How would the US Economy be affected if Tipping was abolished?

Great Debates
41

Not in the Netherlands. French and mediterranian (male) waiters are infamous in this regard, but not Dutch waitingstaff.

When I was in the States in 2004, I found there were three categories of waiters. The super enthusiasts (including flirty attractive waitresses), the ones who had given up and acted like they hated the job, and the normal ones in between.

In the Netherlands, we have the enthusiasts and the normal ones, but not the desillusioned ones. In the rare case you do meet a surly waiter, he or she is quite likely to either own the café of be a a relative of the owner.
The reason most waitstaff is either enthusiast or just normally polite, is that they’re all young and none of them relies on the wages or tips for a real living.
All waiters have some sort of base-income and they wait tables for extra money, for fun money. The Netherlands pays waiters, in fact pays all people working entry-level jobs, normal minimum wages. And Dutch minimum wages allow a decent living. Because of this, we do have a bigger problem with unemplyment then the USA, though, but that is another story.
However, full minimum wages gradually kick in, and people untill age 23 are cosiderably cheaper to emply then peple over 25. Eighty percent of waitstaff in the Netherlands, therefore is younger then 23. For none of them waiting is an end-job, and that shows in their attitude. They try to have fun in their jobs. Although tips are appreciated, they aren’t expected. No Dutch waitress would act or dress flirty to get tips. If she acts or dresses that way, it’s because she likes the attention, and she will likely flirt most with attractive or fun customers, not with the ones likely to tip most. To sum up: tipping in the Netherlands won’t make a difference in the way you are treated. How *you *treat the waiter of waitress will make a huge difference, however.

And I’m oddly proud of that fact.

42

My feelings exactly, yet one that most of Continental North America seems to disagree with for some unfathomable reason. (Just as well it’s not an issue for the most part in Australia!)

This is also my understanding. I mean, from what I’ve read, either waitstaff are making a truckload of money from Tips (in which case why should I be paying them any more?), or they’re not making any money from their tips, in which case they should do what everyone else in that position does- find another job.

43

I don’t know about “european”. As usual, there’s no such thing as “european”. As for France : contrarily to what most people (including french people) believe, the waiter often doesn’t get the service charge. It goes to the owner’s pocket. It depends on what basis the waiter has been hired. When the service charge is paid back to the waiter, it’s generally not pooled.

Of course. In order for a french person to tip appropriately in the USA, it would be necessary that :

  1. The person is aware that the tip is mandatory, and how much you’re expected to tip

  2. He really grasps that it’s really, really, mandatory.

  3. He can overcome the feeling that he’s being ripped off (20% on a 100 $ bill? You must be joking!!!)

  4. He can overcome the feeling that it’s just “not right” , and that “the right way” is what he’s accustomed to back home. Which might be the most difficult step.

44

oh, and 5) He must think that the service is actually good, which might mean “conform to his expectations”. A too friendly (read : invasive) waiter bringing the check as soon as the person has finished eating (read : we want to get rid of you) might qualify as “poor service”.

45

I’d have a hard time with not feeling ripped off in this case too. Really, if a waiter has to serve a full meal to two persons, what difference does it make what’s in the dishes, be it pizza or boeuf bourguinonne aux truffles? Same amount or dishes, same amount of work, right?
Same question with drinks. Whetether a waiter is serving me two cups of coffee or two overpriced glasses of wine, it’s the same amount of work. Why should I pay a percentage, instead of a " fixed tip" ?

46

I’m not a Frenchman (nor do I play one on TV!) but that sums up my thoughts on tipping pretty well.

Points 3 and 5 are the ones I agree with the most, however- the feeling that I’m being ripped off, and conforming to expectations.

As far as I’m concerned, the price on the bill is the price I’m paying. You can pull the “Social Contract” or “It’s The Way Things Are Done” card all you like, but at the end of the day, if you’re going to tack a 20% increase on the bill, you can bet I’m going to spend at least 20% less in your establishment than one that simply charges me once

Also, 20% does seem rather high, given that if you and 4 friends run up a $100 bill, you’re expected to give the waitstaff $20 for all of 5 minutes actual work on your table. Yes, I know waiting tables can be hard work, but so is stacking shelves at a Supermarket, making burgers at McDonalds, or pretty much any job requiring you to deal with “Other People”.

Secondly, if my expectations are merely that you leave me the hell alone and let me eat in peace, why should I tip you for bothering me every 2 minutes- and that goes double for the hot, flirty blonde waitress- unless you really DO want me to come back to your place after work, that is. :wink:

I would have thought by now most people working in waitstaff positions in the US have worked out that “People With Foreign Accents Don’t Automatically Tip”, so I’d say it evens out- they assume I’m not going to tip and serve me accordingly (which is never worse than what I’d get in Australia or NZ), and since I’m never likely to eat at that establishment again anyway, I’m getting a 20% discount- which, I might add, is 20% that’s going to get spend somewhere else on the holiday anyway, so you could say I’m just sharing the wealth around. :smiley:

Maastricht makes an excellent point about the role of Waitstaff in non-US society.

No-one that I know of makes a living or a career out of being a waiter/waitress. It’s something that you do on the side to get a bit of extra cash to go on holiday/go shopping/buy Home Theatre Systems/Get drunk/get wasted/rent a hooker/whatever. The Job You Have When You’re Not Having A Job, to paraphrase the old Clayton’s ads, in other words.

Ultimately, I don’t think carrying three plates of food (maybe) and two glasses of drink is worth more than a dollar or two.

If we got paid $1 for every item we stacked on the shelf at work, Nightfill staff would earn more than Doctors and Lawyers and we’d all be rocking up to work in Audis and BMWs.

As I said before, if the waitstaff are making so much money from tips, they don’t need my money that badly- and if they’re not, well, no-one’s holding a gun to their head and forcing them to wait tables at Shenaniganz.

47

When I spent 2 1/2 years in England and Germany, it was just as hard for me to not tip. I felt I was cheating the staff. Didn’t matter if it was a pub or a restaurant.

This is one of those issues where “normal” is culturally defined. Normal to me (and it should be normal for most Americans) is to tip wait staff a percentage of the bill, and I think nothing of it. However, when in Shefford, do as the…uh…Sheffords?..do. Just meant I could get another pint or two into me instead of spending it on the tip.

48

Why is it such a big deal to figure out the service charge. I’m not sure what I’m missing. Some things are explicit and some are implicit. Is your only problem that this isn’t explicit? Why are you so obsessed with “management should pay you what your worth” when it’s just as easy for you to pay them what their worth, and it works out better for everyone? It’s just not that different for you to hand the waitress money than for managment to hand it to her, except in the second case managment gets to dip their hand in the pile.

In surveys, every American says they want good service and would take their business elsewhere if they don’t get it. In reality, almost everyone goes where it’s cheapest- hence WalMart.

Get off this “restaurants and strip clubs…” trope. It’s not cute. Tips are expected in a number of places…carwashes, various places in hotels, salons, home repair, valet parking, housekeeping, deliveries, some shopping or consultant situations- basically when someone is “taking care of you” or providing a “personal” service.

Waitstaff at nice restaurants serve fewer tables at a time so that they can provide better service and deal with the multiple courses, etc. that fine dining often entails. They also prepare salads, some appetizers, drinks and deserts, which will be more complicated at nicer restraunts. Waitstaff at nice restraunts are expected to know the menu and wine list inside and out, and be able to pronounce everything perfectly and advise you on stuff like wine-matching. They also have stuff like wine service skills (ever tried opening a bottle of wine without settng it down on a table…oof!) Finally, nice restraunts hire people with a professional manner who understand and have training in business discretion

49

Carwashes? Maybe you put a buck or two in the “jar”, but it’s no big deal one way or the other. It’s really a “tip” as opposed to a significant part of the persons expected take for the day.
Hotels: Sometimes. But again, Bellman is hardly a job with “dignity and respect” :dubious: Most other jobs get little or no tips. Been there, done that.
Home repair: Never heard of tipping here.
Vallet parking: Don’t do that much. I have handed out a buck or two, I have heard that in high end areas, the tipping does get serious. But is this a job with "dignity and respect ".
Housekeeping: At a hotel? Where you leave a buck on the pillow? :confused:
Deliveries- sure, you give the pizza guy a buck- again, hardly a job with "dignity and respect ". Generally considered to be a job you might do for a couple years while going to school, hardly a career or a “profession”.
“consultant situations”: I’ve been a Consultant, and other than an occasional little Xmas gift, never been tipped, never even heard of a consultant being tipped.

Basicly, other than a few odd and rare jobs, waitstaff & stippers are the only jobs where the tip is a large and significant part of their take home.

50

I’m not the one obsessing over management, it is the pro-tippers who are always whining about how management pays them below minimum wage and that they need tips to survive, and somehow laying the blame on the “asshole customer”. If there was a mandatory 15% service charge, and you seem to be saying that they are basically equivilant, then I’m paying it because it’s part of the list price, because it would be stealing for me to not pay it. Not so with tips. Like I said, I leave a tip if I feel a server should be rewarded for expetional service but don’t call me an asshole if I don’t. It’s not my fault your manager thinks you’re worth $2/hr.

And that’s bad how? Why should the American consumer not be allowed to purchase their goods and services at the lowest price instead of being held hostage by waiters and minimum wage buggy whip making help and their mandatory tips? I don’t imagine we’re going to come to a meeting of minds on this particular point.

So if we stopped tipping, and managers increased your wages to make up for it, all of this would stop? Do these services not exist in countries where tipping isn’t mandatory?

51

If you know that a 15% tip is standard, and you know that prices reflect that a 15% tip to the staff is expected from the customer, and you still don’t tip, then you are an “asshole customer”. Simple as that.

Back to the OP…
If the US underwent a massive campaign to do away with all the tipping we do, educating consumers and workers alike that now prices and salaries should reflect previously given and received tips, the economy would not suffer at all, except for the money wasted on such a campaign. And it truly would be a waste of time, effort, and money to change something as ingrained into the American psyche for no good reason. Tipping works for us. We are used to it, on both ends of the transaction. Some people gripe, but there is no great upswelling here to change the status quo. It’s not even close.

(I will give you that the US is plenty guilty of trying to make everyone else conform to it, so getting us to give up tipping might be a bit of revenge. There’s a motivation I can understand, and just might even back. The collective American ego could use some downsizing.)

52

This is not really a fair argument. It suggests that you have a thorough and complete understanding of the job market of each region, coupled with intimate background information on the qualifications and knowledge base of any given server.

While I may not be able to speak to this with absolute certainty, in my experience, most chains pay at least minimum wage as a base salary to their wait staff. Diner’s and other similar establishments are the ones that pay $2/hr.

Do you really think that waiters sit around for more than a few minutes complaining about non-tipping customers? I hate to disappoint you but when I was a server, we complained more about exceptional rudeness than anything. I will let you in on a little secret though. Those incredibly rude customers usually tip between 15%-20%. Your tip does not justify your behavior.

As I stated earlier, an increase in wages without an increase in the menu price would not end these services. Instead, managers would just stop hiring untrained candidates. Training costs the management time and money. With our current policies in place it is difficult for people with no previous experience to become servers. Unskilled servers would become nonexistent if owners were forced to dip into their pockets to increase wages. I am not saying that owners cannot afford to increase server wages but if they were to increase them, then the servers would most likely suffer from a loss of certain benefits that they were previously given.

53

Folks should be aware that if they’re bad tippers and repeat customers, service is going to suck for them. I mean, really, really suck. Wait staff are paid in an unusual way, in which they’re directly rewarded for the service they do. If they know you’re not going to reward them, they’re not going to do the service.

If you don’t like it, I recommend bitching about it in the Pit. Nobody at the restaurant is going to care about your gripes, as long as you’re not paying for the service.

Daniel

54

Not if the service sucks or the server is rude.

55

Which is what’s so nice about tipping. Try deducting 20% from the DMV, the next time you’re there and they treat you like shit.

56

Especially true for deliveries, where notes can be stored in the computer along with your address and purchase history, and the driver has to prioritize orders. If he has to choose between taking a three-bag order to a customer who always tips $20 or three smaller orders to mediocre tippers, his choice is clear.

57

You are correct. No one has said otherwise.

58

Mostly, you’re just a parasite. You’re getting food cheaper than you otherwise would, by skipping out on the implicit payment part of the contract.

I have a good test that I use to determine ‘social contract’ behaviour, and that’s to universalize it. Free refills of coffee? Great! That means I can sit there and ask for refills all night, right? That’s what the sign says. Well, what would happen if everyone did that? Free refills would be no more. So if I choose to sit there all night drinking free coffee, I realize that I can only do it because others choose not to abuse the privilege. Hence, I’m a parasite.

It’s amazing how often that technique will give you guidance as to what’s implicitly correct. And tipping falls in that category. What would happen if everyone refused to tip? The price of food would go up, probably about 15% or so. So, those who choose not to tip are parasites. They’re getting cheap food by letting others pay for it.

The argument that “I can do it because it’s not illegal” just sucks, by the way. The who reason for social mores and social contracts is so that we don’t have to live in a freaking police state where every wrong behaviour is proscribed by law. And a lot of the crappy laws we have now came about because too many people just couldn’t keep themselves from acting like assholes and taking advantage of loopholes or generally behaving boorishly.

As for how much to tip, it really depends. A sit-down restaraunt meal generally should be between 10-15%. But if you sit in the restaurant with your friends for four hours, demanding coffee refills all the time, and your final bill is $10, if you leave a buck fifty you’re just a jerk. I used to go and hang out all night with a friend at a local coffee house, and when I did, I tipped over 100%. The waitress would bring me a refill, and I’d give her 50 cents for her trouble, even though the refill was free. So I’d have a coffee and a donut, the bill would be $4.00, and by the end of the night I’d have given her $5 in tips. And that’s reasonable. And you know what? I got all the refills I wanted, when I wanted. Had I been in the habit of leaving a 50 cent tip at the end of a night of making her run back and forth to the coffee machine, you can bet the next time I went there the waitress would be awfully hard to find. And rightfully so.

When my wife and I were in Vegas, we got excellent treatment from one of the floor managers. He went out of his way to be nice to us, slide us a free breakfast comp, make sure our luggage was looked after, and in general just made the weekend really pleasant. When we left, we sent him a $50 tip, which was about 20% of the hotel tab. We felt that’s what the extra value he gave us on that weekend was worth, so we paid up, happily. I still feel good about doing that, and that was 15 years ago.

59

THere is, by the way, a perfectly ethical way to not tip. When the host is leading you to your table, tell the host, “Please let the wait staff know that I don’t believe in tipping.” When your waiter comes to the table, tell them, “Just so you know, you won’t be receiving a tip from me tonight.”

At that point, both you and the wait staff have all the information you need to make informed choices, and you may both act freely and ethically.

If you don’t inform them of your intentions in advance, and you’re in a country where you realize that tipping is expected, then you’re acting unethically and deceitfully.

Really, if not tipping is such an important principle to you, the least you can do is to let your server know that in advance. They’re going to find out soon enough, after all. Why not tell them while the information can do them some good?

Daniel

60

Tipping could go away at any time. All you would need is somebody to speak out against it.
See how John McCain feels.