Oh? So it’s as simple as that? All she has to do is DECIDE to get a education and a better job? She willingly CHOSE a life of hard, thankless, lowly-compensated work? After all, there are so many good, high-paying jobs out there, just theirs for the taking.
Jesus, even holders of Masters degrees are scrambling for work.
Or maybe she’s working as a housekeeper to put herself through school?
Well, I can’t change your mind.
I do think you should know that I don’t necessarily CHOOSE to be a waitress. I am educated. I have a degree. But waitressing is pretty much the only job I can really get where I live, though. And I can’t continue to go to college and move somewhere with better employment opportunities with no money, nor can I make my car payment to get to work and school with no job and no money.
I don’t know about Ryan’s, but I worked as a server in a Golden Corral for just under six years. The server brings your clean plates, takes away your dirty ones, refills your drink, and cleans up your mess with a 30" “butler broom”. So it’s not quite accurate to say that ALL the server does is bring you one drink. I’m pretty sure the service standard is the same in all their stores, btw.
People rarely leave $1 per person. And an “extra” $150 per week cash money? Woo! I could go crazy with money like that. :rolleyes:
I don’t necessarily like the practice of tipping, but I can’t make my employer pay me more than $2.13 per hour, no matter how wrong I think tipping is.
Lately I’ve been tipping for housekeeping in hotels but am still unsure of the correct procedure. Do people generally tip every day of their stay (which would tend to encourage better service), or just leave a lump sum before checking out? Also where is the best place to leave the tip, to indicate that is intended for the housekeeper, and not just my pocket “change” I left on the desk? (especially if you’re supposed to tip every day; after the guest has checked out I assume that money left behind was intended for them anyway.)
My understanding on tipping housekeeping - use envelopes. Mark them “Housekeeper” (or better “To Housekeeping, Thank you”) Tip daily, because the housekeeper you have on Monday Tuesday Wednesday may have the day off when you leave her tip on Thursday.
Good point, I hadn’t thought of that.
At the risk of jumping the gun before I read the rest of this thread, I just had to clear some things up that are really bothering me.
I work there too. I don’t know whether in general people don’t know that they’re supposed to give tips there, but it’s really not all that uncommon in food service. However, I will say that the vast majority of non-tippers I see are teens who don’t even have the courtesy to uncrumble their individually wadded up bills they pull out of their pockets and leave on the counter for me to pick up and straighten. Honestly, I’ve been tempted to just stand their & wait for them to do it. If there’s any time I feel I’ve truly deserved a tip it’s when my tongue is bleeding from biting it. But, hey, I’ve got stock options, they don’t.
I would prefer to be paid adequately as well (but when you consider my benefits, for what I’m doing, I am!). However, I highly doubt that many people who already complain about how expensive our coffee is (& I don’t really want to debate that) would be as eager to pay ten or twenty cents more. I needn’t remind folks that I don’t set the prices, but I do try to give the best damn service they’d like to receive. When I succeed, it’s a wordless thank you to me when you drop a buck in the jar and I appreciate it. When I don’t succeed, I don’t expect your hand-out. THAT is what you are paying for when you tip – not my wage, but my exceptional customer service skills (and the holes in my tongue when I don’t throttle the inevitable asshole–not that you are, I don’t know you). I suppose if we were all great all the time, tipping would become somewhat pointless and you would pay anything for a cup of coffee from me.
PUHLEASE!!! You obviously haven’t spent enough time at your favorite cafe. Not only do we remember our regular customers by drink and often by name (and what they do for a living or that their son just had a birthday), but we will and often do fulfill any special request you throw at us as a rule. So, you say you don’t know which of the twenty or so types of coffee you like? We’ll help you figure it out, in great detail if necessary. Can’t get your espresso machine to make drinks like we do? No problem, how about a demonstration?
On the contrary, when was the last time the waitress at the full-service restaurant you go to took pains to describe how they select their choice steaks or broil them just to your liking? When was the last time, you sat down and your waiter asked, “Top sirloin, medium-rare with a baked potato and salad with bleu cheese, today?” and was right??? Sure, he may have checked up on you once or twice to refill your iced tea or bring you some steak sauce, but did he really give individual service? If you say yes, I hope you tipped him well. And guess what, I have a lot less time to give you the same feeling and I try, so don’t I deserve a tip, too?
Might I suggest that you pull the exact change and a few spare coins (if you’re feeling guilty or that your servers deserve it) while you’re still standing in line waiting to order? Or if that’s too much of a problem, we probably wouldn’t lynch you right then and there if you waited until Friday to drop one big tip to cover the week’s service.
Whew, I’m so glad I got that out of my system. You wouldn’t believe how long that’s been bottled up inside. Thanks for letting me blow off some steam…customer service can be such a drag at times. 
I knew I was going to regret shooting my mouth off before I fully read the thread. Thank you for sharing that, Dangerosa. You’re the kinda peeps I like to serve. And I make it a point to say an extra thank you when people do conspicuously drop tips. After all, you don’t have to regardless of whether the IRS taxes me on actual or assumed tips. I do believe tipping is optional (needless to say, courteous too)…
OTOH, I sometimes can’t help but think that my efforts at good service isn’t even worth a pot to piss in:
(Emphasis mine. Thanks, schmuck.) Even though, making your drink took more effort than bringing you a coke and I also cleaned the damn pot you pissed in after you drank it. No, we don’t have a housekeeping service. When the doors are locked, we clean up after you too.
Incidently, I’m guessing the Flash Taco man doesn’t miss you all that much.
I live in hotels about 50% of my nights and I haven’t figured out the theory behind tipping the housekeeping staff. I’m all for helping a hardworking person make a living, but none of the usual experiences that invite tipping are part of the guest/housekeeper interaction.
I never see them. They never see me. They’ve already worked for me once before I arrive. They work for somebody else after I leave. There’s no variance in what they can do for me.
I probably dole out about ten bucks in tips per day to various folks when I’m on the road, so that’s about $100 out of my pocket per month.
When I’m home, the guy I tip heavily is the Chinese food delivery kid. I can get chow mein from Genghis Khan downtown in fifteen minutes.
I find it fascinating that tipping is almost always a relationship between a worker, and the general public. Yet somehow, one never is expected to tip if it is a provided service between, say, a business and a business.
For example, if an office admin (aka secretary) had a tip jar on their desk to ensure prompt scheduling of the office’s copy projects, meeting schedules, phone messages, etc, they would be fired in an instant. Yet the mere difference of that person putting on a green apron and handing out a coffee instead of a phone message means that one is suddenly socially obligated to provide extra compensation for the service performed.
Going even further, in most businesses with client-contract-partner sort of relationships, accepting any sort of extra recompense as a business or individual is considered a bribe and serious breach of ethics, and in many cases is illegal. (“Bob, great job on winning the Xerox account, there are some Superbowl tickets in your desk, wink wink”). If in business, I hire or pay someone to provide a service, the reward for excellent service performed is that I will then call on them again and give them more business. An electrician that came over to rewire my fuse box, and then expected a tip would not only never get my business again, but would get an angry letter to their employer.
In that regard, while I generally tip per accepted USA standards at restaurants(10-20%) depending, the spiraling addition of tip jars and charge lines appearing at nearly all retail services positions these days leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and there are places that I have never returned to because of the expectation of an additional tip (computer repair? oil change?).
Why is it that this is restricted to business-to-public services?
Strangely curious, IMO.
I think the English have it much more correct, where tipping is far less expected. When in a small pub between towns (around Bristol) once, I actually had a bartender angrily throw my money at my face because the mere concept of tipping was considered a class insult to him. I’ve had staff slide my tips back to me with a polite “no thanks” and a smile.
On the other hand, I had an English cabbie volunteer to be my on-call personal valet for an entire week just because I tipped him 10%. Hmm…maybe there can be benefits other than the “Oh woe is me, my boss pays me slave wages and I have 23 kids and 4 dogs and 13 grandmothers in nursing homes to support” assuaging of guilt…
I don’t tip for people who make at least minimum wage. The only exception I make is for my hairstylist, who has to buy her own materials and rent her station with the money I pay her for the actual cut and style. So I’m pretty sure she lives on her tips too.
I didn’t get tips for doing my job when I worked at Pizza Hut making minimum wage. I didn’t get tips for doing my job at the movie theater before that either. I made $3.65 an hour at the movie theater, which eventually got up to around $6 at Pizza Hut, for shift manager. Splitting $10 dollars worth of change between 6 people at the end of the day isn’t going to make me provide better service – I should already be providing that as a requirement of my job. So I am not going to tip anyone at Starbucks for doing their job. Work your way up, make more money. That’s how it works for me these days. I can’t put a tip jar on my desk in my office.
The hotel issue is a complex one for me… I wasn’t even aware this was done until I went on a cruise and they laid it all out for us, who got tips and how much they should get. I really enjoyed the enforced tipping of the maitre d’ for merely saying hello as we walked into the dining room. :rolleyes: But I think now I’ll probably consider the service a housekeeper provides a tip-worthy thing.
I tip at least 20% to waiters and bartenders.
Boohoo. I don’t tip the girl at the McDonalds drivethrough window either. Why? I don’t think you deserve it.
You’re right, I never received tips in the form of cash when I worked as a secretary in a law firm. I was, however, taken out, more than once, to two-hour lunches by the attorneys I worked for as a thank you for my hard work and extra effort. And we’re not talking McD’s either! These were restaurants that I could not have hoped to afford to take myself out to. Seems to me it’s the same thing, only instead of cash, I got an awesome lunch! Hey, if any of my regular customers want to take me out to a four-star restaurant once in awhile instead of leaving me cash, I’m all for it!
I agree. But I don’t think you should have to fork over money to get that kind of service, although it’s a great incentive. I have done many things above and beyond the call of my regular duties (which includes providing great service) for specific customers because I’m aware of the value of doing whatever you can to make an exceptional impression. I recently had a customer who was also a cancer patient. She came in almost everyday for the same thing. But when she was too sick during chemo treatments to leave her home, our manager arranged with her husband and we took drinks to her at home, everyday for as long as it took until she felt better enough to come in. You can’t imagine how much she felt we made a difference in her life. And we didn’t do it for tips although her husband was very generous in the end. And the email, this customer sent to corporate was much more meaningful.
Fortunately for me, few of my customers agree with you. And thanks to that, I’m not paying taxes on non-existent tips.
[QUOTE=GargoyleWB]
On the other hand, I had an English cabbie volunteer to be my on-call personal valet for an entire week just because I tipped him 10%.QUOTE]Aren’t cultural differences fascinating? Tip 10% for a cab ride in New York and I’ll bet the reception is just a wee bit less enthusiastic.
If I have read your posts correctly, you work in a coffee place, right? And you are not getting paid less than minimum wage to make up for the fact that you get tips, right? So whether you get tips or not, you are not ever paying taxes on them. Your company is not required to report your tip income. They do not pay FICA and Medicare based on the amount of tips you claim, since you do not claim any, not even if someone tips you $1,000. Your tips are not supposed to be replacing enough of your pay to bring your wages up to at least minimum wage. So if someone doesn’t tip you, you do not pay any taxes on that tip, because the IRS doesn’t assume that coffee-drink-makers will make the equivalent of 8% of their sales in tips. Unlike a regular server or bartender, who gets paid far less than minimum and pays taxes on 8% of their checks even if they receive zero in tips.
Yes, I do work in a coffee place and no, I’m not getting paid less than minimum wage to make up for the fact that I get tips. (Personally, I think it should be against the law for employers to pay their employees less than minimum wage on account of tipping which is, and should be, optional. Tips are not, and should never be, construed as wages for the simple fact that the law does not require anyone to tip. I don’t understand why the public be expected, though not required, to directly pay a company’s cost of doing business.)
However, you are incorrect in your belief that I do not pay taxes on tips. Tips are considered income by the IRS, which is under the impression, perhaps rightly so judging by the actions of tip earners I know, that the majority of tips earned are not reported. In their efforts to tax more income, the IRS requires employers in traditionally tip-earning industries (including the restaurant industry in which I am employed) to impute tip income based on a minimum of 8% of the company’s sales and deduct taxes from this income in the same manner taxes are deducted from my wage. My employer *does * impute tips and *does * deduct taxes based on that income (although I can’t remember what percentage my company reports). For any tips I receive above the imputed amount, I am required by law to report as income to the IRS and pay taxes on said income.
I might add that I also don’t understand what the difference is between, say, McDonalds and the company I work for relative to imputing tips other than the fact that tipping is standard at my place of business and not at theirs (how that got started, I have no idea). So, if you want to tip the gal at the fast food drive-up window, you can rest assured she won’t pay taxes on it unless she, herself, reports it and as long as tipping doesn’t become the norm there.
I’m not all that sure that Starbucks (although perhaps that’s not where you work) is classified as a full-service restaurant under IRS code. No more than Dunkin’ Donuts is, or Au Bon Pain is, or Dairy Queen is. And those places serve a LOT more food than Starbucks. However, let’s say that it is. They can apply for a dispensation from the 8% rule, and go as low as 2% of sales, which is greatly to the advantage of the employer as they have to pay lower Medicare, FICA, unemployment insurance, workers’ comp insurance, and a host of other costs that are based on the total employee wage base. If an employer is able to do that, it most certainly will.
I also don’t fully believe that the IRS has classifed take-out coffee shops as being establishments in which the employees regularly and customarily receive tips. Because if they had, it would be astoundingly generous for coffee shops like Starbucks to have not started paying their employees less than minimum - since according to the IRS they are supposedly making at least 8% of sales in tips on a regular and customary basis.
Plus, I’ve been in some Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts or similar places where they do have a tip cup and others where they don’t. How can that be, if they are supposed to be reporting that employees regularly receive tips? I find it hard to believe that none of the employees at the no-tip places - who are supposedly still paying taxes on a percentage of sales - haven’t complained yet.
Cinnamon Girl, I logged back on because I think my post came across as though I was saying you’re lying. I obviously don’t work where you work and you must know better than I do about whatever procedures your employer has. I do think that coffee shops are not, generally, deducting taxes based on 8% of sales, nor do I think their employees are reporting the amount from the tip cup that is presumably split among all the people on the shift. But I don’t know the specifics of YOUR employer and I didn’t want to come across as though I did. You are, of course, more qualified to comment on them than I am. Sorry if I came across badly.
In that case, you could be causing them to unknowingly drive with a BAC over the limit. Did you think of that? :eek:
I was taught to very strictly measure my drinks. If people wanted stronger drinks, we put more ice in.
I’m sooo glad tipping is not the norm in Australia. Sounds like a huge pain in the arse.