Flat wages aren’t the only alternative to tips. Commission would work better for both customers and servers.
:eek: Now THAT would be something I would hate. I try to avoid shopping anywhere with commissioned employees: there’s nothing worse than upsell. Well, okay, I suppose Nazi death camps are worse, but that’s it.
In fact, my only objection to the tipping system is that it encourages upselling. One of my worse dining experiences was going out to a restaurant with my father. He expansively asked me to choose the wine for the dinner; since I’m a wine ignoramus, I asked the waiter for a recommendation. The waiter recommended an extremely expensive wine in what looked to everyone like a clear fish for a high tip. Yeah, not so much: it embarrassed my father (who found himself regretting asking me), and it embarrassed me (who inadvertantly put my father in an awkward situation).
Most servers don’t do that, in my experience–but if they were on commission, they’d have a very strong motive to do so. As it is, the risk of getting a low tip due to the hard sell mediates this temptation for most servers.
Daniel
Well, you’re a native and I’ve never been there, but some natives are clueless. Have you asked some waitstaff at high end restaurants? Maybe they *are * expecting a modest tip and you just don’t know it? I mean, that many cites from that many travel experts and even some of them locals, so it would seem that the custom isn’t just for rich Americans. 
“A couple?” Discounting posters from countries where tipping is not the custom, it looks like the majority of people in this thread support the practice. I’m confident that the majority of non-restaurant-owning citizens in this country have no problems with tipping wait staff.
“Extrordinary?” Hardly. Most people raised in American understand all this by the time they’re old enough to have to pay their own way in a restaurant. There are, as always, exceptions, perhaps regionally based, and I’m fairly certain that your previous ignorance on this point was one of those, and not the rule.
An increase in the wages for servers would increase the costs to the restaurant by more than the wages. SUTA, FUTA, WC, SS, and Medicare taxes would all increase as well. If the server goes from making $2/hour to making $20/hour paid by the employer, those taxes just went up a whole lot.
There are advantages to servers in the tipping system. I don’t have any fondness for the system, but getting rid of it is harder than just handwaving and saying that you don’t like “hidden” costs.
My understanding is that most servers are at least supposed to do that - though the upselling may not be to the most expensive menu item, but to the highest margin one. Menus are designed to upsell also. It doesn’t bother me once I know that’s what they are doing.
BTW, though I think your solution for the non-tipper is about as good as it gets, I still don’t think it is ethical. Tips are built into the price of a meal in the United States, and opening yourself to poor service does not make underpaying right - anymore than it would if you went up to a clerk in a department store, and asked her to give you 10% off on a shirt, but to ring you up really slowly.
Those who don’t want to tip should only go to eating establishments where tips are nonexistent or minimal, like fast food or buffet places.
In both cases, the peon has every right to go to management and say, “Look, do you want me to serve this person?” Good management will say, “hell no!” and kick the person out of the store. Bad management will say, “Yes!” in which case it’s management that’s the problem.
I’m not saying that my solution is polite, but at least it’s ethical.
Daniel
My brother worked in High End restaurants for ages here, as did a good female friend of mine (She worked in 5 star, Silver Service, and more standard fare places), and they both said they never expected tips, they treated all the customers the same (unless the customer was being a dickhead), and the closest they had to tipping was if someone’s bill came to something like $97.85 and they’d pay with a $100 note and say “Keep the change”- which had more to do with not wanting a handful of coins in their wallet than a “reward” to the staff for good work.
I can’t vouch for the system in Melbourne or Sydney at ultra high-end restaurants, but I really can’t see many of them staying in business long if they expect people to magically add 10% tips to the cost of an already heftily priced meal.
Of course, if you’re one of those people who likes to Flash Their Cash around, then a small tip for good service might not be out of the question, but for the rest of us- normal people, who don’t carry wads of $100 notes in their wallet- the price on the bill is the price you pay at the end of the night, and that’s what everyone- staff, customers, and management- expect.
One thing that does occur to me is that since the award wage for waitstaff is exactly the same at Wallaby Bob’s Steakhouse and Bar as it is at a 5 star restaurant with a name like Riche, a dollar or two (even something as simple as saying “keep the change”) may be seen by some people as being appropriate for the extra level of higher service.
Of course, I’d say that since the food prices at the 5 star restaurant are much highter than Wallaby Bob’s, I’ve already paid extra for the better service, and most people I know feel the same way.
Those cites provided earlier were aimed at tourists- and the presumption is tourists have more money than the locals.
Ultimately, think of it as a Rich Bastard Tax. 
Both of those are in the past tense, and note that the cites all said this was recent. Why not get some current info (a couple telecons to a few headwaiters) and get back to us?
…I’ve been in the hospitality trade in New Zealand for the last fifteen years: I spent four years at SkyCity Casino, two years as Functions Manager at Parliament and two years running my own Catering business. I started in the trade as a dishwasher, and worked my way up to various waiting then host positions in various different hotels before making my way to the management level. I’ve been involved in various industry discussions involving tipping and service, and I’m still involved enough in the “grass-levels” of the industry to know what is happening with the average waiter.
Has tipping increased in New Zealand (and Australia-the industries are very similar)? Absolutely. Has tipping had an effect on levels of service in NZ? I would argue not. Is there an expectation of a tip for providing exceptional service? Again, despite what your citations seem to imply, I would argue that there is not an expectation of a tip-even at “high end” establishments like Logan Brown or Number 5.
Tipping is regarded as a “welcome extra” for a job well done-and for the vast majority of the industry would come as a surprise. I once left a ten dollar tip for a waiter at the Manakau Denny’s, only to have the waiter breathlessly chase us down to our car to inform me and my friend that we had left our money behind on the table.
It is very important to note that “service” is an extremely subjective topic, with a definition that can change from person to person. There are substantially different expectations of service between your typical American consumer and the typical NZ consumer: it can vary from expectation of portion size, to how friendly your host is, to how many times the waiter comes to top up your glass. While it may be polite in some places for the waiter to put the napkin in your lap, here in NZ that is considered rude to have somebody else touch your napkin that you use to wipe your face.
Also bear in mind that the brigade system used by Front of House staff is completely different to the typical US restaurant. If I was to ask a typical Kiwi in the hospitality industry what a “bus-person” did, they would probably say they drove a bus. We don’t generally have “servers” and “bussers”, we would have a waiter controlling a section, who would take the order, serve the drinks, pour the waters, clear the plates, and reset the table again. When Sky City opened in 1996, the American Co-owners Harrah’s implemented the servers/bussing system for a short time: but it ended up confusing nearly everybody, from the staff to the customers, who wondered why their waiter kept going to get another waiter everytime they wanted to add to their order.
If anyone has any questions about the service industry down under, I’d be glad to answer them…
My brother left his restuarant job at the end of last year (about 5 months ago), and the female friend was still working in a 5-star restaurant the last time I spoke to her, about 3 months ago.
I think that qualifies as “Recent”- and why are you arguing with me over this, anyway? I live here, you don’t. You can pull all the cites you like off the internet, but the fact is that as someone actually living in this country- not visiting, but living and working here- I think I’m qualified to tell you what the social customs where I live are.
I doubt you’d like it very much if I tried telling you what the social customs in San Jose were, based purely on internet cites, especially if they blatantly contradicted your own experiences as someone living in the area, for example.
And on preview: What Banquet Bear said.
If it makes you feel any better though, I called up a shooting friend of mine who works at the Palazzo Versace Hotel today and asked if tipping was expected.
His response: “No, but a lot of the Americans do it anyway. I’m certainly not about to turn down the extra cash on top of my wages, but it’s not like we expect tips from anyone.”
It does and thank you. Although you indeed live in Australia and I don’t, that doesn’t mean you are up to date on the tipping customs in high end restaurants in the big cities. Oz is a BIG place, and so is the USA- and right now there could be new customs in New York, Chicago, or Dallas, and unless I read about them in the newspaper I wouldn’t know about it, and if you posted a cite showing a new custom in NYC I’d say “thanks”. And I know enough about Oz to know that Sydney is as different from Perth or Melbourne or Darwin as San Jose might be from those US cities I just mentioned.
Or it could be a new custom right here in the Bay area at (for example) rave clubs- which I don’t go to, never have and don’t know anyone who does. So again, if an Aussie posted a cite telling me that women now customarily wore pink bunny ears at Raves, I’d just so “hmmm, I’ll have to ask a FoaF”, and not be insulted as “some foriegner” told me something new about my own city.
And, you even said you don’t go to high end restaurants in Sydney or Melbourne so I don’t know why I should* automatically* assume you know more about the high end restaurant tipping custom there than I know about the Rave scene in NYC- or why you’d know more than the actual websites for New South Wales and Brisbane. After all, those are the actual local sites, and you don’t live in either- and I’d think that the dudes who wrote those sites do live there, and do eat out a lot. :dubious: or maybe they are wrong, and you are right. Perhaps, living in a different territory and not actually writing about such stuff for a living- you still know more about their cities and their restaurants than they do. Sure, why not? Hell, I know a LOT more about eating in NYC than someone who writes the NYC vistitors website. :rolleyes: Wait, no, I don’t.
And, of course, you are the OP here, and your OP makes it rather clear you don’t like tipping and thus you might be a tiny bit biased. So, maybe, just maybe, the custom has changed and you just don’t want to admit it- even Banquet Bear has admitted that “Has tipping increased in New Zealand (and Australia-the industries are very similar)? Absolutely.” And, your Op seems to want to tell us Americans how we do tip and how we should tip, unless I am completely misreading it. Which since I live in San Jose, I must be. :rolleyes:
The very simple answer to the OP is that the very best servers would make less money, and the new hires and shitty “tenured” servers would make more.
I disagree with this new hypothetical policy.
p.s. How the FUCK did this make make it to 94 posts in GQ?
Meh…
Me thunk he was in GQ all along… made some inappropriate posts… apologizes.
Brisbane is the State Capital of Queensland, and I’ve never said I don’t live there.
Excellent. So please contact the dudes at the Brisbanes visitors bureau site and tell them they are wrong. Here’s the contact info:
http://www.travelonline.com/contact.html
“Our head office is based in Brisbane, Queensland and was chosen as the location primarily because of geography. It is the most suitable central point for our communication requirements with the major tourism regions of Australia being from tropical North Queensland to Tasmania, as well as the SW Pacific destinations of the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand and Vanuatu.”
And, let the other sites know that they are wrong also. Tell us how that went will you?
…I’m not entirely sure what point you are trying to make to Martini Enfield. Your Brisbane Visitors cite states that tipping is not mandatory, but optional if you so desire. I don’t think that contradicts anything that Martini Enfield has said. Your other citations show that, yes tipping is becoming more common in Australia, but show nothing beyond that. Your Monash University cite credits Lonely Planet for its information, while Magellan’s Travel Advice’s section on New Zealand is demonstratebly wrong. Travel Guides are designed to give helpful advice, but they are by no means authoritive and I would take them with a grain of salt. Just because some online Travel and Tourism Guide states authoritively that in New South Wales “[tipping] in cafes and restaurants between 5 and 15% would be considered average”, doesn’t mean that it is so: in fact, I’m sure that many Australian residents will soon comment that a tip of any percentage is nowhere near average.