Bad tippers.

The BBQ Pit
1

This is not quite a rant, more trying to understand this mentality.

So, I am currently a waitress as I finish up school. Generally, I enjoy my job and my coworkers and don’t actually dread going to work. Plus, it pays the bills.

But I, obviously, get really pissed about bad tippers. In some cases, when we’re really busy or understaffed, I know I haven’t been as attentive to tables, and their food hasn’t gotten out as fast as it should, and I don’t get really mad about getting 12-15% on those tables. What I don’t understand is the appallingly bad tippers when I give good to excellent service.

Here’s a few examples. The other day, 2 young men came in for lunch. We weren’t busy, so they got their food quickly, I kept their drinks refilled, and everything went smoothly. They got separate checks: one totalled $22 and change, the other $25 and change.

I got $2 from one, $2.25 from the other. :eek: That’s right, less than 10%.

Same thing happened last night. A family of four. Not particularly busy, so they got good service. Their bill was $48 and change. The guy paid with a $100 bill, so it’s not like he didn’t have the money. And again, $4. Less than 10%.

It happens a lot with foreign people, and although it upsets me, I understand that they don’t understand American tipping. And old people tend to be pretty bad tippers on the whole, mostly because they refuse to tip more than 15%, and when they do the math they end up rounding down so their tips are often more like 13%.

But could someone please explain this bad tipping mentality to me? I thought that your average American understood that waitresses get paid $4.19 an hour (they just raised it, woo) and cannot make ends meet without your tips. I also thought that everyone knew that 15-20% is considered the standard tip for good serice. So WTF is up with people who are tipping less than 10%?

I recall a letter in Dear Abby or similar where a man had recently gone out to eat and he’d gotten to thinking. He estimated that his waitress had, say, 6 tables during the hour he was eating there. Say everyone tipped her $5-$8. She’d be making $30-48 an hour! Why, that was more than he made, why should she make so much? IIRC Abby (or whoever) took him to task. Not only is waitressing stressful, sweaty, and difficult, you also have to take into account the assholes that don’t tip, or leave a dollar. Or the hours when there’s only one or two (or sometimes NO) tables, like at 3 in the afternoon. Or the hour or two you spend opening or closing the restaurant, when you’re only making $4.19.

So does every bad tipper think like this? You’re a lowly waitress, but you’re making sooo much money :rolleyes:, so I’m not going to tip you because I know you made like 50 bajillion dollars.

2

There are probably still some people who don’t understand this, and there are others who do, but figure that it’s not their problem. And, while I do think everyone should give at least the standard tip, I can understand the viewpoint. There’s something wrong with a system where you’re obligated to give someone what should be sort of a gift, and where you’re looked down on if said gift isn’t big enough. Not that this is the fault of the people making less than minimum wage, but some people decide to opt out of what is supposed to be a voluntary system. They see waitstaff as the restaurant’s responsibility instead of seeing them as a sort of quasi-employee of the customer. Then, of course there are the people who don’t have a problem with tipping practices- they’re just cheap.

3

You might find some of this information interesting.

4

OMG! Thanks for that link. Lots of intersting info, and I really did not know that people studied this sort of thing. I didn’t want to turn this into some VCO3 “Why are black people bad tippers” thread, but the majority of my really crappy tips have been from African-Americans, and according to one of those studies, they do tend to be bad tippers, and also are less likely to know that 15-20% is standard. Hmm…

Anyway, back to reading.

5

You only make $4 an hour? Isn’t that below federal minimum wage? I never knew that.

I’m usually a 15-20 tipper, but a lot of people I know think 10% is barely acceptable and 15% is way too much. It’s called being frugal. They’re not technically “obligated” to tip you and so some don’t. It’s not always about your performance… just luck of the draw at times.

Ever considered working for a more expensive restaurant?

6

I used to have a friend who I hated going out to restaurants with, because I always had to tip extra to pick up the slack for him. He would say, “I don’t tip based on the bill. I tip based on how much work I make them do.” Which meant, from his perspective, that he could leave $2 on just about any tab. I should have seen this as an indicator of his true personality, as he later turned out to be a pretty major league asshole.

I think some people don’t understand that the restaurant (in many places, not all states have the same laws) isn’t even paying the server minimum wage.

I think some people don’t understand that you have to pay for service somehow, and if tipping weren’t the norm, there would be a service charge added on to every bill, or the prices of every item on the menu would be three or four bucks higher (at least).

And I think some people are just plain cheap. To them I say that you’re not expected to tip the clown’s mouth.

7

In many states (though not all - I know California is a notable exception), there is a law that essentially allows employers to pay lower wages to tipped employees. If an employee can reasonably be expected to make a certain percentage of their total income in tips, the employer is allowed to pay less than minimum wage. The money the employer pays to the server usually winds up going directly to taxes. It is common - in fact, I would say, standard - for servers to receive “paychecks” of $0 (because employers are required by law to give their employees a check with a report of income and taxes and such). That is to say that every dime a server takes home to pay the rent and buy groceries and such comes from their tips.

8

People don’t owe you a 15-20% tip. In fact, until fairly recently (last 15 years or so) 10% was considered customary. For good service. Zilch for lousy service. perhaps some of those people who tip a mere 10% haven’t heard that they’re now expected to pay more. And some people are just tired of the fact that it seems there are tip jars out for every service-oriented business out there.

For the record, I generally double the sales tax, which in my state is 9.75%. So that’s about 20% of the pre-tax bill. But a gratuity is still a voluntary thing.

StG

9

Yes, minimum wage for servers is $4.19 an hour. It was $3.77 until January of this year. (Nothing against you, Reply, but you really didn’t know that?)

Also, keep in mind that restaurants with hostesses and bus boys often require the servers to pay a percentage of their sales to said hostesses/bus boys (called a tip-out). So I have to pay 3% of my total sales (NOT tips) to my coworkers because they only make 4 bucks an hour too. So if you tip me 8%, I actually only take home 5. Also, on the couple of times I have gotten completely stiffed, that means I had to pay 3% of the cost of that ticket out of my own pocket.

And Reply, I understand that people are not legally obligated to tip, but it is a norm. You are expected to make up the difference between my hourly wage and a living wage. As The Superhero points out, the server needs to be compensated for his or her efforts somehow. That’s either 1) tipping 2) automatic gratuity or 3) higher menu prices. So those “frugal” people are, IMO, complete assholes for tipping poorly.

10

I don’t know where you’re from, but I ate out alone for the very first time about 15 years ago, when my family was on vacation (I was 11, got to go to the hotel restaurant all alone!) And my parents were very careful to explain I must tip the server 15%, even to the point of giving me helpful tips on how to figure out said 15%.

And a few years later, when I started eating out regularly, I had heard that 20% was becoming the standard, so I immediately started tipping 20%, because 1) I know that servers don’t make shit and 2) it’s easier to figure out than 15.

I don’t buy it that so many people haven’t heard that 15-20% is the standard.

And, on those tip jars, yes, they are annoying, especially at businesses where the employees are making a fair wage. But servers don’t. Hence why I will call you an asshole when I walk into the kitchen.

11

Let’s see if I can help you understand the randomness of it all:

When I was a child, the standard was to tip 10%. Because it’s a percentage, when the price of food went up, the tips went up. Everything followed cost of living. Then the standard went to 15%. Basically, servers got a huge raise. These days, many servers get grumpy about anything less than 20%. So the price of food has gone up along with the cost of living, but the server’s piece of it has doubled. As a bartender or waitress, you’re making double (adjusted for inflation) the tips you would have made 50 years ago. There’s one reason old folks tend to tip less.

Some owners of restaurants have taken advantage of this. Used to be, the servers were underpaid and the customers made it up with tips. As the servers’ piece of the pie increased, some restaurant owners have taken to dropping the wages of the kitchen staff and making the servers split tips with them.

So what’s a customer to do? If I walk into a restaurant here in Montana, my server is getting at least $6.90/hour. Another one, just an hour away in Wyoming, the server may be getting as little as $4.19. Should I tip higher in Wyoming than I do in Montana? What if I’m in a sales tax state (we have no sales tax here)? Am I expected to calculate the tip after sales tax? Should you get 9% higher tips if you’re in a high-sales-tax state?

Should I check on tip splitting policies at the door? If your restaurant doesn’t split tips, I shouldn’t stiff you on the tip because my food was prepared badly. But if you are splitting tips with the cook, I should reduce the tip, right?

If the entire waitstaff is pooling tips, then tipping you well for your great service is subsidizing the lazy waitress who gets no tips because she gives poor service.

It’s very complex and has deep ramifications. Laws vary from state to state and even individual towns can have statutes affecting servers’ pay.

My personal reaction to it all is to pay a 15% base and adjust it up or down based on the service I get. But even that is complex. What if my waiter provides lousy service, the guy with the coffee pot and iced-tea pitcher is fantastic or the bartender is giving great pours? Who am I tipping? In cases like that, I’ve been known to give the waiter a low tip and slip the kid with the iced tea a five on the side.

Just for the record, it’s illegal to pay a waitress that little in some places - like where I live. The minimum wage applies to servers in Montana.

12

I am 51 and over 30 years ago, when I started dates to restaurants, 15% was considered customary, 20% in an upscale restaurant (a friend’s mother used the rule of thumb of 20% in a “white tablecloth” restaurant).

13

I’m 50, so I started noticing what was happening on restaurant bills in about 1970. The standard was 10% there (in Colorado).

14

At lot more than 15 years – a 15% tip was considered usual as long as I’ve been going out to dinner and paying for myself, so that would put it as standard since at least 1970.

I usually round up from 15% for service. That, BTW, is 15% before any discounts; if it’s a “buy one get one” deal, it’s 15% of what the meal would cost without the discount. I’ve gone up to 20% if it were really good service. 10% for poor service, but I can only think of one time when I considered that step.

15

I recently read the book “Waiter Rant” and one thing that really confuses me is this:

On one hand, waitstaff complain about lousing tipping and how they only make $2/hour. On the other hand, waitstaff say that can make $200/night on a good night and that they are waiting tables because the money is so good.

So which is it?

16

It depends on the place.

17

This is true, but in many places the “below minimum wage” legal wage for servers has not kept pace proportionally with the minimum wage. So in that respect, the customers are paying more, and the restaurant owners less, toward that final wage. So one reason people might be less willing to tip in the way that servers would like is that they resent being compelled to make up this gap for cheap owners. (Customers would pay for it one way or another, but I’m talking about perception.)

Many customers, including myself, who have never worked in the business also have unrealistic ideas about what servers make based on such notions as “waiters don’t pay taxes on everything they earn.” Maybe before the proliferation of debit cards, this was true. Back then, I had server friends who would urge me to not put tips on my credit card because then “the server will have to pay taxes on it.” These days, I don’t think it’s such an issue.

Waiters and waitresses also make such a big deal out of tips, with open displays of anger and so forth, that people sometimes perceive them to have a false sense of entitlement. My own perceptions and views on all this have changed considerably since I started dating a restaurant manager. While waitresses may seem overly obsessed with tips to the exclusion of actually paying attention to their jobs, it’s because they really *need *that money, not because they’re greedy.

Like redrosesforme, I have a hard time buying that so many people really don’t know what’s customary. I also have a hard time with the “Europeans don’t understand tipping” thing. I realize they don’t generally tip in Europe, but since when are Europeans with the means to travel that unsophisticated? When I was 22, I traveled to Europe and managed to find out all sorts of neat information from travel books before I even arrived.

18

Both. If you’re at a good restaurant and you can pick and choose your shifts, then you can make good money for a short amount of work. But most servers don’t have that luxury. The turnover is high and many people get stuck working lousy shifts such as the Sunday after church crowd or Monday nights.

19

Here’s an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal that shows tips are indeed going up on average: Tipping Point: What It Takes to Make Your Waiter Like You - WSJ

20

I have been serving for about 15 years now (on and off). Yes, some shifts are better than others. What I haved learned is to try to not get down (read pissed) about a crappy tip. Shake it off and have a positive attitude about your next table. You will be surprised. There are some tables that run me relentlessly and leave me what I would consider a low or bad tip. OTOH, there have been tables that are so easy and they wind up tipping me really well. With the economy doing not so well, I have found my tips to be less than they were, oh, say six months ago. I see it as a challenge. Always smile (sounds trite, but it works!), be proactive with your tables, anticipate what your guest might want and get it (before they ask), and try to talk/joke/laugh with your customers (where appropriate). There will always be bad tippers, but you always give excellent service. You will develop thicker skin the more you do it. Good luck to you! Don’t give up–it is a good paying job.