You are making a presumption that minimum wage is the correct wage for waiting tables.
You are making an assumption $10 an hour is the correct wage for waiting tables.
Uh . . . yeah, he’s making that assumption rather explicitly. What’s your point?
Out of curiousity, what did you say to the server before he took your order?
“I am from Australia, where we don’t tip our waiters, and I want you to know that I won’t be tipping you either?”
Please understand that in asking, there is no snark intended, I just wonder how you brought up the subject in the first place.
(If I understand, you told the waiter BEFORE beginning the meal that you would not be leaving any gratuity, correct?)
I’m not sure this example directly applies. If the mutual agreement was that I would do X task for Y amount of money, then that would imply that I was satisfied with that amount of money and would do the work as I said I would.
Maybe you could say that a server-contractor has agreed to the amount of 20% implicitly… but that doesn’t really work because he/she still has to do the job even if he or she knew a 7% tip was on the way (or else get fired). Maybe a more apt comparison would be to say that if you gave Leonardo DaVinci $10 and asked him to paint you somethin’ pretty --and if DaVinci had student loans and rent to pay off-- you ain’t getting no Mona Lisa.
And, if you are so inclined, my theory on why raising server wages won’t work (aside from the fact that at least some people in the U.S. like tipping and would do it anyway so then other people would still feel that “social pressure”):
Tipping allows restaurants to provide better service to guests because servers are paid according to the amount of work they do and the quality of service they provide. It also is fluxuates with the daily ups and downs of a restaurant. I sell about $200 worth of food on a typical Tuesday night and make about $40, and I sell between $500-$1000 on a Saturday night and can make up to $200. I run around like crazy on a Saturday night, it’s very stressful and desperately busy. All my friends are out having fun and I’m at work, people are judging me as a person, and I know my tuition/rent depends on how quickly and I refill someone’s water. But I try hard to do everything get paid more money because I’m doing more work. If I got paid an hourly wage of, say, $9, I’d never want to work a Friday or Saturday because it’s hard work and I’d rather have some form of a social life on weekends, plus I can sit on my ass Tuesday night for the same amount of money. Maybe restaurants would make those shift into chores or even punishments for servers. Anyway, normal people wouldn’t put up with what servers had to go through for $9, so all the nice, normal, skilled servers would quit, leaving guests with the only people desperate enough to perform extremely high-pressure work for relatively little money. It’s foreseeable, in my eyes, that quality of service would decrease.
Maybe people decide that serving tables is a worthwhile skill and bump the pay to $13-15 to have better quality servers. Restaurants wouldn’t be able to afford to have as many servers on a shift, so they would keep the staffing to a minimum. If there was an unexpected rush, then you could have a full floor and only 2 or 3 over-extended servers, more bad service. On top of that, family-owned restaurants, which tend to have thinner profit margins, wouldn’t even bother to open because they wouldn’t be able to afford service staff.
As it is now, a mom & pop restaurant can afford to provide full service to guests, shitty servers get bad tips and subsequently quit, the best servers are fighting to get shifts on Friday and Saturday nights, and we are doing stuff you like, like timing out your apps and entrees, reading up on wines, checking on your orders when they are being cooked, fighting with the kitchen to get your food out quickly and just the way you like it, apologizing profusely when a mistake is made (even if it’s not our fault), smiling as you berate us, and asking the managers if we can comp part of your meal or buy you a dessert if you are unhappy.
No exactly, I picked $10 out of my backside as a round number. I would have no idea what an appropriate wage would be in the US.
I know that 10 years ago in NZ a GOOD waiter / waitress would go $13-$18 per hour, more for public holidays etc.
Thanks to causticsubstance for a lucid post.
To which I would reply:
“Then how do we manage it in Australia and New Zealand”?
Here, you ask for shifts depending upon your life circumstances, students might want Tuesday and Thursday because Wed and Fri they have late lectures, mum might want Saturday night because Dad’s at home etc etc.
It’s also up to the manager to rotate the shifts accordingly. Further, what I used to see was a very high level of co-operation amongst wait-staff. Where-in the load is shared, so the skill of the manager in setting the appropriate staff level is important.
Also, we do tip back home - however it is reserved for that “something special” not for simply doing your job. It might only be $5 or $10, but if you get that across multiple customers (and you will if you are good) it adds up to a nice bonus.
Finally, if wait-staff were paid a “fair” wage, and tipping were abolished, would you expect the (total) cost of dining to go up or down? (working on the assumption that you pay the “standard” 20%)
One reason why I feel uncomfortable with a “tipping culture” is that I am pretty explicitly rating somebody’s job performance. And I just don’t need that when I am dining out. What’s more, for waiters where I am a regular, I don’t want to enter into that sort of stress.
This was a pretty interesting thread until it went off the rails with another completely inane, fruitless discussion on tipping amounts. It was only a matter of time I suppose. Nice try, OP.
It was many years ago, but yeah, that was pretty much it. “Look, I’m from Australia, so it’s only fair to let you know we don’t tip our waiters at home and I’m not going to tip you either, especially since the exchange rate means this meal is going to end up costing me the equivalent of around $50. If you want to focus your attention on other diners that’s completely fine with me”, or something very similar to that.
I’m a writer. A surprising amount of my work is performed for $0.00/hr and the warm congratulations of the client.
What’s stressful about it? There’s a societal standard in the U.S.: 15% for acceptable service. Just tip 15% on anything that wasn’t terrible; if you got bad service, knock it down to 5% or 10%; and if it was abyssmal, don’t leave anything at all and explain why, either as a note on the bill or, preferably, to a manager. If you get especially good service or make a lot of special requests, you can bump it up to 20% or 25%. If even that’s too complicated for you, just tip 15% on everything.
It’s not rocket surgery.
Ah, but that’s what you agreed to. Imagine if you wrote a novel and a publisher picked it up and made money selling it… and sent you a fruit basket instead of a royalty check.
All that I’ve learned from this last page is that I’m really glad that Pittsburgh isn’t a tourist destination. Because that means service providers won’t ever have to deal with Martini Enfield, for whom the phrase “in Rome you do as the Romans do” means nothing.
Aaaaaaaand now I have Billy Joel in my head. Is there no end to your cruel depredations, woman?
None! I’ll be punching babies and kicking puppies later.
Well, that’s an interesting way of leaving an insulting tip.
I would like to hear more about this.
Oh, that’s fine. It’s the obnoxious earworms that are terrible. You’ve made my list for the day, along with Brown Eyed Girl.
Listen, I* appreciate* being put on your list, but since I’m not from Milwaukee, and we just don’t give thanks for this sort of thing in Pittsburgh. The exchange rate here is just killing me!!!1!!!11!! $25 here is like $50 in Pittsburgh! So I can’t possibly be expected to respect your customs. I don’t mind if you ignore me and tend to others, like Brown Eyed Girl instead. Really, I don’t. Cross my heart.
Apples and Oranges, though. As a writer, I’m well aware that I may not get paid for some of the work I do, and there’s a vast difference between “Writing a bestseller and not getting a royalty cheque” and “Not getting tipped for writing an order down and then bringing it out later”. A waiter/waitress is also going to be aware that they’re not always going to get tipped by people, in much the same way that a writer is aware that they can spend ages writing something and not have it get published, or not get paid when it does get published.
Normally when people make assumptions like that, they would provide a reason for so doing. I am sorry if that basic concept escaped you.
Except that by entering a restaurant with waitstaff in the U.S., you are implicitly agreeing that you will tip for acceptable service. If you don’t like it, *no one *is forcing you to eat at restaurants with waitstaff. You can prepare your own meals, or you can purchase them from stores and restaurants that do not have waiters.
So, it’s not like just randomly writing something and hoping it will be published. It’s like writing something under contract. There is an agreement between the person providing the service (the waiter or writer) and the person receiving the service (the patron or publisher). To receive the service and then not provide compensation for it is unethical. I notice that you’re also continuing to downplay the job that a waiter does by classifying it as merely writing an order down and bringing it out. Does inaccurately belittling their jobs help you feel better about stealing from them? Would it be okay for a publisher to not pay you for a piece if they said all you did was push some keys on a board?
You’re getting away with theft legally, because we actually count on people to understand that when they are given a service they had a choice in receiving, they should pay for it. Clearly, you are incapable of grasping that concept. Please do not visit my city; some of my friends are waitstaff here, and I would not appreciate you stealing from them.
This might be true if every. single. person who lived in the US, without exception, tipped. I know for a fact this isn’t true, and so do you and everyone else on the boards.
Waiters know some people won’t tip (or won’t tip “enough”). Writers know that publications can agree to publish something and then never, ever use it. I’ve got stuff that’s been accepted for publication and has been sitting in their files for years. Some of it is no longer topical or relevant and will therefore not get published. I don’t rant about how the publisher is “Stealing” from me, because that’s entirely too hyperbolic even for me. They asked me to write a story for them on Topic X, I did, they said they’d publish it, they didn’t (for whatever reason), so I spent ages writing and researching a story that didn’t get published and for which I’m not going to get paid. That’s a hell of a lot more investment than the five minutes a waitress spends taking my order and bringing me the food when it’s ready.
I’ve worked in hospitality myself for many years (both as a waiter and bartender), so I’m not “inaccurately belitting their job.” It’s been my experience that many, many people can be very good waiters with little or no experience or training, but a quick look around the Internet (and at internal e-mails if you work for a company) should confirm that a disturbingly high percentage of people can’t communicate in a written medium very well at all.
Now, if you’re being a waiter in a fancy restaurant where you’re expected to have an entire wine list memorised and make recommendations on which caviar should go with with accompaniment and which sauce will complement sirs wagyu steak best, then yeah, that’s a lot of work and skill which might warrant a little extra something, especially if you’re with an important client or hot date and the waiter’s advice and service helped create a favourable atmosphere for an important business deal or impress your date. But that’s not the sort of restaurant I’m talking about in this conversation.
Or, it could be that I don’t think the service I’m receiving (no matter how good) is actually worth 20% of the bill or whatever. And like I said, we all know perfectly well that there are sizeable numbers of people in the US who either don’t tip or only round their change up, so it’s not like there’s this mythical One Australian Guy who never tips and travels about the diners and family restaurants of America bringing despair and misery in his tip-less wake or anything.
But don’t worry, I’m not going to visit your city (wherever that is) since I have no reason to be in regional American anytime in the foreseeable future.
How much to waiters in the US actually earn? I’ve read so many stories on the net (and had recounted personally by friends from off the boards) about waitstaff bragging how much they make in tips that I find the idea of “starving impoverished waitstaff” dubious for the most part, at least in the sort of places where tourists are and the economy is good (at least comparatively). I realise that waitstaff as a whole don’t get paid CEO-level amounts of money, but is it significantly less than someone who works at McDonalds or Starbucks or wherever?
(Missed the edit window)
I just wanted to re-iterate (again) that despite my own objections to the practice, my wife (whom I travel with) handles the tips when we’re visiting the US. So none of the waitstaff at the restaurants we’ve frequented are actually out of pocket because I, personally, didn’t tip them.