It sounds like tipping in the US has gotten way out of hand. Or maybe I’m just a cheapskate.
Am I missing some sarcasm here?
-FrL-
You seem cool. Might we talk you into signing up for your own membership here? Talk yer dad into paying for it.
I’m on the fringe of the delivery area of the only pizza place that will deliver to our house. I tip at least 25%. Got to keep them pizzas coming.
In regards to the “slavery” comment, though, I’m not aware that in any state or province in the Western Hemisphere, people are actually required to take a job delivering pizzas.
Why is it that some services are provided gratis where others are expected to be tipped? I do tip but I think the way employers treat delivery people is ridiculous and unfair to the customer too. I paid for the f*cking pizza, that should cover everything else, especially if there’s a delivery charge piled on. It’s the same in restaurants, especially in the US, if you paid for the food how come then you also then have to pay the staff separately, what does the bloody restaurant owner actually do?
Note to self: never take a job waiting tables in Ireland.
I agree.
I do not want to feel obliged to provide a tip because the employee will not be able to get by without it. In my mind, the owner and employees should negotiate a mutually agreeable working arrangement and factor the costs of operation into the sales prices. If they can’t do this and remain competitive, they fail as a business venture.
If I’m going to voluntarily give a tip for services received, it should be for an appreciation of superior service and/or for an incentive for that level of service to continue during future transactions. Not because the owner of the business doesn’t pay their employee enough for them to maintain a lifestyle.
No, you’re not. Everybody now in the US wants a tip and it better be 20% or greater or else. It really has gotten out of control but at the same time I can understand why. Cost of living are spiraling out of control and people are trying to keep up with it in whatever way they can.
Note to Vinyl Turnip: Minimum wage applies to all waiting staff here so they make at least $13 an hour before tips. The cost of living is alot higher though too but they’re paid as well as anyone else in a similar job.
Before this degenerates into yet another interminable tipping thread, I’d like to point out two significant differences between waiting tables and delivering pies as they relate to tipping:
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Every time you leave the store with a delivery, you are literally putting your life and your car (often the driver’s only bankable asset) on the line in a statistically not insignificant manner. Of course, the risk is usually remote, but it is present nonetheless in a way that is not applicable to waiters.
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Unlike in restaurants, the delivery driver often (or usually, depending on the establishment) has a great deal of latitude in determining how quickly you get your pizza. If you consistently order and tip well, believe me - the drivers will remember you and most will book it from the car as fast as possible to your door. Conversely, if you’re an established cheapskate, then maybe the driver stops to get gas or a bite to eat on his way to your house.
Over the long run, if you are a regular at a particular joint, you will get the service you pay for, i.e. how well you tip.
It’s “Dammit, Tip Your Pizza Delivery Person WELL”.
Thank you.
I feel better.
I’ll tip $2 for delivery, but unless you’re making waitstaff wages there’s no freaking way I’m going 15%/20%/25%. Minimum wage where I am is the federally mandated $6.25/hour. Since the pizza delivery person is already making at least that, plus a portion of the delivery fee, I really don’t feel obligated to contribute more to that person’s paycheck.
Now, if delivery people were paid waitstaff wages (which are, I believe, still only $2.15/hr) I could see the drivers really relying on tips to get by. BUT THEY AREN’T.
As a note, local places have only been charging a delivery fee for a couple of years. I’ve assumed it was to help cover gas, so I’ve been continuing to tip $2 (over the objections of some).
One thing to keep in mind: as a customer, I don’t think it’s my responsibility to compensate your son/daughter for wear and tear on his/her vehicle. That’s the responsibility of your daughter or, if stipulated in her contract, her employer. Interestingly enough, no one I know has gotten a wage increase specifically because it’s costing them more to get to and from work.
I’d prefer that, actually, because then it wouldn’t be an option not to pay the driver a living wage. (Note I’m speaking only for the US, I’ve no idea what drivers are paid elsewhere.) And what’s the “pay your staff” better? Was that a general comment or do you think I own a pizza place?
Because in the US, waitstaff are paid something like 2 bucks an hour. It is expected tips will make up for the rest of their income and I believe they are also taxed as if they made 15% tips. (Someone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).
Delivery drivers don’t make a lot more, and they use their own vehicles to bring food to your house. You paid for the pizza, yes. You’re free to go get it yourself, pay no fee, and all is well. The service of having it delivered to your front door is extra, like it or not.
First of all, not all pizza joints charge a delivery fee. Second of all, as someone pointed out upthread, the driver doesn’t necessarily get that. It is not “double dipping”, you’re paying part of their wages. Don’t like it? Go get the pizza yourself.
And as always, we get the “if you don’t like it, get another job!” that seems to come up in every single customer service/retail/tipping thread, as if there’s a plethora of jobs out there to begin with. Also, what if every delivery driver/cashier/customer service worker did just that? Who would scan your groceries?(Not all stores have a self checkout). Who would deliver your food? Who would you call about a stolen credit card, or a broken this or a malfunctioning that? Someone has to do these jobs. I’ll never understand this argumment.
I was with you til here. No, I don’t get paid more 'cause it’s costing me more to get to and fromwork, but work related mileage rates did in fact go up as of 7/1/08
That’s OK. Fortunately, I (as hypothetical pizza driver) feel a similar lack of obligation to bust my ass to get your pizza to you as soon as possible. If I have three deliveries in the car, and the other two are going to established good tippers, then yours will most likely not be the first (or second) stop I make.
Yeah, I think it’s safe to assume that has something to with the price of gas doubling over the last three years.
Fair enough. And if enough people in your area have a similar atitude, then there will be fewer drivers, and as a consequence it will take ever longer for you to get your pie. Supply and demand will ultimately resolve the situation. Everybody wins!
I’m of two minds on this one. First of all, I’m a heavy tipper. If I get good service in a restaraunt, I’ll often tip 20%, maybe even more. Sometimes, if the server went above and beyond the call for some reason, they’ll get an extra five bucks or more on top of the tip.
But until a couple of years ago, it didn’t even occur to me that a delivery driver should receive a tip. I do it now (generously) because I realize that the industry has basically set that up as an expected practice, but I think it’s wrong.
Tips are not supposed to be a reward for hard work. If that was the case, I’d have to tip the construction crew doing my roof.
Tips are not supposed to be a welfare program to help the low-paid earn more. If that were the case, I’d be tipping my newspaper delivery person and the person maintaining the exit barricade in my parking lot.
Tips are a reward for service. They are a mechanism we put in place to allow the customer to have some control over how he or she is treated when another human is assigned to looking after their needs in a restaraunt or other non-professional service establishment. Tips exist because they are mutually beneficial - the worker gets paid more for doing a really good job, and the customer gets better service.
This doesn’t really apply to delivery drivers. They aren’t providing unique services to me. They aren’t responding to my requests. Unless they drive really slow, there’s no difference between good delivery service or bad. There’s nothing extra they did that deserves any kind of extra compensation. Instead, what has happened is that the industry has managed to set up the expectation of tipping in order to hide the true cost of delivery and avoid paying delivery people what they should earn.
There are lots of delivery jobs out there - UPS driver, mailman, All those guys with wacky clothes and bicycles and walkie talkies racing around the downtown core. None of them get tipped. Why is it that delivering a pizza should be an activity that serves a tip, when delivering a package isn’t?
In any event, now that I understand, I tip. But for decades, the logic above made me think that you weren’t supposed to tip people who deliver pizza. I’ll bet there are a lot of people out there who don’t tip the driver for the same reason. They’re not cheap, they just don’t realize there’s even an expectation of a tip in the process.
Apparently, Ruken seems to have missed the point that the Dutchman’s daughter is only working parttime (i.e. not supporting herself completely) and that $8 an hour for a parttime job with flexible hours that the Dutchman’s daughter enjoys is a pretty sweet deal.
Hardly. It’s more than I make, less than I work, and more vacation than I take. I’m paying rent, health insurance, a car, and food, with plenty of money to spare. Never felt so rich 
. Granted, I enjoy the work immensely, will get a Ph.D. out of it, and can expect 3-4x as much gross pay afterward.
I don’t know that I’d much enjoy delivering pizza 70h/week, and that would be difficult anyway because I don’t think people order much pizza at 8AM. Never tried it though. The only job I had in highschool was playing the violin, which was somewhat variable in pay ($15-50/hr).
Oh I realize it’s only part time. I was just extrapolating it to lengthier hours at the same pay.
But enough chatter, it’s time to get back to work. Gotta love weekends because of the free parking.
On a tangential note, the hubby and I ordered Chinese food to be delivered last week. It was not a huge order: one order of shrimp egg foo yung, two egg rolls, extra gravy for the egg foo yung. The bill came to something like $11.00 and change, including the delivery charge.
When the driver showed up (in typical Maryland summer rain storms), I handed him $15.00 and told him to keep the change, essentially tipping 30%. His eyes just lit up! He said “Wow, really? Thanks!” I told him I wouldn’t dream of not tipping a delivery person, and he told me it was the first tip he’d gotten all day!! Now, I don’t know what his hourly pay is at this place, but dude, srsly? (typed that way ironically), his first tip all day? That’s amazing!
As a balance, though, to those arguing for the similar tipping as in a sit-down restaurant, my thinking has always been: the delivery person leaves the store with my order (and maybe a couple of others, too; the pizza place we order from most often is less than three blocks away), and they drive the food here and hand it to me. As opposed to a sit-down restaurant, where the waiter is expected to: take a drink order, bring menus, fill drinks, take food orders, bring food, re-fill drinks, etc. Numerous trips back and forth from kitchen to table.
Maybe I’m wrong. But you know what, instead of hijacking this thread, I think I’ll go start one. . .
You seem to get it here…
…but then you lose it here.
This is bullshit. Aside from the fact that, there actually is an element of skill involved in efficiently getting to your door in the first place, I’ve worked with enough mouthbreathers (and had enough delivery me food) to know that some drivers certianly do take better care of their customers than others. Perhaps I’ll take the care not to walk across your lawn. Maybe I’ll remember that you like crushed red pepper and bring enough with me. Perhaps I’ll try hard not to make any noise if I know you have a baby sleeping. There are any number of variables that go into receiving good service, and it doesn’t just fall it out of someone’s ass. Good service takes an element of professionalism that you might only recognize by its absence.