No need to restate that, though. We are discussing the principle of the matter. You are saying that you wouldn’t tip even if your wife wasn’t with you. So it’s pointless to bring up the fact that she covers you, unless you are saying that if she didn’t, then you would tip, in which case the your whole point is pointless.
Not that I begrudge you your right not to tip.
No, it’s more like someone contacts a writer, outlines an article, and gives a range of payments depending on how much the person likes the article. The writer delivers the article, and then the publisher never publishes. From my understanding, the publisher is still obliged to pay the writer SOMETHING for delivering a piece of writing, even if it’s never published. Maybe it’s different in Oz, but I could swear that I’ve heard of publishers buying the rights for first publication from writers, and writers producing an article/story/whatever, delivering the work, and then the writers can’t get that story or whatever published elsewhere.
By going into a restaurant, a diner is offering an implied contract to the restaurant (that s/he is willing and able to pay the bill) and the server (that s/he is willing and able to give a tip for adequate service). If someone goes into a barber shop or beauty salon, s/he is offering an implied contract that s/he’s willing to pay for services rendered.
Those people are also thieves. What’s your point? Everybody doing an unethical thing doesn’t suddenly and magically make it ethical.
I thought your justification was that you couldn’t afford the tip because of the exchange rate, or something? So, wait, you’re not complaining about a $15 :rolleyes: tip on a $100 meal, but a $3 tip on a $20 one? … Wow.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you cannot afford the tip, you cannot afford the meal. The tip is an *understood part *of the cost of the meal in the U.S., but the exact amount is left up to your discretion so that you can properly reward good service and give less compensation for poor service. No one here is insisting that you tip 25% on every meal, or even any meal. 15% is the standard base tip for acceptable service in this country. Again, if you do not like it, you *do not have to eat *at places that have tipped waitstaff. Otherwise, if you accept the service with the intention of never paying for it, you are stealing.
Their base wage is a couple of dollars an hour, but tips bump it up significantly above that. If everyone in the U.S. were to steal service from their waiters like you do, no one would work the job.
I lift wallets when I’m out in public, but my boyfriend always catches me and puts them back before anyone notices. So it’s not like I’m *really *stealing.
To me, it seems odd that someone who is willing and able to shell out around $1000 for R/T airfare to the USA from Australia is concerned about a $15 tip. (I would bet that the server who was stiffed thought the same thing)
Without judging, I have spend a considerable amount of time in many different countries (my family lived in Australia for 3 years) and I always tried to follow the old adage “When in Rome…”
Quite.
This is literally the most pointless and worthless thread I’ve seen in awhile. Talk about beating a dead horse.
If you’re bored, you could always go open a thread about declawing cats.
Well you two clearly aren’t matched, then. Are you sure isn’t Jiminy Cricket?
Ha! I suppose that would be another sore topic on the SDMB.
Oh my, yes. Also circumcision and obesity. So if you made a thread about how much you should tip a fat man for circumcising your declawed cat, you’d probably create some sort of internet singularity.
Only if he also drives an SUV.
Whackadoodles the lot of 'em. Oh man, fat acceptance threads here are heeeelarious.
I love it.
Wages vary by state. Serving wage here in PA is $2.83 per hour. Apparently there is a new-ish law that requires employers to make up the difference if their servers don’t recieve at least the minimum hourly wage of $7.15 from both their serving wage and tips. However, I’ve never seen any payoff from this.
There are no tourists in my area, as is true of most of the USA, and I’ve nemostly worked very low-end restaurants. Personally, in the last 6 years I’ve made between $12,000 and $20,000 per year serving full-time (40 hours per week or more). I could probably have made more per hour working at Starbucks, etc - but there aren’t usually a lot of hours to go around at those places.
I’m having massive deja vu. It seems to me that we have discussed just such an uberthread before.
If you’re wondering about how much money I make, it’s probably between $15-23,000 a year working in upscale high-volume restaurants, full time. Mind you, “full time” at a restaurant means that you are at work during all your friends with “normal” jobs are having fun. Serving during the day is not nearly as lucrative as dinner business. It’s comfortable, but there is a definite ceiling as to how well you can do serving. I’m sure there are some outrageously lucrative serving jobs, but not many. In most cities, even the most coveted serving positions top out at around $70-80,000 a year (so I’ve heard), but these are like $100/plate places and it’s practically impossible to get a position there.
If you’re wondering how I can sleep at night knowing I make that “much” by just writing down orders and carrying food, then you should know that I do more than that. I’m am carrying buckets of ice and racks of glasses out to restock throughout the night so you can get a your diet coke ASAP. If the glasses just came out of the washer, then I am filling them with hot water mixed with cold water, pouring it out, filling the glass with just cold water, waiting 20 seconds, then slowly putting ice in. If I don’t do this, then the glass with crack. I am in the kitchen double checking none of the ingredients (or ingredients within ingredients) of your food have anything you’re allergic to, and trying to wrestle the kitchen into making food they way you like it. I clean your table before you sit down and after you leave, typing messages in the computer in a way that the kitchen will understand, keeping track of what each individual person has to eat/drink just in case they want to split their check, and if a food or drink looks sorta skimpy or otherwise unappealing, I push it back to the kitchen/bartender and tell them “I’m not selling this. Fix it or make another.” I’m also informing the manager of any problems you’re having, so they can take care of them. Hell, sometimes I can sense a table has an issue they aren’t willing to tell me about, so I send a manager to ask how things are going, hoping they will tell him. And this is just part of what I do away from tables. I like to think people are willing to pay money to not have to go through that.
I think the whole idea behind the hospitality industry is to make it look effortless, as if the restaurant had boundless resources it could access instantly. People don’t want to go somewhere where they feel bad for asking for something.
It isn’t newish, been around for ages - employees - even servers - are entitled to minimum wage. And its federal.
And while I tip, and tip well, I also am not going to be the one responsible for making sure you get paid adequately because your employer can’t follow the law. That’s between you and your employer - and if you aren’t getting up to minimum wage and your employer isn’t responsive - you do what the rest of us do - talk to your department of labor or an attorney. I also really resent the often made implication that the reason I need to tip 20% is because the next table will stiff the waitstaff and its my responsibility to make sure that a waiter gets a living wage because the next guy might stiff you. Those things are between two parties that don’t involve me.
I absolutely agree. Each diner is only responsible for their own tip. If they would *like *to tip extra, that’s their prerogative, but that doesn’t mean that anyone else *has *to.
Although I do tend to tip better because of the number of British people who don’t know the system over here and undertip.
Wait a second… what are you calling “upscale high-volume”? Chile’s or Red Lobster? or something of that ilk? If you work full time (2080 hours per year), in most states (and for some businesses, all states) you’d make (not necessarily clear) $15000 just for showing up and having your employer pay you minimum wage. So, you basically only make $30 per day over minimum wage on a good year? That’s almost akin to me being the only tipper in the restaurant.
“Federal” only applies to things that they have say over. In the case of minimum wage, it’s for businesses that are in interstate trade with a minimum number of employees. McDonald’s franchises, for example, fall under state law. Of course, most states match or surpass the federal minimum wage law, but it’s still important to point out that the federal government doesn’t (yet) have unlimited rights.
Are you remembering to account for the gap between what they get paid (on an hourly basis, minus tips) and minimum wage?