I agree that the tipping problems are bad. One thing that bugs me though are the “tip jars” popping up in starbucks or outher “counter service” jobs.
I tip people in resteraunts to reward them for good service. If some punk is slinging burgers or some chick is pouring me a coffee and I’m treated like all the other cattle in line you can gaurentee i won’t tip them.
The whole ides of a tip is something extra for extra service. Not something I’m expected to throw in because they people doing the job are paid poorly. If they don’t like they pay, they can get a better job.
CrankyAsAnOldMan: Ever noticed that the “TIP” line cmes AFTER the tax (and sometimes after meal + tax are subtotaled)? They are expecting you to tip on tax, although it’s always been my understanding that the tip is to be based on the price of the meal, not on the price of the meal plus the $$ the restaurant has to send the state & local government.
I thought of that too, until I did the math. If a check came to $10 before tax, the tip would be $1.50. After tax (using Virginia as an example), the total would be $10.85, 15% of which is $1.62. Since I usually tip a little higher, worrying about the tax isn’t worth it.
So, you can tip 16.2% rather than doing the math and tipping exactky 15%. Is worrying about 12 cents per $10.00 of your check worth it?
God, no. Every place I’ve been to where the tip was automatically added, you got incredibly terrible service. The attitude was “what should I have to do anything? I make the same whether I do a good job or a crappy one.”
Tipping, for all its faults, requires that the server attempt to provide good service.
As for the tax put on first, in New York, at least, the tax is 7%. If you double that number and round up a bit, you get 15% of the meal cost. Nice and simple.
I absolutely do not accept the explanation “don’t blame me, I only work here” . To me, the customer, you are the company and it is your responsibility to make things go well. A good excuse is not enough.
Often, when I complain about something (not necessarily at restaurants), I’ll get a very good explanation of why that is the best they can do. I always tell them “look, I am not going to tell you how to run your business or how you can do better, all i know as a customer is that I can get better service elsewhere and I will go there if I cannot get it here”.
pllied to restaurants: I do not care if it is the waiter’s or the cook’s fault. I want good service. If the place is badly run, they can go find a job in a better place, but I am not paying for good service if I don’t get good service.
From july 2000 consumer reports survey:
What are your pet peeves at restaurants?
1- Bad manners (mentions the “do you want the change?” etc)
2- Bad service
3- Bad restrooms
4- Soggy salads
5- Inhospitable interiors
6- Wait people poor hygiene
7- Sticky stuff (furniture, condiment containers)
8- Inconsiderate customers, kids…
I can be pretty forgiving of wait staff. I understand that they are simply the figurehead for much that is out of their control. But I hate it when they screw things up that they can control. Most important is how they interact with me. If I’m at Denny’s I pretty much assume that service will such (and am frequently pleasantly surprised) but when I am paying more than $12 per entree I expect actual service.
Leave me standing stupidly at the door because it’s not her/his job to greet guests. If you see someone standing for more than a minute at the door how hard is it to acknowledge them and say “Someone will be right with you.” If you see someone standing there for more than a few minutes, offer to find the hostess.
Know nothing about the menu: If I ask about ingredients I don’t want to wait 10 minutes while you go ask the chef.
Touch me. As degrading as it may sound you are there to serve me, not become my friend. I come from good Germanic stock, public touching is to be limited, even among close friends. I can’t think of the last time I purposely touched any of my friends, I sure as hell don’t need the friendly contact of a waiter.
Don’t assume anything about what I want. Don’t assume I won’t want dessert, don’t assume I am done eating, don’t assume that I don’t need change. The only thing that you can assume is that when my water glass is empty I want it filled. If I know I am not going to drink anymore water I will tell you.
One of my own would that under no circumstances should the waiter acknowledge that s/he can hear the table’s conversation. If I want to be talking to you, I will invite you out after your shift.
In return for good service you can expect a good tip. I usually tip at 20%. If I even once have to wait so long for water that I call you over you are down to 15% at most. If I never even notice that my glass is empty you will be close to 25%. As you can tell I view the water glass as a key indicator of service.
To second something MattK said, I have friends who have waited tables and their biggest gripe was when people charged their meal and added the tip to the charge. Most restaurants cheat servers out of their tip this way, since they supposedly have to wait till Visa pays them to get the tip. Unless the server could get copies of charge receipts and keep track, they always got cheated.
If I charge a meal, I ALWAYS leave a cash tip.
My pet peeve is when I’m not 100% sure from the menu whether a dish is vegetarian, and I ask the server if it is, and s/he replies “I think so” and leaves it at that. I mean, I’m not asking this out of CURIOSITY. I don’t want your freaking OPINION about whether or not it’s vegetarian. If you’re not sure, go ask the chef! Jeez…
Oh BurnMeUp, those tip jars drive me bugshit too. I pay $2 - 3 dollars for coffee worth less than half that by someone who takes two steps to get it for me. I’ll tip the waiters, the taxi driver, the guy who takes my luggage at the airport, but I won’t tip the guy getting me the coffee at the local trendy WaWas.
Kricket - I got the picture that Athena’s group had not even ordered their main course and they left after being alone for 30 minutes. I would have also, under the same circumstances. On the other hand, I can be remarkably patient if the waiter tells me that they are having a particularly busy day (and usually, I can see that by the blur that is them as they dash by). They have all my sympathy and the tips I gladly give.
Corixidae. Any relation to the notonectids down the road?
Ah, yes, the amazing disappearing server. My #1 pet peeve in dining out.
We have a solution. Place initial drink order, appetizer and entree’ order all at the same time. We ask the server to please place the food order and then bring our drinks. When the server brings our entree and asks, “Is there anything I can get you?”, we ask for the bill. Nothing is more frustrating than being finished with your meal and ready to go and you can’t find the server to buy your way out of the restaurant!
Oh yeah, and a “No Children Section.” Wouldn’t that be nice?
I’m usually a big tipper, because I eat alone several times a week (I’m in off-site sales, and always in my car), and I often hog a table for a while when I do paperwork between calls.
I even usually tip for bad news service, figuring the tips are often split and I like the place in general. I was on the wrong end of that deal myself and could strangle the lazy, smelly servers you mentioned, because it hurt me directly when they ticked people off.
So what is it that bugs people about children? Is their mere existence offensive or are there specific behaviors that annoy you?
I don’t like it when people let their kids run around or stare over the top of the booth–and I don’t let my kids do that. I don’t get people who just object to the presence of kids, though. They aren’t that noisy–at least in comparision to a party of six on their third round of drinks or the guy at the next table yammering some interminable monologue into his cell phone.
BTW–I’m talking about casual restaurants. I wouldn’t drag little kids out to a formal place. I agree that there are some places where you should be able to expect a degree of refinement from your fellow diners.
Automatic tipping is just plain retarted. If your server sucks, then don’t tip them. Tipping would only encourage their behavior. I mean, if you’re going to tip them no matter what, then why should they be courteous? Why should they refill your drink? Why should they do anything you ask? They’re going to get your tip regardless. Right?
Now, I understand about all the things that are out of their control, and if that’s the case, then yeah, cutting them some slack would be in order. But, a lot of the times, things are in their control. And yet, it takes them 15 minutes to bring me some extra napkins.
I find this one hard to believe, unless it’s a particular restaurant’s policy (vs. something the credit-card companies dictate). My fiancee was a server at one point, and several of my friends have been. They all said they’d almost rather have customers charge their meals and the tips – keeps things more secure (i.e., no hostpersons or buspersons shorting the tips), and the restaurants always paid their tips at minimum daily, at most weekly (for the one person I know who was paid weekly). The tips were calculated by the computer systems and thus, without explanation, the servers COULD NOT be cheated, because the computer sheet showed their tips broken down by day and any exceptions or changes were noted with reason codes and whatnot.
But of course the people I know may be in the minority.
I also find it hard to believe because it would be so easy to verify that restaurants had been screwing their employees out of the money. Even if the employees don’t have copies of the charge slips, they can get them from Visa, MasterCard, etc., and those slips would show what the tip was vs. what the employees were paid. If there were some vast “let’s screw over the servers” conspiracy, surely someone would have fired up a class-action lawsuit to bring the restaurants to their knees.
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I do know I prefer to charge meals and tips when possible, for two reasons:
[LIST=1]
[li]Helps me see how much I’m really spending on dining out.[/li][li]For reimbursable expenses, I have an immediate receipt that shows, by my signature, the amount I’ll swear to high heaven I paid. So it’s easier to get reimbursed for it.[/li][/LIST=1]
Of course I’m sure the ease-of-reimbursement thing is peculiar to my company – other cos., I’m sure, are OK with handwritten receipts and they take your word for it. Mine will take my word for what we talked about and who was there, but not for check amounts. No receipt, no reimbursement.
</hijack>
AWB: Yeah, it’s peanuts, but I specialize in getting really steamed about little things. LOL. Principle of the thing, blah blah blah. And it does add up to more than $.12 on big bills. Not that I eat out classy all that often, but once in a blue moon.
Cher: I second the kid thing. I’ve got one. He’s excellent in restaurants (he better be, I cook like sh*t) but if we have any inkling he might be otherwise, we don’t go out. Kids are people too, and it irks me when some people (and I’m not suggesting this includes the original complainer) automatically sneer at them like they ought to be locked up at home when they see them out. You can’t expect them to develop into good members of society if they haven’t been out in the world being taught social skills. I’ve noticed that the people who seem to have no business taking their kid to a restaurant also tend to be people who make me question whether they should have had kids at ALL. But that, alas, is another thread.
This is NOT true!!! I mean, it could be true that restaurants are scamming their staff this way, but it is an absolutely crock for a restaurant to tell servers that they can’t get their credit-card tips until Visa pays. That is complete and utter bullshit. If this ever happens to you, immediately notify the State Department of Labor, and then notify the credit card company that one of their vendors is committing fraud, and then notify the IRS that your employer is illegally withholding wages that YOU are paying income tax on. You can do this anonymously if you are afraid of getting fired. I would call the local newspaper after that. Do NOT believe any manager who tries to pull that on you, it is a big fat lie.
I worked in restaurants for about 10 years and thankfully not one place ever tried that, or boy oh boy would they have been sorry.
I’m with you on this one. I love kids, but I don’t want to pay to eat at a nice restaurant, only to sit next to a table full of screaming young 'uns, playing with their utensils and dropping food all over the floor. (The food all over the place can get kind of disgusting.) Even worse is when the parents let the children run around free during the meal. Keep 'em seated, at least. You are not at home, and not everyone thinks your kids are cute. I have no problem with well-behaved kids; it’s the ones who are too small to know good table manners, or just haven’t been taught good manners that are bothersome.
I also hate having my plate whisked away and my check handed to me the second I finish my last forkfull. This gives me the impression I am being rushed out of the restaurant so the server can get a new batch of potential tippers at my table. I like to relax a bit after the meal. If I take up extra time at a table, I generally leave a better tip because of it. Don’t rush me, please.
I frequently eat out alone and I always bring a book to read. I hate it when the server sits at my table like s/he is a friend and chats with me about the book or just wants my order. What’s with that? What makes them think that I want that kind of familiarity? This is at LoneStar and Chili’s. Kricket do you have any insight on this?
As an aside, I took my father to the local Olive Garden restaraunt (I hadn’t been before)for his birthday. There was only about two other small groups in the place. The table that we were seated at needed to be wiped off. I had to ask the server to do this and he proceeded to wipe the food off onto the seats and then got an attitude when I asked him to wipe off the seats. Once we were seated, I noticed that my plate and utensils were dirty with food specks and when the server came back asked for replacements. He pulled them off of another table and didn’t take the dirty ones with him. We had to ask for the salad (unending salad bowl is one of their gimicks) and the bread. I left about a 5% tip. On the way out, the hostess asked me if everthing was alright and I told her no and what had happened. She asked me if I wanted to talk to the manager and I said yes. She went to go get him. After 5 minutes, she came out (slightly distressed) and told me that the manager was busy and couldn’t be disturbed.
Basically his entire attitude was that he didn’t care. He was bringing in jobs for the locals and we should all thank him. I know that because the same place was really bashed in the local newspaper(the independent ones too) and he wrote back that we should be thanking him for jobs. Putz.
I agree that tips are to reward servers for good service.
Recently we stopped at a Bob Evans just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We were promptly seated. So were others around us. Then more people were seated. Those who were seated after us, but had a different waitress, were waited on and served, and in one case finished, before our waitress showed up with our drinks. She was just as slow with the other tables she had around us.
We didn’t get drink refills, it took forever for her to serve our food (on one pass, she said they were traying our order then but it still took another 15 minutes), and our food arrived cold.
All she received from my bf was a note on the table saying “Virginia, you need to find another job. You really suck as a waitress.” and a nickle. We also filled out the comment card.
As we were leaving, another waitress stopped to clear away the dishes and saw the note. By the time we got to the register, the 2nd waitress was already there, whispering in the assistant manager’s ear (he was working one of the registers). When we paid the bill, he asked how dinner was so we told him, gave him the comment card and he gave us our drinks for free.
All of our problems, were obviously the waitress and she was tipped as well as she waited on us.
Tips are NOT a reward. They are payment from you for a service rendered, just like paying for your meal being cooked, unfortunately there isn’t a set price for this.
A GOOD tip IS a reward for GOOD service. It pisses me off when I hear people say they didn’t give a tip for bad service. So what? Did you just not get your food period? No, you eventually got to eat. As crappy as it was, a service was provided. $2 is NOT going to strap you. If you think $2 is going to be a big wallup to your wallet, GET YOUR ASS TO McDONALD’S!
