AltaGuy has a magnetic personality and exudes positive energy, which is infectious to those around him. He has an unparalleled ability to communicate with people, whether he is speaking to a room of three or an arena of 30,000.
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: At le pub...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nage Waza
The only question I ask is why doesn't their employer pay their wages, why am I stuck in the middle, and are they paying their fair share of taxes?
Anytime I am paying for a service, I certainly have a reasonable assumption I can pass judgement. Not rudely or anything, but it is reasonable. I haven't really seen what you are accusing people of in this thread.
We would be better off with no tipping. Let employers pay the correct wages, charge the correct amounts, and everyone pays their taxes.
LOL at the power part, wth.
Of course you can pass judgement - in the same way you do any time you get something you don't like - go somewhere else next time. Complain if you want or write a bad review.
The problem is that restaurants have zero incentive to pay fair wages and increase prices: they'll have less customers with higher prices, they'll have trouble hiring good staff, they'll pay higher payroll taxes, and they'll have higher costs than competitors. So it just won't happen. Every restaurant that tries it gives up on it very quickly. There have been many.
So the next obvious solution would be to tack on a "service fee" to every bill, which should be the same as increasing wages and increasing prices. But people hate that - they don't get to use the tip to pass judgement as it's no longer discretionary and so any type of automatic gratuity is just absolutely hated. Aside from very high-end places, or for large groups where this has become the norm because of cheapskates, businesses that have gone the service fee route also quickly give up on it.
And why I say this is about power: because every restaurant and bar that tries to be fair to employees and remove tipping has almost the same experience. The biggest reason they have to go back to tipping is that in our culture tipping has created an entitlement to use that extra little bit of money on a bill to pass judgement, good or bad. The customers who complain the most are often those that want to tip the most: can't get the pretty waitress's number without tipping and also can't pay a proper compliment to their level of attractiveness; can't complain about the ranch dressing properly without withholding the tip.
My view is this: if people stop thinking about tipping as optional, or something to be adjusted based on satisfaction with a server, we'd slowly be able to ween ourselves away from this crappy model. Just tip 15% every time and don't think about where that money goes or why you should or shouldn't tip in the circumstances. Then places could succeed with the service fee model and eventually just increase wages and do away with tipping altogether. Until then, tip when and what you're supposed to and just factor it into all restaurant and bar costs without adjusting up or down.
That raising the minimum wage brought on this conversation at all is an example of this: tipping has made everyone think they should be an arbiter of what servers should be paid without knowing anything else aside from that the minimum wage has increased. There is an assumption food prices will increase, maybe drink prices, maybe servers will make more money, or maybe better service will be enjoyed by all because it will become more lucrative and competitive. Who knows? I generally don't make a lot of assumptions about what goes on behind the scenes at my grocery store or gas station: restaurants and bars should be no different.
I had served a table of about a dozen people. I was attentive, and everything went well. They all paid separately and as I rang each card through, I was disappointed in the lack of tipping. The table was around $4-$500 dollars and after tipout I went home with around $10. (Bad tips, but still about $5/hour) The last guy to pay told me that they were the lottery winners in the controversial A&W group that made national headlines.
There were times when I had to pay to serve people, but I also had a guy give me $50 for getting him cigarettes once. There are some bad/non-tippers, but the rest of the time more than makes up for it. It was hard work, but you'd be hard pressed to find a job that pays that well without any education.
AltaGuy has a magnetic personality and exudes positive energy, which is infectious to those around him. He has an unparalleled ability to communicate with people, whether he is speaking to a room of three or an arena of 30,000.
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: At le pub...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mrkajz44
Haha - yeah, that's exactly what I thought. If you include a mandatory tip on the bill, does the waiter / waitress expect even more than what I was forced to pay?
And not calling the guy a liar, but I've never seen a restaurant that applies less than 15% (usually 18%) mandatory tip on large groups - so I'm guessing he got closer to $750 than $500 as the mandatory tip.
It's just funny that lots of these "sob stories" from wait staff generally paint them in a negative light as they tend to not fully think though how the story will be perceived. "I got a mandatory $500+ tip and then the guy gave me an extra $2! Can you believe it??"
Pretty sure you're all reading the story incorrectly: probably more like 4 or 5 people served the group in question, and had to tip-out on the total bill amount anywhere from 2 to 8 percent. The server expected that - as 10% is lower than customary - most people would at least increase that to 15%.
Companies such as SkipTheDishes and Uber better increase their payouts to drivers soon, or else people will rather work at McDonald's and make more money flipping burgers and scrubbing toilets...
on topic question, as I've been out of hospitality for quite some time.
when I was in the business, the places I worked at had the tip out as a percentage of tips, not a percentage of my ring out. required the honor system, but it worked well.
is it now generally the percentage of your ring out?
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Last edited by CaptainYooh; 01-24-2018 at 03:20 PM.
Pretty sure you're all reading the story incorrectly: probably more like 4 or 5 people served the group in question, and had to tip-out on the total bill amount anywhere from 2 to 8 percent. The server expected that - as 10% is lower than customary - most people would at least increase that to 15%.
Tipping makes us all judge and jury I guess.
That story has to be from the 90's though. No way any restaurant in the past 10 years has had ht default for large groups at 10%. It's up to 18% everywhere I have noticed.
You gotta chuckle at cheapskates who are calling for an end to tipping. With our current model, their food and drink are being subsidized by generous tippers. Get rid of tipping, add 15% to the price of everything, and it's the tight-fisted who will lose out.
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Originally Posted by fotze
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The few times I go out to eat I find the food quality gets worse each year, the prices are higher than the last time and I’m forced to tip good service or bad.
Servers have probably realized there’s no reason to make an effort, they’ll get tipped anyway. That’s the problem.
Gone are the days where you would tip for a server going above and beyond.
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AltaGuy has a magnetic personality and exudes positive energy, which is infectious to those around him. He has an unparalleled ability to communicate with people, whether he is speaking to a room of three or an arena of 30,000.
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: At le pub...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
That story has to be from the 90's though. No way any restaurant in the past 10 years has had ht default for large groups at 10%. It's up to 18% everywhere I have noticed.
That’s a compromise the restaurant attempted to make - I’ve seen it often. Autograts get a lot of flack, so making it lower protects servers from the “$100 is a huge tip on a $2,000 bill” crowd but still gives customers a little choice. Also tries to encourage bigger tippers to tip above and beyond what might be on the autograt.
Autograts are a constant source of headache for restaurants: people often complain about the minutest of details when forced to tip.
One of the biggest reasons I left hospitality was how seriously everybody takes it.
From the customer's perspective here's what's happening:
You're asking for some food, then that food is brought to you, and then you eat it.
From the restaurant's perspective:
Someone asks for some food, you make them that food, they eat the food, they pay you for the food.
And yet, if any tiny thing goes even slightly awry in that process, everyone gets legitimately upset. Customers will be actually emotionally invested in the fact that someone's food arrived at the table six minutes after someone else's food. Servers will get actually honestly furious at each other over whether the utensils, glassware, and flatware is properly polished and presented. Chefs will loose their ever-loving minds over the preparation of ingredients. Like, actually really mad, genuinely feeling these unpleasant, exhausting emotions over the making, serving, and eating of food.
It's ridiculous, the whole thing is ridiculous. The longer I worked hospitality the less I could muster up the energy to care. Oh, your delicious, cooked-to-perfection, pork chop arrived in front of your idiot face seventeen minutes after you ordered it instead of twelve? I do not care at all and yet, I was being paid to care. Clearly the wrong job for me.
No one should ever be mad in a restaurant. Not the employees, not the customers. Getting upset over eating is just absurd to me now.
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You gotta chuckle at cheapskates who are calling for an end to tipping. With our current model, their food and drink are being subsidized by generous tippers. Get rid of tipping, add 15% to the price of everything, and it's the tight-fisted who will lose out.
You've clearly never left the continent. NA is pretty much the only place that tips. It seems to work just fine everywhere else on Earth. But yeah, call me cheap. That must be the reason I don't like the concept. It could not have anything to do with all of the obvious reasons such as simplicity of transactions, staff getting paid a normal wage, and taxes being paid.
Why does questioning a unique thing like this equate to being cheap? It's not like I tip the person at the shoe store because he or she keeps running to the back to get me another pair that I want to try on. Why aren't they being tipped? Probably because they are working for whatever wage they're working for, and that's that. Yet there's this one industry where they're paid below minimum wage, and then the customer makes up the difference with arbitrary decision making.
I don't see why either party likes it, to be honest. But hey, why discuss when you've already decided that since I think the whole concept is flawed, it just means I'm cheap. Good talk.
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Of course you can pass judgement - in the same way you do any time you get something you don't like - go somewhere else next time. Complain if you want or write a bad review.
Yet a post or two back you made it seem like it is the wrong thing to do or something. I am confused.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AltaGuy
The problem is that restaurants have zero incentive to pay fair wages and increase prices: they'll have less customers with higher prices, they'll have trouble hiring good staff, they'll pay higher payroll taxes, and they'll have higher costs than competitors. So it just won't happen. Every restaurant that tries it gives up on it very quickly. There have been many.
I think you are stating the obvious...we don't like the current model and really haven't offered any ideas on how to move the system to a no tip model. It may be too late. Not sure what you are debating. The fact though is that servers (or ex servers) seem to feel strongly about the existing model, versus getting paid by their employer. The only reason offered for that in this thread is the tax free earnings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AltaGuy
So the next obvious solution would be to tack on a "service fee" to every bill, which should be the same as increasing wages and increasing prices. But people hate that - they don't get to use the tip to pass judgement as it's no longer discretionary and so any type of automatic gratuity is just absolutely hated. Aside from very high-end places, or for large groups where this has become the norm because of cheapskates, businesses that have gone the service fee route also quickly give up on it.
A service fee to eat somewhere? LOL. Again, people being called cheapskates. Focus your energy on the employers, they are the ones not paying enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AltaGuy
And why I say this is about power: because every restaurant and bar that tries to be fair to employees and remove tipping has almost the same experience. The biggest reason they have to go back to tipping is that in our culture tipping has created an entitlement to use that extra little bit of money on a bill to pass judgement, good or bad. The customers who complain the most are often those that want to tip the most: can't get the pretty waitress's number without tipping and also can't pay a proper compliment to their level of attractiveness; can't complain about the ranch dressing properly without withholding the tip.
I don't agree with the power bit, the judgement bit or the section on the server's attractiveness. Seriously, WTF? Just stop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AltaGuy
My view is this: if people stop thinking about tipping as optional, or something to be adjusted based on satisfaction with a server, we'd slowly be able to ween ourselves away from this crappy model. Just tip 15% every time and don't think about where that money goes or why you should or shouldn't tip in the circumstances. Then places could succeed with the service fee model and eventually just increase wages and do away with tipping altogether. Until then, tip when and what you're supposed to and just factor it into all restaurant and bar costs without adjusting up or down.
This is so crazy. People should simply hand their money over? And that will solve the problem? This thread has descended into madness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AltaGuy
That raising the minimum wage brought on this conversation at all is an example of this: tipping has made everyone think they should be an arbiter of what servers should be paid without knowing anything else aside from that the minimum wage has increased. There is an assumption food prices will increase, maybe drink prices, maybe servers will make more money, or maybe better service will be enjoyed by all because it will become more lucrative and competitive. Who knows? I generally don't make a lot of assumptions about what goes on behind the scenes at my grocery store or gas station: restaurants and bars should be no different.
Too bad you don't pay attention to those things, you probably should (and I actually don't believe you).
The scam for years is that the tip pays the server's bills because the restaurant won't. Not sure how we got suckered for that for so long. Now that the restaurant has increased the pay, the customer should be less on the hook for the server's bills as it has fallen back on their employer's shoulders - just like any other job.
I tip pretty high and eat out frequently. The subject is not isolated to those that cannot afford it, cheapskates and perverts. We are free to criticize how we spend our money and to criticize social pressures to behave a certain way when we see massive holes.
As long as you tip based on quality as opposed to tip based on obligation you are reinforcing the power structure and making people dance for your pleasure.
Try tipping a flat rate the next 5 or 6 times you go out. It's a freeing process. You eat, you enjoy the food, you pay, you leave. You no longer need to convert your enjoyment into a numerical value where you pass judgement on the value of the person and they pass judgement on you. The process sucks.
Flat tip and free yourself from the burden of choicr
You've clearly never left the continent. NA is pretty much the only place that tips. It seems to work just fine everywhere else on Earth. But yeah, call me cheap. That must be the reason I don't like the concept. It could not have anything to do with all of the obvious reasons such as simplicity of transactions, staff getting paid a normal wage, and taxes being paid.
Have you? Because in first-world countries that don't have tipping, eating out is more expensive. In the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, people don't go out to eat nearly as often as they do in North America. Part of that is everything is more expensive - rent, food, labour. Part of it is because the tip is built into the bill.
I'm fine with doing away with tipping. But the only people who will pay less under a no-tipping model are the people who are currently tipping very generously.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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Have you? Because in first-world countries that don't have tipping, eating out is more expensive. In the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, people don't go out to eat nearly as often as they do in North America. Part of that is everything is more expensive - rent, food, labour. Part of it is because the tip is built into the bill.
I'm fine with doing away with tipping. But the only people who will pay less under a no-tipping model are the people who are currently tipping very generously.
I think wages remain the same so incomes of servers drop in the short term overall prices drop. You would never pay someone $50 per hour for a Friday night shift. Over time wages would rise in restaurants that want to provide a service. So BPs probably would still pay like crap but Rouge likely pays more.
I would expect more differentiation in price changes under a no tip model.
Have you? Because in first-world countries that don't have tipping, eating out is more expensive. In the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, people don't go out to eat nearly as often as they do in North America. Part of that is everything is more expensive - rent, food, labour. Part of it is because the tip is built into the bill.
I'm fine with doing away with tipping. But the only people who will pay less under a no-tipping model are the people who are currently tipping very generously.
How does advocating for higher prices make someone a cheapskate though?
