What Pit thread on tips would be complete without a quote from Steve Buscemi’s character in Resevoir Dogs?
You can find the rest of the screenplay here
illegal, stupid, and tortious.
Reminds me of a case in Jersey a couple years ago involving a toll collector on the New Jersey Turnpike. He was slow in making change, so the motorist said “keep the change.” The toll collector threw the change at the motorist, chipping the motorist’s tooth.
The motorist sued, and collected big bucks.
Note that in the United States, assault and/or battery claims generally do not require proof of injury.
If a bartender threw a coin at me, even if I wasn’t injured at all, I imagine I would demand a few thousand bucks in punitive damages. If the practice were known to and winked at by management, I would demand more.
Oh and by the way, I always tip generously, unless I receive poor service - then I tip nothing.
One last thing: Scylla, you seem like a decent guy, and I sincerely hope that you have never spit in anyone’s glass.
(standard disclaimer about legal advice)
You know, somehow something about this is wrong. Tips are supposed to be rewards for good service, not bribes paid to receive service at all. And I don’t buy, for a minute, that a bartender is justified in ignoring a customer just because that customer failed to tip him last time.
I withhold tips from service personnel who do a poor job. That might include, for example, ignoring another patron for no apparent reason, or abusing patrons or other staff. If you do something to detract from my enjoyment, you lose your tip. And if that means that the next time I won’t be served at all, then you’ve lost my business too. And most managers tend to think poorly of personnel who discourage customer loyalty.
Tips are somewhat common even in fast food outlets (I’ve gotten them at Subway when I worked there). It’s more common at stores (like Subway) where the customer only deals with a single employee for the entire transaction, and the food is prepared “to order” in front of the customer (rather than being called back to the kitchen and anonymously disgorged onto the customer’s tray 45 seconds later).
Looks like I was wrong on the tipping thing. I guess that since I gave up meat I haven’t been in a lot of fast-food places. I do see tip jars at coffeehouses and whatnot, but I think they’re rather presumptuous.
As far as the other issue in the thread, I agree with KellyM. Tips are for service rendered, not to get service in the first place. Furthermore, while businesses have the right to refuse service, they do not have the right to purposefully deliver a sub-par product while charging the customer the same price as everyone else.
Kelly M:
I found it to be rather simple actually.
I tried to give decent and friendly service. If you sat at the bar, and had a bunch of drinks and didn’t leave a tip after I’d been taking care of you, then in fact you did not pay for services rendered.
Tips are built into a bartender’s salary. He usually has to split them with his barbacker if he has one, and usually there’s an arrangement with the waitress if the establishment has them.
A dollar fifty might pay for your beer. It does not pay for the service that goes along with it. You get that up front. If you choose not to pay for it (when I was bartending,) I’d again consider the possibilities.
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Had I offered bad service, or offended the customer? Not tipping by itself does not always indicate this.
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Cheap?
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Forgot?
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Asshole?
If I figured it was 2 or 4, I wouldn’t waste my time if I saw you again. You’d get your beer when I got around to it, and that was it. You want no-frills service, you got it.
If people were sitting at the bar during the week (weekends were way to busy,) and had been there for a while, I usually made a point to go up and ask them “Is everything all right? Are you happy with everything? Am I keeping you happy? Is there anything I can do?” Something along those lines.
You would be surprised how often somebody would just give you a glowing review. “Oh yeah, everything’s great!” You spend a lot of time doing all the extra things for them and generally making their experience as good as you can. After 2 hours and 4-6 drinks they get up and leave and they’ve left no tip, or just some loose change.
So, when I knew I had done a good job, and got screwed, that customer had a different experience the next time he showed up.
While bartending, I would occasionally recieve polite criticism or complaints, and I would usually try to address them as best I could.
More often, with a few drinks in them a customer may become very demanding, rambunctious, and generally an asshole. Part of the job is to keep the asshole factor as low as possible. If you are enjoying a pleasant atmosphere in a bar, that has a lot to do with the staff, and it should be rewarded.
You should also be careful about judging a bartenders actions that do not concern you.
Some people do try to pull things, and how a bartender is dealing with it may not look good to one that doesn’t know the full story.
For example, some people who came into the bar were very nice, but they would drink too much and pass-out, become belligerent, make a lot of noise, etc.
If this started to happen you’d kind of selectively ignore him to make sure his rate of consumption did not exceed his tolerance.
Or sometimes a young guy will have had too many and ask for a stiff drink, and get all mad when he gets a lite beer instead, or bitch that his drink isn’t strong enough. It’s not a mistake, a message is being sent.
Somebody who blocks the waitress’ transom won’t get serviced as long as he stands there.
Sometimes people do try to steal a tip somebody else left. or even money that just happens to be on the bar that a customer isn’t tipping, but saving for the next round.
If I catch you cadging a quarter or a buck I probably won’t make a scene and kick you out, but you’ve had your last drink.
Various other barroom crimes result in the no service expulsion as well, and you’ll never get an explanation. You’ll just get a stony look and a “you’re done.”
If you are standing nearby, you’re going to think I’m an asshole, but I’m actually just doing a good job.
Well, I guess it would depend on what service the counter staff is providing me. I see no difference between someone pouring you a beer in a bar and someone putting together a coffee drink (or even just a coffee) for you. Granted I don’t think I’d tip if I grabbed a pre-packaged sandwich and a bottled drink from the cooler, but if someone actually had to put the sandwich together and whip up the drink I’d ordered, damn sure they’re getting tipped, unless the service was extra surly or sloppy.
Scylla:
I do not consider it ethical to punish the customer because the owner does not pay what you consider a sufficient wage. If the listed price of a beer is $1.50, then it is $1.50, and the customer is not and should not be expected to pay any more than $1.50 except to the extent that he or she is generous. The price is not listed as “$1.50 and please pay some extra for the barkeep’s salary.”
It also isn’t as if that $1.50 covers only the cost of the beer, unless you’re prepared to convince me that the bars in which you’ve worked operate on a break-even pricing structure. It covers the wholesale cost to the owner as well as the overhead, which includes salaries.
Scylla:
I do not consider it ethical to punish the customer because the owner does not pay what you consider a sufficient wage. If the listed price of a beer is $1.50, then it is $1.50, and the customer is not and should not be expected to pay any more than $1.50 except to the extent that he or she is generous. The price is not listed as “$1.50 and please pay some extra for the barkeep’s salary.”
It also isn’t as if that $1.50 covers only the cost of the beer, unless you’re prepared to convince me that the bars in which you’ve worked operate on a break-even pricing structure. It covers the wholesale cost to the owner as well as the overhead, which includes salaries.
Olentzero: Ya damn Commie, always trying to equalize incomes. 
Seriously, though, someone at Burger King has to put your Whopper together, unless they’ve developed Star Trek-style food machines since I was there last. Do you tip there? Just because you didn’t get to see the back line person who made your Whopper doesn’t seem a sufficient reason to stiff them if in fact that is your philosophy.
PLD:
Sorry Charlie. Only good tasting Tuna get to be Starkist.
Liquor servers and waitresses can be paid less than the minimum wage because of the “tip credit.”
This is a complex formula that I had no understanding of as a 20 year old bartender going to College, nor did I particularly care about it.
The end result was I got a salary less than that of my barbacker and below the minimum wage under the assumption that that and more would be made up in tips.
Waitresses also get paid below the minimum wage by the restaurants and bars they work in under the same expectation.
So, the tipping is built into a bartender’s salary, and the $1.50 for the draft doesn’t cover the entire service you recieve. The drink would indeed cost more if tips were not allowed.
btw:
In some bars the bartenders only get to keep a portion of the tips with the rest going back to the bar.
I understand all that, Scylla, and I’m not saying it doesn’t suck. I know it sucks, and as a result, I happen to be a generous tipper. I’m saying it isn’t the customer’s fault. He’s paying the price charged by the establishment.
I think paying waiters/waitresses/bartenders less than the minimum wage is an odious practice, anyway. I think they should be paid the minimum wage, and let tips represent what they really should be–a bonus for good service. Right now, the system encourages employers to pay people crappy wages. If someone wants to operate a business, they should be prepared to pay all the attendant costs, including the prevailing minimum wage for employees. It isn’t my job to save money for the business owner.
It’s a tricky one. What really is the difference between a waitress who takes your order and your money while you’re sitting at a table, and a fast food cashier who takes your order and your money while you’re standing in line?
Minimum wage. Fast food crew and cashiers earn one federally mandated minimum wage; bar and wait staff in restaurants earn another one, which is much lower. So much so, in fact, that most of the time they make their living off the tips they earn. (I just got off the phone with Valkyrie, who spent most of her late teens and her twenties waiting tables.) I don’t know exactly why there is such a disparity between the two; perhaps the practice of tipping is used to justify it.
Overall I think tipping is an unfair practice, and I definitely think the minimum wage should be a living wage, and uniform across the board. But if I have to choose between whom to tip and whom not to tip, I’m going to tip the people who couldn’t possibly make anything close to a living on the wages they earn.
ah, where is Satan when you need him? And Scylla I think I love you.
Okay folks here’s the scoop, Mr. Whites oppinion aside.
You server staff gets paid anywhere from 2.95 to 3.25 an hour most of the times with no chance of getting a raise in the future.
At the end of the night these people figure up what they sold for the day, and then are required to claim a percent of the sales. It all gets figured up and if you have a bad night and don’t make tips, the resturant or bar has to pay you and bring you up to minimum wage at the end of the week.
This doesn’t usually happen unless you are fibbing and not claiming all your tips, or you are a crappy service person.
In some places servers and bartenders are required to tip-out to barbacks and buspeople. This can be especially bad when you have a lazy person as your busser or barback since they are making minimum or more already and you end up doing your job plus thiers in order to get your tables cleaned so they will turn over so someone else can be seated.
You guys saying Scylla is getting jerky just don’t understand.
I have been in food service for 15 years, and have trained some of the best and some of the worst people. It takes a strong person with a great outgoing personality to be able to do this job. I can tell the minute I start training who is going to make it and who isn’t based on attitude alone.
Yeah, you say anybody could do it. Not true. Jayne Doe could take your order, and bring back your food, but is it going to be right? Is it going to be timely? Is it going to be served with a smile and a great personality? If they don’t care about their job then no it will not.
Two of our radio stations go into different bars on the weekends and do live remotes and draw in huge crowds of people. These people get low priced beer, free food, and service with a smile. Did they tip? Um, no. Why? Because when the beer was a dollar and a quarter, they wanted their change back so they can put their change together for their next beer. Understandable. Fine with me, but do you have to be a prick about it? If money is hard and times are tough, what in the hell are you out drinking for?
Okay, we could go out and get different jobs, ones that have benifits and such, but when you are a people person who wants to sit behind a desk all day and talk on the phone or stare at a computer screen and four walls?
I like serving because I like the people. Even the pricks make the day interesting believe it or not. They break the tension sometimes.
I’m not the type to bitch about tips. And I am a damn good server.
The last bar I worked at we had the best bartender in the area working there. He and I used to work one side of the resturant together. He had the well all to himself and liked it that way, and I had the section closest to him. When the orders would go in, by the time I got there they were up and done right.
People around us could see the way we worked together and would make sure that they were in my section so we could take care of them. If they couldn’t get to me they would sit somewhere else and go to the bar for their drinks.
We knew their faces, and most of them by name and some of them didn’t have to order because we knew them so well.
We had one of our regular guys leave on vacation and bring us stuff back.
At one point in time I was totally amazed when I had a woman come up to me and tell me that I really made an impression on her husband. He left me a two dollar tip on a party of six. She told me he basically held the same belief as Mr. White and never ever tipped. You know what? That two dollars was one of the best tips I ever got. Didn’t even come close to what it could have been for a party that big, but it was the fact that I was told I did a great job.
As a further reply - in my bartending experince in the US, I made anywhere from $20 to $40 shift pay for an 8 to 9 hour shift. I worked without a barback in a busy neighborhood sports bar, and had to take food orders, deliver them, wash glasses, and keep the bar clean and stocked on top of serving drinks. On top of that I was expected to act as a sounding board for patrons with issues, settle disputes between customers, prevent drunk (usually male) customers from harrassing (usually female) customers, and hold an encyclopedic knowledge of sports and current affairs trivia in my mind. This is what a good bartender has to do.
For my pains I have been vomited on by a customer, and had to clean it up and work the next 4 hours of my shift. I have had a beer mug thrown at my head. I have had a broken beer bottle waved in my face. I have lost count of the times I have broken up fights and been hit in the process. If you don’t have doormen this is part of the job and I accepted it. But it did instill me with a basic rule. If you can’t afford to tip, you can’t afford to drink. And if you don’t want to tip that is fine - there is a liquor store across the street at which you can buy your six pack.
And don’t even start me on me being liable if you get into a car, even if I had no way of knowing you had driven to the bar…
So yes, I do feel I got as much shit as servers. And I feel my skill level deserved more than $20 a night. Fortunately the vast majority of my customers agreed with me. There were always the one or two each night though… at least they served the purpose of reminding me that my regulars were generally a pretty incredible bunch of guys.
All hail Mistress Kricket!
It sounds like the four of us are all on the same page as regards tipping wait and bar staff; I just extend it to the coffeehouses and sandwich shops as well. At least those who ask for tips; and again it’s whether or not I grab something ready-made from a bin or if it’s put together to order. If BK and McDonald’s started putting out tip jars I probably would tip there too. But the algebra behind splitting them with the food prep crew would be a nightmare, I’m sure.
This “tipping-only-for-good-service” attitude is conclusive assholedom.
If you don’t want to tip, don’t drink out. Pour your own damn beer at home in front of the TV. Invite your friends over.
Oh, you think you’re entitled to decent service after you’ve made it clear you won’t pay for it? No, sweetheart, you aren’t. You’ll take your business elsewhere? Good! Make trouble for some other sap.
Don’t like the system? Too fuckin’ bad. Stay out of it, then.
PLD:
To respectfully disagree, I liked it the way it was.
Sure Linda with her sexy little smile and laugh got more tips than I did, but I made out pretty well.
The time I spent as a barbacker making $6.00 an hour sucked.
During peak time on a Saturday night I’d be making more $/hour than most Doctors, and it was great.
Tipping works well both ways. It makes you want to be speedy, polite, and friendly to your customers.
I’m pretty sure that I’d be speaking for most bartenders/waitresses when I say it’s a better system the way it is. A customer votes and rewards behavior with his $. If somebody is on salary it doesn’t matter to them whether the customer is happy. He’s still getting paid. A tip aligns customer/worker interest.
If you raised the minimum wage in this area, an owner is more likely to understaff his establishment and everybody suffers. This way he knows he can bring a good worker in and he’ll basically pay his own salary. It makes it a lot easier for an owner to give a guy a break and hire him.
If you took away, or reduced tipping the net result would be a severe salary cut for the staff.
A lot of the drinks and specials in a bar are priced with the tip in mind. When they have $1.75 Bud Long-necks on special, it’s priced that way because they figure you’re leaving the quarter.
It’s like an engine. It would be nice if they could design an engine where everything fit together perfectly and ran smoothly without friction.
Unfortunately it’s an unrealistic goal, and you need lubrication to give the parts the flexibility to work together.
Tips are the wd-40 of your local saloon.
I would also like to state for the record that it was no idle boast when I said I made the world’s greatest margarita.
My invention which I only made up special if I liked you, became the in-thing at my bar, and they still serve it today.
So, if you’re in NOLA and you have the worlds greatest Margarita, that’s my old bar.
villa:
You gotta find another bar. That sounds terrible.