's base pay is $2.30/hour and tips are supposed to bring that up, not tipping is probably costing them money their budget is based on.

None of that says that we shouldn't be trying to get both jobs to be more humane.

Okay, yeah, sure - it's a very good point. I live in WA, where the minimum wage is the same for every profession. So, that argument just isn't valid for me - unfortunately.

States like Alabama keep finding new ways to screw states like Washington.

I picked Alabama out of alphabetical order, of course. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped