Oops, I need to add fringe benefits on that to be fair. Labor overhead is probably fairly loaded at 50%, so let’s call that $48.
Have you ever supervised even one employee?
Something else a few people do not realize, there is such a thing as a bad customer. They cost more money than they will ever bring in over the long haul. You want them to go away, even better, go suck up resources and piss off good employees at your competitors business. I am already starting to see this phenomenon with my business and taking my lumps along the way.
Same thing for bitchy non-tipping customers, by refusing to engage in the traditional tipping, you are being rude to the staff.
As anyone that reads this board often knows, I’m a proponent of tipping those that do their job well. In this case the manager was wrong. Not for approaching the woman ( who made a bit of a social faux pas), but by mentioning the tip.
Any good manager would have heard from his waitstaff that a tip was omitted, and sought out the party to ask if anything was wrong with their service. If said party indicated that there were no problems, the manager might reply with something like “Our servers customarily recieve tips when their tables pay their bills, your server thought that he/she might have done something wrong when they noticed that the tip was omitted, did they do something to upset you?”
If the answer is yes, customer gets a coupon/credit/free desert whatever, if the answer is no, thank the customer and ask them to come back again. As mad as that would make me, as a manager that’s what you have to do.
Let’s also not forget that “tipped” and “non-tipped” employees are treated differently by the IRS. I’ll let someone else find and post the relevant codes, but there is something to be said about people making 2.13 an hour.
That would be illegal. FYI, there are two levels of minimum wage: one for those who do not rely on tips and another (and lower) one for those who do rely on tips.
Seems like somebody should have said that earlier. Maybe even in the post right before yours. 
Hey, it takes me a while to type! (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) Seriously, though, IMHO, mine was clearer. 
Yes and no… From the US Department of Labor
Very good question. I think most people underestimate the level of drama that a restaurant staff can produce. The difference between a happy or disgruntled staff can literally make or break a restaurant, and waiters who think the management is not on their side can become unhappy very quickly.
That is false. Regardless, you are splitting hairs.
See, what kind of shit is this? I enjoy tipping big for good service (for good service I’ll go 25-30% and feel good about doing it.) But with the “tip pool” system this is meaningless, or nearly so, to the person who provided the service. Why should the busboys be getting part of the tip? They are necessary for the functioning of the restaurant, certainly, but they are not serving me directly. (unless, as seems to be the case at some places, they are filling the water glasses, but still…) The restaurant ideally should pay the bus staff whatever they’re worth without having them rely on tips, but since they won’t, surely there has to be middle ground somewhere- like the wait staff pays a set amount to the bus and/or kitchen staff and keeps what they made over that. Several people have talked about the importance of staff morale, nothing would kill my morale faster than busting my ass for good tips and having to share them with some leech.
The bus staff clears off the table so you can sit at it. They assemble the silverware packs. They do water, and they take cleared plates away from you. Actually, I’ve seen bus staff work much harder at making my experience pleasant than the actual server. I think it’s fair that they get a cut of the tip.
Oh, and the pool system of tips, I would think, must inspire massive cheating among waitstaff and busboys- like pocketing the 5 and putting the 20 in the tip pool.
Come to think of it, if I got really good service at a place that I knew had a tip pool, I would try to give the waiter some cash and encourage him to pocket it, and then leave like 10% on my credit card so as not to arouse suspicion.
This whole tip pool thing is getting me really pissed off. Are there any benefits to it? I can’t think of any.
Exactly. Anyone who’s worked as a waiter knows the value of having a good busboy. The busser might not be the one interacting with the customer, but that doesn’t mean that he or she isn’t working hard to make the dining experience more pleasant.
I worked in one place where we pooled tips, and it worked fine. Obviously, it works best in a place where everyone pulls their weight, and where there is a good atmosphere of teamwork and everyone pitching in.
There is the potential for a dishonest person to get more than his or her share, but in a place where people trust one another that shouldn’t happen.
I prefer the regular, keep-your-own-tips system, but i don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the pooling system. Also, most places that pool tips don’t split them evenly. Waiters get more than busboys and the hostess, etc., etc.
Well, where i worked with a tip pooling system, we would have smiled, thanked you very much, and still placed the cash in the pool.
Why do you care, as long as the service you receive is appropriate?
I’m always amused by the obsession some people seem to have with what happens to the tip they provide. Why are you so obsessed with making sure that the person who serves you gets $X, no more and no less? Can you not accept that there may be other people, who you don’t see, who are also working hard to ensure that your dining experience is a pleasant one? If the money you pay for your meal (check plus tip) is a fair reflection of the quality of the food and the service you received, then get over it.
Damn straight. Half the time I think the bus boys deserve more of the tip than the wait staff.
The restaurant industry is weird. Why should I value the service of a waiter more than the bus boy or the chef? I know being a wait person is a hard job, but so are a zillion other jobs with people you don’t tip. How 'bout the chef? I wish I could tip the chef for serving me my steak exactly as I ordered (since most places don’t) And, when it comes down to per-hour earnings, I sincerely doubt most chefs make more than the average waitron, yet I’d argue they work harder.
Just my thoughts. And, yes, I have worked in the service industry. I’d rather be a server than work in the kitchen any day.
Yeah, i’ve eaten in places where the waiter seemed to feel that all he had to do was list the specials, take the order, and bring the wine.
The busboys poured the water, brought the bread, served the food, and cleared the plates.
Doesn’t that go against the idea that the waitron is supposed to be like your “personal food assistant”? Say you go to a restaurant where you know there is a server who is consistently snotty and rude, who screws up orders and takes forever to get you drink refills. You go to the restaurant and are served by a very nice person who gets everything exactly right and makes it a pleasurable dining experience. You want to reflect your approval of the good server by giving them a big tip. Yet, if the tips are pooled, the bad server gets just as much of the booty as the good one; they are being rewarded for their service even though they didn’t serve you and would have done a bad job of it anyway. No comment about the busboys, since I don’t know what they make and anyway it seems that they can’t screw up a dinner as badly as a waitron can, but it seems that servers themselves should not be sharing tips. It punishes bad servers and takes away rewards from good ones.
Yet another reason why tipping should be phased out, IMO.
I think I read somewhere that if you work harder, and do a better job, you should get paid more than someone who doesn’t. The concept had a catchy name, right on the tip of my tongue, I can’t remember what it was, “The Dream of America,” or something like that.
Everybody gets paid the same no matter how hard they work? Sounds like the godless commies to me.
As I said, I enjoy giving someone a big tip for excellent service. Tip pools rob me of my enjoyment.
Sure I can accept that. Those people should be compensated appropriately by the restaurant. The ones that work hard should get raises, the ones that don’t shouldn’t. I see this as a ploy by the restaurant to classify as many employees as possible as “tipped” employees so they can pay them dirt.
I understand what you’re saying, Don’t Call Me Shirley, but one important thing to remember is that you don’t know who your good experience is due to. You don’t know who “worked harder” and who just had the flashy starring role in a great supporting cast.
Sure, some things you know, like the fact that Cindy got you all your food while it was appropriately hot or cold, and got you an extra soda, and cootchie-gooed your adorable kid. You DON’T know, however, that she had a fucking nervous breakdown in the back, couldn’t get her salads up in time, spilled the ranch dressing everywhere, and so three other waitrons and two busboys had to fill her drinks, remake the salads and clean up the spilled ranch dressing. After Cindy pulled it together enough to bring you your salads, she went to call her boyfriend and sob to him on the phone while the cooks made your meal, some underling garnished them all pretty, and then had to send Judy from the bar over to the phone to get your psycho waitress off the line to bring you your damn food. Then the bitch claims her arm (which has been fine all night) can’t handle the trays, so Mike and Manuel have to help her carry the food out to the table, but of course being the good employees they are, they stand back and remain unobtrusive while Cindy passes you your food with a smile. Judy the bartender notices your drinks are low, and gets more ready, before waving frantically for Cindy to come get them out to you NOW! and Mike presses desert menus into her hand, because she totally forgot to even offer you desert.
This kind of stuff goes on all the time. Now, if Cindy keeps it up, she’ll be fired (unless Daddy is the owner, of course.) But frankly, we all have a bad night once in a while. At a good restaurant, the rest of the staff works their asses off to cover, and you never, ever know that your waitress is in fact being flakey tonight.
Heck, even if no one’s being flakey, you still don’t know how much of the behind-the-scenes work is done by other people. A lot more happens behind the swinging doors than at your tableside.
Shouldn’t you trust the restaurant to divvy up tips in an informed manner to cover this sort of thing?
It isn’t really a tip pool, persay. Perhaps, that’s the way they do it in some restaurants, and the pool moniker would be accurate. But in my experience as a server it is customary for servers to tip their busser and bartender. As a server where I worked, it was expected that we tip the busser and bartender anywhere from ten to fifteen percent of our total tips, inclusive.
The amount that we tipped our support staff was also dependent on their service, as well. If a busser didn’t do shit for us all night he could expect a shitty tip, likewise.
OK, I’ll concede half the point, and give you that in some instances the busboys and other support staff deserve some of the tips, if they are making the wait staff look good. However, your little scenario just reinforces my belief that tip pools are not good, because in your little scenario Cindy gets as much of the tip pool as the other wait staff who worked their asses off and covered for her all night. How is that fair? Do you think the other wait persons would agree that Cindy deserves as much of the tip jar as they do?
But in your scenario the restaurant is not divvying up the tips in an infomed manner. They are giving Cindy, who screwed up everything and dragged everybody else down, as much of the tip jar as you are giving everyone else. That’s not right, and would have to lead to major resentment and low morale. Now, if the manager has some discretion to distribute different percentages of the tips based on individual performance, that would be better, and I would go out of my way to let the manager know that my wait person did an excellent job. After considering all the responses, there doesn’t seem to be a really fair way of distributing tip money. Every method, ISTM, disregards the contributions of some group or unjustly rewards laziness. I therefore stand by my original thought that I should reward good service that I am able to witness for myself, and the restaurant should fairly reward behind-the-scene work that they are in a better position to be aware of.
The scenario that devilsknew describes seems like an excellent compromise.
Totally off-topic, how often do people get really bad service? I seriously can’t remember ever having bad service, and the wife and I used to eat out a lot before the kiddies came along. There may have been some times when my soda was not refilled as quickly as I would have liked, but other than that I’ve always had excellent luck.