If gas is $7 a gallon and her car get 25 mpg, she’d have to travel over 7 miles per delivery, with no other deliveries on that route, to spend $2 on gas alone. You’re right- that’s bullshit.
I think the same thing happened with the words in this sentence. 
Of course, the situation is different in Thailand, which has not – at last until recently (thanks to Western influence) – been a tippping society. We do have pizza delivery nowadays, and I may go as high as 60 US cents on the tip if the wife isn’t looking, but that’s about it, and it’s highly appreciated.
But this whole tipping thing reminds me of a certain practice adopted by the more unscrupulous bars. In your basic standard restaurant or street stall, you simply don’t tip, and you’d be considered a fool if you did. But when you get up into a little nicer place – say, one that has air-conditioning – the style is that your change is returned in a little metal tray, and it’s considered poor form to pick up the coins. That’s a sign that you’re money-grubbing and must grab every single baht, so in this type of place it’s customary to leave the coins and take only the bills. Since the lowest bill is a 20-baht note (about 60 US cents now), there’s never more than 19 baht in coins, usually mush less.
Okay, so with that in mind, some bars have adopted the practice of returning A LOT of your change in coins, maybe 50 baht or more! Well, screw that, I’ll pick them all up and not leave anything, the bastards, and usually not return there either.
In a more Western-style place – say, like a British-style pub or the Hard Rock Cafe – I’ll tip anywhere from 50-100 baht (about $1.50 to $3), depending on how much stuff we’ve ordered. There’s often a service charge in a place like this, and so theoretically that’s the tip, but that gets shared among all of the staff (assuming the manager or owner is not some bastard who keeps much or all of it himself, which does happen sometimes), I’ll slip a 100-baht note, or even 200 baht if it’s a very large party, into the hand of our server, making it clear that that’s for him or her alone.
And taxis. It’s customary to tip up to the next 10 baht, unless you’re going to the airport, in which case it’s up to the next 100 baht.
That’s the tipping I’ve gotten used to, and my wife is often outraged that I’m throwing good money away…
Her gas right now costs her $5.75 per gallon while the car gets around 20 miles per gallon. we live 5 miles from the pizza joint and the delivery zone extends another half mile beyond that in my direction so its not unlikely she’ll have a single delivery from time to time that will cost her over $3.00. did I mention we live in a semi rural area ?
Well then shut up !
Frugal? Disabled? Good lord, good buddy, she not only stiffed the poor schmuck who delivered the pie (because he “didn’t deserve it” – how utterly fucking charming), but she ripped you off in the process as well. And this broad has friends who know she’ll pull shit like this, buit still keep involved with her? I guess she must be pretty goddamned comical, or have a *real *magnetic personality, or something.
You know what, I’m sure you’re right about that part. And it does not surprise me at all. :rolleyes:
Seriously Frylock – I already knew most of the posters on here are *much nicer people than I *, in a lot of ways, but you deserve props for your charitability above and beyond the call for not writing off this gal as the thieving skeeve she sounds like. At least you’ve warned your friends about her.
Somebody of her acquaintance ought to pull the sneaky twat up short before she tries something similar on the wrong person and gets what she’s asking for.
This, plus the fact that, at this point, for tipping to really “go away” in the U.S., every restaurant would have to do it at the same time. Otherwise, what would happen is this:
- Some restaurants stop “requiring” tips.
- These restaurants pay their wait staff more to make up for this.
- To make up for increased wages, they raise the price of their food.
- Those restaurants go out of business because the patrons flock to restaurants which still “require” tips that have cheaper food.
Responsibilities of a server in a sit-down resturant.
Take drink orders, tricky if your resturant serves alcohol and mixed drinks. Check drink orders, deliver seperately from main order. Take main order. Know the menu, know what substitutions are allowed and what, if any, upcharges apply. Accurately relay this information to the kitchen. Check the drink levels and/or take additional orders. Double-check order when it comes out from the kitchen for accuracy. Deliver order. Get any last-minute additions, extra condiments, etc. Continually monitor the party for half an hour, on average. Keep accurate track of the orders and changes throughout the meal and enter it into the Point of Sale(PoS) system. Split tickets if required. Handle payment(s) and make accurate change. Split your tips with the kitchen staff and bussers(called “tipping out” and make a less than minimum wage while doing all of the above.
Responsibilities of a delivery driver.
Provide vehicle. Provide fuel and maintenance. Pick up ordered, cooked, and packaged food. Know the delivery area and possible traffic congestion points/road work areas. Assess and be aware of risks associated with various areas/situations. Prioritize multiple stops for fastest delivery to the maximum number of stops. Handle payments and make accurate change. Make at least minimum wage. Some shops allot portions of the delivery fee to drivers. Not aware of any which require “tipping out.”
I’m thinking there are significant differences.
Enjoy,
Steven
A question for you: Do you believe that you are entitled to the same level of service as someone who tips significantly better than you do on similar or equivalent menu items?
If the answer is no, then I have no quarrel with you (or similarly-minded people).
If the answer is yes, then I would have to agree with The Flying Dutchman that you are a parasite of sorts. Fortunately, the way pizza delivery works in the real world, your level of actual parasitism is usually fairly low over the long run if you are a regular customer of a particular establishment. Regardless of how you expect things to work, you will receive poorer service on average than someone who tips well. The situation is largely self-correcting. The problem only arises if routing efficiency requires that you receive your pizza before someone who tips well. This is what is often referred to as the “free rider” problem in economics.
From my own experience, and that of other drivers at the place where I worked, we noticed a definite charge in tipping practices as the delivery charge was introduced. Prior to the charge, tips tended to be mostly in the $1-$2 range, and I would guess that approximately 95% of people tipped some amount. After the charge, the distribution of tips tended to become more bifurcated. When tips were received, they were higher on average, in the $3-$4 range. However, there was also a much higher incidence of no tips at all, probably in the 10%-15% range. On average, things worked out, but that’s only because the good tippers were in essence subsidizing deliveries to cheap-asses.
You also forgot the part where every single time the driver leaves the store, he risks the damage or destruction of what is most likely to be his only bankable asset (his car), not to mention the risk of assault, robbery, serious injury, or even death via auto accident or murder. These risks increase significantly at night, in poor weather, and in shady neighborhoods.
When I was driving, I had things stolen from my car, had my car pelted with eggs and paintballed, was threatened with assault, had someone and his pal “joke” about robbing me, was involved in two no-fault (of mine) accidents, went through three vehicles, and had permanent damage to one of my knees that necessitated missing nearly three weeks of work (unpaid, of course) because someone left black ice on their sloped, unlit asphalt driveway.
Personally, if I had a teenage daughter, I would not advise her to deliver pizzas.
You win the thread. 
Pay attention, because this next part is where you make it abundantly clear that you don’t know what you’re talking about:
Waiters in French cafes have been doing that forever, and for the same reasons (tipping consisting generally in not picking up small change). It’s less blatantly obvious nowadays since the smallest banknote is now €5, so you’re going to get coins for a significant amount anyway, but they usually still make sure that you get back an assortment of coins larger than necessary (say, if you pay your €1 coffee with a €5 bill, you’ll get back one €2 coin, one €1 coin, and €1 worth of small change).
He had called earlier because he couldn’t find the house - same number.
It’s not her customers’ fault that she chose to deliver pizza in a car that gets 20 mpg. I delivered in a '93 Accord that got ~30mpg, and among the 40-odd drivers at my store I had one of the least fuel-efficient vehicles.
Besides which, that was in 1999 when gas was still $1.50/gal or something like that.
Obviously, then, I don’t either. Are you saying that they package the food too? 
As a practical matter, no; I would expect a waitron or delivery person to provide the best service to the customer who tips the best, and on that basis, I always tip handsomely for good service (20% or better in restaurants, rounding up for smaller checks). But the argument of the o.p. is that customers are obligated to tip a delivery person “good”, i.e. to the tune of her job-related expenses that her employer is not covering even though the customer has made a contract with the restaurant, not the driver, to deliver the food (i.e. the customer is being charged a delivery fee). I agree that it would be wise and courteous to tip the driver (though a US$5-$7 tip for a single pie is an outrageous expectation); I think the umbrage of the o.p. is misplaced insofar as it should be incumbent upon the employer to provide for job-related expenses. The fact that other restaruants don’t pay their drivers for expenses (“Why should he take on additional expenses that other pizza joints don’t have?”) does not excuse this exploitative behavior, and it is the restaurant which should bear the brunt of the o.p.'s anger.
Frankly, I would discourage a friend or family from working such a job, or tell them not to complain that they’re getting screwed 'cause that’s the gig. My sympathies are also somewhat tempered by my own experience; my first job paid under minimum wage (seasonal), which was then a fraction of what it is now, and living 30 miles away from any viable employment about half my check went to gas, even in the halcyon days of double digit gas prices. I didn’t bitch about it or expect customers to tip me to cover my expense of getting to work. Later, when I worked tipping service jobs, I learned that some customers tip well, and others will stiff you on the check if you give them a chance. Not much point complaining about that, either; it happens to everyone, and if it is happening to much to you then you either need to review your service technique or find a better gig.
Stranger
Yes, though it obviously depends on the restaurant. Most drivers who aren’t in the car are back in the kitchen busting their hump trying to get food ready to get out the door. That includes taking orders, pulling pies out of the oven, putting salads together, packaging it all up, working with other drivers to coordinate routes, etc.
ETA: My apologies to mtgman on the harshness of my initial reply.
Actually, while I’m commenting anyway… I tip, but I’ve never bothered to do the calculations for a 15% tip. I just round up to the nearest major bill (i.e., give $15 for a $11 order, or $20 for a $18 dollar order). Some of this is due to mental laziness, and some of it is because I rarely have a lot of cash on me these days and can’t necessarily tip more without using a credit card.
Add me to the list of people who was unaware of the details of what and how a delivery driver is paid. It’s widely known that restaurant waiters depend on their tips, but I would have assumed that at least some of the delivery fee went to covering the driver’s salary, gas, and other expenses. I don’t think that you can tar all poor or nonexistent delivery tippers with the brush of being parasites when odds are good that they know nothing about the business.
Right… these “delivery charges” border on fraud, inasmuch as little to none of the additional charge goes to the driver. I’d start boycotting the major chains if… well, if Papa John’s wasn’t so damn delicious. :mad: