Tipping
RyoOhki
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">Why exactly?</div> Turning away from the plethora of religious topics that have spammed the forum, I give you this!
Tipping. It's always puzzled me. Here in Australia, tipping occurs, but only when the person deserves it. Cab drivers for example sometimes get a tip, but it's not expected. You have to earn it. Yet what I hear from the US seems to be that certain professions you must tip the person regardless. The question must be, why?
If a bellboy takes my bags to my room, he's doing his job. That's what he is paid to do. Why should I give him a tip? He's only doing his job. If he took them up in record time and was friendly, polite and informative then I might give him a little bonus. But why should he expect a tip? Why indeed should I have to give him one?
In discussing this with my housemates, one reason we found might be that the wages of these people are low, and that they need tips to get by. Why is this the case? Why should a person in any industry have to rely on tips? If wages are so low as to require tips, then I believe that the wage system needs to be overhauled and re-examined.
So what's everyone's views? Should tipping only occur when it is deserved? Should workers have to rely on tipping? Where should tipping occur?
Tipping. It's always puzzled me. Here in Australia, tipping occurs, but only when the person deserves it. Cab drivers for example sometimes get a tip, but it's not expected. You have to earn it. Yet what I hear from the US seems to be that certain professions you must tip the person regardless. The question must be, why?
If a bellboy takes my bags to my room, he's doing his job. That's what he is paid to do. Why should I give him a tip? He's only doing his job. If he took them up in record time and was friendly, polite and informative then I might give him a little bonus. But why should he expect a tip? Why indeed should I have to give him one?
In discussing this with my housemates, one reason we found might be that the wages of these people are low, and that they need tips to get by. Why is this the case? Why should a person in any industry have to rely on tips? If wages are so low as to require tips, then I believe that the wage system needs to be overhauled and re-examined.
So what's everyone's views? Should tipping only occur when it is deserved? Should workers have to rely on tipping? Where should tipping occur?
Comments
Edit: and I would tip only if I were a rich ba**ard. I'm not. I'm usually poorer than the ones that serve me so not tip from me.
This applies to restaurants.
Start with a pile of ones on the table (about 5 maybe, depends on who you are and where you are eating), and when they arrive tell them this is your potetntial tip pile. Now, when they don't do something that meets you expectations, you take away money from the pile right in front of them....
so evil.
i may try that soon
I think people feel they need to do it because waitresses get paid diddly sqaut. The tips ARE their wages.
In the US, Waiters/Waitresses get paid under minimum wage, usually 4.25$ an hour because it is expected that they will be tipped. And they are expected to get tipped at least 10% of the bill. One person I know who is a waitress at a local restaurant once had a group of seniors, 8 or 9 people, 150$ on the bill. You know what they left for a tip? 50 cents. 50 f**king cents. The persons wages that day were diddly. Especially as she had to wait on the seniors only and that was most of her shift.
In the US, Waiters/Waitresses get paid under minimum wage, usually 4.25$ an hour because it is expected that they will be tipped. And they are expected to get tipped at least 10% of the bill. One person I know who is a waitress at a local restaurant once had a group of seniors, 8 or 9 people, 150$ on the bill. You know what they left for a tip? 50 cents. 50 f**king cents. The persons wages that day were diddly. Especially as she had to wait on the seniors only and that was most of her shift. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Blame the government, every problem in this country can be traced to two factors
Government/Economy style
Parenting skills/lackthereof.
Then who does gains or loses in such a situation? Those with fixed resources. A atypical pleasant waiter who gets more than average tips gains as such a personality is a fixed resource. Those who with unpleasant personalities and therefore less tips would lose that too is a fixed resource. This is why landowners are so economically sensitive as they deal with the classic fixed resource, land (they aren't making any more of it). Those who are curious in such things should read, <u>The Armchair Economist</u> by Steven Landsburg.
Who is to say that the resturants would increase wages when their profits go up? Why would they strive to make their profit a fixed figure? Look at what people have said, resturants are getting away with under minimum-wage laws because people are expected to tip, they are profiting from this by pushing part of their debts directly into the hands of the consumer
Alternately, if they had to pay their waitstaff more, then that would translate into higher prices for the food and bar, so it'd more or less be a wash.
I worked in my grandparents’ restaurant from age ten through twenty one, and I’ve got to say that after all my experiences there I have no problem tipping, and I usually try to be generous, unless the waiter/waitress does something specifically negligent, irritating, or careless.
*Shrug* It’s a matter of conscience, I guess. I recall traveling with a former co-worker and going out to dinner. As we were paying the tab, he announced that he starts at 10%, and that’s for flawless service. Our perfectly acceptable waitress rated 5% on his scale, so I felt obligated to make up the difference.
Of course the first thing I asked him was, ‘Have you ever worked in a restaurant’? And we all know what the answer was.
I don’t know how it is in other countries, but in the US, it’s customary to tip, and as it has been said, your server’s wages have been adjusted in anticipation of it. If your principles won’t allow you to toss down a measly extra $3 on a $20 tab, do the honorable thing and eat at home, or order take-out.
Here's my take on it. Tipping was originally a method used by people to reward those who serviced them well. It was a way to encourage the behavior in the future. Simple enough. Probably started towards the end of the 19th century as urbanization took hold with the industrial revolution. At some point, tipping was also associated with wealth. People who tipped (and tipped well) were more likely to be more wealthy than those who did not. More disposable income. People who did not want to be looked down upon because they did not have sufficient funds to tip felt obligated to "keep up with the Joneses" and also tip, even if they did not have the money for it or if the service person did not even deserve it. They did not want to appear "cheap" or "petty" to those around them. A selfish, egotistical thing. Pretty soon, everyone is tipping, and it becomes almost assumed that everyone will tip. Certainly the service people did not refuse it, and they enjoyed the added income. This goes on for years.
Managers and supervisors soon figure out that their employees are receiving pretty decent money from tips. They want a piece of it. They enact rules that tips are to be shared by the house. The IRS catches on, too, and soon tips are considered income that is taxable. These guaranteed tips are factored into a person's wages now. The owner understands that tips are going to happen, and the person actually has to do something really really wrong to not receive one. Thus they incorporate this assumed added income into the person's wages, handicapping them by reducing their hourly wage. It's almost a good thing for the owner, since it pretty much ensures quality performance from the employees since a large part of their pay is derived from tips.
I have tipped all my life, without ever even thinking about it. I always calculate 15% automatically when the dinner tab comes. 20% if it's a nice restaurant or the service was particularly good. Even higher when on a date <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Barbers, bartenders, barmaids, hotel employees, taxi drivers, pizza delivery, blah blah. There's an unwritten social rule surrounding tipping. Don't tip and you will get extremely poor service in the future, if at all. It will continue indefinitely, IMHO.
If you go to a restaurant here and you don't tip a waitress... you better not go back to that restaurant unless the waitress is not there. Because if she is, and she recognizes you, you're gonna get some kind of nasty surprise in your food. Maybe a loogie, some armpit or pubic hair, a glass of water from the toilet... you name it. They remember. You wouldn't believe how many things have an assumed tipping structure. There are little cards you can carry for help on figuring an appropriate tip for all kinds of things. If you don't want to be ostracized here, you pretty much have to tip. There are even "tip jars" at counters where all the person does is reach back and grab a donut... IE their job.
Waiting on tables is actually far harder than most seem to think. You spend 8 hours running between 3-4 tables and keeping your orders straight. As a result of my experience in the food service industry, I tend to tip ~20%, which is slightly higher than average. I think it's important to be familiar with the tipping customs of whatever country you're in. To be perfectly honest, I hated having to serve foreigners. Virtually all of them are horrible tippers. I considered it to be incredible if I got a 10% tip. Most of the time it was a flat $0.50 to $2.00. Undertipping is considered to be very offensive, even if it is "their job."
I prefer the "My Blue Heaven" approach to tipping. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Because nothing stops me from opening a copy of said resturant and going "I'm just like my neighbor in everyway execpt I'm 15% cheaper!" That'll get him out of busniess.
Resturant owners don't fix their income on purpose but if they gain a rise in fortunes (as in saving money due to tipping) more resturants will open taking advantage of this. More competition equals lower prices. As resturants aren't a fixed resource, they cannot singularly gain or lose with a change due to being a resturant.
I don't think there should be any excuse for paying someone less than minimum wage. It's not the customer's job to pay the wages of the worker; the customer is there to buy something for themselves. I stand by my belief that the wage system in the US could do with some serious re-evaluation.
[finished]
I spent 2 years as a bartender at a popular night club. Tips meant everything. But, you only received tips if there were many customers who were treated well. The bar payed us a lower regular wage as a way of covering our time spent not serving drinks. So... what have we got: 1) an hourly wage that is lower which in turn keeps drink prices lower 2) an incentive for bartenders and waitresses and support staff (barbacks, bussers, etc) to treat customers well 3) customers who are treated well have incentive to return and spend more money 4) the more customers come in, the more tips you receive.
I made more from that job, on lower than minimum wage + tips, than I did working a specilized hourly manufacturing job (which I started later). The tip system varies from business to business and geographic area to geographic area but the concept is the same. Nobody forces you to tip but it seems to have evolved into an etiquette thing. I will say that since my bartending job I have been tipping heavily and only reduce the amount if my service really sucks. These people work hard and if they are friendly and attentive it's a sign of appreciation when you leave something extra for them.
I got a decent wage for the job, a fair bit higher than minimum wage even. I got to see first hand what happens when there aren't tips though...
The service we gave was crappy.
Whether we did a great job, or a lousy one, we got paid EXACTLY THE SAME. None of my fellow employees cared ANYTHING for any of the residents. They gave slow service, sloppy service... they'd spill things, bump into the residents, and then have the nerve to COMPLAIN about the residents, who are old and let's make it clear, LIVE THERE. We were being paid fair money to serve, and we weren't serving!
Oh, I'd love to say I was exempt from this, and in attitude, maybe I was. I tried very hard to do my best, but sometimes the motivation just wasn't there. If there had been tips... that is to say, if there was some way we could be directly rewarded by the customers...
As for encouraging your employees to work harder - what total bs. Before you started "factoring in tips to wages and taxing them" they ALREADY had the encouragement - you work harder, you get more money. Face it guys, you are being taken. Now, you have to work hard to receive basic wages, and those wages rest purely in the hands of the consumer. You are getting less, the consumers pay more (in tips) and the fat cats walk out smiling.
ITS A SCREW JOB!!!!111one
I don't think it's a matter of encouraging them to work harder... it's a way to encourage them to be better to the customers. If you do not depend on the customer <b>directly</b> for your wages, it is difficult for most young people to associate who is really keeping them employed. And most service jobs employ younger, non-professional people. Like someone posted here, the places with no tipping system meant incredibly poor service. That doesn't work in a public restaurant solely dependent on customers coming back often. Good food or not, if the service sucks you won't go back. There are hundreds of restaurants to choose from, and the one with poor service is not going to survive. Young people here aren't going to care about what happens to the company or owner... they care about what happens to them personally. Most service people are only doing it as a means to an end... temporary. Money is the key here, and owners are adept at exploiting that.
Like I said before, assumed tipping just evolved over time in the American social environment. Like a thousand other cultures and customs anywhere else in the world. You probably have your own unique social cultures. I have friends here that came from India, and the stories they've told me about their culture sound so completely bizarre to me I can't believe it actually happens. Arranged marriages. No one EVER drinks alcohol in public. In a town of hundreds of thousands, everyone knows practically everyone else. Younger sisters get married off first. Traffic accidents are handled immediately between parties without involving police or arbitration. I could go on, but back to the point. Assumed tipping happens to be one American culture that has persisted for a long, long time. No one here considers tipping to be a screw job. You might, but hey... you don't live here. My friends from India all recognized the tipping custom and have all quickly adopted it.
If your job depends upon you actually getting part of your wages from the customer and not the restaurant, you will do your best to be good to the customer. That's why I tip well, because then it's an incentive for them to want to work harder.
an example:
Ok, so I get home from college one day. My friends drops me off at Denny's, the closest establishment before his exit to his house area. I'm used to college food, lukewarm food that isn't well prepared usually. I go inside, get sat down by someone at a lone table. The waitress comes out. She's a young person, probably 18-24, and you can tell that this is not the job she likes. So, I get a Philly Cheese Melt and a Diet Coke with a Vanilla shot. (Best idea evar. Thanks Denny's). So, the food is brought to me in 7.5 minutes, the drink almost immediately. She smiled, acted nice, the usual facade of actually caring about the job. But because she was nice, quick, and didn't forget to come by and refill the coke when it was empty, I tipped about 20-30%. It was a 13.00$ bill, I paid 16.00$ because she made the food (a little substandard) seem better by actually acting like she cared if everything was ok. And she did check on me 5 or 6 times in my 20 minute stay there. She even wrote "Thank you" on the back of the receipt. She made me feel special, and so feeling special I tipped, a lot.
Let's address this from the occupational side: US Federal Minimum Wage for waiters is 2.13/hr, barely forty percent of the standard minimum wage for non-servers. From there, you realize that not only do waiters pay taxes on that 2.13/hr but also on their claimed tips. Unlike someone who is making a steady 5.15/hr, waiters may pay a lot higher average of taxes on their total earned money because of the cash they make in short periods of time--a good week they could make almost the equivalent of a middle-management white collar workers salary, but it's not consistent. A waiter is subsequently guaranteed <i>nothing</i> but that 2.13/hr and rely upon the generosity of the people they serve. However, their <i>opportunity</i> to make money is a lot better than a minimum wage drone, so they start off with a 60% wage handicap on their earning potential before they get a single guest. Combine that with the fact that in a mid- to high-scale restaurant (averaged ~24 US dollars per person normally), I went to work in a heavily starched, 100% cotton Pinpoint Oxford button down dress shirt (preferably laundered at a dry cleaners, which I consequently <i>pay my own money to get done</i>), a heavily starched apron (ditto to the dry cleaning), starched slacks, <i>polished</i> black leather shoes and a tasteful tie. Normal amount of preparation for work was roughly an hour if I didn't get my shirt and apron dry cleaned--that's not including a shower and shave. So my time investment is vastly greater than your average grocery sacker or McDonald's lemming just to go to work. Now I'm going to proceed to wait on you hand and foot, take care of your every whim with a smile and "yes, sir" or "yes, ma'am," anticipate your needs, refill anything you need before you realize you need it, and then hope you appreciate being treated like a medieval lord/lady as your meal is handled like one.
Whatever you want, I get for you or I lose your confidence in my abilities. I'm gonna give you 18 separate points of service, from greeting you within 45 seconds with waters for all non-infant/toddlers, introduce myself, ask if you dined with us prior to this evening/afternoon, set the coasters down where each person can read the logo without turning their head, set down the waters with my right hands as I pull them from a loaded cocktail tray, suggest two different alcoholic beverages by name, run your drinks, introduce you to our featured appetizers, dinners and desserts, then go put in your appetizer order (you did get an appetizer, didn't you? of course you did, <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->) toss some bread in the oven, bring your appetizer when it's up (knowing the prep time on EVERY dish we serve is essential to timing this), put in your entree order, refill drinks and bread as necessary, run your entrees, serving from the left side--serving children, elderly, women then men <i>in that specific order</i>--then removing from the right your bread and appetizer plates if you're finished, warning you if the plate is hot to the touch so you don't sue me if you burn yourself, open up the ketchup if you have any fried foods and placing it within easy reach, checking up on you within two bites or two minutes--whichever comes first--, asking if you need anything else, refilling drinks as needed, then prebussing your table--removing all plates, silverware, used ketchup, tobasco and sugar/sweetnlow/equal, salt and/or pepper shakers--then bringing the dessert tray over, selling you a dessert or five, then bringing those out, suggesting afterdinner coffee, scotch or cappucino, removing your dessert plates and silverware after replacing the preps, and then providing you with the bill in a check presenter, run your credit card or make change for you, and hope you appreciated my effort to make your dining experience a pleasant one.
Multiple that by 3 to 4 times, and you'll realize just how much a good waiter does without you realizing it or asking for it.
After all that, tell me why you shouldn't be tipping me...because I'm doing my job treating you like royalty? Add to all that the fact that most restaurants use a tipshare method to defray payroll costs by charging waiters 3-5% of their total sales (not tips, but food/alcohol sales) to help pay their back of the house workers and bartenders. So if I wait on you for an hour and a half, you spend 100 dollars in my restaurant and tip me 2 dollars, that means I just paid $1.50 US to have you eat at my table <i>of my own money</i> (my restaurant ran a 3.5% tip share--$3.50 US on every $100 US sales) That means on a good night, I may lose 30-35 dollars (35 being the max they charged us) of my tips just to paying the restaurant for the right to make money there. Not tipping someone that waits on you hand and foot while you dine is trashy...waiters are just servants who get paid a little money. On my best nights, I would work 7-8 hours, make ~160-175 in tip money, then turn around and pay the restaurant somewhere around 30 dollars just for them letting me be there, dropping my take home to around $130 US. On my worst nights, I would work 5-7 hours, and walk out with 50 dollars take home. It came and went. Yea, I made double minimum wage on my worst nights, but I did a whole shitload more than say "would you like to supersize that?"
Delivery Driving is a different story. A delivery driver has intense personal expenses that are mildly defrayed by their employers. Average mileage compensation is somewhere around $.75 US per delivery. In a delivery area that I drive in right now, I have a 10 mile by 3 mile stretch of houses, duplexes and apartment complexes, along with myriad businesses all in a very confusing, disjointed system of roads (Bryan-College Station, Texas) that are badly in need of repair. That means on a run to the far end of our area, I could be making a 20 mile round trip (which happens often). With gas prices around $1.50 and a car that gets ~20 miles/gallon, if you tip me $.75, you just covered the cost of me delivering that pizza to you, and I net no money. If you stiff me, I just wasted $.75 of my own money getting you your food and driving 10 miles to bring it to you. I might as well have just sat in the store and thrown three quarters in the trash and walked away. Average tips for delivery people should be 2 dollars until you reach ~$20 US--they should be in the 3-4 range until you reach ~35 dollars, and they should go above 5 only on 40 dollar or higher orders. If it's a 300 dollar order (roughly 60 pizzas including the bulk discount we give), you should tip them 20-50 dollars depending on your distance from the store location. You may think 5 dollars is excessive on a 35-40 dollar order, but you'll pay someone 10-15% to bring food 40 feet to your table and take care of your needs, but you won't pay 10% to someone that just bloody DROVE an automobile with your dinner to you, nice and hot, has automobile expenses directly related to their job (tires, oil, and gas being the three consistent ones)? That's pathetic... Delivery drivers at my location put 800-1000 miles a WEEK on their cars if they're working a standard forty hour week. That means they'd average 3200-4000 miles a MONTH just at their job, disregarding any off the clock driving they do. That's a lot of gas, an oil change every month, a pair of tires every year, and probably some under the hood tuneup and fluid work. One of our drivers put 2500 miles on hist truck in two weeks. That may seem extreme, but it's closer to the rule rather than the exception if you're a dedicated delivery driver. Rather than doing an extremely excessive amount of work to get your food to you, a delivery driver is incurring an excessive amount of expenses to bring your meal to you.
As the above illustrations regarding occupations show, either way, someone who works for tips is investing their assets to an amazing extent--either their labor or their automobiles and expenses--to provide you with a hot, tasty meal while you sit on your butt. That's alot more than wrapping burgers and filling drinks at a fast food chain store (been there, done that for 6 months of my senior year of high school too).
Personally, I like tipping, because it's technically at the discretion of the customer (even if custom dictates the 15%) and makes the relationship between customer and server a little more personal - it feels more like a friendly arrangement of mutual trust than a set business transaction. I have a number of restaurants I go to quite regularly, and I always try to tip above and beyond (20%-30% is fairly typical; I've gone as high as 50% on small items). I'm rewarded with servers who give me big smiles when I come in, anticipate what I'm going to order, know that I drink a lot of water, and bring me my check promptly.