Working in a restaurant, such a thing is impossible to believe. When going out to eat, an astonishing number of customers don’t realize just how many human beings contribute to their experience. Someone chopped those vegetables that morning and roasted them that afternoon. Someone tested the sauces, kneaded the dough, and refrigerated it for later. Someone wiped down the tables and chairs and laid out the silverware. And as customers eat, someone clears dishes, refills water glasses, and comes rushing over with fresh silverware when they hear the tinkle of a fork hitting the floor.

Many people come away from their meals believing their server to be the sole shaper of their experience. In some sense, the whole point of a good restaurant is that customers aren’t supposed to think about all those people toiling behind the scenes. Personally, one reason I love serving tables is that it’s genuinely fun to provide people with a magical experience in which delicious food appears steaming at the table and beer glasses seem to refill themselves. But I couldn’t do any of it without my coworkers, both in the front and back of the house.

What’s more, I like pooling tips with my coworkers. For me, it not only accurately reflects our contributions to our customers’ experiences, but it also makes for a more pleasant work environment—not to mention the fact that if I earn unusually low tips one night, it’s made up for by the fact that I get a portion of my fellow servers’ tips. And vice versa. Tip-sharing might even be one ingredient of a good business: The most economically successful restaurants I’ve worked in (and, to be fair, I’m talking about two out of a total of six) are the ones that have shared tips.

The Department of Labor clarifies that “a valid tip pooling or sharing arrangement among employees who customarily and regularly receive tips” is legal under the Fair Labor Standards Act. “Pooling” and “sharing” are often used interchangeably, but, legally speaking, they’re different. A tip pool consists of putting all tips from a shift together into a single pot and distributing them according to role. Typically servers get the biggest portion, and bartenders, bussers, and expediters get smaller portions. This hierarchy exists because servers receive a wage, dictated on a state-by-state basis, that’s well below minimum and depend on tips to cover that gap, while bussers are paid minimum wage and bartenders get their own tips from the bar. (Kitchen staff cannot legally participate in a tip pool, because they do not “customarily and regularly receive tips,” as one Ohio restaurant discovered in 2012.) Tip sharing, on the other hand, means that servers collect their own tips, and then “tip out” a small percentage to other front-of-house staff (such as the bartender and bussers).