Hang on a minute – this is why I’ ve asked you twice exactly what happened to prompt the restaurant’s actions. Why, specifically, are they starting to balk at delivering to your building? If it’s found in the OP, I missed it.
As for being put in the position of having to guess – very few people have to guess. See below.
All of the above are fine Seriously … it’s not that complicated.
On a ten-dollar order, the $2 tip is generous, and not counted as the rock-bottom tip. $3 is overtipping to the degree that it’s too high to become the benchmark on $10 anytime soon. However, overtipping can garner you some favor … normally, one can get a little extra in return for their consistent overtipping.
If the restaurateur has a radically different idea of what is customary (the restaurant owner is not making deliveries, is he/she?), then they would have problems competing in the marketplace, unless their food or service was truly exceptional and close to unique. They can’t just arbitrarily pick an expected tip figure out of the air. If every delivery person got PO’d and spit on $3 tips on $10, say, people will summarily flock to competitors.
Again, adjust tipping figures upward for expensive markets.
Um, hi, you must be new, let me show you around the place. This is The BBQ Pit which is where people on the boards whine about stuff.
I have? In which posts did I do this? Because I just reviewed all of my posts to the thread and I never once said that they didn’t have the right to conduct their business in this fashion if they so choose.
…
What, exactly, is your damage here?
Do you honestly not have the ability to realize that different situations… aren’t the same?
Have you painted yourself into a corner and now you’re going to just flail around until people give up?
If you are getting bad service then you can refuse to tip and the waiter/delivery guy loses money because of their poor service. If, however, they give you good service, you’re being an asshole to make them lose money.
Thus my ‘tax code argument’ should make sense to anybody not deliberately being wilfully ignorant. If you don’t tip, the waiter/delivery guy loses money. You’re a jerk if you got good service and don’t tip, but even if the service was bad and you don’t tip, it’s still their right not to lose money by serving you.
Again, just what gives you such a massive sense of entitlement that you think that people should lose money, out of their own pockets, just for the chance of serving you? Seriously. Do you think that you’re royalty or something? That’s you’re so cool that the delivery guy should be willing to lose a few dollars every time he comes by your office simply because delivering your food is such an honor?
What part of “We won’t deliver if you make our employees lose money” is so hard for you to wrap your mind around?
The restaurants (note the plural: Otto’s office has apparently alienated more than one restaurant in the area) complaints aren’t about tips being too small, they’re about the tips being non-exsistant.
And is figuring out 15% of an order really that difficult? I suck at math to an astonishing degree, but I can figure out 15% in my head without breaking a sweat.
Are you fucking for real? I’d think that you were deliberately baiting people, but you seem to simply be totally clueless here.
You’ve called it extortion, and maintained that definition. That should be a little clue, as extortion isn’t legal. If, however, you were simply being a purposefully inflamatory jerk in order to bait people into a response, I’d recommend an immediate mea culpa to the mods.
Now, if they have the right to conduct their business any way they see fit, and they don’t have to lose money on a sale if they don’t want, then they’re not “shitty” for not losing money.
This should be clear, even to you.
Unless you really are just trying to piss people off and flailing away in a corner.
You know, with the group of adults I hang out with, when we order out together we all just throw in a couple extra bucks with our order for tip and don’t worry about counting the pennies. Since we are all decent and trustworthy people. we don’t abuse this system.
Maybe not 20%, but the “service charge” is added to the bill, no questions asked.
Agreed there.
However, if I’m returning to the restaurant for the tenth time, having always left no or substandard tips, I wouldn’t blame the maitre d’ for making a statement like that. (Or maybe I would blame him/her, if I’m the type of person who would consistently stiff the staff. Can’t blame the service if I keep going back time after time.)
I would go elsewhere, naturally, but this scenario is totally unlike the situation you’re frothing about.
When you walk into a restaurant, you already understand that you’re expected to tip the waiter, and twenty percent is toward the upper end of the scale, reserved for larger parties and exemplary service. You also have the understanding that if the service is sub-par, you may leave a smaller tip, and if the waiter is rude or completely incompetant, you’ve no obligation to leave a tip at all. This is how it is.
In your scenario, the customer is being asked to pay a premium price for the service, but has no guarantee that they’ll receive premium service. The waiter can insult your taste, let your order get cold while he tries to get into the hostess’s pants, put his thumb in your soup, spill wine on your Armani suit and imply it doesn’t matter because it’s out of style anyway, and sneeze and fart all over the table, and his compensation is assured.
This is not how tipping works – it’s not a flat surcharge. The only reason that the memo in question came into existence is apparently because enough people in your company have witheld the expected tip (without cause) that the drivers have no confidence that proper service to that address will garner a tip.
You shouldn’t have to be told that tipping is expected, and you certainly shouldn’t be offended when you are. You say you tip, because you’re not a jerk. Why are you so worked up because the people who are jerks in your company (or building) are getting a memo about the basics of tipping etiquitte? I don’t understand why your wrath isn’t directed at them. It’s their rude behavior that may effect the service you receive, as you unfairly receive the Scarlett “J” for simply working at the same location with a significant number of stubbornly ignorant jerks.
In your sit-down scenario, the maitre-d’ has no reason to inform customers that tipping is required, because tipping is expected in our society, and only a social retard would stiff a waiter on their tip unless the service was extremely bad.
I imagine that if the same person kept showing up at a place and consistently omitting the tip, at some point the maitre d’ would find some discreet way of letting the customer know that they were commiting a faux pas, if it seemed like it was innocent ignorance, or perhaps simply never seat him, if the guy was simply an abusive asshole.
You don’t know how the situation was communicated to the author of the memo. It does seem strange that several companies would be “rethinking” delivering to you at the same time without cause.
I’m curious about how food deliveries work at your company. The author of the memo says “When a person doesn’t leave a tip the receptionist and guard are the ones that catch the flack from the delivery person.”
Why is this? Do you place an order, and then leave the cash with the receptionist? If so, I could see how this might encourage non-tippers, since they would never have to look the person they’re stiffing in the eye. If that was the case, I’d sure hate to be the receptionist and be put in such an uncomfortable position, and would probably complain to management about it myself.
As am I. From the information in the OP, the restaurants might not have even complained at all … the impetus from the memo may have been the receptionists’s desk.
As I’ve already explained, I was not accusing the restaurants of doing anything illegal. I accept your inability to cite a specific instance of my having said what you claim I said as an admission on your part that I didn’t actually say it. But thanks for the veiled trolling accusation, that was much appreciated.
Yes, you were, Humpy Dumpty. Words don’t mean whatever you want them to. So, you were being an inflamatory jackass in order to get a reaction, and you are just flailing around because you don’t even know what the words you use mean. Check.
What a whiney, cowardly, cunt you are. What fucking game are you playing? Your continued whining about how tips are “optional” means that they’re not “mandatory”, and if they’re not “mandatory”, then they can’t be demanded.
Is this really so tough for you, there? Have you exhausted yourself demanding that people lose money out of their own pockets so that they may experience the joy of serving your August Personage?
“I accept your inability to cite a specific instance of my having said that you’re a troll as an admission on your part that I didn’t actually say it.”
More to the point, whiney cunt, I said that you were clueless. Which seems to be a charitable moniker for you at this point. I said that if you weren’t, you were being inflamatory and baiting people, which is not trolling. Or do you think that every “Bush is Teh Uber Evileeee” thread is trolling?
You created a senationalist thread title and premise because you’re too dense to realize what the language means. Or you did it knowing you were making an absurd statement and just wanted to bait people into debating you by making your language as inflamatory and absurd as possible.
Neither is trolling although I would argue that the second is very jerkish.
OK, duffer, you can come back now. I was hoping this would stay reasonably polite, but now that “cunt” has come out I think it’s safe to say that any vestige of civility has gone by the wayside.
I knew I should’ve used cum-bubble!
Eh, intellectual dishonesty pisses me off. And after a certain point, one doesn’t deserve civility anymore.
And, quite frankly, I’m tired of the inflamatory bullshit. Instead of simply saying “A researaunt wants us to tip and I don’t wanna” terms like “extortion” and “blackmail” get thrown in the mix. I don’t view it as any more savory than refering to a dogpile in a thread as “gang rape”.
I don’t think you’re applying the definition of compelling reasonably. Because when a person dines at a restaurant, there is an expectation that the agreed upon price for what you order will be paid. Also, when I lose a hand at poker, I’m not expected to pay any more than I WILLINGLY bet.
It seems as if the m-w.com definition of extortion encompasses every transaction. In other words, it is too broad. However, based on the definition, what Otto is describing could be construed as extortion.
I think I would change the definition. Merriam-Webster probably doesn’t give a shit what I think.
What Otto is describing could be construed as a company making a financial business decision. They are not holding him hostage over tips. They are telling him that due to a systematic failure to tip the person that made the effort to bring the food so he didn’t have to they will no longer provide that convenience to his company. They are not extorting anything, they are simply telling him that it is no longer in their economic self-interst to deliver anymore and if they want the food they will a) make it so it is in their economic self-interest to do so or b) come and get it themselves.
That’s only about the fourth time I’ve said that in this thread, and under no circumstances does that resemble extortion in any way, shape, or form.
Wow, in addition to all your many other talents you’re also a mind reader.
In this case, the word means “demanding that customers pay more than the asking price under threat of cutting off service.” If you don’t like the use of extortionist in that context, too fucking bad.
What a nasty stupid little fucker you are.
Now who doesn’t know what words mean? You fucking idiot. A demand can only be made for something that’s already a requirement? Dumbass.
You know, you can keep on typing this “losing money out of their own pockets” bullshit until the fingers you aren’t currently using to frig yourself crack and bleed, it won’t make it true. The simple fact is that my money is my money until such time as I give it to someone else. You don’t get to count my money as someone else’s money until I give it to them.
Feel free to so accept it, because I clearly said “veiled accusation.” You stopped short of referencing bridges and the Billy Goats Gruff, so that’s something I suppose.
Or I did it because the word “extortionist” can actually be used in a sense other than the legal definition of a crime. Which, oh, seeing as how I’m the one living inside my head and you’re not, I guess that’s the right answer.
How funny that you follow up your expression of loathing for intellectual dishonesty by popping off with what amounts to a great big honkin’ lie.
How many times, you fuckwitted cockgoblin, do I have to say that I always tip before it makes it through to your addled brain that, you know, I have no objection to tipping? My objection, which has been clearly stated over and over and over again but which is apparently well beyond your pathetically limited capacity, is to the resataurants’ sudden new policy, not to tipping.
Just how dense are you? Do you have to work at it? Pointing out that you’re making up your own definitions for words is hardly “mind reading”.
Like I said, Humpty, you’re making up words. “Wanting to make a profit and if you can’t, not providing a service” is not extortion. You’re just being mindlessly inflamatory.
Why are you murdering me?!?!
MURDER!!!
So you admit you were making up words before, eh?
And, seriously, do you have to work at being this dense? Does it come naturally? A demand can only be made for something that’s already a requirement? Really? So if I demand that you shut the fuck up until you get a clue, does that mean you’re required to stop posting? Really? Neat.
The fact remains that you’re a needlessly inflamatory schmuck. You whine about how it’s “extortion” how you’re being “blackmailed”, how tips for good service are “optional”, and then continue to whine about how it’s “shitty” for a business to want to make a profit. Coward.
What kind of a moron are you, exatly? Seriously, I’m curious. You’ve already had no fewer than three people tell you that waiters/delivery staff are taxed based on projected tips. Obviously, they pay that tax out of their own pocket.
Are you really too stupid to understand that? Really?
Again, brainstem-level-August-Personage, the government does consider that you owe the money to them. Moreoever, the government consideres that you gave the money to them, and will tax them accordingly, even if you don’t tip. So if you don’t tip, you are making the delivery driver lose money.
Your massive and obnoxious entitlement complex doesn’t change that.
Sorry.
Being as you can’t even understand the difference between a crime and a free market, it doesn’t surprise me that you can’t understand the difference between being an inflamatory asshole and a troll.
But, like I said, you’re being mindlessly inflamatory.
Jeez… you really are one of the stupidest Dopers we’ve got. Angling for Anti-Doper 2006, are ya?
What part was a lie, eh, spunky? That the delivery company wanted your company as a whole to tip or they’d refuse to deliver? That you Pitted them for it? I know you’re not too good with them thar words, but “us” would indiciate more than one person, spunky. And saying that you don’t want “us” to tip refers, clearly, to the company as a whole that has to chip in for tips. Try to keep up.
But it sure takes a slimey fuck to lie about someone else lying, that’s for sure.
Jeez, what a revolting liar you are. You have no objection to tipping, but they’re “extortionists” and “blackmailing” you by saying that it’s not worth their time if you make them lose money?
You have got to be one of the most dishonest fuckers we’ve got here.
Again, your rampant dishonesty. Their “new policy” is about tipping, you intellectually dishonest fool. You object to them saying that it’s not making financial sense to deliver if your office doesn’t tip. So you don’t objec to tipping… you just object to tipping. Right, got it.
Seriously … it’s not that complicated.