A reasonable point, but here’s a counterargument: if the mechanic (or plumber or doctor or lawyer) doesn’t do a good job, you are the one to replace them, by taking your car to a different mechanic. If a server isn’t doing a good job, it’s up to the restaurant to replace them. You pick the restaurant, but you don’t pick the server. Tipping gives you some direct control that you wouldn’t otherwise have over how well the server is rewarded or punished for doing a good or bad job.
That makes sense if you think about taking your car to a specific mechanic (or your body to a specific doctor). Nowadays, though, it’s probably more common for people to take their car to a repair shop, or a chain of shops, without knowing the person who’s actually going to be working on their car.
But, as I understand it, when the rules of tipping were established, the class of people who were tipped were those whom the customer didn’t employ directly. Tipping gave the customer a more direct way of ensuring that the tippee was duly rewarded for good service.
I think that’s why there used to be a rule that you don’t tip the owner of a business, though nowadays that rule is widely considered outdated or controversial.
Also a reasonable point, but here are two possible counterarguments:
Tipping a specific percentage of the price of the meal is a rule of thumb, not a hard and fast requirement. The customer certainly has the option to tip a larger percentage on a cheaper meal (and I usually do).
Tips occupy a sort of middle ground between payments and gifts. Payments (for goods or services rendered) have amounts that are typically set by the payee, to reflect the value of the goods or services. Gifts are determined by the giver, with their value partially determined by what the giver can afford to give. One reason for leaving a large tip is “because I can afford to.” Someone who can afford an expensive meal can afford to leave a generous tip.
This is my major beef with tipping. It feels like I’m tossing alms to the peasants, like a character in a Dickens novel. I have no problem paying for what a service is worth; let’s state it up front.
The dividing line between who gets a tip and who doesn’t is maddeningly vague. I’d never tip a physician, but we’re expected to tip a massage therapist who had to go through an educational program to get licensed. I can’t count the number of times I’ve used Google to figure out if I’m supposed to tip somebody.
I asked my friend, who is a career server (since 1993) what she thought of the idea of server wages matching other minimum wages, and eliminating tipping. She said that if wages were good enough - say if minimum wage was corrected to something like $15 - nobody would be willing to be a server. Why put on a show and be a gopher for an ungrateful public when she could be making the same amount of money doing literally anything else?
Obviously she’s been in it long enough and had several chances to do a different job (she did work a desk job for a minute in the early 2000s) but she keeps coming back to serving and it’s not because she likes people. She’s an excellent bullshitter, she knows how to turn on the charm and she just plain makes excellent tips. Even when people don’t tip or don’t tip well.
Basically she would agree with everything @elbows has said.
I’ve always thought it would be nice if people could just get paid more and not have to depend on the graciousness of others to make a variable wage. But I’ll take the advice of someone who’s been in the industry for over 25 years. If she says it won’t work, I believe her.
Raising the server minimum wage above $2.13 tho…yes.
I enjoy tipping. I come from a dirt-poor background, so mom/grandma/relatives/friends ALL had to work tipped service profession jobs, and it isn’t easy. So I show my appreciation with a good tip.
I would one-hundred-percent support getting rid of this stupid fucking system; I’ll pay higher overall prices to ensure staff makes a decent wage, rather than:
Subsidizing those cheapskates that think $2.13/hour is enough for the peasants serving them food
Having somebody not receive enough money to pay their bills because the kitchen staff is hungover/fighting with each other/etc. (It seems that most people blame “poor kitchen performance” on the waitstaff)
Forcing some waitstaff (women, 99% of the time) to endure petty abuse with a smile so they don’t lose out on tips
Crowdsourcing staff management, instead of the owner doing what the owner of any other business type would be required to do
I don’t. The data just don’t support your friend’s beliefs. Washington State has a minimum wage approaching $15/hr with no exception for tipped roles. I believe California does as well, and possibly other states. Pre-pandemic we didn’t have a shortage of servers. Post-pandemic, everywhere has a shortage of servers. Let’s wait until 2022 to make a call on that one at least.
She’s not actually saying it won’t work, though. What she’s saying is that 1) She’s currently making at least $15/hr including tips and 2) Nobody would be willing to be a server if they were earning the same amount as they would at a minimum wage job. But that doesn’t mean getting rid of tipping won’t work because getting rid of tipping doesn’t have to mean paying servers the same minimum wage paid at other jobs. If restaurants can’t hire servers at minimum wage ( even a $15 MW) then they will have to increase the wages they offer until they can get people to take the job. Maybe they have to pay $20/hr to get people to work as servers without tips, but there is definitely some number.
And there will always be some tips- even if a 15-20% tip is not socially required there will still be people tipping a few dollars for exceptional service etc.
This was my experience as well. There was a move by a progressive group here to raise the base wage to $15 an hour. Waitstaff were not having it. Why would the want to trade making a few hundred bucks on a six hour shift for fifteen an hour. The argument was that people could still tip over and above the base wage, but would they? in this very thread we’ve seen people opposed to tipping who do it reluctantly because it’s the system. Would they still do it? I have my doubts.
I believe you missed the point of what her friend said. Which was if servers were paid minimum wage with no tips they would go find a job where they earned minimum wage but didn’t have to deal with people. Washington State still allows tipping so a server is making much more than minimum wage.
While people focus on the tipped minimum wage I don’t know any servers who make less than minimum wage over the course of a week. There may be some slow nights where they are illegally paid less than minimum wage but they all seem to think they are making closer to $20/hour and most claim they make $1,000/week. Which seems about right for the shit they put up with.
Perhaps I did miss her point. But in that case, I think there’s a bit of a strawman here. If the average waiter is really pulling down $20/hr, then that is the baseline for what their wage would be in the tipping-eliminated-world, not the minimum wage. I don’t think anyone is arguing that waiters should make minimum wage with no tips.
I think that’s what lots of the anti-tippers are proposing - they would stop tipping as soon as the servers were making a living wage which is generally tossed around at $15/hour. Very few servers and even less of the career servers make less than the general minimum wage and most (particularly at bars and nice restaurants) do much better than that. Most servers I know love the tipping system because it allows them to make much more than they would normally (and they only have to claim their credit card tips for taxes).
Is there someone is this thread saying that? Going off memory, it has sounded like most of us who oppose tipping would like it to be replaced such that the end bill ends up around the same. Skirting around the tax-avoidance issue, that should result in the same pay for servers. I would personally not approve of any change to the system that screws over the workers, despite my distaste of tipping.
When I’ve been in tipping conversations, it’s always the servers who are focused on the tipped minimum wage. They complain that the one table that stiffed them cost them money to wait on, because they only get paid $2.13/hr , ignoring the fact that they didn’t only wait on one table and every table didn’t stiff them and no sane person would wait tables if they really only made $2.13/hr over the course of a week. Sure there might be a slow hour or even a slow shift where that’s all they make- but the law only requires that the employee receive the full minimum wage for the workweek, not each individual day or hour.
Anti-tipper here, that’s absolutely NOT what I propose. I am in favor of servers making a decent wage, and an okay starting point is whatever they are making now. I’d just rather be told upfront what the cost of my meal is, and not be put in a situation of sitting in judgement over the server at the end of the meal. Let the employer do that, and just tell me what the meal will cost before I order.
I also assume that servers at high end places that are expected to deliver excellent service will be paid more than the guy who slides my coffee across the counter towards me. And i want that price to be baked into the printed menu.
And hey, can we show after-tax prices while we are at it? No, I realize that’s asking too much.
Everyone else clarified where you went wrong in your response to my post (servers are making $15 plus tips not just $15). But this bit of what you posted speaks a lot to how hard the profession is - even people making $15 an hour are willing to stay home for a fraction of their wages than go back to being servers.
Around here (Ohio) servers are making like $300/week from PUA. Not sure how much they’re getting in California. I’m sure the people making $300/week usually make more than that from tipping but this is tax free and they don’t have to manage child care and they do not have to deal with the public. It’s worth it for them to stay home because the public is that bad.
To add to @Kron ’s excellent list servers also endure:
-variable and not often favorable schedules
ebb and flow of potential earnings based on season
lack of unemployment eligibility
complete lack of benefits
Anyway…for those who have experience with eating out in countries without tipping I am curious:
did you/do you go to “fast casual” corporate restaurants like Applebee’s? Do they exist outside of North America? Or did you just go to upscale restaurants and local pubs?
what is the public like with regards to how they treat waitstaff in these countries? Would you say they are better, worse or the same as in the US?
I think if we knew more about the types of restaurants that people are working for in other countries, and what type of public they face, we might understand more about how tipping affects the profession as a whole.
Maybe they’ll also have to have their servers’ backs, instead of telling them that they must be nice to abusive customers and sometimes to abusive kitchen staff.
Many posters have mentioned this. This wage assumes that tips will make up the difference, but if there was no tipping the employer would have to make up the difference between that and the minimum wage. Whether that should be $7.25 or $15 or $30 or some other number is a debate for another thread, but the fact is that non-tippers do not doom servers to make a meager $2.13 an hour.
This. Hire a server like you would an auto mechanic. This is your job. Do it right. If you don’t, you will be replaced. Bring out the food promptly. Refill the coffee and water. Be pleasant. That is your job. The customer doesn’t have to bribe you to do your job right.
