Huh? Did you read the giant paragraph about the erratic, and thus pointless reward system, the prejudice and discrimination, and the stressful ambiguity involved in the tipping process?
I read it and I agree with Ceesesteak. All of the cheep bastards out there just need to suck it up and tip like they are supposed to. The system works great for everyone invloved now (except for people too cheep to pay for the service they receive), the only reason to change it is because the 1 or 2 dollars that would make one a desent tipper are more dear than blood to some skinflints. STFU and pay the waiter or bartender, already. Jesus, if a dollar makes that much difference to you, don’t eat out!
I think you’re overestimating the set of problems. Who is being hurt by the current tipping structure? Management is more than fine, so we’ll just dismiss them right away. That leaves us with the Customer and the Server.
Are the Servers complaining about the tipping structure? Do they personally feel wronged in some way? I’ve never gotten that sense from the posters here who have done the job. Yes, they make a lousy base pay, but they more than make that up in tips, and make a solid living overall. If any current or former waiters/bartenders feel that tips are worse than getting a standard hourly wage, let’s include that in the discussion.
That leaves us with the Customer. As a customer myself, I disagree that the current structure is as stressful and awful as you suggest. Add 15-20% to your bill in cash or on the credit card, and you’re done. I know that this is part of the deal before deciding to go out, before deciding what place to go to, before I get the bill. I also know that 8% tax will be added to the bill, that doesn’t cause me undue stress either. We’ve been tipping in this country for an awful long time, it shouldn’t be anything particularly confusing or problematic for the vast majority of the populace.
Cheesesteak said:
How in the world did it take 20 posts to get to a sensible response? This is indeed a solution looking for a problem. I spent a dozen years in the restaurant business, and prior to that I was both a waiter and a bartender. (Some years ago…)
The average waiter/bartender (and other service professionals who rely on tips for their living) are quite content with this system. Further, if tipping was “outlawed” the effect would be **substantially **higher prices on the menu. (or other posted prices for services provided in tradionally tipping environments) To attract/keep employees the establishment would have to raise wages to reflect the real world competition for labor. Would you like the price of your martini to go up $2.00? I bet not. The fact is, the restaurant business in particular is allowed to pay lower than the posted minumum wage because tips are factored into the overall wage structure. These costs are also figured into the overall charges reflected on the menu. Does anyone really think that outlawing tipping will reduce costs for the consumer? Want to pay higher costs for a beer, a haircut or your green fees? Go ahead and outlaw tipping.
And if you don’t want to tip, don’t! No customer has any obligation to tip, and if he/she feels that it is unnecessary than simply don’t tip. OTOH, a customer has the right to “stiff” the server for poor service or correspondingly tip higher based on exemplary service. What’s the problem here?
IMHO the premises in the OP are inane. If a consumer tips because of some unseen pressure, they deserve to be fleeced. There is nothing in the wage+tip arrangement that forces or pressures a consumer to tip for anything but satisfactory service. If you tip for erractic service the problem is not the system but you. To the extent that any customer is evaluated (which is silly) it can only be done **after **the customer has settled the bill and the tip paid. Why do you care if the waitress & bartender moan about your tip as you’re driving home? When was the last time that a server/bartender/shoe shine man/ barber wanted to discuss your tip with you? Get real! If you feel pressured to tip in a situation where service was poor, don’t look for legislation to bail you out. Get a backbone! Don’t tip (or under tip) and be prepared to state your reason if the server balks. (In worst case scenarios talk with the manager and let them know of the poor service) If the service is exemplary reflect in your tip and let the server/ manager know of your satisfaction.
As a former waiter, and using restaurants as the example, I expect to tip 20% for good service. I am totally empathatic to their wage stucture. If the service was exemplary I will tip above 20%, which happens from time to time. When the service is less than good, I tip something less than 20%, based on performance. I’ve “stiffed” a waiter about 2 or 3 times in the last 15 years for poor performance; and was quite willing to state my case if asked. (I would have been pleased to be asked) It is a merit based system that works just fine for those with the aptitude and backbone to simply pay for what they receive, good or bad.
If the business paid a base pay that employees could live on and charged prices accordingly the cheapskate couldn’t get away with it, could he?
Who said anything about no tipping resulting in lower costs to the consumer? I think most people know that the consumer ultimately pays the whole cost, one way or another, and those who don’t know that don’t count.
One of the features of the theory of the market is that the real cost is reflected in the price. That way the consumer knows up-front what the cost is and can buy from the lowest cost source if that is what he or she wants. The high cost producer either becomes more efficient and lowers cost or goes out of business.
If everyone is happy with a system that conceals the real cost I guess that’s OK but I think it can’t be defended as good free market economics.
pizzabrat said:
So I should pay higher for my haircut and a beer because some people “take that easy road” and tip for non-performance? Nope.
Albsoultely not true IMO. As a a former bartender/waiter and General Manager of a high volume fine dining restaurant in Chicago (Gold Coast) this has not been my experience. It is true that there are good tippers and bad tippers. But over the course of a week and hundreds of customers, there is a correlation between good service and income. The best servers made the most money and received the best overall tips, and tip percentage. (even factoring for pre-disposed good and bad tippers)
How can you be evaluated before you tip? And how can you be evaluated after you tip? Tell me, how does this happen? How is it carried out?
This is dubious at best. Please elaborate.
Don’t want to pyy 20%? Don’t. Problem solved. It’s a lot easier than calling your congessman.
Social ineptitude is no reason for legislation to “solve” a problem that doesn’t exist.
David Simmons said:
Why do we care? If the management and servers are unconcerned about the cheapskates, why should we care?
I don’t know. I certainly didn’t. No tipping would cause higher posted prices for service. (although perhaps not higher overall costs to the consumer)
Bingo. Right on. No tipping will result in the employer charging higher prices to refelct higher payroll costs. Further, the server will have removed any direct incentive to give exemplary service and be rewarded with a higher tip. (as tips will be outlawed) The poor server will be paid in the same fashion as the exemplary server. So tell me, will this cause the poor server (read: motivation or incentive) to aspire to the same level of performance as the exemplary server; or, will it cause the exemplary server to provide the lowest common denominator in service levels? (Once again, read: motivation or incentive)
Every single day we engage service professionals for service where the real upfront costs can’t be fully determined. Go to the dentist, or your doctor (for other than checkups). Call a roofer for a new roof. Take your car to a mechanic because of the rattle you’ve been hearing. It is NOT a feature of any market that the up-front cost must be known.
Once again, nothing is concealed, any more than it is being concealed when you’re admitted to a hospital or emergency room, take your car to a mechanic or ask your lawyer to start work on your divorce. There is nothing at all in “free market economics” that require that all costs be known up-front.
I just had my roof done, got a pre-jobstart estimate which was the exact amount I paid. And surely you jest when comparing medical estimates to the price of a meal in a restaurant or a drink in a bar.
It isn’t the server and the management who pay for the cheapskate. I thought we just agreed that the customer ultimately pays the whole cost.
The equation is that:
price of meal + tips = a wage that server will accept and can live on.
The right side of the equation controls. If some don’t tip then either the price has to go up for everyone or some people have to tip more. In any case the server and the restaurant are satisified and the other customers pay for the cheapskate. If the tips are removed from the equation the price goes up and everyone, including the cheapskate pays his or her own costs.
[quote]
Once again, nothing is concealed, QUOTE]
The hell it isn’t. In other words, I disagree.
I have no idea what you mean, could you elaborate?
This is a remarkably stupid statement. If I go to a resturant and order a $10 meal, I know that the cost to me is going to be $12, including tip. I know this going in, before I order the meal. If I only have $10 in my pocket, I’ll order an $8 meal. How hard is this, people?
Sorry, can’t help your.
This is a remarkably stupid statement. If I go to a resturant and order a $10 meal, I know that the cost to me is going to be $12, including tip. I know this going in, before I order the meal.
[/QUOTE]
We agree on the stupidity but disagree as to the statement that contains it. By your own argument you can order and pay for a $10 meal if you only have $10 because you don’t have to tip!
Any clearer now?
I think I see David’s point here. Assumptions: $90 tips, 10 tables, and 10% of the customers are deadbeats.
In our case, 9 people pay $10 tip, one guy pays $0. If that total tip amount were to be spread over the cost of each meal, then you’d have 10 customers paying $9 each, with no option.
Assuming that removing tips doesn’t change the overall amount of money paid to the server, it does redistribute the cost from the good tipper to the deadbeat.
This isn’t, to my knowledge, a typical anti-tipping argument, but it’s got something solid behind it.
The same argument implies that sales tax should be included in prices too, like they do in Europe.
pizzabrat, allow me to play Devil’s Advocate™ a bit.
What if the entire world switched to a tipping structure?
Wouldn’t it be great to pay less tax because you feel that your government representatives aren’t representing you? Or to pay less for a movie that was a derivative piece of crap? Or dock your landlord rent because he didn’t adequately soundproof the walls of your room to protect against the sound of lesbian sex? 
Although I used to think like you, I’ve changed my mind on the matter and no longer see it as dodgy as I used to. There are aspects of it that seem fairly progressive.
In any case, I would say that the feasibility of outlawing tipping is nonexistant.
You’re black and you sit down at a restaurant. You wait ten minutes before seeing a server because the staff is in the back fighting over who’s going to be the loser to wait on you. Didn’t you read the link I referenced? As for evaluation after, you might be the guy who didn’t get the memo that the standard tipping percentage has raised to 30% in restaurants Columbus, Ohio. thus making you the cheap jerk when you tip a measly 20%.
But then the server loses out on his deserved pay. And it’s not that I don’t want to pay 20%, it’s that I want the entire price stated to me explicitly before I pay, the same as I expect every other transaction in the marketplace to be executed.
Social ineptitude? I don’t think I should have to belong to the hippest clique just to properly patronize a public business.
That’s another thread.
It isn’t dubious at all. If someone tells me that they as a server don’t like serving black people because they tend not to tip well…and this person knows others who feel likewise… that doesn’t make me feel very good about going to restaurants. It doesn’t seem dubious to me at all that discrimination could occur with this kind of prejudice being so rampant.
I admit that the entire thread made me depressed.
Wha…? Where is that my argument? What the fuck are you talking about?
My arguement is that if the menu price is $10, I know I’m going to spend $12, because I tip 20%. Where is the confusion coming from? If I had only $10, I’d order an $8 meal so that I still had enough left over to tip properly.
I don’t know about “vast majority”. Perhaps those in this thread who have expressed their displeasure with the system are merely anomalous, but I tend to doubt it. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever known who, as a customer, actually enjoys tipping. In my experience, it’s just seen as a royal pain in the ass. Just one more thing to make settling the bill more complicated than it needs to be. [The only exception being once at a restaurant that rhymes with “pennies” - having a particularly surly waitress, and forming a makeshift ‘Tip-O-Meter’ from a knife, and gradually moving the Tip-O-Meter towards zero every time the waitress was rude.:D] And as for servers, I can’t imagine them being displeased were they to get a higher salary in place of the current system, especially those who work in places that just pool the tips and divide them up anyway.
I’m sure there are many customers who enjoy that feeling of control, but I certainly don’t, and I can’t recall ever in my life dining with anyone who ever said, “Gee, isn’t tipping great?” It’s much more common to hear comments like, “<Sigh> How much would the tip be on this?”, or when splitting checks, “Hey, you didn’t include the tip in the amount you put in.”, etc.
Hmmm…I’ve never heard a server say they like the control. I’ve only heard things like, “That bastard didn’t tip me”, or “Geez, people are such cheapskates.” It’d be interesting to offer servers the option of low salary + tips, or higher salary + no tips, and see which one they picked. I bet it would be the latter.
Really, management is the only one who benefits from the current system, especially if they under-report tips. They can pay their employees a pittance, and then if they don’t make it up in tips, well “You just need to work harder.” They can deflect the responsibility to the employee.
I think that’s probably true, but it’s a far cry from saying the “vast majority” are “generally pleased”. It’s certainly not the end of the world, but all things considered, I would be happier with a no-tipping system.
Oh, and I forgot to mention - Another flaw in the tipping system is that many, many, restaurant managers under-staff their places. I would guess that 4 out of 5 times, if I get poor service, it’s because the server is over-worked. It’s pretty easy to spot a server who is running around frantically trying to serve too many people. I feel that it’s wrong to withhold a tip from someone who is over-worked but trying their hardest, yet by tipping generously, I am rewarding the bad behaviour of the manager and/or owner who are over-working their employees.
[hijack]There’s no reason to be depressed; restaurants are hardly necessary, or worth it, so it’s easy to ignore an entire industry that ostensibly doesn’t want your business (I say ostensibly because from peeking into a few of the big chain restaurants, it’s obvious that they would miss their black customer base if it disappeared). Economy of scale doesn’t transfer to meals, i.e. a kitchen producing dishes for dozens of tables full of unseen strangers won’t bring you a better product than yourself or a loved one making a meal for a family of six at home. You don’t need any diplomas to cook something tastier and more nutritious than what’s served in the average restaurant. Also, in these days where everyone is too good for the job in which they’re employed, you won’t be getting any enthusiastic, dedicated waiters even if racial discrimination wasn’t a factor. But the dismal food industry is another discussion…[/hijack]
but having said that, I of course think that having your restaurant experiences marred by industry-standard racial prejudice is a bad thing that shouldn’t be.