[QUOTE=Spezza]
Generally, the rule is people will either give you $20 or nothing. An exception was the customer who gave them both $100. But, then again, they had just delivered an entire household worth of furniture. (If you must know, in total $32,000 in wood furniture.)
[/QUOTE]
What, $32,000 in furniture and only a $100 tip?
Standard is at least 15% which is $4,800.
Cheap bastards.
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
It’s far less widely known that if you order pizza, it’s standard to tip the delivery person, or how much.
[/QUOTE]
It could be argued that if this sentence is true… it isn’t actually standard to tip the delivery person.
[QUOTE=LilyoftheValley]
They’re really Weebles?
[/QUOTE]
Good one!!! 
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
I think this is a big part of it right here. Just about everybody knows that if you go to eat in a restaurant, it’s standard to leave a tip of 15-20% of the bill. It’s far less widely known that if you order pizza, it’s standard to tip the delivery person, or how much.
What is the standard tip for pizza delivery? If most of the people reading this thread post the same answer, I’ll retract my statement.
[/QUOTE]
I’d usually say 2-3 dollars per pizza. It depends. If you’re in the middle of nowhere, I’d up it a bit. Especially if it is a place you hope to order from often. Usually, when I move somewhere new, I try to tip well, so I never am the last one served.
I heard long ago that it was standard to tip a food delivery person a few dollars flat-rate, not a percentage of the order cost. It’s always seemed relatively fair to me, I mean if I order a $18.00 pizza instead of a $12.00 pizza, the delivery guy isn’t doing any extra work to justify getting a bigger tip.
Now, if I ordered like 12 pizzas for some sort of party I might tip more than my normal rate for pizza since the delivery person would have to deal with the hassles of carrying that many pizzas.
Anyway, my standard for pizza is $2-3. However like Spezza I tend to use a rounding system for convenience sake. If I place a $21.50 order and have a twenty and a five, I’ll not ask for any change back.
I generally never tip under $2, so on a $19 order I’d find a one dollar bill to give him in addition to the $1 change.
When I order something like a gyro for example from a small local place I’ll typically tip a dollar flat rate, which I don’t consider unreasonable because the gyro place in question charges a $1 delivery charge and I give $1 on top of that (making a reasonably priced $6.50 gyro a rather small amount of food when you’re paying almost as much as a whole pizza from some places.)
It may not be the case, but it’s my understanding that pizza delivery guys, unlike waitresses, make minimum wage. I knew a guy who had become relatively successful in the IT industry and had gotten in the industry early on when it was smaller, he had no college degree but had performed well enough at the company that by 1997 or so he was making $95,000/year. When the company went under his lack of degree left him with almost no career opportunities (his best offers were very entry level ~$30,000/yr stuff), so he decided to take time off from work and get his degree. During that time he worked part-time as a pizza delivery guy, he made $5.15/hour (minimum wage) they compensated him for gas money, and he made tips on top of that. I don’t know if that is standard for pizza places, though.
The way I see it, me tipping $2-3 is raising that guy’s hourly wage to $8.15/hour, which means he’s doing better than a huge number of people who stock shelves and sweep supermarkets for a living who never get any tip and make flat-rate wages well under that. Even if I’m his only delivery for the entire hour, that’s not a bad compensation compared to some of the other equivalent-level careers (ie jobs not requiring a high school diploma), although a successful waitress or bartender will certainly make way more.
Sorry, charlie. I’ve giving you a dollar, no more. You didn’t do a thing to serve me. You dropped off an item, which you do some six an hour. Combine with your hourly pay you’re making as much as I do.
Six dollars for a pizza. :rolleyes:
You gonna come in and serve the pizza, pour my drinks, clean up my table? Then we’ll talk. I hate it when delivery boys think they somehow earned as much as waiters.
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
The way I see it, me tipping $2-3 is raising that guy’s hourly wage to $8.15/hour
[/QUOTE]
This I don’t get. I’ve never seen a delivery guy who made one deliveries an hour. Around here, six is common if not understated. That can add up to $20+ per hour (and I know of few who definitely make that much at peak times, though not as much in the slack). And around here they get all gas bought on-shift paid for, no matter where or when they use it.
That’s pretty darn good for a job whose requirements cabn be easily met by any high-school kid with a few extra bucks to get a jalopy.
I delivered pizza for a few different places in college.
When I worked for Domino’s which had ‘free delivery’. I got much better tips. Plus I got a “per delivery payment” for each delivery at the end of the night. They made a point to give us the “per delivery payment” even if it was a free pizza due to being over the 30 minutes. The hourly wage was near minimum.
When I worked for a local place later on that charged per delivery the tips were much worse, but the wage was ok. Plus I tended bar in between deliveries where I the tips were pretty good.
So from my experience I would agree with the sentiment that people usually think the delivery charge is already going to the driver.
Well, it depends on the time of day. Yes, during peak time in the evenings, 6 deliveries in an hour would be possible (though uncommon in my area, due to sprawl and thus travel time). Generally the only way you were getting 6 deliveries was if it was a whole bunch of college deliveries, and college kids are crappy tippers. Also, if a pizza delivery person is working full time, there’s a lot of downtime too; I used to work the day shift, and other than a brief surge from 11:30 - 1, it was pretty much one or so deliveries an hour. In that time, pizza delivery folks are stuck doing dishes, folding boxes, and other gruntwork.
I’ve always considered it fair to tip based on the amount of trouble - i.e. distance from the pizza parlor, bad weather, long walks from the car, living on an upper floor, making them wait while you go get the payment, etc. Keep in mind that generally pizza delivery drivers use their own cars, and may or may not get gas money; they certainly do not get subsidized on insurance or wear and tear to the vehicle.
Still, a few dollars is sufficient. If it’s a real pain in the ass (like carrying 20 pizzas inside your gigantic office building to a meeting room on the 2nd floor) then more would be appropriate.
Does the company compensate you for gas used, CynicalGabe?
If not, then damn right pizza deliverers should be earning $20+ an hour, smiling bandit. They probably need a fair portion of that for gas money.
I tend to tip about $5, myself, which sounds about right for the $2-3 since I usually get two pizzas. Papa John’s online ordering system allows for a tip to be put on the credit card, and even calculates the tip at various percentages (15%, 18%, 21%, so on).
This topic is difficult because of the strong US/non-US divide in it, but for what it’s worth, I find the idea of tipping as a matter of course to be quite bizarre and defeating of the purpose. You pay for a good or service, and you get said good or service. There is no required tip. On the other hand, if somebody goes out of their way to do their job well, I’ll tip - and then it’s a genuine gesture. If a waiter is slack or surly, I exercise my God-given Australian right to take every last cent (I also usually leave less of a tip if they use those snobby “leave us a tip hint hint” trays to return the change on).
I soften these rules a bit for things like kids delivering pizza, but usually it’s just a round-up to the nearest $5 or what-have you: $27 worth of pizza and I leave him with $30, for example. That’s plenty when he’s delivering several an hour, and the kids working a checkout in a supermarket (more stressful, IMHO) do not get tipped at all, yet get similar shitty money.
I’m not mean, but you have to earn a tip (and yes, I know about the system of shitty pay being supplemented by tips in the US - I’m not talking about that here).
I usually tip 10% for deliveries and buffet waitstaff.
I tip 1$ for a 20$ order. I dont feel like I owe the delivery guy much, yet it’s definitely not nothing either.
We’ve checked with our local pizza people and confirmed that the delivery charge does not go to the driver, so we always tip at least $2. These days we order and pay for the pizza online, though, and include the tip there, and the delivery guys all know us – and our loud dogs – so they’re always very happy to deliver to us because we always provide a reasonable tip.
My son learned the hard way that you need to tip for pizza delivery. We’d left him money to answer the door and pay the pizza guy, but when the guy gave him change back, he took it and didn’t tip him anything. So after we ate, my husband took him over to the pizza shop and had him give the tip to the delivery guy with an apology.
I’m always happy to tip for a home delivery of food, especially if it’s somewhere I deal with regularly, to make sure that we’re on their “good customer” list – the ones whose orders get made up first, get dropped off first, and generally get treated well. I guess if you’re getting a delivery from a place that’s not quite as local as ours is here, you can afford to be more cavalier, but when you know all the delivery people, it’s a lot harder to stiff them.
In Las Vegas the tips flow freely. And why shouldn’t they ? I always tip generously when I get good service. People work hard here taking care of customers.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Sorry, charlie. I’ve giving you a dollar, no more. You didn’t do a thing to serve me.
[/QUOTE]
See, now you’re exactly the kind of customer that makes me regret never having followed through on the sweaty ass-crack pizza slice crack-wipe idea.
$20+ per hour with gas paid for is a swell fantasy. If you can show me anyone who’s actually getting that, I’ll do something rash… I’ll eat delivery-chain pizza.
I fully understand, though. I’t’s a lot easier for a cheap stiff to live with himself if he pictures his delivery person living the life of Riley. Just don’t expect anyone who’s actually worked the job to keep a straight face when you spin your excuse.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
This I don’t get. I’ve never seen a delivery guy who made one deliveries an hour. Around here, six is common if not understated. That can add up to $20+ per hour (and I know of few who definitely make that much at peak times, though not as much in the slack). And around here they get all gas bought on-shift paid for, no matter where or when they use it.
[/QUOTE]
When I delivered pizza, it was more like 2-3 per hour, and we bought our own gas. We were only allowed to take out one order at a time so that nobody’s pizza sat in the car while we delivered someone else’s pizza. This drastically reduced the number of trips we could do in an hour.
I tip delivery guys a minimum of $4, but usually more like $5, and more if there are more than two things he has to put in my grubby paws. I figure if someone’s actually driving food to me, they deserve some cash. If I wanted to be a complete skinflint (which I am most of the time, which is why I don’t often order out) I could have bought a frozen pizza or even just ordered carry out.
I had to break hubby of the habit of tipping a buck for a $15 delivery, and he was amazed that in short order we started getting our pizza delivered in a more reasonable amount of time.
[QUOTE=Omegaman]
In Las Vegas the tips flow freely. And why shouldn’t they ? I always tip generously when I get good service. People work hard here taking care of customers.
[/QUOTE]
But what makes Las Vegas special? Surely, there is an argument that most of the customers are going to be cashed-up holidaymakers in a happy, expansive mood, and the waiters are going to do relatively well compared to a waiter in some obscure town? I’d kind of lean towards giving the latter guy the bigger tip - assuming both provided good service or all bets are off.
[QUOTE=Spezza]
My delivery guys get very little from our customers. They delivery solid-wood furniture that can be very heavy, and still get only a penance from people.
[/QUOTE]
Bolding mine.
That’s some pretty strict customers you’ve got there.