Restaurant Tipping

What are your feelings on the article and tipping? Im curious.

 

That tipping is a scam to underpay workers. It also means that wait staff get paid much better than most other food service workers, and that means taking some bad with the good.

I generally tip well regardless of service except on like one or two occasions where I've had either great or terrible service. It's a scam though.

 

I agree!! Crazy that restaurant owners get away with paying essential staff $2/hr. I've never been a waitress or server so I'm not sure how it all works. I wonder if servers ever get commission incentives for up-selling the menu.

 

I rarely eat out, but when I do I make sure I tip well.

I tip even better when I really eat out.

 

In America, you should always tip between 15 and 20%, as long as there was no problem with the service.

I tip less if the food arrives cold or the person takes forever to bring me the check, for instance.

 

You get commission incentives in the sense that up-selling increases the dollar amount of the customer's bill, and therefore theoretically increasing the amount of your tip.

 

On the other hand, I have to say that eating out is expensive in comparison to eating in. For example, I can make 3-4x the amount of food at home for the price of 1 meal out (typically- depends on what kind of food). The mark up on meals in restaurants is higher and considerably so. With that said, patrons are paying pricy tabs to begin with. For a server to expectantly place the burden on the patron to subsidize their hourly wage seems unreasonable. They should apply pressure to the restaurant owner instead.

 

Yeah and the system isn't fool proof because you rely on the whim of the patron.

 

In Cambodia/Vietnam you weren't expected to tip despite the fact that the people needed it and were generally super attentive.

In Colombia there was a cultural thing were attentive wait staff was considered rude I guess, you'd see them once at the beginning of the meal, and have to hunt them down to get your check.

 

I hardly ever tip. If anything, we just round up the bill to the nearest whole number.

We don't have much of a tipping culture here in the Netherlands, probably because waiters get paid a regular salary.
The whole idea of tipping seems so rediculous to me, just pay your employees well and have customers pay the price that is actually stated on the menu.

 

This^

Just pay the people what they deserve and make the menu prices reflective of that.

 

There doesn't seem to be any movement in that direction. I wouldn't hold your breath.

 

I tip well. I agree that tipping is a scam but nevertheless, servers do depend on tips and therefore i would never go to a restaurant unless I was prepared to factor the tip into the bill. I usually tip between 30% - 50%. I've had a lot of friends who work for tips so I try to be generous.

 

Mother of my kids had one of those shit jobs in Florida for a couple bucks an hour. I tip like Meliai does--a good amount. Lived with two woman that waitressed and the first 1/2 hour to 45 minutes after they got home,they needed to vent. I don't mean wanted to--I mean NEEDED TO. It's not an easy job and one of the worst parts is dealing with grumpy cooks, which most seem to be.

One restaurant in Hawaii scheduled a MANDATORY MEETING ONCE A MONTH for all employees with no pay. I fixed that shit by encouraging/telling my girl friend at the time , to punch her time card when she showed up. She did--they got pissed, but from then on the girls got paid. If it's mandatory--they pay. They thought they were pretty slick and they were ---for a while.

 

This. I have a lot of friends who depend on tips. When they're working they usually hook me up. Whether it's a bartender who slides me free drinks, or a cabbie that turns the meter off halfway home. I've tipped 100+% on a few occasions. It all comes full circle.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4sbYy0WdGQ"]Reservoir Dogs Tipping/Gratuity Scene 720p HD - YouTube

 

i would not tip the idiot who wrote that shit

 

I have waited tables. And I rarely got more than a buck. I'm a guy. If I had tits and a mini-skirt, different story.

When I tip I tip for a reason. If they want it, they have to earn it. Unless they do something really good or really bad, it's 15%. Period. Do you have any idea how insulting it is to tip 20-25% to a waitress, and she goes nuts on you because you apparently have no idea how hard she works? And you aren't the only one there, yet you are the only one under attack. I *have* been there. If they want a guaranteed paycheck, find another job. If waiting tables is all you can do, go back to school. If you can't go back to school and decide to keep waiting table, then I suggest that you change your demeanor.


I remember one time I was working at a cafe, late night. I was the cook & dishwasher & waiter & busser. I had a number of truckers come through for coffee & take a break kind of thing. But this one table the guys stayed at for several hours. Some would come, eat and go, and they kept switching over, as if it was some kind of a shift job. They paid their ticket, and their order was the largest single order/table I had that week. I was prompt. I took good care of them. I bent over backwards and even gave them discounts that other people normally do not get. I remember the ticket was close to $100.

Those guys were engineers working at the local refinery while they were transitioning over some new equipment.

You know what I got for a tip? Working my ass off to meet their needs while working my ass off tending to other customers? Less that $5. Did that bother me? Yeah, it did. "Fucking assholes". But it's not the end of the world. I have, OTOH, served truckers (which I will say have got to be among the best customers to have) that tipped me very well.

It's all in attitude. If you're gonna have an attitude, find another job.

 

The modern tipping culture symbolises all that is so fucked up about modern corporate America.
Tip originally meant "something incidental and nice, but not needed in any way, shape or form".

Now it means "give me the tip or you're a bastard and deserve your food spat in". Or "our corporate profits are more important than the peasants working here, you let them have enough to eat, because we don't give a shit as the CEOs of Twatcorp Restaurants".

There is a minimum standard, and there is a "going the extra mile" standard. Being polite and professional doesn't mean "tip". It means the employer is under an obligation to ensure his own staff can eat and have a reasonable standard of living.
I really don't feel comfortable giving my business to a company that treats staff, and therefore customers with such contempt and greed.

In England, I've always treated cservice staff well, with good tips, even when I was a student and had bugger all money. Note that we have proper minimum wages, and tipping is entirely voluntary or not needed, depending on the sector. However, I'm starting to change because I'm fed up of all the immigrants - temp or permanent taking jobs, leaving British people unemployed. Again its corporate greed. I give the local person a tip and often give the Pole/Muslim immigrant etc much, much less or nothing. Because the local person can't move back to somewhere where it costs 1/8th to live, can he?

Infact, I'll often boycott the restaurant.

Another thing, I hate is posh hotels with the OTT immigrant staff and associated tipping culture.
You walk thro the door and its "goodmorning Sir, welcome to Smarmstaff Manor, may I carry your hand luggage". And I'm thinking "for every 30 seconds while I walk thro the entrance, someone's gonna passively hassle me for a tip". It can really fuck up the atmosphere. AND infact the service. Its like those "bog trolls" that we get...They are REALLY fucking annoying.

EDIT: do the corporations give the staff a big tip at the end of the year, to raise them from destitution. As a thankyou for the big fat profits?
I mean, if I went to a bank, I wouldn't have tip the cashier to give me a loan would I? The companies are saying the staff aren't important, so why should the customers? If you can't take responsibilities you shouldn't run a company.$2 per hr is monumentally fucked up. Some prick at Twatcorp Inc needs to start reading the dictionary.

 

Yes, we are just not used to it. I do sometimes tip if I'm over the border. Mostly in countries/places where my money is worth more than theirs. Usually I can assume the waiter gets payed normally so no special tip from me.