Poll: Poll: Waiter's Rant-Tipping

[TZer0]

5%. Here in Norway waiters earn quite much already - their salary isn't based on tips, it is like a small bonus for doing a good job. Also: food prices in restaurants are quite high, so 5% might not sound like much, but it is.

 

[Diddy_King]

Well in my country they add 12,5% of your total as a tip on your bill. Say you spend 80-160 dollars on your visit to a restaurant... it generates quite the tip. So tipping around here is just silly. I think 12.5% is fair. Waiters around here still make, at least, minimum wage.

I don't get paid massively, I work really really (and I mean REALLY) hard and I'm very polite to asshole-customers, but I rarely get even a "thank you". Damn it I hate the system... AND people.

Man I wish we had that 12.5% auto gratuity. We can only auto grat tables of 8 or more people. This makes sense as it is a lot more work to take care of 14 than it is to take care of 4, and since we have to automatically alocate 3% of the total sale to busboys/hostesses, etc. if we get stiff on a 300 dollar ticket then we are out nearly 10 bucks.

I believe I am a good waiter, I have several regulars who ask for me by name every time they come in. My customers get their food on time, they don't have to worry about running out of drinks, or getting their entree too early. I have one regular who comes in with his wife on a weekly basis (at least) he always orders the same thing, and he always tells me that he expects his salad to come out before his meal, his meal to come out after he's done with his salad, and he expects two VERY hot pieces of bread to start off his meal. I always listen to this with a straight face, but I've generally already got his order in the system and bread heating up if not already in my hands to set on the table. (They always leave thanking me for taking care of them and saying they'll see me again next week if not sooner, they also generally leave an above average tip)

That isn't to say I don't treat other customers as well as I can, even if they aren't regulars who tip me well. I treat all my customers well, even if I don't believe they are going to tip me, because sometimes you will be surprised. But the fact is at resteraunts here in America a tip is expected. No, don't say it shouldn't be, that's just how it is here. And if you don't want to tip a waiter for good service, go get fast food. You aren't just paying for the food when you go out to eat, you are paying for the experience to be waited on. To not have to pour your own drinks, cook your own food, set your own table, and clean up afterwards.

The bad thing about auto gratuity is that bad service is also rewarded. That really tics me off. Seriously sometimes you have to get up, leave you friends to go get the bread, sallad and order drinks because the waiter forgot about you. After an hour or so you'll have to get up and ask where the food went and it turns out you'll have to give the kitchen the bleeding order yourself. The prick will still get a 12% grat. I will always tip a good waiter well. But horrible service shouldn't be rewarded :/

At my resteraunt the auto grat can be removed if the customer does not believe the waiter deserved it. One of my coworkers had the auto grat removed by the manager because the customer didn't think he did a decent job taking care of them. Still, more often than not the grat isn't argued and they understand that the grat is pretty much the way we make the hard work worthwhile. I had 2 tables tonight, with 9 people each time. I auto gratted both of them, and one of the tables left me an additional 6 dollars on top of the 18% grat.

 

[Diddy_King]

Where I work the waiting staff almost always get good tips. However, the bar staff don't. We took £2200 last night and got £7 in tips. That's .33% dammt!

Also where I work the barstaff gets a percentage of the waiters tips, just in case they have a bad night like you had last night. Though more often than not the bartenders do quite well and they make more because they get tip share from us too as well as what they get from their customers.

 

[Diddy_King]

$2 per hour does seem very low, i don't know what they exchange rates are but in the UK the minimum wage for anyone 18 or over is around £4-5 per hour.

Usually i don't tip, for a number of reasons.
1) Tipping culture not as major in Britain as it seems to be in the US
2) I'm a student, i don't have much money
3)I'm not expected to tip a shop assistant, a waiter should be no different.

...the problem with this post is your number 3...Waiters SHOULD be no different...Well waiters are different (at least here in America). That's like saying I don't look both ways while crossing an empty street, busy highways should be no different...

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Yeah, to me, everyone SHOULD be paid at least a fair minimum wage, however, until that happens, I think it's entirely fair to show appreciation of good service financially.

 

[Kif]

I will generally tip 10% if the service and food are worthy of a tip... however, if there's a service charge already on the bill then that negates my requirement to tip as far as I'm concerned.

Also in the UK waiters/waitresses earn more than you have cited so it's probably not such a big issue here.

 

[IronDuke]

I tip normally, but I never get tips myself. Being a cook sucks even more when the tips arent split between you and the wait-staff. I do most of the work and get nothing, and the waitresses get basically the same wage.

 

[TikiShades]

I guess I'd tip about 15%, but if I had a good job, or the waiter stood out as a better waiter, I'd tip 20% or more.

 

[Eleuthera]

I tend to tip about 10% rounded up or down to the nearest Euro (dollar, pound, whatever). However again as I'm not from the US, I only really tip if the service was adequate. And part of it also depends on what the total bill comes to (ie. a 63 euro bill will get 70, but so will a 67 euro bill, just bad luck for the waiter)

 

[Captain Pancake]

Me and my friend generally tip, about 15%. But whenever we go out with some other people of our age (16) they don't quite grasp the concept of rewarding good service. It wasn't because they were poor, it was just because they had no sense of etiquette.

 

[Octorok]

What country do you work in? I mean 2.18 an hour? if thas in the uk then its against minimum wage laws and if its U.S thats like £1.50 an hour. thats appalling. I'd say change jobs.
And i personally dont like tipping a waiter/waitress whatever. They are already getting paid to do the job, why should i pay them extra?

In the US if you are a waiter or waitress a restaurant can pay under minimum wage as long as the tips you earn bring your wage up to the minimum level, and if they don't the restaurant must pay the difference to bring it up to minimum. (This is how I have known it though it has been a couple years since I was last a waiter so feel free to correct me)

Shit! That's really, really low. No wonder the OP's pissed off.

I'm in the UK and unless the service was really good, I don't tip. At my local favourite family Italian restuarant, both of them in fact, the food is great, the atmosphere is lovely, the waiters know me and are prompt and often funny. I tip well there.

Anywhere else, I don't tip just because the waiters have been taught to expect tips. And if a "Service Charge" is included on my bill I will storm in the manager's office and inform him of how illegal it is to force me to tip an extra 15%, the bastard.

As for the US laws on tips, that's ludicrous. When I eat in America I will certainly tip you guys, as you are actually not getting the legal fucking minimum wage .

 

[Poomanchu745]

God everyone saything they don't tip because its not their job to pay the servers wages is completely and totally wrong. Most all waiters in America make around 2 dollars an hour and rely on tips to pay their wages. You are paying for a service that here in America requires a tip. If you don't like to tip then either don't eat out at an American restaurant or move to a different country. Its just the way our society is here in America that tipping really is not optional. If you are the type of person that just does not tip then you really need to stop eating out and probably realize that you are scum of the earth and probably have had someone spit in your food at one point.


Waiters remember who doesnt tip and treat them accordingly.

 

[Chipperz]

I only tip if I plan on becoming a regular, and it's mainly just the change that I get back after removing any notes.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry that American waiters get shafted, but I didn't get extra money for being yelled at by a customer because the shop next to ours had a lingere display withing eyeshot of my counter when I worked at Sainsbury's, and that was minimum wage, too so, uhh, diddums, get another job.

 

[xxcloud417xx]

Usually tip 10-15% as a base even if service wasn't the best. If the service was better then i go higher than that.

 

[VanityGirl]

My brother's a waiter and he doesn't complain about the 2-3 bucks an hour he get. He knows that being a waiter mean that you will live off of your tips.
My brother is also an excellent waiter and always makes what he needs.

 

[Quad08]

Depends on my waiter/waitress.
Bad service, such as waiting a hour for drink refills, means no tip. Good service, such as never having to worry about our drinks being refilled, means a good tip.
I don't go by percentages, I give what I have available in terms of cash/change.

 

[Worgen]

My thoughts on tips are this.

You did your job. Why do we give you more than your pay?

Do we tip the person who builds our house?

Do we tip the guy who fixes our appliances?

Probably not.

That said, minimun wage where I live is $8 an hour. Where are you working? That is ridiculously bad pay.

Also isn't it illegal to NOT pay employees minimum wage?

actualy when minimum wage laws are created restraunts get special exemptions that let them keep paying staff shit since its expected that they will be tipped, in some places they have started tacking on an additional 15% or so to bills to cover tips for ppl who dont tip but in most the staff is still dependent on a nice tip from a customer otherwise its possible to end a night in the red (its just unlikely)

yes this is in the US, everywhere in the US, the only food places that you dont have to worry about tips at is the fast food joints

 

[Destal]

My thoughts on tips are this.

You did your job. Why do we give you more than your pay?

Do we tip the person who builds our house?

Do we tip the guy who fixes our appliances?

Probably not.

That said, minimun wage where I live is $8 an hour. Where are you working? That is ridiculously bad pay.

Also isn't it illegal to NOT pay employees minimum wage?

No, they can pay you far less than minimum wage because it is expected that you will make enough in tips to cover it. Again, this is in America.

I used to be a waiter and every time someone stiffed me it really hurt my pocketbook for the night. My average tips were between 18-20%, but when you're making 2.13/hr every person that doesn't tip really hurts.

Also, where I worked you had to pay a % of your sales (3-5% depending on where I was working) to the buss boys and hosts, so if someone stiffed you, you literally lost money on that table because minimum wage sure as hell didn't cover the time invested.

 

[hungoverbear]

I have never met a waiter or waitress that loved their job, and its mostly because of the whole tip wage thing. What some of you dont understand that at 2.18 an hour, your salary completely depends on tips and thats when things get rocky. Say you have a slow month, well then you run a risk of not being able to pay your rent, car payments, utilities bill, ect. Just think about that next time you dont feel like tipping (but if its a shitty waiter then to hell with them.)

 

[Redingold]

I tip 10%, or 15% if the service was exceptional.