C3 sed:
Ok OK ( this is my last pledge dammit) I pledge not only to give at least 15% from now on… but to go back and tip the other $3.50 to my waitress. ook? alright already.
“I’m the best there is Fats. Even if you beat me, I’m still the best.”
(Paul Newman in The Hustler)
[cheesy Budwiser voice] You da man, aha![/cheesy Budwiser voice]
You earned mucho respect points from me as a result of this thread. Not that should mean smegma from a rat’s nutsack to you, but it is true nonetheless.
Oh shit, I almost forgot where I was…forgive my Pitiquette.
You da man, you low-tippin’ motherfucker!
Sorry, should have clarified, the total amount we earned was less. Wage of about three pounds ($4-50) an hour, tips made up very little after this, as they are shared between all the staff, bar staff, lounge staff, kitchen staff, ** the manager!**. Typically we’d make an extra 5 pounds a night on tips. 8 hour shift = about 30 pounds. the minimum wage is pretty much ignored
Here’s a question for all you current/former waiters.
My husband and I consider ourselves good tippers (generally 20-25%), but we also have a penchant for round numbers and tend to pick a tip that makes the total nice and even on the credit card slip. Is it really annoying to a waiter to get a weird tip like $7.44? Or do they all just get added up in the computer and distributed at the end of the night?
Android, you had to tip out to the manager? That would certainly suck.
Good on you, aha. Rest assured that the waitress in question will be appreciative.
Meara: I never minded if the customer gave me an odd sum to round out their credit card charge. Although, cash is always much more appreciated for the tip.
Waste
Flick Lives!
meara,
I am a former waiter and I tip the same way, (usually rounding up) as to make the total an even number. You can be sure that if you are tipping between 20 and 25% that the server is not going to mind one bit.
As a former waiter, I can say that no, it is not hard to round up (or down) to make an odd tip. It all goes the same place…
aha I also commend you.
I always tip 20%, except for the rare occassion I am at a pure buffet place, when it’s closer to 15%. Unless the service is totally abysmal or I get bad attitude, which has rarely happened to me. I’m a good customer… 
Yer pal,
Satan
I’ve read this thread and find one subject missing which has always nagged me. WHY DO WE TIP IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Now, I’ve worked a bar and feel I have a perspective from two sides of the issue. I always figured tips were just a way for service people to make a decent wage, supplementing the establishment’s lousy pay policies. Tips, as far as I can see, are just a way (originaly, anyway) for cheap business owners to pass the cost of service on to their customers. Nowadays it’s gotten to the point where people are EXPECTED (it’s CUSTOMARY) to tip 15%.
Let’s face it, the real cheap bastards we should complain about are the establishment owners who, in one example above, paid $2.17 and hour in wages and expected the employee to make up the difference in tips. This situation sets up the poor, college student sap of a worker to hustle some butt to make a living directly from the customer being served.
Before you say it, considering tips an incentive to serve better is bull. If a restaurant owner wanted to provide such an incentive he would pay attention to the servers and the job they’re doing and reward them accordingly. By having the server rely on each customers satisfaction level for wage earning is just passing the buck to the servers instead of taking responsibility for their own business.
Yes, doing away with tips and passing the cost of paying a server a decent wage on to the customer directly via the menu prices is a radical idea, but isn’t that the argument you’d expect to face from a cheap restaurantuer?
I’m getting away from the point, I guess. How 'bout this: Was there a time when expected 15% tips were not customary? How did they evolve? Did someone notice generous customers making sincere efforts to renumerate their server for special attention and consideration and decide to cash in on it? How much are restaurant owners and management banking by charging (in some cases) extremely too much for product (food) but not passing on the profits to labor (servers) and expecting the customer to pay for service directly? A sweet deal for the management, for sure.
Well, flyguy, I’m not at all sure when less than 15% was customary. But my grandmother worked in a steak house when I was but a wee lad, and she always said that 15% meant that she had given good service, and instructed me to tip in the same manner. When I started to wait tables myself, some 10-15 years later, 20% seemed to be more the norm. When I mentioned this to my grandmother, she seemed to think it was in keeping. After all, everything else had gone up.
And yeah, management is usually getting a sweet deal, but I don’t sweat it too much. I enjoy bringing a smile to the waiter or waitress who realizes that I am a good tipper, and that they won’t be getting screwed at my table, anyway.
Waste
Flick Lives!
Well, Mr. Wasteful, I think maybe you’re missing the point. I’m not arguing whether a tip should be 15, 20, or 25%. I’m wondering aloud how we all became such sheep in the first place.
It’s a system, no, even worse, a system that has grown into a required custom, that has become so ingrained into American society that noone seems to question it.
Who is benefitting from all this automatic tipping? It’s not you or me, whether we be servers or customers. Maybe you own a restaurant?
Actually, no, I’m not missing the point. I just don’t much give a damn where the custom originated. As I said, I enjoy making a waiter or waitress happy. Maybe that makes me a sheep, but if so, then I enjoy being a sheep in such a situation.
Actually, I do benefit from tipping. It makes me feel good to know that I made someone’s day. And since I’m generally such a miserable bastard to be around, it makes the benefit that much more sweet. And why on earth would I want to own a restaurant? I can lose enough money in other ways, some of which are far more enjoyable.
Waste
Flick Lives!
Key word: sheep.
So, what’s your point, flyguy?
What do you do when you go out to eat?
“I’m sorry, I think you did a fine job a serving me, but as a protest against the way this whole system is set up, I’m not going to tip you.”
That would make you an individualist, but moreover, anASSHOLE.
So, flyguy, after we have made all of the restauranteurs see the error of their ways by withholding tips from the waitstaff, in sheer remorse they will pay the higher wages out of their copious profits instead of tacking on the 15-25% to the cost of the food. Just before all of those restauranteurs mount up their pigs and fly them south for the winter, no doubt. :rolleyes:
Going off on a bit of a tangent, the rest of seem to pretty much agree that tips should match quality of service. How about difficulty of service, though? I’ve eaten in some scandalously understaffed restaurants, and under those circumstances will tip well for mediocre service on the theory that “mediocre” is the best that my waitress can provide whilst trying to cope with three times the number of customers that she should.
To invert aha’s question, am I being a wastrel? A sucker? Or am I trying to make a tip what it’s supposed o be?
“I don’t just want you to feel envy. I want you to suffer, I want you to bleed, I want you to die a little bit each day. And I want you to thank me for it.” – What “Let’s just be friends” really means
Flyguy, get the hell over yourself. If you don’t wanna tip, don’t. If you wanna bitch to management about the unfair practices in which they are indulging, knock yourself out. But just sitting there and trying to make yourself feel better by calling me a sheep seems counter-productive.
Akatsukami: I don’t think it makes you a sucker for tipping well when the server is obviously working his or her ass off. Nor do I consider you a wastrel. Instead, you are a gentleman, and someone upon whom I would want to wait. If I were still doing that sort of thing.
Now all I can do is hope against hope that I got your gender right. ::crossing fingers::
Waste
Flick Lives!
As many or perhaps most of my friends work in the food service industry, I’d have to say that your method makes you a hero. A good tip received when one is overwhelmed and unable to provide the level of service one would prefer materially brightens the day of the recipient, as it makes one realize that people do recognize how much effort is being put forth.
So for an amount of money that is quite small in the scheme of things, you have doubtless improved the days of countless overworked waitstaff. You also made up for a lot of people who undertip in that circumstance, not realizing the mismatch between workload and workforce.
Good show.
Livin’ on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine
That’s one thing I never understood about the system. One waitress serves surf and turf to one person and doesn’t do anything until the check is delivered and another serves club sandwitches and bowls of soup to a group of people and refills cups of coffee several times. The latter did more work than the former and gets paid less.
ckdexhavn
Your friend is smarter than you seem to be. You NEVER add the tax in the tip, EVER. Have you ever heard of double taxation? You tip 15% or 20% on the food and beverage, MINUS TAX.
Pas grande chose.
mouthbreather: check page 1 for my point, ie. we’re all gettin’ screwed. i tip 15%, sometimes more like everybody else. how could a respectable person not. why is that? i forgive the uneeded insulting language.
Akatsukami: that’s exactly what they’ll do, so what’s wrong with that? we’re not suckers, although sheep, when they’re young, are known to do a lot of sucking.
GLWasteful: please site the statement that i do not tip or that i bitch to the man, please. sorry about the sheep deal, but you should read betweeen.
Chief Crunch: sucks when the ones with the bushy coats go first, huh?