Believe me, the restaurant isn’t “pocketing” anything. Restaurants open and close like mad, restauranteurs are not earning scads of money, the business is very competitive. The only difference between the US and non-US system is that in the US, the payment for service goes straight from the customer to the server. Non-US, that money is filtered through the restaurant’s bank account first.
Arguments can be made on both sides to claim one is better than the other. However, nobody is putting anything over on anyone else, regardless of which system is used.
Really, if you think the restaurant is pocketing all this extra money, open one up and cash in, baby!
I didn’t say I didn’t know that this is the practice. The whole point is that the current culture of expected tipping allows the management to not only shift the burden of paying a salary from them to the customer directly, but it gives them the marketing tool of printing lower prices on the menu – it’s just a psychological effect, yes, but why do you think gas stations charge 2.19[sup]9[sup] per gallon instead of 2.20? It visually looks like you’re getting a better deal.
Actually, that brings up a question (which I ask not to make an argument, but because I don’t know what the rules on it actually are, as I don’t work as a waiter).
How is this portion of the waiter’s income taxed? Does the employer still have to pay matching social security taxes on tips, for instance, even though it wasn’t paid directly by the employer? I don’t know what the tax rules on this are.
Who “expected” you to pay the full tip? I’m a big tipper - when service is worth it. But plain ol’ run of the mill service doesn’t get more than 15%, and I have no qualms about leaving less if I feel the service was substandard. If you left 15%-20% tips for crappy service, you shouldn’t have.
Nope. It depends on the type and location of restaurant or bar, but all have “slow” and “good” nights. Breakfast and lunch are typically more consistant, but the meals are smaller/cheaper and the tips are subsequently lower (plus, the range of time for those meals is smaller; about 1-1/2 to 2 hours as opposed to 3-4 for supper.) Displease the management and as a server you’ll be assigned to those nights where you get little or nothing. So, the “tipping” system definitely doesn’t give you a consistant income.
As an example: at one of my local haunts, the two most senior waitresses only work Friday and Saturday nights, plus some lunch shifts. The more junior waitresses vie for the open slots on those shifts but mostly have to settle for weeknight shifts in which the take is typically 25% to 30% of what they’d make on a Friday. Fortunately, for them, in California minimum wage for servers is the same as for everyone else, but in most places, as previously noted, wage is $2.13+tips; the former part of that is considered “gas money”, i.e. enough to get you back and forth to work, and the latter is rent, groceries, and other needs. It would be nice if it were different, but that isn’t going to happen here, either culturally or legislatively. I don’t know about the hospitality industry in Au/NZ, but in the US it is definitely a marginal industry–most “sit down” restaurants make far more money off of liquor than food, and it makes a big difference to them not to have to shell out full wages for servers. It sucks, but that’s how it is. On the high side, at least the restaurant owner isn’t skimming his percentage off the top before passing wages onto the server, so all in all tipping may be cheaper. It certainly provides incentives to the most experienced and effective waiters to seek employment at the best (most expensive) restaurants.
As for the OP…unless she’s in dementia and can’t take care of herself, it’s her money, I guess. Plenty of folks still give money to the likes of Oral Roberts and Jerry Falwell, who are, IMHO, worse than a mere con man.
Weird – first I’d heard of it, but I googled a little, and apparently some people do think that. Sounds like more conspiracy theories, but apparently it’s based on a Hong Kong company called Hutchison Port Holdings, who control ports on both ends of the Panama Canal, and it looks like they do business pretty worldwide.
Why should she adjust her ideas? She’s perfectly entitled to prefer a system in which the employer is required to pay his or her employees a decent wage, rather than relying on the vagaries of the general public.
If calm kiwi comes to the US to visit, i would hope that she would follow the custom of tipping as it is practiced here. And she has already indicated in this thread that she would do so. But why should she “adjust her ideas” just because they happen to be different from yours?
Actually, it can make a considerable difference in certain circumstances.
Because if you’re a waiter in an American restaurant, and you have a really slow night where virtually no-one shows up, then you make virtually no money. Whereas if your are on a proper wage, you don’t get penalized for the restaurant’s poor marketing.
Of course, there’s the obverse, whereby a waiter working for tips can make really great money on a good night, whereas the waiter working for a wage gets no more when it’s busy than when it’s quiet.
I’ve worked as a waiter and bartender under both systems (Australia, UK, Canada), and im honestly not sure which system i prefer, from the worker’s point of view. But, from a philosophical point of view, i still believe it should be incumbent on the employer to pay an employee’s wages.
Yeah, this has been my experience also.
I remember thinking when i first moved to North America that restaurant food would probably be considerably cheaper than restaurant food in places like Australia. After all, the owner doesn’t have to pay the same relatively high wages that Australian restauranteurs have to pay, and the customer is expected to subsidize the service staff’s paycheck by tipping. But, on arriving here, i found that the listed menu price in American restaurants was, for the most part, very close to similar menu prices in Australia. Either every other restaurant expense (rent, produce costs, etc., etc.) is that much more expensive in the US, or the American dining public is being screwed.
There’s one other argument that some people make about the tipping system. They argue that a waiter working for tips is likely to do a better job than one working for a wage, because of the incentive to work harder for a better tip. Well, having been on both sides of the fence—waiter and customer—in tipping and non-tipping environments, i can honestly say that the service i receive at restaurants in the US and Canada is, on average, no worse than the service i receive in restaurants in Australia and England. And when i was working as a waiter, i tried to do my job professionally no matter what the system of remuneration.
If I do not want to tip for service, can I choose to decline service? I shall go into the kitchens, tell the chef what I would like, wait until he’s cooked it, take it out to my table, and then, once I have finished, I shall bus my own table and pocket the 15-20%. I will even ask myself if everything is all right just often enough to be annoying.
But again, the point is why should people feel obligated to tip for bad service. It seems some people here say “well if they do a really really bad job i leave less of a tip”. You know what if I get bad service I don’t tip. They get nothing, zip.
If they do well i’ll give them 15% or more depending on the service.
But I don’t give a damn if they’re paid at the end of the day with dropped food sweepings and bits of string, if someone isn’t serving me, messes up my order, doesn’t provide me beverages when i need them, they aren’t getting a tip.
I get it - you tipped 10% for poor service, THEN got abused for a small tip (it’s happened to me before as well). I thought you meant you were abused by the server but gave him/her a tip anyway.
You wacky Kiwis! I heard that things are so backwards there, that when we in the US are enjoying summer, it’s actually colder there, and in the winter, when it’s supposed to be cold, you have summer-like conditions! Even more bizzarre than that, when it’s nice and sunny in a proper country like the USA, it’s DARK in New Zealand, and when it’s dark in the USA, it’s actually sunny there! How do you people sleep, that’s what I want to know!
What happenned to freedom of speech? You may disagree with her opinions, but you must respect her right to hold them. I’ll bet you wouldn’t have blinked if she were giving to the Democrats.
A quick Google shows that concern about Chinese control of the Panama Canal is very real. I don’t know if it’s justified, though - I’m not sufficiently informed.
[official moderator warning]I see you’ve been here since 2001 and you have over 3000 posts-you have no excuse whatsoever for posting in this manner outside of The BBQ Pit. Don’t do it again.[/official moderator warning]
Actually, in many parts of Spain, particularly the large urban areas, the siesta is becoming a thing of the past. When people commute long distances to work, it no longer becomes practical to go home for an afternoon nap. And the fact that so many businesses and financial institutions operate in an internationally integrated economy means that shutting down for a few hours during the day is almost impossible for many of them.
