I delivered a pizza for $7.00 to a place once, the lady handed me a bill and said keep the change. As I walked back to the car, I realized she had given me a $20. I would have liked a $13.00 tip, but I didn’t want her calling and complaining when she found out she was missing a 20. So I go back to the door and ring the bell. When she answered, I asked if she meant to give me the 20, and she hadn’t. She thanks me, I give her the bill back, and she hands me several bills, then closes the door. I look at what she gave me, it is $7.00. Her graditude overwhelmed me. :dubious:
When I was waiting tables at a ritzy seafood restaurant, a guy once handed me two $100 bills that were very new and stuck together.
I didn’t realize it til I’d walked away from the table to get their change; I could easily have kept the extra bill, and made a third of my rent on a lunch shift.
But I didn’t; I walked back to their table and held out his change on the one $100 bill he thought he’d given me, as well as the spare $100 bill. I smiled and said, “You might want to be more careful with new bills.”
And his wife snatched it out of my hand, punched her husband in the arm, and told him, “God! What is your problem! Pay attention!”
No thanks, no gratitude, no nothing. Their tab was about $46.
They tipped me $6.
Some people are just assholes, no matter what you do for 'em.
Elfbabe- Most (but not all, for instance “Cafeteria style” waitstaff are not exempt as tips are not significant. They have to show the waitstaff averages at least 8% total sales as tips) Waitstaff are exempt for Min wage laws. Delivery drivers aren’t. The laws are complicated, and IANAL, but as you can see here, no delivery person has claimed to have been paid less that minimum wage (at the time they were working, that is!)
Lissener- then most of us ARE “assholes”. Note however, that most of the ex or current pizza delivery persons that have posted do not expect 15%. I had several friends who did this also- they also did not expect 15%. They DID expect a “modest tip”- more if there was bad weather, stairs, etc involved.
Note also that the IRS does not make the Pizza company with- hold tax on tips, nor are tips so “ordinary” that an audit can be based upon them.
Individuals who do something for me - pizza guys, waiters, caddies, bellmen, hotel maids, I tip. I tip big. I am glad I can afford to do so. I am glad I only had wait tables briefly when I was young.
People who aren’t in a tipping position, fast food workers, people telling you where to line up at the amusement park, kids at the concession stand, I’m am really nice to, no matter how crappy they are. It’s just seems like one thing to make the world less awful. Even in countries where you are not supposed to tip, I tip. (Which seems to make one memerable, even more than a year later.)
Group tip jars at counter service places give me the creeps, though, cuz I feel like people who do a good job have to share equally with slackers. I tip anyway, though.
Maybe I’m completely insane, but, when I was in college (mid 90’s), I seem to recall that pizza places were advertising for drivers and paying $10/hour! Maybe that was just to make up for college kids who tipped poorly, but that doesn’t seem to be the practice elsewhere.
Tipping well around here doesn’t seem to get me consistantly good service. Maybe I don’t order enough pizza to be “memorable”. Last time I ordered pizza, I handed the kid $25 for a $20 order, and he didn’t even say thank you. WTF?
Every time I have seen things like this, there is an asterisk, with fine print below saying they got minimum wage, and the rest was estimated based on tips recieved.
Lok, thats what I have seen as well. It says you can earn up to 10$ an hour. Figuring in tips and commission.
Folks, I don’t expect a big tip but a couple bucks is nice. I drive a long way some times and in all kinds of horrid weather. Snow, rain, wind that knocks you over, 100 degree weather with no A/C ( that thankfully is not a problem anymore). On a side note,I paid one of my loans payments in rolled quarters in July. The look on the tellers face when she saw 110 dollars in rolled quarters was truly precious… I love this job;)
Okay now to correct another misconception. I am on my feet all night except when I am driving. And if you don’t think thats difficult YOU go out in a snowstorm with next to no visibility and wonder about the idiot who is tailgating you!
When I am not driving, I am doing dishes, doing preps( getting pans and dough ready for the next days business), Folding boxes, dumping garbage cans, cleaning the store, cleaning the parking lot in front of the store, breaking down boxes and loading them into the dumpter.
I delivered Chinese food for about 8 months, earning minimum wage + $2 per delivery + tips. It wasn’t that bad, really… on good nights it added up to $20 an hour.
We didn’t write down good and bad tippers, but we definitely remembered them. When there are two orders ready to go and one almost ready, a good tipping history can mean the driver waits for your order before leaving, which can mean you get your food in 15 minutes instead of 40 minutes.
OTOH, we did write down people who refused to pay because their orders took too long. No more delivery for them!
Another Ex-Pizza Hut driver checking in. $2 is the absolute minimum you should EVER tip your driver. Unless he screwed up. And keep in mind, a late order is rarely his fault. If it’s in the middle of the playoffs don’t blame the driver if your order didn’t come in half an hour. Chances are he is running ragged trying to get all the pies out. When I first started running pies I got ALL the good deliveries. I would deliver to Shaune Bagwell, Jeff Bagwell’s ex wife. Whooo!!! She is gorgeous!!! One of the hottest girls I’ve ever seen in my life. And extremely sweet and always tips $5. I got a lot of the great deliveries when I was a newbie. I made booku bucks. Never a whole whole lot, but I didn’t work too many hours since I was heavy involved with a difficult college major. But when I worked, it seemed like I got THE good deliveries. But as time progressed my luck started dropping and it got to a point where I made so little money I just didn’t want to do it any more. I enjoyed washing dishes more. My record (low record) was $6 on a busy Saturday night. Everybody else made $30-$40 or higher, but I made $6. And this isn’t because I gave bad service. It was just luck of the draw. I got the bad tippers. After a couple months of this less than $10 a night I quit. People just couldn’t believe that I was making that little money. And don’t tell me I wasn’t friendly and not speedy. I was a top notch driver. Quick and always had a smile on my face. Very courteous. And somehow I became the cheapskategoat.
Oh yeah! Good tippers would get a little “~” in thier comment section. Bad tippers would get a “!” Sometimes if I had to get gas some time that night, even if I wasn’t really on “E” I would stop to get gas BEFORE the poor tipping pizza delivery. Then the REAL jerks. Well, I did my darndest best to make sure their pizza was ice cold. Take it out of the bag. Roll down the window. Open the box. Let it get nice and colllld.
Well cheapskates that don’t tip the pizza driver SHOULD feel bad for not tipping. The driver has to cover costs. He’s got the pressure of his awful punk-assed pimply faced young boss telling him to get back lickety split and drive safely too. Speed bumps, cops, traffic, pedestrians, slow drivers, traffic lights, shortcuts, no that shortcut is better! But not at this time of the day!! Oh damn!!! That one was better!!! I knew I should have gone that way!!! Dangit the light was better than going through the neighborhood!!! Man if it takes too long then I won’t get as many deliveries as Mike, or Steve!!! They’re going to get all the deliveries to the good tippers, the parties, the strip clubs, the hot chicks! Arghhh!!! I’ll never get all these deliveries out and they keep stacking up and all I ever get are the cheapskates! And, oh damn! What is that noise? I sure hope that wasn’t my car!!! Just one more thing I have to worry about!!!
AAAHHAAAHAHAHAAAAAGGGGG!!! A flat tire!!! The damn train!!! Now it’s raining! Oh great! My radio broke! It never
ends!!!
Too much aggravation not to get tipped. Pizza drivers earn their $8-$12 an hour. And don’t forget, they have to maintain their cars. No car, no job.
Here is a similar to the OP more difficult to answer question. You have a history of tipping decently and the drivers know it. You get your pizza reasonably fast, pay, leave a respectable tip and open the box. Sure enough, the cook screwed up your order and the pizza driver you just gave a big fat tip to obviously didn’t do a good job of checking your order before he left the store. Now you have to call back and get a replacement pizza delivered.
The next free pizza is delivered by a different driver and chances are just as he’s walking up to your door he realizes that this is a free pizza. He has been expecting a tip. But you already gave a decent tip to the screw up driver who came first. Do you feel obligated to tip the second driver? Why should you suffer the extra few bucks just because the first driver screwed up? But
why should the second driver suffer because the first driver screwed up? Do you:
A) Tip the second driver. He deserves it.
B) Don’t tip the second driver. “I’ve already paid too much and I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay extra for them screwing up my pizza.”
C) When you call to complain and get your replacement pizza demand that the first driver give his tip to the second driver. I’d like to see the reaction this gets in the store.
Answer: A of course. You tip the second driver the same as the first because YOU screwed up too. If you were on the ball you would have checked the first pizza before you shelled out the tip. He screws up, no tip. Don’t tip someone if there is a possibility that he didn’t do his job right. Check after him. The second driver didn’t screw up. He made sure the pizza was right. So he deserves the tip. Don’t stiff him. He’ll remember.
This has happened to me fairly recently. I demanded that they not cut my pizza with their disgusting knife and lo and behold they did. And who usually cuts the pizzas? The pizza driver. So I was fairly confident that the first driver was to blame, so I stiffed HIM. I checked the order before I gave him the money. I said, “Nope, not right. Take it back.” And I turned my back to
him and closed the door. Then I called the store and complained. Got me a 2 free pizzas and I tipped the next driver my usual $4. He left with a pretty big smile on his face cause he thought he was getting jack.
Just a note from a generally good tipper: I am a poor college student like a lot of the people who say they can’t afford to tip, but if you’re going to get the convenience of delivery or good service at a restaurant, you should pay for it, dammit! That being said, occasionally I will order something for delivery only to realize that I don’t have enough cash on me to cover a tip. I usually find some way to scrounge up a halfway decent amount, but there have been times I haven’t been able to. It isn’t a case of knowing ahead of time I won’t be able to pay, or I would go pick up the pizza or whatever else myself.
Something else: I really, really hate going out with people who think it’s okay to be cheap about tipping, i.e. those who tip based on percent even if we’ve only gotten appetizers or desserts at a restaurant. The waitstaff are still doing work, and I think it’s morally wrong to leave only fifteen percent of your $10 or whatever bill. I have one friend in particular who not only likes to stiff people like this (cheap parents, too, which may explain it), but will actually get pissed off at me when I try to top off the tip with a little extra–or when I give the pizza guy a large (usually between $4 and $5 on a $20 order) tip when it’s my turn to pay. For Christ’s sake! Especially in terms of delivery staff, the amount of work done does not change with the size of the bill.