So, in other words, because your employer is too cheap to pay you a decent wage, you treat the customers who keep you in a job poorly when they don’t tip you – which they probably did because they wee either mistaken about how much money they’d brought with them or because they weren’t happy with your service to begin with. Nice way to perpetuate an already screwed cycle.
The reason that minimum wages for servers are lower is because restauranteurs have a damned strong lobby and fight any and all efforts to bring their employees’ salaries into line with the salaries of the poorest of Americans. They do that because the vast majority of Americans take for granted that they’re going to have to make up the difference themselves via the goofy tipping game. Surveys have shown that if restaurant owners raised their prices in order to pay their waitstaff decent wages, people would still tip but it would be because they wanted to, not because it was expected even when the server was a lazy, ill-mannered bitch who barely did the minimum required by the job that she took voluntarily.
Which says it all – providing good customer service is a requirement of the job that you took. That means being prompt, being efficient and being polite. That doesn’t mean that you have to be obsequious to someone who is being impolite to you, but that means that you don’t get to decide that you don’t like it when someone makes a request for something or wants service from their server. And let’s face it, let’s be 100% honest. When you say that customer is an “ass” it’s rarely because they were just a basically rude moron with zero people skills. I’ve waited enough tables in my day to know that ass = customer who hustles your butt with lots of requests: a substitution, a bunch of questions about what’s in things and how things are cooked, another salad dressing, a bunch of refills, more bread, take this back it isn’t cooked the way I wanted, and so on. But that’s the job. If you want to hand someone a pre-determined, never varied meal without any additional requests or interactions, then you ought to be working at McDonald’s.
The other day, I found myself unable to leave my retail job for lunch, so I called a certain popular pizza delivery place to bring a pizza, some wings and cheesy sticks for my staff, and put the order on my credit card. Ordinarily, it would have taken 30 minutes. However, the guy on the phone asked me if I wanted to put a t ip on the charge. I told him yes, five dollars.
Asshole delivery person. If you cannot provide the customer with the demonination of bills to tip a fair amount, it’s your own damn fault. kiteboy, you should not feel bad at all about this.
I think you misunderstand. It’s 75 cents for the entire trip, be it 3/4 of a mile or 10 miles.
Over here, the eligible voters in each electorate vote in a Federal Member of Parliament (“MP”) from a political party. Simply put, the political party with a majority of MPs in the Lower House forms government. The leader of this political party becomes Prime Minister, our most powerful government official (no jokes, please :)).
It’s not exactly direct election, but prior to the election, there is no doubt in voters’ minds as to which prospective Prime Minister they are indirectly voting for.
Nit: I believe in the US, the Electoral College actually votes for the President. So you too have indirect election, strictly speaking.
Oh, please. Give me a motherlovin’ break. I do NOT “label” someone as a bad tipper when the enter the resturant. I’ve had farmers who still smell of cow manure give me 30%, I’ve had business men in Armani suits give me 10%. I give everyone the same service, and I’m told at least two or three times a week that I am a great server. This is sometimes told to my face, sometimes whispered to my manager, sometimes written on the credit card recipt. It’s not me, it’s them. Sure, there’s been days when I’ve been sick, or cranky, and I KNOW my service wasn’t up to par. And I expect my tips to reflect that. But when I am at the top of my game, bussing my own tables, hostessing my own tables, and balancing five plates on a tray so the table gets all their food at once, and people STILL give me less then what is expected by US law, then yea, I blame the customer. And even if tipping system here resembled the Aussies’ or Brits’, the food would STILL come to the same price. Tip would be included in the food price. So people who were mistaken about the money they brought would be washing dishes instead of running out on the server.
I’d love to see evidence of these mystical resturant lobbies and surveys.
Nope. Sorry again. I took a job that paid $3.50 an hour BECAUSE I, my employer and all of the United States Federal Labor Laws EXPECT people to pay 15%. I didn’t take the job because I love serving people food. This is not my passion, it’s a good way to make money while I go to school. It’s physically demanding work, it’s often degrading and messy. I fully expect people to do what is correct, and let me know that I have given them the service they expected. And if I haven’t, for whatever reason, they should give me a damn good reason why I’m not getting my 15%. Hell, if I’m doing something wrong, tell me so.
And, as MANY other posters have noted, most resturants operate on a tip-out system. At the high-end resturant I work at, I sell a meal that comes to $50, with a $30 bottle of wine, I am expected to give $5 to the expo, $2.50 to the busser, and $1.50 to the bartender. That means that if I get less than $9 on that meal, I am losing money from my pocket by waiting on that table Does it suck? Sorta. But all that help means I can spend extra time with each table, do a full wine service, and basically make sure their every whim is met with the sparkling wit one would expect from a Swiddle like me. At the lunch sandwich resturant I work at, we only tip out the kitchen 6% on our total cash. At the high-end place, I was pulling a MINIMUM of $100 a night, my highest grossing night was $200. I make, on average, 18%-25% a night. At the lunch place, I bust my ass and usually make about $50, which is about 13%-20%. Needless to say, I’m really looking for another high-end job (the place I was working is seasonal), but they’re not terribly easy to find, serving is a very social business, and it REALLY helps to know someone in the resturant. (I’m going in to interview at a shee-shee job that a friend of a friend serves at… here’s hopin’)
As for the $1 tip for the pizza guy with no change: He deserves that. I am required to keep my own bank of change, and every delivery person I know is too. Just because that guy didn’t take the time to break one of his $20s before work isn’t your fault.
And as far as the US tipping laws go: Minimum wage in my state (I assume federally) is something like $6.50. I worked the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and had ONE table come in. I made one $14 tip. I was there for four hours. So because I made LESS than minimum wage on an hourly average, my employer was required to pay me the difference between $6.5 and $4.38 (the hourly average of $3.50 and the $14 tip), a whopping $8.48 for the night. Now, I’m not complaining about that night, as I spent most of it in front of a roaring fire reading, or in the bar watching TV. It sucked not making the cash I expected, but that’s no one’s fault. I use this just as an illustration of how the law works.
Again, I’m not disputing the fact that in the UK, Australia and some parts of Canada, tipping is an option. When I was in Germany, I loved not having to figure out the tip. (And having the price on a price tag reflect the tax…another thread) I’m directing my wrath towards Americans who are cheap.
Oh god, threads like this make me remember every time I’ve ever gotten stiffed. (Which says good things about my waitressing, you can count how many times I’ve been stiffed on one hand. I know some girls who get stiffed at least once every day)
I waited tables for a little over 8 years. I worked for this great resteraunt (tip wise, the management were fucktards) where we didn’t tip out to anyone. We didn’t have bussers, or a bar (we just did wine and beer) so we kept all of what we had.
There, I would never end a weekend (I worked Friday and Sat nights and all day Sunday) with less then $500 in my pocket. Man, I miss that.
I worked my *ASS[/I off for those tips though. For those of you who are saying
It’s a stupid system, I don’t tip out of protest!
This is just dumb on so many levels. Don’t take out your frustrations of the stystem on the server. They don’t make the system, they shouldn’t have to pay (literally in some cases) for your disgruntlement over it. :mad:
Servers shouldn’t expect tips!
Have you ever been stiffed on a really big check (over $200) that you busted your ass on? That you ended up having to pay so much attention to, that it distracted you from all of your other tables, resulting in crappy tips from them? Or prevented you from even taking any other tables? Basically, threw your whole night off? Did you just shrug your shoulders and say ah well, they’re not required to tip me…" and hold no ill will towards the customers? I don’t think so.
I think most of the people who “protest” against tipping, or insist that it’s not really a requirement are just looking for justification for being a cheap asses. :rolleyes:
Bad lezlers, you’re supposed to PREVIEW!! PREVIEW!!
I waited tables for a little over 8 years. I worked for this great resteraunt (tip wise, the management were fucktards) where we didn’t tip out to anyone. We didn’t have bussers, or a bar (we just did wine and beer) so we kept all of what we had.
There, I would never end a weekend (I worked Friday and Sat nights and all day Sunday) with less then $500 in my pocket. Man, I miss that.
I worked my ASS off for those tips though. For those of you who are saying
It’s a stupid system, I don’t tip out of protest!
This is just dumb on so many levels. Don’t take out your frustrations of the system on the server. They don’t make the system, they shouldn’t have to pay (literally in some cases) for your disgruntlement over it. :mad:
Servers shouldn’t expect tips!
Have you ever been stiffed on a really big check (over $200) that you busted your ass on? That you ended up having to pay so much attention to, that it distracted you from all of your other tables, resulting in crappy tips from them? Or prevented you from even taking any other tables? Basically, threw your whole night off? Did you just shrug your shoulders and say ah well, they’re not required to tip me…" and hold no ill will towards the customers? I don’t think so.
I think most of the people who “protest” against tipping, or insist that it’s not really a requirement are just looking for justification for being a cheap asses. :rolleyes:
I’ve ordered food at school before where it’s 3am, I’m starving, and all I have is $5. I always try to scrounge up quarters or borrow a couple bucks from a friend for tips. It would be phenominally easier if it was added into the price of the food.
Although, I can’t see the deliverers for popular places in a college town hurting too much for tips…
Question: I ride the train a lot, and sometimes one of the ticket-takers will wander down the aisle and help people put their heavy suitcases into the overhead compartments. I’ve never seen them get tipped, but I always wonder whether I should be tipping them?
Sounds like they’re performing bellhop duties. It’s customary to tip bellhops, so I’d guess you should tip them.
I was at the airport a couple of weeks ago and the skycap threw our bags onto the belt then grumbled to my mother “we work for gratuities” and put his hand out. My mother and I fumbled for some change, but I’d never heard of tipping a skycap before, and the way he went about it was a little rude, IMHO.
Earning $2.13/hr (what it was when I was a waitress) sucks ass, and is impossible to live on without the tips. Technically, if your tips don’t make your final income at least minimum wage, the employer is supposed to pay you the difference, but it doesn’t happen like that. At least not in my experience. More like… if your tips are low, they bully you into reporting more tips or they start cutting your hours until you quit.
As for the OP, Dominic always answers the door for the pizza guy. I’m always right nearby watching (usually in the kitchen, where I can see him very clearly and I’m maybe 8 feet away). We give him the exact amount or a check and he doesn’t ask for or accept change. He knows this. In fact he really likes tipping. Quite often in a restaurant, he insists on taking the tip, tracking down the server, and giving it to them personally.
This works especially well when you can’t afford a car and don’t live close enough to walk.
Another scenario: There have been a couple of times when I’ve been really hungry, have had no food in the house, haven’t had the car (for whatever reason) and no ride to the grocery store… and a $10 bill, and decided to order pizza rather than wait 5 or 6 hours to eat. Sorry, it’s happened.
I’ve also been a pizza delivery driver, so I know what it’s about. Most of the time, I tip well.
Ahhh! sorry for posting yet again, but I wanted to add this.
[restaurants, not delivery]
I tip the minimum for mediocre service, well for good service, very well plus talk to the manager for great service…
…but I never leave no tip. If the service is horrible, they may think I just forgot if I leave nothing. If I leave a penny, they know that I thought they sucked. I actually left half of a cut-in-half penny once. The waitress had brought us our food with a snarl, THROWN our check at us from 3 tables away, and never checked on us even once. That is the only time I’ve ever complained about a server to the manager, and funny thing… there was another couple at the counter complaining about her just as we were.
Sorry, but tipping as standard is a stupid system. I do it when I’m in the states, but it annoys me considerably that I’m basically perpetrating a system which allows bosses to screw workers.
