I’m not saying that they do or they don’t. I’m saying that if these places who inspired the memo are determined to shake down customers for “tip” money for their employees, then rather than dishonestly shaking customers down for “tips” (which, “social contract” or not, are still voluntary), they should charge for delivery and then give the delivery and give it to the driver.
if the reataurant is going to refuse service to a company because the drivers do not get sufficient tips then that is a de facto delivery charge and needs to be stated up front before any “social contract” is entered into.
Blaming the flack that the receptionist gets on the non tippers is just stupid. Especially when it is against the rules to tell the driver that the order is incorrect.
Restaurants need to pay a decent wage and have that reflected in the price of the food. As it is, the servers enter into the arrangement understanding that tips are not guaranteed. I’ve worked as a waiter, bartender and delivery guy. Sometimes you get stiffed. Comes with the territory.
Oh, well these horrible guys are just refusing service based on their driver’s ability to support themselves- it’s sooooo horrible! Moroner.
If you honestly think that “might not get tipped” and “might get killed” are in any way functionally equivalent, then you’re among the dumbest people I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter.
Wow, and I thought not tipping the driver was bad enough.
You’ve got some hostility issues there, sven. :eek:
Are you and Otto using some wacky definition for extortion that the rest of us haven’t heard of?
Here’s dictionary.com’s definitions:
If you’ve got some other definition, please offer it.
I know of street buskers who play for tips. If they find that nobody near a street corner ever tips, they’ll stop playing at that corner. Are these buskers also extortionists?
Daniel
I’d like to see the legal cite that allows the company to discriminate against that particular business? Does it come under the heading of “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone?” I know pizza companies have run into legal hassles over refusing to deliver to some predominantly black neighborhoods, even though they cite safety concerns. I would think that “We won’t deliver to them because they don’t tip our sub-contractors” would be a shaky thing to have to defend in court.
No. It seems to me that the situation fits the definition. The intimidation at work here is the threat to decline to fulfill orders. And I don’t think that “exorbitant” need equate to “excessive.” It can be exorbitant in the sense of demanding tips for sub-par service. From M-W.com’s definition of “exorbitant”…
So I think the shoe fits.
Are non-tippers a protected class? If not, then discriminating against them is perfectly legal. Discrimination is only illegal when it’s against a protected class.
Oh, for pity’s sake. By that logic, every time a business charges for its service, it’s extorting the customer.
What part of that shoe fits?
Daniel
Tips are voluntary. Boycott the bastards.
For actual interactive service, where the level of customer service is under the control of the server and therefore it’s reasonable to reward good service directly, tips serve at least some purpose to the customer, in allowing them to reward good service directly. For delivery, where all they have to do, and all they can do, is just bring you your damn food, applying a tipping system does nothing for the customer and serves only as an excuse for the restraunt to underpay their delivery people.* If they want you to pay for delivery, then a delivery charge is appropriate; if they persist in trying to force ‘mandatory tips’ on you, then as I said, boycott the bastards.
*Expecting customers to make up the difference for employers who shaft their table staff is crappy too. I’m tired of being expected to cover for cheap-ass employers. Pay the help a real wage, and let’s reserve tips for good service. I shouldn’t have to give you fifteen percent for mediocre service! Your BOSS should pay you for doing the mare minimum, not me! Blasted accursed extortionistic employers… :mad:
I don’t believe your conclusion logically follows.
The difference is the delivery folks are demanding tips for sub-par delivery service on something that’s already been purchased.
Why don’t the restaurants in question simply include a delivery surcharge? If the food is good, folks will pay it, and probably not think much of it. From a psychological and marketing perspective, it strikes me as silly to deal with the problem of disgruntled drivers by explicitly demanding “tips” from customers. Many reasonably view tips as a voluntary contribution to encourage good service. A “mandatory tip” will strike them as oxymoronic and pushy (though we do see automatic “gratuities” charged for serving large parties, I suppose). Just build a small percentage fee into delivery to defray the extra service costs. The non-tippers will probably view that as fair, and the tippers will probably still tip the same percentage they did before. Meanwhile, the drivers don’t get screwed. Voila, everyone’s happy! It’s all in the presentation, I say.
There’s no threat to decline to fill orders. I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to fill your orders if you’re willing to go and pick them up.
What they are providing is a service for your convenience. And if they decide that gas costs too much, if they decide that you are 1/8th of a mile too far away, if they decide that they just don’t want to deliver to you, well, they don’t have to, against which they have to weigh the potential loss of your business.
Correct me if I am wrong here, but the driver’s are threatening not to deliver next time, right? I mean I cannot imagine them carrying the food back because they got stiffed.
But I can imagine you calling up ***Joe’s Pizza, Pasta and Canoli ** * and them saying, “ABC Corp? You guys don’t tip us so we ain’t bringing you nothin’ no more!”
Then you hang up and dial another company.
Where did I go wrong here?
No, they’re not:
Exactly. They’ve fulfilled their contract with you from your last order, but they feel that you didn’t live up to your end of hte bargain as they understood it. So they’re refusing to make future bargains with you, unless you agree in advance to tip.
THat’s exactly equivalent to any business saying, “If you are going to refuse to give me the payment I require for my service, then I won’t do business with you.”
What about our street buskers who move to another corner? Extortionists?
Daniel
And they’re providing that service for the price of the order. Loopydude said it better than I did. If the service costs more, then it should be built into the price of the order. By letting the delivery company demand tips from the customer, the restaurant is effectively promising a service and then failing to deliver (heh) on it.
Which is why I said the delivery fees should be transparent to the customer. Covering the costs of the delivery service should be between the delivery company and the restaurant, not between the delivery service and the customer.
I always fuck the tippers.
And they are choosing to decline to do so in the future, which will cost them business but may actually be a money saver for them, unless there is some incentive for them to continue.
There’s a reason that tipped employees only have to get paid $2 and change an hour. It’s because it is expected that they will make it up in tips. When a waitress brings you your food at a resaurant it is expected that you will tip her. When a pizza guy bring food to your door is it unreasonable to expect the same? He’s bringing you your food.
If you don’t tip, where’s the incentive to bring the food? That’s right, there is none. Restaurants that don’t bring you your food like McDonald’s have that factored in to their business models and expect you to get up off your duff and get it yourself. The restaurants in question may now require you to do just that, and when you think about it you have nobody to blame but yourself for it. A pizza deliveryman is doing every bit the same thing as a waitress, and not recognizing that with a tip is just rude, and the businesses that employ these delivery people may choose to deiscontinue delivery altogether to your location because of it. Good for them.
So we’re expected to guess as to whether a restaurant pays its delivery people a respectable wage or whether they’re expected to make their living on tips? That doesn’t sound reasonable to me.
As I said before, if undertipping is an issue and the delivery folks rely on tips for their wages, the restaurant should build delivery into the price.
The delivery person is the restaurant’s face to its customers. Compensating them appropriately should be the ultimate responsibility of the restaurant. Otherwise, they should disclose that they’ve outsourced delivery on all their printed material and make sure customers are aware of it prior to ordering.
You did read the description of the memo, didn’t you, where the businesses are saying that they won’t promise that service in the future unless people tip? It may not be as transparent as you’d like, but it’s not like they’re deceiving you: they’ve clearly informed you what they expect. If you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else.
There’s nothing whatsoever deceptive about this.
Daniel