Tipping in restaurants

[WhatThe]

I would probably talk to the manager about it.

By all means do, thats what one is supposed to do.

I also am very edept at using social media and review sites. Put simply, they'll lose much more then my tip

But to completely cross the line with these threats is just beyond lame..It's vindictive and classless and is an indicator of someones demeanor, salt the earth mentality.
anyone that agrees with libel and slander because a student might be a little upset because the student counts on those tips to get them through school, well I think theyre jerks.

My orginal point in the first place in regards to this is that once one has showed themselves to be non tippers servers don't want them in their sections because like I said, between tip out and probably working only 2 or 3 hours, the money literally came out of their pocket.

*bleep* and complain all one wants about tip pooling, thats just the way it is.

[Roadster]

My orginal point in the first place in regards to this is that once one has showed themselves to be non tippers servers don't want them in their sections because like I said, between tip out and probably working only 2 or 3 hours, the money literally came out of their pocket.

*bleep* and complain all one wants about tip pooling, thats just the way it is.

Yes, use the guilt trip about the student and the system. Seriously tho if it's gonna cost you money to work somewhere why would you do it? You stated one time before that you were a career server, done it most of your life if I remember right?
This isn't just about students, it's about making tips and not making tips. How about the student works at a gas station? It's got no tips if I am right but then there isn't the cost of a cheap customer in yer face not tipping you either, you sign on for a wage as understood and you get yer money as you expect unless yer boss doesn't care for your work much and shorts you hours maybe. If everyone started looking for work at a better place the boss might consider coughing up some fair wages so tips are not costing his people from their pockets. Seems like some like the punishment. I would never work where I don't get what's promised, in full. Funny how this nice tipping thing of many years ago is now costing the workers. Shouldn't be happening. You all ban together and get a union and this will stop. Trust me. Hate unions, then pay out instead.

[GordonH]

What a person does or does not do with their money is no one business but that person themselves.

3 basic groups:
those who tip
those who don't/will never
those who do based on performance

No one on here will change any of the above peoples minds on they're tipping choices.

[Hmmm]

I was out to eat today, waitress dropped food off and never returned. I left $1 And I was never there before and I was in dress clothes plus I drive an expensive car parked out front. I would have left $0 but I wouldn't.

[underscore]

My orginal point in the first place in regards to this is that once one has showed themselves to be non tippers servers don't want them in their sections because like I said, between tip out and probably working only 2 or 3 hours, the money literally came out of their pocket.

*bleep* and complain all one wants about tip pooling, thats just the way it is.

So what, the servers don't want to do their job if they aren't getting paid obscenely to do it?

[fluffy]

My orginal point in the first place in regards to this is that once one has showed themselves to be non tippers servers don't want them in their sections because like I said, between tip out and probably working only 2 or 3 hours, the money literally came out of their pocket.

Although I understand where this line of thought comes from I can't agree with it in the least. Taking a tip for granted is over-entitlement in its worst form. Be grateful for the tips you do receive, but if you don't get a tip, or get a tip that isn't to your satisfaction, suck it up and do your job or quit.

[Bsuds]

I was out to eat today, waitress dropped food off and never returned. I left $1 And I was never there before and I was in dress clothes plus I drive an expensive car parked out front. I would have left $0 but I wouldn't.

$1 is too much, you should have left a penny (rounded up to a nickle if you didn't have one)

Maybe she would have figured it out.

[tcha]

What a person does or does not do with their money is no one business but that person themselves.

3 basic groups:
those who tip
those who don't/will never
those who do based on performance

No one on here will change any of the above peoples minds on they're tipping choices.

Actually that's not true. We fall into the category of people who tip. But reading this thread and doing some 'online research' makes me think.

We tip simply because we take it to be social custom, that wait staff get paid well below minimum wage and sometimes even not and are expected to supplement their wages with tips.
However, from what I'm reading now it seems that in Canada wait staff have to be paid at least minimum wage i.e. a restaurant owner cannot pay a waitress $2 per hour. Please let me know if this is not true.

Secondly we typically tip without thinking, minimum 15% (we include drinks but exclude taxes). We tip the server who gave us good service the same way as we tip others though and this is what I'd like to change. Just two examples within the last year alone:
* the young lady who brought us a tuna dish with no tuna at the Earls downtown and when I mentioned it to her, she smiled and said 'aww' and walked off. We came to the conclusion after multiple visits that the wait staff at that establishment serve a more decorative than practical purpose.
* the waitress at the Cedar Creek restaurant who was surly & grumpy the entire meal - we were trying to celebrate our wedding anniversary with a nice lunch. The food was good but the service cast a pall - it wasn't very nice when you're hesitant to ask for your water glass to be refilled in case she snarled (also considering in a fine dining establishment she should have refilled it without us even having to point it out, but I digress). She cheered up when she saw our tip though, started smiling and chatting and walked us to the exit. I guess her service was dependent on the tip and unfortunately since we tipped at the end of the meal, she then provided what service she could at that point - smiling and following us to the exit

However, I realize that we shouldn't be doing this. People can and do change their minds.

I think someone who gives us great service deserves a decent tip but not say in the two cases above.
What would be a suitable tip in cases like described above? Would appreciate some advice from someone who works in the industry. Especially when the food is good and the server is the one at fault - why should the cooks not get paid because of her behavior? How can you tip in such a way that others are not penalized?

[Roadster]

The problem is the tips now go to all involved in the establishment, and as was said earlier on even to the owners in some cases,,, shared to all,,,, So,,,

If the server is the problem then leaving no tip makes am all do without... Well kind of, there is this protection thing called "tip out". Now this is where the server has to "tip out" meaning he/she pays out of pocket to the rest on any tips not made in calculation with what was sold that day,,, hmmm that still makes me wired,,, anyway. This might be where a server accuses us of "costing" them money by sitting in their booth,,, hmmm.

Now if the food was crappy the cook should be penalized but again if the server was great then again they (the server) will still have to pay out of pocket on the "tip out" thing at the end of the day. Protects the cook and any other tipster divers in the place.

Tips should be for the server, owners should get none and the cook is already paid more then the server so IMO the server should get a tip according to his/her service (not on percentage) and if none then so beit,,, they do without. If the rest of the establishment can't get along with their wages as are then they should step out front except those lower wages and earn a tip pounding the floor like the rest of the servers.

Seems like it's become a protection package for the other peeps who get to take a percentage of the tips and if not enough then what the server pays out at the end of the day.

Seems tips have become a social norm at some time it became a guaranteed income for others off the server's back. Bad server,,, no tip,,, good server awesome tip,,, that's how it should be. Can't live off a cook's wages then become a roofer or something else. Want tips then work where they became a gift for a good service in the face of the public, at the tables.

You go to a nice hotel,,, do you tip the desk person who signed you in or do you tip the guy who carried your luggage to your room?

I sure have changed my thinking on this tipping thing and it isn't for the better of the establishments,,, kinda makes me wanna eat at home more often because I can't tip the one who did the job anymore,,, I have no control over where my money goes now.

[twofingers]

..

Why Tipping Should Be Outlawed
It was the coat check tips that did it, back when I was working for a restaurant company and became friendly with a woman who staffed one of our hostess stations. It felt strange and demeaning to go from chatting about our weekend plans one minute to pressing a couple of sweaty bills into her hand in exchange for my coat the next. But to abstain would be even worse - it would mean neglecting my contribution to a pool of money that I knew comprised her income. I get the feeling she wasn't too keen on the power dynamics, either.

The friendships I've formed with restaurant employees over the years have made me think seriously about why hospitality workers are singled out among America's professionals to endure a pass-the-hat system of compensation. Why should a server's pay depend upon the generosity - not to mention dubious arithmetic skills - of people like me?

So I was thrilled to hear that New York City's Sushi Yasuda recently decided to eliminate tipping altogether. Including gratuity for parties of six or more has already become relatively commonplace; in a few restaurants, like Thomas Keller's Per Se and The French Laundry, it's automatically added onto all checks. But Yasuda has gone one step further, dispensing with service as a separate line item - and implicitly, an "extra" - and folding it into their prices as a cost of doing business, along with the rent, and electricity, and ingredients.

If I had my way, we'd take this idea to its logical conclusion and get rid of the practice of tipping altogether. Just outlaw it. Here's why:

1. People don't even understand what a tip is

If you are of the belief that a tip is an optional kindness you're doing for your server, you might be surprised to hear that you are not in France. Here in America, the practice is voluntary only in the legal sense of the word. You are not technically stealing if you don't tip the customary 15 to 20 percent, but that's probably the best that can be said of you. The tip you pay is a sort of wage: federal law allows tips to be used to make up the difference between a server's salary and minimum wage, meaning they can make as little as $2 to $3 per hour from their restaurant employer. Tips are absolutely depended upon to make up the shortfall.

Plus: The Most Life-Changing BBQ Ribs

When you leave a bad tip, you are docking a person's wages. This may either be because you're confused about what's expected or because you're an *bleep*, and you really believe that your sea bass arriving lukewarm is justly punishable by making it a little harder for the guy who brought it to you to pay his rent.

2. Doctors don't live on tips. Nor do flight attendants.

Tip confusion is understandable, because it's not the way we choose to compensate most of our other people-facing professions. Imagine if when you went to the doctor, you decided how much he got paid based on how happy you were with the diagnosis; or if actors and musicians were paid discretionary sums by the audience, post-performance. Even within the context of the restaurant, some roles receive salaries and others rely on tips. Why do I tip the bartender who made my Manhattan, but not the line cook who grilled the excellent steak I'm eating with it? It's completely arbitrary. Servers, whose job demands are not fundamentally different than that of hard-working office assistants, or hotel concierges, or spin instructors, or flight attendants, should be paid the competitive wage for what they do and how well they do it, and that cost should be factored into menu prices.

3. The percentage basis makes no sense

Did a server work less because I ordered a $40 bottle of wine than if I had ordered a $400 one? Should I feel a little bit bad when I'm a party of three on a table for four, as the waiter is getting stiffed on 25 percent of his or her optimal tip? Is it less hard to work at a roadside diner than Le Bernardin, where the check averages are approximately ten times higher? (Although that one isn't entirely fair; a place like Le Bernardin is dividing the tip among a much larger staff).

4. Better service doesn't actually beget better tips


Diners love the power to bestow or withhold financial reward at their whim; servers, in turn, seem to be motivated by the idea that really excellent service could be rewarded by a monster gratuity. The trouble is, that's not actually how things pan out in practice. Michael Lynn, a professor at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, has spent his career researching tipping behaviors, and found that perceived service quality only accounts for two percent of the variation between tips. Two percent! It's probably not even enough to be picked up on by the server, much less cause a significant change in behavior.
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5. It perpetuates racism and sexism

Lynn's research also shows that tip amounts are affected by racial and gender discrimination. Female servers get larger tips than male servers; sexy women earn more than frumpy ones; white servers, more money than their black counterparts - regardless of what the perceived quality of service is. The system works the other way, too. Black diners tip less on average than do white diners, and research shows that servers provide black diners with inferior service as a result. The tipping system catches us all in a regressive cesspool of our own worst prejudices.

6. Smart people have been trying to end the tipping practice for a century

Backlashes against the tipping practice are not new. There was an anti-tipping movement at the beginning of the 20th century amongst Americans who saw it as an aristocratic holdover contrary to the country's democratic ideals. Between 1909 and 1915 six states passed anti-tipping laws, all of which were repealed by the mid-1920's as unenforceable or potentially unconstitutional. Samuel Gompers, who founded the AFL, was one political figure notably outspoken against tipping as promoting detrimental class distinctions.

But despite all this, the country as a whole has been loath to abandon the tipping convention. If knowing all of the above, you still balk at the idea of a service charge being rolled into the cost of your meal, maybe you should ask yourself why this is. Are you unwilling to participate in what a restaurant judges to be the fair, market-rate compensation for its employees? Do you think that you are a pawn in a nefarious plot by management to grossly over-reward servers, those men and women who are on their feet for eight hours, ferrying your drinks and foods to and fro? Do you believe that you are in a better position than the restaurant manager to motivate and evaluate his or her staff and make the complicated decisions about compensation and employment?

If yes, can I march into your office and adjust your pay depending on how well you do in our meeting? Or - more accurately - depending on your skin color, your breast size, or your age? Well, of course not, is the answer to that one. Because that would be barbaric.

[oneh2obabe]

Link - some interesting comments.
http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/blogs/shine-f ... 00020.html

[Roadster]

That link looks like what we just read above 1H2, anyway here is my thoughts,,, a tip could become a note of appreciation for the server. If they dont like that cos their boss isnt paying enough to cover rent and such then they will be quickly encouraged to look for better paying places to work or better yet a better job choice.

Or here is another thought, ten dollar gift cards for the good server,,,, timmies, something towards clothing,,, boss cant have it, cook cant have it and your server benifits by being able to save ten bucks on their next shopping experience,,, wow, what a load of cards a good server would have in their pocket, hahahaha. Hey, how about Canadian Tire bucks for the male servers? A young male server could buy his dad a riding lawn mower before he is 25 years old,,, verrrrry cool,,,, :0

[Glacier]

..

Why Tipping Should Be Outlawed

Excellent post!

I can't remember if I've posted this video before, but it is an interesting TED talk on this very subject:

[Glacier]

If you support tipping, you're a racist.

[averagejoe]

Good God! What next! So many victims....

Divide and conquer....always bring the past up...move on. This is 2018. Not 1865.