In Reply to: I think its a bit naive to believe that posted by chickchili on Saturday, 6. May 2006 at 09:07 Bali Time:
receive is the service charge. So if you were to spend money in a bar or restaurant, the service charge added to your bill gets divided between the staff. Not necessarily equally as it's often done on a seniority basis - the more senior the position, the higher the proportion of the service charge. As wages are very low (the average for a waiter or cleaner is just over Rp500,000 per month) the service charge in busy times can make a huge difference. The problem arises when the waiter (or whatever) commits his income including the service fee to pay off a bank loan for house, bike, car etc and then there is a downturn in business and they are forced to survive and make repayments on their wage alone.
Interestingly, the service charge is calculated on the gross figure eg if you buy a hamburger and the price is Rp25,000 the service charge is calculated on this rather than the price less the cost of ingredients.