Poll: Poll: Waiter's Rant-Tipping
- Thread starter Diddy_King
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I think you should get a different job instead of relying on people tipping you. I don't tip because I think taking food from the kitchen to my table is far too easy for me to give you another fiver ontop of your wages. I mean come on, it is a very easy job and your wages reflect that. The only times I would tip someone is if they did something extra, something they are not paid for. Such as run into a burning building to save a kid. But taking food from one place to a table about 20 metres away is not worth tipping...
Unless a waiter or waitress is utterly inattentive, has their fingers in my food, and forgets everything that I order, I tip 20%, no exceptions. You guys have to live off of something, and considering I never buy drinks and don't buy expensive meals, the least I can do is leave you a good tip.
I always leave at least five dollars plus whatever singles are left over from breaking bigger bills after paying the tab.
so usually around 7-8 dollars US.
so usually around 7-8 dollars US.
A waiter does not work for the customer, they work for the restaurant, it's the restaurant's job to pay them, not mine.
Now, if a waiter goes above and beyond their job description, then I probably will tip them, because they've gone beyond simply working for the restaurant, but that still doesn't mean I have to.
If you choose to take a job that pays $2 an hour and hope for tips to make it up, that's your choice to take that risk, but you can hardly complain when it doesn't work out.
And the idea of tipping as a percentage of the bill is utterly absurd, one table might order the most expensive bottle of wine and another could order the cheapest thing for everyone with free-refills. The latter table's waiter would do far more work but could end up getting a lower tip if both tables tipped the same percentage.
Now, if a waiter goes above and beyond their job description, then I probably will tip them, because they've gone beyond simply working for the restaurant, but that still doesn't mean I have to.
If you choose to take a job that pays $2 an hour and hope for tips to make it up, that's your choice to take that risk, but you can hardly complain when it doesn't work out.
And the idea of tipping as a percentage of the bill is utterly absurd, one table might order the most expensive bottle of wine and another could order the cheapest thing for everyone with free-refills. The latter table's waiter would do far more work but could end up getting a lower tip if both tables tipped the same percentage.
Where I live, it's a 10% tip for good service, so I tip about that much. In the USA, I tip around 15-20%. In some places I've been the waiters are sufficiently well paid that no tipping culture exists, in which case I don't tip at all.
I also don't tip in some restaurants because they pull a nasty scam where they take the all the tips and put it towards the basic wages of the staff. This means the waiters never get the tips, just their basic wage, and it's my way of punishing the restaurant for screwing their staff. (Although preferably, I never visit their establishment at all.) In my view, the restaurant has a responsibility to pay a full wage up-front and all tips are due to the waiters for their quality of service.
I also don't tip in some restaurants because they pull a nasty scam where they take the all the tips and put it towards the basic wages of the staff. This means the waiters never get the tips, just their basic wage, and it's my way of punishing the restaurant for screwing their staff. (Although preferably, I never visit their establishment at all.) In my view, the restaurant has a responsibility to pay a full wage up-front and all tips are due to the waiters for their quality of service.
I know there is more of a tipping culture in America, in the UK there is as well, but it's not so prevalent.Diddy_King said:
Anyhow, i'll elaborate on my 3rd point. A shop assistant is employed to perform a number of functions like answering telephone calls, operating till's and assisting customers with their purchases. The customer is not expected to tip the shop assistant to perform these functions. A waiter is employed to wait on people, and that's that. It's a role roughly equivalent to that of a shop assistant. If the waiter goes beyond what they are being employed to do, then fair enough perhaps they deserve a tip. Similarly if a shop assistant goes beyond their usual duties, then they too could deserve a tip.
The idea that minimum wage is absolute is a common misconception, most commonly held by people who've either never really had to work for anything in life or who got a manual labor job right out of high school.Ridonculous_Ninja said:
It's not illegal to pay employees less than minimum wage if
1) Their primary earnings are from tips (waiters, barbers, strippers, etc.)
2) They are a listed salaried professional (accountant, engineer, lawyer, doctor, nurse for some reason, and others)
3) They are operating as a private contractor paid on a "job performed" basis.
So you see, a waiter's tips ARE his pay. And that's the case at pretty much every restaurant in the United States. The manager of the restaurant pays the waiter to deliver food and nothing else. YOU'RE paying the waiter to serve you. If you don't tip a waiter who does a good job, it's because you're a cheap prick, not because of some principle you're trying to operate by. Don't justify it. Just accept the truth about yourself and move on. Also, you've eaten someone's saliva or other bodily fluid. Have fun with that.
I used to be a server. We got paid 1.25 back then. I'd work 30 hours/week, and make $37.50 in "wages" and about $350 in tips. I worked at a restaurant where people would mess with your food. I only did it once, because a woman literally screamed in my face because her steak was overcooked after she'd eaten all but two bites of it. Visine in your tea, madame?
So, in conclusion, the only people who are guaranteed minimum wage are people who have jobs that will probably be done by robots soon, and tip your waiters because tips are their primary source of income.
My family is actually in the hospitatility game and it's a shame that people aren't tipping well. Especially for good service. The gravy for a waitress or waiter is often the tip itself.
I usually tip well over 15%.
Some people are just cheap and don't understand how much the tips help the server. But, if everyone seems to be tipping badly, perhaps it's the community.Diddy_King said:
I usually tip well over 15%.
Knowing you she was either ridiculously pretty or really hotxmetatr0nx said:
On topic: I tip about 10% for poor service and 25% for really good service
There are different conventions in different countries (for example, I know Italians leave little if any tip). If you live inside the United States, however, the behavior your are describing is that of an incredibly cheap person. You can attempt to justify your behavior however you like, but it simply comes down to that. Every sit-down restaurant in the U.S. pays people this way, so telling someone they're taking a risk by taking a job where they get paid $2 and hope to make it up in tips is saying "Your fault for being a waiter". A food service job is the only job many people can get that will accomodate their hours.Maze1125 said:
If that's your opinion about waiters in general, I wouldn't depend on them to bring you your food very often, because it will most likely be tampered with at some point. So just don't eat out, ever. And if you do, don't go to the same place twice.
Move to Canada.Diddy_King said:
Min wage: Alberta 9.50(or close most places offer)
Tip: Resterusnts descion example worked at one server gets tip. All tips on debit cards go to hostess/host.
i seriously feel bad for you because you make next to nothingl.
Related. I tipped a guy 25 bucks once because when i asked for mountain dew he said they were out then went to the drink fountain and proceded over the course of my meal try different combos of Sprite, lemonade and juices to find the closest thing to mountain dew. He found it.
A person could be a pretty face and not be hot and vice versa. The Escapist knows what you're thinkingxmetatr0nx said:
Well, I don't.PhiMed said:
But it wouldn't matter if I did, because the US "way" of tipping is absurd, and I'd still not tip unless the service was beyond the call of being a waiter.
Yep, exactly, if you choose to be a waiter in America, you're choosing that risk.
The price they charge for the food is lower than it would be if they paid the servers because of the expectation that they will be paid in tips. It's pay for performance rather than for time. It encourages good service and encourages people who are bad at it to quit more quickly than they would otherwise. Profit motive can be a huge incentive, and this is a perfect example of that.Maze1125 said:
That being said, I don't think it's a perfect system, but it's the one that exists. Not tipping at all under this system is not only rude, but immoral. You're essentially stealing the service you just received, and the person you're denying money is the person who is literally waiting on you hand and foot. You're not sticking it to the system. You're probably just preventing someone from being able to pay their rent. The fact that you think it's stupid doesn't change the status quo.
There are a lot of customs that could easily be labeled absurd and stupid in the world that will get you locked up if you don't observe them. Most people don't need imprisonment as a motive to say "When in Rome..." Apparently you do. Some would say that makes you antisocial.
In addition, the act of knowing this custom and still refusing to tip is a huge contributor to negative stereotypes in the U.S. towards "foreigners". I know I died a little inside when I was a server every time one of my customers had a non-US accent, because I knew I was about to get stiffed. I'd like to think my negative perceptions of those outside the US that I developed while serving didn't transfer to my life in general, but who knows? I'd say at least 1 out of 4 people in the US worked as a server at some point in their life, and most don't go on to become as educated as I did. You do the math.
I suppose you're right. You just run the risk that you'll occassionally serve a cheap turd, whoever that may be. Fortunately for everyone, most people aren't like you.
No I'm not. I never agreed to pay the waiter, I never got to interview several different waiters to see which one I wanted to hire. I was provided a waiter by the restaurant, I didn't hire one myself. I pay the restaurant for providing a waiter service and the restaurant pays the waiter. No-one has stolen anything.PhiMed said:
And here's the interesting thing. I almost always tip. Why? Because over here waiters almost always go above and beyond their job description and so deserve a tip. Because it's not guaranteed, they feel the need to work for it.
But, in America, all I hear about is waiters spoiling people's food for not tipping, never them working hard for a tip.
You claim that assumed tips create an incentive, the evidence suggests the exact opposite, that they create a black-mail situation. Tip, or else.
Also, you say you never got tips from people with a foreign accent, of course that had to be down to foreign stinginess, it certainly couldn't be down to you giving a lower quality service than they were used to back home. Could it?