Ever see the mess under a kid’s high chair? IME servers are bummed out if their party includes little ones. They leave a mess and don’t order complete meals or alcohol.
Yes , but you know that in advance. It doesn’t just show up on the bill with no prior notice. And anyway, I’m going to be tipping awful close to $20/day even if I stand on line and have the service charge removed. I don’t really believe all those people who claim they wait in line to have he service charges removed and then end up tipping more than the service charge in cash. Maybe a couple wait in line just so they can hand out the same amount of tips in cash- but I think most of those people are tipping much less.
Eh, I’ve cleaned up stuff a hundred times nastier than what you’d find under a high chair in my career and never received a tip.
It’s called doing your job.
mmm
Not that I am taking the side of restaurant owners - but an awful lot of servers seem to prefer tipping to simply being paid a high hourly wage. And a surprising amount of customers , too.
Yes I zero out the automated tips and tip in cash. I like carrying $2 bills for those tips. They’re fun to use and that’s mainly the only reason I carry cash.
(‘Cash is king.’ Oh really? Is it? Do you carry cash? Are you plastic always, all the time? - #103 by Bullitt - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board)
An hourly wage isn’t going to take into account how the server saved the event when one of the attendees spilled their wine into the hosts dinner.
Servers like the current system because they are rewarded for extraordinary service, when customers screw it up but servers manage to make it right. They love that shit, they live for that. And they earn big if they’re good at it.
Servers like the system, owners like the system, it works for both of them. No tipping will mean lower income for servers.
If you don’t want to tip, don’t tip. Servers aren’t getting rich off your one tip. But don’t advocate for a pay cut for people who work hard, with little status, recognition, or respect in society.
I didn’t say anything about not tipping nor am I advocating for a pay cut. Just pointing out that the reason for tipping is not entirely because employers don’t want to pay the servers properly.
The issue isn’t the system, IMO, it’s that more of the burden for paying employees has been shifted onto customers. 15% used to be considered standard and I always tipped 20%, now it’s 20% that’s considered standard, with added pressure to give more, and now, tips are being asked for/expected in situations when that wasn’t traditionally the case, particularly for hourly wage employees. Customers are feeling the strain of all these sudden demands and don’t like it, and the upshot is people are tipping less.
As for me, I’m confused as hell. Is the person working at Outback who is putting items into a box for me to drive over and pick up actually receiving a server’s wage and needs tips to survive? I have no idea. It seems absurd to tip 20% or more for a pick-up order, but who knows?
Nothing shifted for servers, they always earned the larger part of their earnings in tips. It should/will continue as it always was.
As for the non standard tipping locals, just don’t tip. The counter help honestly isn’t expecting a tip any more than you expect to give one. It’s a scummy management move to make it seem like the owners are ‘enhancing’ the counter helps earnings. The counter help sees through it and so should you.
Management uses the excuse that some customers insist on tipping. And they’re right, almost all the coin jars on take out counters are there because the staff can only say, ‘you don’t have to do that!’ so many times, before they just cave in and put out a jar. People WANT to reward you for understanding their special request, accommodating special needs, handling unexpected changes etc.
Try to recognize it’s not tip seeking, it’s ‘insistent tipper’ accommodating. Counter help doesn’t lose money when you don’t tip like servers who pay a kickback to the house. Counter help will be delighted if the tips amount to enough for a beer at the end of their shift.
And seriously, when you see it on the prompt, where you’d hardly expect it, it’s most likely they bought cheap software and are too cheap to pay to change it.
I stopped at the Portuguese bakery, to buy a couple of rolls and it prompted a tip, I just ignored it. You should too. If you don’t like seeing it, ignore it entirely. No one will be surprised, most people are doing exactly that.
Bumping this. At my local Philly cheesesteak place their CC interface not only requires an entry for tip, which we all know is becoming more common, but if I want no tip I have to select Custom Tip on the same screen as the other options (18%, 20%, etc), and then enter a zero on the next screen. Annoying. Every other place I’ve been to has a No Tip or similar option with the other options.
Bumping this:
How much do folks tip for delivery? I go for 10%. Do they get $ from grubhub? the app automatically gives you 15 20 and 25 %s.
Also how much do you tip house cleaners, if at all, or maybe seasonally?
I don’t tip my house cleaner at each service, but I do give her a several-hundred-dollar bonus every December.
For food? Around $3, which is the standard here.
I came here to say the same thing as @suranyi .
Its very presumptuous when they put 15 20 and 25 % choices. 20% of a 40$ bill is $8.
I tip Uber Eats or Doordash twenty percent or so.
Mostly I’m ordering out of town on business so it’s expensed but still.
Sounds like you are giving them a bonus of 2 or 3 times the cost of a cleaning?
Yes, but over the course of a year it amounts to about a 15% tip, which isn’t that excessive.
It’s not good to be mean to the serving staff but if the restaurant has the tip options thing on their pay-screen then they are asking and wanting you to tip whether they asked for the tip-screen feature or not; it is there and the management and the staff are aware of it and they like it.
If they truly don’t want that plead-screen showing they need to either get the software people to change it or have big signs saying something like: “We are sorry there is a message begging for tips. Please ignore it and make your own decision about tipping.”
But slightly less than 1 restaurant in the world would not want that message to be conveyed. They’re still going to call you an asshole behind your back if you don’t tip them using that screen.
That’s 'cause Disney is all about the whole family!
Did you even read what was written? I was, pretty clearly, referring to Non traditional tipping situations. Like when you buy some sticky buns at the bakery, over the counter, but the software includes a tip screen. Or at the florist, etc.
It’s just in the software, they bought at discount, they’ve no idea how to alter it and are NOT anticipating a tip. And they hate that the cheap ass management is pissing off their customers this way. But as underlings they get no say in the software purchasing.
If you really want change ask for manager and rant at them. Not the staff. Management gets away with this because most people will just take it out on the staff, be surly, or testy. Welcome to retail.