Reading this makes me glad I got out of the food service industry three years ago. But I understand all servers/bartenders/bussers pain!!
Expert opinion seems divided, but, apparantly, a lot. 
“Ignorant” is one thing. But “willfully ignorant”? I’ve been trying to keep an open mind here, and I hope I’ve succeeded at that at least somewhat.
I don’t know. Apparantly some believe it is possible for customers to steal from tipped workers, so I suppose the untipped job has the benefit that the worker is guaranteed not to be stolen from in that way.
So do I, most of the time. I was wondering when this would happen. This whole thing started because I didn’t tip all the time, and that sometimes I forgot, which some people found preposterous. (Plus that bit about not having enough dough on me to leave a tip sometimes.) The fact is, I am in that majority (unless you count only those who always tip, or tip more often than I do, or tip more generously than I do), and have been since the start of this thread.
I dislike the idea of tipping. I think a clean flat rate on things is simpler and just, well, better. I suppose I may be in the minorty about that.
I hate the ambiguity and non-standardness of it all. I guess in some ways I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy. I keep yelling at Puerto Rico to either become a state or move to Cuba already.
I don’t get too many dates. If I did and if she cared about this issue as deeply and with as much vitriol as some in this thread seem to, I don’t think I’d want to date her again anyway.
Darwin the minute you start to look for other people to pick up the slack of your not tipping (hypothetically, I know you’re a tipper) you start sliding down that oh-so-slippery slope. If too many people start to act that way, like Guin said, it becomes a problem. It also doesn’t even come remotely close to excusing the behavior. Just because one really good tip cancels out being stiffed from another, doesn’t make it okay to have been stiffed. You still worked your ass off for nothing, and that’s just not right, no matter how much you ended up walking with that night.
It is possible. Have you not read the calculations some people have posted, or is numerical incomprehension also in your long list of mental quirks?
And the untipped job wouldn’t benefit a good server because they’d only be making a fraction of what they could make if they’re any good at waiting tables. Why can’t you get that? Why would I go from a $30 an hour job to a $7 an hour job just to avoid people that don’t like to tip?
Weirddave, thanks for the more detailed post. I really do appreciate it.
I didn’t say you’d lose money no matter what the tip, but that, given that no tip was given, you’d lose money (have it stolen) regardless of how good the service was. If it’s stolen when you serve well, it’s still stolen when you serve poorly. If I were to accept that it is indeed stealing, then I couldn’t in good conscious NOT tip even a bad server. Just because someone isn’t doing a good job serving me is not a good reason to steal from them.
I’m probably going to duck out of this thread for a day or two to get some work done and get some sleep. Probably sleep first. I’ll be back.
lezlers: settle.
You stay up all night teaching yourself ASP and making a webpage then linking it up to a database and debugging at four in the morning and keeping yourself going with Mt. Dew, Mt. Dew, and coffee and then take part in a 6 page long thread devoted to ranting about how much of a piece of shit you are while still working on your site and then have someone present some number with a little bit of lingo you’re not familiar with and see if you can even see straight, much less trust your numerical sense enough to start crunching numbers.
Not to mention that regardless of the accuracy of the numbers, “stealing” is at least partially a subjective value judgement that requires more thought than just numerical analysis. As a cite, see any thread on file sharing.
I do find it interesting that several early critiques in this thread were based on how much the servers desperately needed every dollar. Now I’m being told they can make pretty good dough.
I suppose one never knows which ones are neediest.
You probably wouldn’t.
I never said anything about looking to others to pick up the slack. I said that there wil be non-tippers, no matter what people think, no matter how much ranting is done in this, or any other, thread. Whatever the reason for the non-tipping, it is going to happen. It is simply a part of working in a service industry.
When all is said and done, at the end of the day / week / month / whatever, if you come up short because non-tippers are prevalent, then I think there is cause to complain. If you’re still pulling in a decent wage, despite the odd non-tipper, than I don’t see how anyone can reasonably complain. Are those non-tippers really such assholes because you pull in (say) $500 this week instead of $504? Unless you’re having difficulty paying bills because of substandard wages & tips, I don’t see where anyone is “working [their] ass off for nothing”. You get a paycheck. You get tips from the majority of your customers. You got something for your efforts.
Yeah, if too many people fail to leave a tip, then it will become a problem. Is that happening now? Have servers noticed an increase in the number of non-tippers, or a decrease in the amount of tips left? Again, if the answer is “no”, then this is still much ado about nothing. You’re arguing hypotheticals, rather than reality. It has not been demonstrated that this is a wide-spread problem that threatens the livelihood of servers everywhere; quite the opposite, it has been mentioned quite often that servers do, in fact, make good money off of tips. So, again, I don’t see a problem.
And I’m certainly not attempting to excuse anyone’s behavior. I’m simply stating it comes with the job. Complaining about it is akin to tech support folks complaining about people looking for the “any” key. It happens. It can be frustrating, it might suck, but it’s part of dealing with people. And I don’t see how considering the inevitable non-tippers to be scum-of-the-earth makes anyone a better person.
Finch, this board is about fighting ignorance. Some people on this thread have admitted to not tipping for various reasons. Some don’t believe in the system. The servers or X servers on this thread are attempting to explain to them the importance of tipping, ie: fighting their ignorance.
By your logic, because there are racist people out there, we should just ignore them and not try to enlighten them because hey, it happens.
:rolleyes:
See, that’s why almost everyone gets a tip from me. In the above example, a measly 5% tip would mean the server “breaks even”. I tip 10% for poor service. To not get a tip from me, you would have to greet me “What the fuck do you want?” and have me catch you spitting in my soup.
Sorry, but that’s not my logic. I simply observed that unless servers are “working their asses off”, and still not earning a sufficient wage as a result of non-tippers, then non-tippers are not the scourge of humanity that some folks seem to think they are. How you can equate that to tolerating racism is beyond me.
From what I’ve seen in this and other “tipping” threads, there are enough people who do tip for the system to work, despite a few nonconformists. Whatever individuals’ various reasons for not leaving a tip, I haven’t heard anyone state that they starved while waiting tables.
You want to spread the word about the evils of not leaving a tip, go for it. You may well enlighten a few folks (as seems to have been done here). But I’m still gonna think it’s incredibly naive for anyone to expect a 100% compliance rate. I would think If servers are going to harumph and grump about the odd non-tip, they’re more likely to lose other tips from their fuming than they would by simply letting it go.
But then I guess that attitude probably puts me on par with white supremacists, eh?
I wonder if that reasoning would work on my next trip to Walmart? Excuse me I am going to take these items I really need. Now I don’t have the money to pay for them, but what the hell you’ve made enough money off the other customers for the day so you really don’t need mine. :rolleyes:
I wait tables. Yes, I have to take the good with the bad. Just like last night when the nice elderly couple came in and ate a $32 meal. Left 2 giftcards wrapped up in $4 cash. Sad thing is when I go to run the giftcards on the computer,they were worth only $20. With the $4 in cash they still owed $8. Guess who pays in that situation? Not the restaurant. The server does. So not only had I lost a potential tip, but had to pay for part of their meal to boot.
You are so right there. I was almost in tears after that, but knew I had to suck it up for the sake of my other potential tips. If you have given me your money in the little black book and you ask me for something. I won’t open it up to see how much is in there until I have delivered the goods. This keeps me honest and non-judgemental therefore insuring you equal service. But when I take a peek after I have left your table, I can’t help it when human nature takes over and says “My God, I had another cheap bastard”.
Darwin’s Finch, you do have a point; no matter how much we wrangle this topic here, there will still be cheap people who don’t tip. For whatever reason. Like you said, the people who call up asking where the “any” key are just as ubiquitous; they cannot be educated and no one who works in that field will ever escape them.
Doesn’t mean the “any” key people, and the non-tippers, aren’t asshats. I’ve worked in retail (custom framing) and trust me, I encountered a lot of mean, ignorant, stupid people. Everybody who signs up for a job with the public does.
But merely because they exist doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be called on their behavior. Or considered stupid/shitty/ignorant people. Servers have a right to bitch about non-tippers, the same way tech support rants and raves about the asinine calls they get all the time.
The only difference is that tech support gets paid, either way. Servers don’t. And yes, other tips will balance out their total percentage–usually!–but just because they end up making a decent wage “anyway” doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to be upset. Just because they can “afford” to be stiffed X amount of times per night doesn’t make it right. This is like saying that if you get paid a good hourly wage, you shouldn’t mind coming in for free on the weekends.
So I guess my point is that merely knowing that you’re going to get stiffed by certain people is no reason to like it, or to think that it’s okay, or to excuse the people doing it.
Capiche? 
[sub]I have no idea if I’ve spelled “capiche” correctly b/c I’ve never seen it in print before, but I’m a risk-taker by nature. [/sub]
I have been a waitress. I made great money in tips. However, I also made $6.00 an hour before tips. Such is how things are done in places other than the USA. I wouldn’t waitress here. I would go back to it in a second in Canada.
When Dave and I go out, we leave a tip of at the very least 15%, and it is more often more like twenty to twenty-five percent. Whoever said that it’s because we’re “blue collar” can think again, because we are not. Our parents merely raised us to be mindful of what others do for us, and to understand the value of a dollar.
Finch, Audrey said everything I was going to say, and a lot more eloquentely. Thanks, Audrey. I gurantee you most servers aren’t going to think “oh well, my other tips will cover it.” when they get stiffed. More likely, they’re going to say “what the hell did I do to make that table stiff me??” and more often than not, it’s going to bug them all night, whether or not it shows to their customers. And whether or not it happens, that still means the server worked their butts of for that particular table, for nothing. Perhaps they could’ve given better attention to the tables who would’ve appreciated it if they weren’t spending so much time with the stiffer table? Just because a behavior happens, doesn’t mean we should excuse it. That’s how I drew the connection to racism. An extreme connection, yes, but a valid one. Yeah, it happens but no, that doesn’t mean we just throw up our hands in defeat and not try to educate people not to do it.
I forgot I was going to give another little ancededote.
Back when I was waiting tables I got a 5 top from hell, in the middle of the “after church” Sunday rush. They had me running. They gave their order, I repeated it back, they all nodded yes, then when the food came, gave the 'ol "I didn’t want that!. The fact that they had previously confirmed that the dish was in fact, what the wanted, was lost on them. Anyhoo, like I said before, they had me running. They did every stupid annoying customer trick in the book. Asking for something and when I brought it asking for something else, saying no when I asked them if they’d like anything else for the moment, then immediately after I returned, asking for something else. Keep in mind that I had 4 other tables that were growing very impaitent with me b/c an unreasonable amount of my time was being spent on this particular table. When I would try to take an order at the next table, they would yell over to get my attention, I would send bussers over to see if they needed anything and they would say no, then if I was within 10 feet of them (didn’t matter if I was rushing to another table or not) would ask me for something. It just didn’t stop. It was a nightmare. And you know what? They fucking stiffed me. After all of that they fucking stiffed me. On what ended up being a $100+ check. And my tips from my other tables suffered because I will admit, the service wasn’t that great with nightmare table in my section. Now, I told my manager what happened, and being the cool manager she was, she voided some items from the check so I ended up getting a little something, but a fraction of what I would’ve gotten if they had been decent tippers, not to mention the lower tips from my other tables. Now tell me Finch did I have a right to get upset? Or should I have just shrugged my shoulders and thought “ah well, shit happens.” If you think the latter, than perhaps you should go for sainthood, because I didn’t have those zen like qualities at the time. :rolleyes:
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t making a server pay for Dine and Dashers or part of the meal illegal? I believe it’s against labor laws. (Of course, a lot of bosses get away with it, from what I understand).
That’s why I quit one job. I always made it a rule to never work for corporate resterants when I waited tables b/c they were the worst with that type of thing. The one time I did work for a corporate though, they tried to make me pay for a table that shorted not only on the tip, but the bill. Needless to say, I never went back to that hellhole again.
Of course, I called them on a lot of illegal bullshit that they tried to do (such as requiring a doctors note for missing one shift)
as far as I know, making a server pay for a table that skipped out on all of or a portion of the bill is illegal. It doesn’t take that much effort for the manager to void or comp enough items or even the whole bill so the server doesn’t have to pay out of pocket. Managers in a corporate resteraunt are usually only looking to cover their own asses in though, I think that’s why a lot of them will try to make the server pay, unless the server is versed on the laws, that is. 
(It looks bad if a particular manager comps or voids a lot of things).
Basically, it’s the equivelent of making a retail worker pay for items that were shoplifted in the store on their shift. Somehow, people don’t consider it as horrible of a practice when it happens in resteraunts. :mad:
Wow, my writing is really going to hell. Must be Friday.
Just have to chime in as an 11 year veteran server. Most of the things I have to say have been said very eloquently before but I’ll just throw in my $.02.
BlackKnight If you usually do tip and forget sometimes, I’m dubious but I’d let it slide. The people that get my teeth gritting are people who REGULARLY don’t tip. Sometimes I could be philisophical about it but if I had waited on you and you had stiffed me, I would have 1) wondered if I had done something wrong 2) called you some unpleasant things 3) had a cigarette and 4) gone back to work. Sucks and unfortunately does happen.
Smam I think it was you and I don’t have the energy to go back and read through all of this again. You said something to the effect of “why should I tip my server, they make more in an evening than I do in a week?” There is only one solution to this one should be obious: Get a job as a server!
That being said, I always tip. You have to be really bad for me to want to stiff you but you will still get a tip to cover your taxes and tip out but that’s all. I had the same teenage indiscretions but I outgrew that.
I believe that everyone should do 1 year of mandatory waiter/waitress/bartender service. Do it for one year and then see how pleasant everyone would be in a restaurant.
Any server could tell you horror stories about people who do retaliate and they would make you think twice about ever going out to eat again.
h.
I tip. Heavily. I also complain very little and rarely send food back, only if the food is inedible due to foreign objects that shouldn’t be there. I am always friendly to waitstaff. I even tip for bad service, albeit less. I do this because I would rather support the waitstaff and lose a few dollars than rip people off to save a few. I also do it because I respect the tax issue.
And yet I agree with Blackknight. Not only that, but I think people in this thread have been unreasonable regarding what he does with his money. A tip is voluntary; it just is. If and when the food industry begins putting the service charge on the bill, it will cease to be voluntary, but until that day I will not judge someone based on what they do with their money. If I pay a bill, leave no tip, and walk out, the restaurant will not stop me. They will not make me wash dishes until I’ve worked off my debt. Stating it isn’t voluntary is projecting your own ethics into the equation when indeed the fact remains that tipping is, without question, voluntary. The only time it isn’t is when automatic gratuity is added for parties of 6 or more. Otherwise, it’s up to the customer to decide whether tipping is desired.
Yes, it’s customary to tip in the U.S., but doing any act simply because it’s socially suggested to do it is preposterous. Society suggests I get married, have children, and buy a house. Am I going to get lambasted for not doing that? (Well, I might if Lobsang has anything to say about it.)
As to giving asshole customers poor treatment, I have to disagree with that as well. As a teacher, I am not allowed to treat my asshole students any differently than my polite, well-mannered students. I cannot keep their education from them simply because they are assholes. I treat them with respect, kindness, and do as much for them (if not more) than I do for the others. I provide a service. I provide that service whether I get thanked for it or not. A tip, in my opinion, is the same as a, “Thanks for doing that for me. I appreciate it.” A “Thank you” is not compulsory; it is voluntary.