Questions for those who LIKE tipping waiters

[themapleleaf]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

So then why are you constantly bitching about the US system when you aren’t American, don’t live in America, and the system you do have is way less than the one in the US?

Because: 1) This is not all just about “me, me, me”. I see it as an unfair principle and I want it to stop for all those who feel the same as me, wherever in the world they happen to be found. Morality knows no borders. I criticize what I see as wrong, whether or not it affects me. I’m a male and Canadian, but have criticized the fact that the USA still has no explicit guarantee of equal rights for women in its Constitution (for the off chance that you don’t know what I’m talking about, look into the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment). Should I stay silent about that just because I happen not to be American (or a woman)? 2) It does affect me/has affected me, as I am from Canada, where the tipping culture is alive, though low tippers seem to be tolerated more than in the US. Even in the Czech Republic, some tipping is expected.

@Schnitte

I can see that, but with the rule of thumb I mentioned in my earlier post, getting to know the final price of a meal under the current system requires me only to add ~10 % to the price listed in the menu, which is fairly easy mental arithmetic.

True, but it would still be one less action I have to perform for the service provider instead of them for me.

@themapleleaf

As a European citizen, I’m sure you wouldn’t like it if Germany/the EU changed the law to allow retailers to print before-tax prices on labels (like the idiotic system in North America) and calculate the total plus VAT when you come with your purchase to the cash register.

Actually, I would like that. It makes people more aware of how much of the price they pay is taxes, and I prefer a taxation system to be as transparent and honest as possible, rather than trying to hide the level of taxation in an overall price. By the way, we already do the same for airfare.
[/quote]

Well, if you prefer that, I can’t argue with you. There’s no accounting for tastes. But I find that information useless and see no problem with transparency as the official legal VAT rates are a readily accessible matter of public record (in the Czech Republic, the base rate is 21% and there are two lower rates of 15% and 10%) and if I really need to know, I can check the line item for the before-tax price on my receipt.

@themapleleaf

2. I feel an underlying sophistry in the current system. You are given a lower price (that sometimes seems quite expensive, esp. if you run up a big bill), yet both you and the server tacitly understand that you need to automatically “volunteer” 15-20% more or you’re considered a jerk cheating the server. Introducing the exact final price eliminates the temptation not to tip/find ways around it.

I’m not quite sure what the argument here is. Is it that you prefer to tip, but sometimes you feel the temptation not to, so you want to be liberated of this temptation? So the virtous side in you wants to bind itself to paying a certain amount, in order not to give in to the cheapskate side in you that might want you cut down on the tip?
[/quote]

I prefer not to tip at all. I wish to be presented a final price and not be expected to top up the one I am quoted. I do want the server to take home at least the same amount of money as a non-tipped worker making minimum wage. However, I resent that the employer has downloaded the duty to ensure this onto me and whenever I see a quoted price, I have a lingering wish to only pay that price and leave. (In fact, I have done so on a few occasions back home in Canada, because the restaurants in question didn’t have a liquor license and in Ontario, servers who don’t serve liquor are entitled to the full minimum wage rate. But I know that most likely, the servers thought me a cheapskate, because tipping is ingrained in Canadian culture as well).

@themapleleaf

Perhaps sometimes customers want to tip more, not to be perceived as generous but rather to honestly reward an unusually outstanding service that they appreciated.

That may well be the case. The problem is that “not tipping at all” is not currently a socially acceptable option; I don’t mind if those who want to tip do, as long as the system is set up in such a way that those who never felt like tipping could elect to do so and not be seen as cheap or withholding something due to the server. (For the record, there were at least two times when I willingly volunteered a gratuity to someone in a context where no tip was was expected, because I felt they had had done a really good job on something. But in those cases, I was inspired to do so and it was completely my initiative).

[Oredigger77]

@themapleleaf

In fact, I have done so on a few occasions back home in Canada, because the restaurants in question didn’t have a liquor license and in Ontario, servers who don’t serve liquor are entitled to the full minimum wage rate

For those of you wondering why people think the anti-tippers just want servers to earn minimum wage here is a great example.

[Schnitte]

@themapleleaf

I prefer not to tip at all. I wish to be presented a final price and not be expected to top up the one I am quoted.

I understand that this is what you want; what I’m unsure about are your reasons for this preference. I can see the point that you want to save yourself the hassle of mentally computing your total cost. To me, this is not much of an issue, but perhaps we simply have different opinions on how much of an inconvenience this actually is. Another point you mention is that it’s the employer’s responsibility to pay the waiter, not yours. This is, of course, true, but since in your preferred alternative, the increased wage of the waiter evidently has to come out of what you pay too, I don’t see the considerable benefits of having a two-stage process (you pay more to the restaurant owner, and the restaurant owner pays the waiter a higher wage) compared to the one-stage process where you tip the waiter directly.

Perhaps there’s a market for restaurants that follow exactly this approach: Paying higher wages to waiters, emphasising this fact in advertising, and explicitly discouraging tips as a consequence. If a lot of people feel as you do, then it should be a viable business model to do this, even in countries that currently have a social norm of expecting tipping. I don’t see this happening, at least not on a major scale, which indicates to me that there are not very many people who think the current tipping system is badly broken. Of course, this does not prove you’re “wrong”, as there is no right or wrong in this question; it’s a matter of personal preference.

[Schnitte]

Perhaps it’s possible to think of the current tip-based system as a Nash equilibrium that has the restaurant patrons, the restaurant owners, and the waiters as players. Each player has two strategies to choose from:

The restaurant owners could:

• maintain the current system with lower base pay for waiters, or
• increase waiters’ wages

The waiters could:

• stay in their waiting jobs, hoping that if pay is below living wage it will be topped up by tips, or
• go out and look for another job.

The restaurant goers could:

• continue tipping, or
• stop tipping and just paying whatever price is listed for their meals, even if that gives them a bad feeling about shortchanging a waiter who may or may not depend on tips.

The current system is a Nash equilibrium where all players choose their first option. Neither player has an incentive to unilaterally change their option:

• If the restaurant owners switch to their second option, but the waiters and the patrons stick to their status quo, then the restaurant owners would be overpaying their waiters.
• If the waiters switch to their second option, but the owners and the patrons stick to their status quo ,then the waiters would be foregoing what is a viable job.
• If the the restaurant patrons switch to their second option, but the waiters and the owners stick to their status quo, then the patrons would be have to live with the guilt of shortchanging waiters.

It’s often the case that a game has several Nash equilibria at the same time, and in this game a situation where each player chooses the second option from the lists above would also be one. But making a transition from one equilibrium to another is difficult and often requires concerted social action.

[doreen]

@Schnitte

Those customer-oriented lines of work that are nonetheless non-tipped are often (by all means not always, I concede that) performed by self-employed workers who can factor their degree of customer orientation into their individual hourly rates. A wage-earning employed service worker in a customer-oriented sector cannot do that, and those are precisely the lines of work where tipping is often the social norm

I am not sure of exactly what you mean by this - “customer-oriented lines of work that are nonetheless non-tipped” would include almost everyone employed in retail stores, in customer-facing jobs at banks, front desk staff at medical offices and insurance agencies , at delivery services like the post office or UPS , at entertainment venues and at almost every food service location where table service is not provided. I don’t think it’s accurate to say “many” people in non-tipped customer-oriented lines of work are self-employed who can set their own hourly rates. Some certainly can - but I think the people in jobs I described far outnumber those who can set their own rates.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@themapleleaf

I’m a male and Canadian, but have criticized the fact that the USA still has no explicit guarantee of equal rights for women in its Constitution (for the off chance that you don’t know what I’m talking about, look into the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment). Should I stay silent about that just because I happen not to be American (or a woman)?

Got it. People tipping waiters in a country you live 5000 miles away from is exactly like women not having equal rights. OK then.

[doreen]

Actually, what he said is that he didn’t tip them because they were entitled to the full minimum wage rate. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be AOK with him if the restaurant chose to pay those servers double the minimum wage. There’s a difference between only tipping those who are paid sub-minimum wages and actually wanting the server to earn no more than minimum wage.

[Oredigger77]

What it means is he is AOK with servers just earning minimum wage. Maybe he’s OK with them earning $50 a hour too but what he said is that he doesn’t want to (and hasn’t) paid more as long as the servers are earning minimum wage.

[puzzlegal]

@Schnitte

No, but that’s mostly due to the fact that some non-tipped lines of work are less customer-oriented than tipped ones (so that there is no need for distinction in pay based on customer satisfaction)

I gave several examples of customer-facing employees who aren’t tipped above. Hospital nurses. The salesman at my hardware store. The butcher at my local supermarket. There are loads of other examples. Librarians. Teachers. Auto salespeople. Auto mechanics. A lot more than the tipped jobs, I suspect.
Here are some more examples:

@doreen

I am not sure of exactly what you mean by this - “customer-oriented lines of work that are nonetheless non-tipped” would include almost everyone employed in retail stores, in customer-facing jobs at banks, front desk staff at medical offices and insurance agencies , at delivery services like the post office or UPS , at entertainment venues and at almost every food service location where table service is not provided. I don’t think it’s accurate to say “many” people in non-tipped customer-oriented lines of work are self-employed who can set their own hourly rates. Some certainly can - but I think the people in jobs I described far outnumber those who can set their own rates.

@Schnitte

The current system is a Nash equilibrium where all players choose their first option. Neither player has an incentive to unilaterally change their option:

I don’t think we are at equilibrium. I have watched the “standard” tip for restaurant servers rise from 10% to 15% to 20%, and I think it’s still climbing. It’s just that the movement is slow. But if we have a system where tips are expected, I think there will always be upwards pressure on the tips.

I do agree that (with respect to my ideal, where servers would be paid like nurses and librarians, by their employers) we can’t get there from here. I’m bitching about tipping on a message board, I’m not actually trying to change the system because I think it’s hopeless. But I’m certainly not going to pretend this system is fair or good or just. Because it is pernicious in perpetuating inequality, in addition to all the reasons it grinds my gears.

[themapleleaf]

@Schnitte

@themapleleaf

I prefer not to tip at all. I wish to be presented a final price and not be expected to top up the one I am quoted.

I understand that this is what you want; what I’m unsure about are your reasons for this preference. I can see the point that you want to save yourself the hassle of mentally computing your total cost. To me, this is not much of an issue, but perhaps we simply have different opinions on how much of an inconvenience this actually is. Another point you mention is that it’s the employer’s responsibility to pay the waiter, not yours. This is, of course, true, but since in your preferred alternative, the increased wage of the waiter evidently has to come out of what you pay too, I don’t see the considerable benefits of having a two-stage process (you pay more to the restaurant owner, and the restaurant owner pays the waiter a higher wage) compared to the one-stage process where you tip the waiter directly.
…

Of course, this does not prove you’re “wrong”, as there is no right or wrong in this question; it’s a matter of personal preference.

I’ve explained in detail the reasons for my preferences; doing so again would really be going around in a circle. The little hassle with the computing is one part of it. If I can be told at McDonalds up front what the final price of a Big Mac is, I think I should have the same right with regards to a burger at the sit-down restaurant. But like I described, there’s more to it than that. Also, I don’t see how you imagine paying the restaurant owner the full price a “two-stage process”. The owner already has to pay a part of the salary and in fact the tips have the potential to make it more bureaucratic than if the owner paid a fixed salary due to tip reporting, tip sharing/tipping out, etc. It is certainly a simpler process for the consumer, and I would gladly pay the same amount If I could just pay a stated price mandated by the owner rather than inconvenienced through being morally or socially required to top up a stated price with a tip. But you’re right on the point of it being a personal preference. I can see well from the many responses to this thread why some people like the current system.

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

@themapleleaf

I’m a male and Canadian, but have criticized the fact that the USA still has no explicit guarantee of equal rights for women in its Constitution (for the off chance that you don’t know what I’m talking about, look into the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment). Should I stay silent about that just because I happen not to be American (or a woman)?

Got it. People tipping waiters in a country you live 5000 miles away from is exactly like women not having equal rights.

It’s an analogy. Of course women not having equal rights is a far greater and more pressing problem than the tipping culture. But 1) Both are, in my estimation, injustices. Just because one is much smaller doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be dealt with. 2) If it would not be shocking for a non-American to criticize a big problem, like lack of constitutionally guaranteed equal rights for women, then it shouldn’t be untoward for them to criticize smaller injustices there as well. The principle of being 5000 miles away logically applies equally to both cases.

[DesertDog]

@Spoons

We change cart folks didn’t garner many tips–the lion’s share of tips were collected by the crap and blackjack tables. But all tips, no matter who collected them, were pooled; so all table personnel and slot attendants and change cart people shared equally.

Our departments were separate. Table games pooled theirs, I think, and Food & Beverage were separate. More than once I saw a server in the fancy restaurant turn an awesome amount of small bills into hundreds at the end of their shift.

As you said, the changers didn’t garner much in tips. Our department’s tips came from the largish winners given to the keys who paid them.

[thorny_locust]

@Schnitte

Those customer-oriented lines of work that are nonetheless non-tipped are often (by all means not always, I concede that) performed by self-employed workers who can factor their degree of customer orientation into their individual hourly rates.

I think doreen and puzzlegal between them have pretty much covered my response to this.

There are a lot of people in customer-oriented lines of work who are not self-employed and who are not tipped. It’s not an occasional rarity.

@DesertDog

More than once I saw a server in the fancy restaurant turn an awesome amount of small bills into hundreds at the end of their shift.

There are a whole lot of servers working in non-fancy restaurants who are busting their asses just as hard if not harder for a whole lot less in tips.

[Schnitte]

@themapleleaf

If I can be told at McDonalds up front what the final price of a Big Mac is, I think I should have the same right with regards to a burger at the sit-down restaurant.

“Right” is, I think, not a good term here. You don’t have a right (neither legally nor, I believe, morally) that someone offers you a burger on your terms. You do have a right to decide if you like the terms on which someone offers you a burger, and to decide if you find these terms acceptable or not.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@puzzlegal

But on a personal level, why tipping makes me feel bad, is mostly the weird class thing and the executive function thing. I don’t want to be sitting in judgement over the waiter, I just want to pay the restaurant to take care of feeding me.

For me I don’t want great service: I want to avoid bad service. Which is fairly rare in the US, though it happens. I want to eat my meal, have the option of hanging out for 15 extra minutes tops, but also get my check promptly when I want it. I also don’t like surly or indifferent service something I’ve experienced in - wait for it - France, but never in the US. The most you get in the US is occasional incompetence, usually apologetic.

Support the Measure for Measure Post-Revolutionary 10% Tipping Plan. Stop worrying about when to tip or not to - tip when service is decent or better, withhold it when it’s bad. Higher base wages and lower percentage tips mean less drama. Visit our website, publishing guidelines by the Central Politburo Tipping Committee - it makes everything clear. And be sure to check out the forum. No tipping necessary - all committee members and staff are paid a living wage.

In the meanwhile, we’ll just have to adapt and muddle through.

[erysichthon]

@puzzlegal

it increases my anxiety about doing the right thing. I know how much to tip the server. But do I tip the caterer? Do I tip the mover? Do I tip the dog groomer? How much? I’ve taken to asking when I make a reservation or sign up for a service. (“is it customary to tip the ____? How much is expected?”) That’s not an enormous deal, but it’s just another thing to keep track of, and to research.

This! These debates about tipping always focus on restaurant servers, but there are plenty of other people who might expect tips. I mentioned massage therapists earlier. Then there are hairstylists, hotel housekeepers, taxi drivers, movers, tow-truck drivers, appliance installers, etc., etc. I don’t want to commit a faux pas or stiff someone who has provided a valuable service, so I research it online or simply ask up front if a tip is customary.

Many years ago, I learned the hard way that the guys doing curbside check-in at the airport expected tips; when I arrived at my destination, I discovered that my suitcase had been slashed with a razor blade. Okay, lesson learned, but how was I supposed to know that? This was long before the internet, so I couldn’t whip out my smartphone and Google it. The question of who to tip and how much is a bewildering maze.

You six-point list is a good summary of how I feel about tipping. I don’t “like” tipping, as some folks in this thread do, but I don’t get angry or upset about it; it’s the system we’ve got and I tolerate it. For me, it’s mostly a low-level annoyance. Unfortunately, I don’t see any realistic path to eliminating tipping. Attempting to legislate it out of existence would probably generate enormous pushback from people in the restaurant business and the service industry in general. I also think the OP is naïve to expect that he can change anything by “speaking out.”

[UltraVires]

@Oredigger77

For those of you wondering why people think the anti-tippers just want servers to earn minimum wage here is a great example.

I don’t think it is accurate to say that we only want servers to earn minimum wage. What we are saying is that no matter the wage, whether it is the minimum or $15/hr or $80k/yr, just pay your server the market wage and give us the final food price which allow you to pay your employees, just as every other non-tipping business does. I don’t have enough (well any) experience in the restaurant industry to know what a server’s market wage is and because of the tipping system, probably nobody does.

@erysichthon

when I arrived at my destination, I discovered that my suitcase had been slashed with a razor blade.

In other threads, we have heard horror stories about servers spitting in food and now your anecdote that criminal destruction of property is the price for not paying the bribe.

[themapleleaf]

@UltraVires

I don’t think it is accurate to say that we only want servers to earn minimum wage. What we are saying is that no matter the wage, whether it is the minimum or $15/hr or $80k/yr, just pay your server the market wage and give us the final food price which allow you to pay your employees, just as every other non-tipping business does. I don’t have enough (well any) experience in the restaurant industry to know what a server’s market wage is and because of the tipping system, probably nobody does.

Yes, ultimately, what I am trying to achieve boils down to this, for waiters and all other employees currently tipped, thereby making tips become something that, while a person would be free to give, would no longer be expected as today. No more, no less.

[DesertDog]

@puzzlegal

t increases my anxiety about doing the right thing. I know how much to tip the server. But do I tip the caterer? Do I tip the mover? Do I tip the dog groomer? How much?

Last August when our heat pump died – all it needed was a new starter capacitor for the motor but it was so old the HVAC company couldn’t find one that fit – I tipped the three guys who were on the roof installing it $20 each.

I didn’t tip the foreman who dropped them off in the morning or the crane operator for his 45 minutes lifting the new unit and I’m pretty sure they were making more than minimum wage but when you’re walking around on a roof in Phoenix in August you deserve a little something.

Besides, compared to the $4,200 I gave the HVAC company it was peanuts.