As you point, tips left on the table don’t necessarily go to the server. Servers have to tip-out to hosts and to back-of-house staff, and owners skim. The last part is definitely shady, but everyone knows it happens. You seem to have concluded a) an explicit, up-front service charge will be subject to even more of this skimming, b) this is obvious, despite a lack of cited evidence, and c) that those of us who would ideally would like to end tipping either have this as a secret goal, or are at least aware of and perfectly fine with it. I think you’re wrong on all three points.
No. I said they leave tips on the table so it WILL all go to the server! That’s always been the reason it goes on the table.
Owners have still found a way to skim tips, to pay BOH. But BOH don’t get but a small portion of what the owner takes. There is no reason to believe it will be different for servers, it’s entirely unregulated, after all.
You are effectively stopping servers from having a great night by delivering exceptional service, when something goes pear shaped and they save your night somehow. That’s how servers make great tips, handling problems that arise. That’s the nature of hopping busy restaurants and the environment good servers thrive in.
That fact that the system is working quite well for everyone that matters, is the number one reason why such change is never going to come about.
Servers and owners like the tipping system, they are not clamouring for change, are making good money, they see that it successfully keeps restaurants well staffed, servers motivated and owners happy.
For an outsider to posit they have a better plan, sure, no more ‘great‘ nights for servers or slush fund for owners. It’s such a good idea they won’t mind the substantial pay cut. I mean, it’s laughable.
- Customers aren’t ‘outsiders’ - they’re a pretty key part of everything
- There’s no actual evidence that customers leave higher tips when ‘everything goes pear-shaped but they save your night’
- I haven’t seen any evidence cited in this thread that servers on the whole, rather than just anecdotes about somebody’s friend, prefer the current system to an ‘upfront-cost’ system
- It remains absurd to say that this is somehow net loss for owners and workers without supporting tax evasion or strawmanning your opponents’ arguments (that we’re somehow looking for a discount on a night out)
One of the nurses went the extra mile for my aging mother the last time she was hospitalized. She even helped us get my mom back to my car. (it was the end of her shift.) I didn’t tip her. And i don’t that bothered her. It’s probably relevant that she’s paid a living wage without tips.
No, the difference is the server LIKES working in a situation where they have to earn at every table. They thrive on that positive feed back, that no nurse ever needed. Nurses are in part seeking, sure steady income structure when they enter the field. Job security, respect and status.
Servers aren’t those people, they are after something entirely outside the ordinary steady wage, regular schedule, paradigm. Paid the same today, whether you did a good job or not! They have found a niche where they fit and thrive, let them have it as they like it.
Why is it hard to understand they are different from you? They don’t want what you want, they want what they have. It’s different every day, wildly unpredictable, they have to win over every table, handle every weirdness that arises. That’s the part they like. And when they get it right they earn well. That’s a feature for them. It’s working for both them and the owners.
Your desire to make change for people who don’t want it, and unwillingness to accept that servers will definitely make less on a straight wage than on tips, seems almost obtuse.
Regarding that link I posted earlier about how 20 to 30-somethings in France were leading a trend to not tip in restaurants, I think it’s touching that they’re still outraged about how their grandparents and great-grandparents got ripped off due to overtipping Americans after the Liberation. 
Ski instructors live off tips. The base pay is no where near enough to live in a ski town, and without tips they can’t really survive. The best instructors are certainly professional and get repeat customers year after year; they’re asked for by name. Same situation with backcountry guides; tipping isn’t required but certainly expected.
I’ve been in a tipping job only once and that was for a casino so a restaurant worker’s experience would be different.
The tips are virtually all cash and were pooled for all the slot department’s employees – except the director – with everyone getting an equal share. I was part of the crew that opened the casino and before it opened its doors the director and other money people for the casino negotiated with the IRS.
Rather than track down all of the tips, the assumption was that each employee was making an additional $6 per hour. The tips were distributed as cash on your next shift and the additional money – $48 for your typical 8-hour shift – was reported to the IRS so tax and SSA withholding was applied. It appeared on your check stub which was every two weeks.
If the amount came to more than $6 per hour it did not have to be reported and if it came to less, sux to be you. This happened only three times in the two years I was there, though. Most days it was $10 or $11 per hour.
The wages ranged from minimum wage for the changers to considerably more for the mechanics. Minimum wage was $5.15 per hour so more than half the changers’ income was from the tips.
I worked in a casino also, and tips, while nice, were not absolutely necessary. Still, they were much appreciated. It was a minimum-wage job, and anything that could push the per-hour rate higher, was something to be thankful for. I operated a change cart; by the way; this was when slot machines took coins and they paid off in coins too. My job was mainly to take bills and turn them into coins, though I could easily take small amounts of coins and turn them into bills. Large amounts of coins (bucketfuls) would be directed to the slot cage, where a counting machine would correctly count the guest’s payoff, and the cashier would count out bills.
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.
I live in Germany, where the tipping culture is located somewhere on the spectrum between the standards of the U.S. and those of the rest of Europe: We do it, and there is a social expectation to do it (which distinguishes us from much of the rest of Europe), but the expected amounts are lower than in the U.S. - in restaurants, most people either round up to the next full euro or the euro after that. I consider myself a generous tipper by German standards; my default tip is ~10 % for restaurants or delivery, unless there was something remarkably bad about the service, and I often notice that waiters are used to getting less. I don’t tip at places that have self-service at a bar, or for take-out.
I do it mostly because that’s how I learnt it when I was growing up - when I was a kid, we’d often eat out, and my dad was (and still is) a generous tipper too. In a way, there’s a not a strong rational reason for it - German minimum wage laws don’t distinguish between tipped and untipped industries (so the argument that it’s the tip that ensures the waiter’s decent pay doesn’t apply), and I frequent too many different restaurants to really be considered a regular in any of them who’d get better service because of being known as a tipper. Then again, I like the philosophy of rewarding a service rendered, so it makes me feel better to tip.
As for the U.S., I think the tipping situation is quite entrenched and will be close to impossible to “reform” (in the sense of a conscious reform imposed from above, I mean). It’s a vicious (or virtuous, depending on perspective) circle: People tip because they know that, as a result of “tipped minimum wages” laws, waiters depend on tips. And “tipped minimum wages” laws remain in place because legislators know that there is a social norm of tipping. If “tipped minimum wages” laws were abolished, it’s likely that American tipping conventions would continue for a while out of sheer habit, giving service workers the benefit of a raised wage plus continued receipt of tips. That, in turn, would be unfair to non-service workers with similar skill sets. So I think that by and large, the system may appear odd, and it’s certainly not perfect; but hardly any system ever is, and the tipping system is, in my view, not broken to the extent that it needs reform badly.
So you’re saying you’re happy for what is now tips to be factored into the waiters’ wages, and for that to be factored into the price of the meal. And that you’re willing to pay the same as before, just in the form of the price of the meal rather than tips. That, of course, begs the question: Then why not simply keep things as they are? What’s the benefit of paying $x + y for your meal, rather than $x for the meal and $y as a tip? How would that system be better than the status quo?
And I live right across the border in the Czech Republic (moved there as an adult, from Canada), where the tipping culture for waiters is for all intents and purposes the same as what you describe. Tips are socially expected, but they tend to be small. People either round up to the nearest round number in Czech crowns, or throw in an extra 10 or 20 crowns over that if the roundup is too close to result in a real tip. Regarding the minimum wage aspect, there is a legal requirement to pay full minimum wage in the Czech Republic even in the case of tipped employees. However, there’s a big “but” here. In the Czech Republic, minimum wage is very low, essentially a starvation wage. To put things into perspective, only a very small minority of Czechs actually earn only minimum wage (I researched this and IIRC the statistic is something like 6%, not more than 8%) and whereas in North America, AFAIK, minimum wage is standard pay for a low-level worker at McDonalds, where you’re not allowed to take tips, in the Czech Republic, the starting salary there is, at least from what I’ve seen advertised, visibly higher than minimum wage (like, by 33%!) For this reason, whereas I would not feel guilty about not tipping e.g. in France, in the Czech Republic I wouldn’t at present use the argument that “waiters all earn minimum wage” as an excuse not tip.
You posed the question to puzzlegal; I don’t wish to speak for him and hope he answers your question from his perspective. Speaking purely for myself, there is a multitude of reasons why I don’t like current system and would prefer to just know what I’m paying in advance, even if I would pay exactly the same amount. I already stated the main ones above in post #52, but I would summarize the main reasons as follows: 1) I want life to be simpler and feel entitled as a consumer to be handed a final price as early as possible during a transaction and not have to do any more math than is absolutely necessary. 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. 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. 3) Tipping percentages have risen. It used to be acceptable to tip 10%. If we eliminated gratuities, there would be no chance for anyone to be labelled “generous” or a “cheapskate” depending on how much they left, nor would changing social conventions be able to dictate how much you paid in a restaurant. 4) It would eliminate the various controversies connected with tipping. Nowadays, you think you got a good tip because you provided great service. Or was it because you are an attractive female who wore a low-cut shirt? You think you got no tip because a customer is a cheapskate. Or was it because they were dissatisfied by your service - and if so, by what exactly? You give your server a big tip because you’re satisfied. What you don’t know is that they have to share it with the others or even with the cook. The waiter gets no tip because the cook was slow in preparing the meal. You see? If you eliminate tipping and replace it with all-inclusive pricing like at McDonalds, all this complexity and manipulation goes out the window.
I think I’ve answered this several times upthread.
But here’s a recap:
- it feels like a bribe.
- it exacerbates the class difference between the upper class who graciously let some coins drop and the lower class who have to fawn to get them.
- it leads to inequalities in pay. Pretty girls who smile get tipped more than competent men (as one poster admitted in this thread). They also get paid more than competent fat women, or people of color.
- I suspect it leads to more sexual harassment of staff. Servers feel they need to put up with that shit or they won’t get paid.
- it increases the burden on my cognitive and executive functions. I need to calculate 20%. Worse, I’m asked to perform a mini performance review every time I eat. Let the manager deal with that. I just want to enjoy my dinner.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
I agree that all such considerations exist and can obfuscate a customer’s true (as opposed to purported) motivation for giving or not giving a tip. But I don’t see how having a uniform pay for all service workers regardless of the level of service, or the cut in the waitress’ shirt, or the swiftness of the cook is going to make things better. Easier, yes, but that doesn’t mean it would be fairer or “better” in any other meaningful way.
I wonder how actual service workers see this. I mean, it would, of course, be the wrong question to ask them if, all else equal, they prefer being tipped or not being tipped; the answer to this question is obvious. Rather, the question would be if they would prefer the status quo, or a hypothetical world in which tips are factored into the overall price of the product or service, and on average across all service workers (but not necessarily for each service worker individually!), the bottom line would remain the same as it currently is. I have never worked a tipped job myself, but my suspicion is that many of them would prefer the status quo. Rationally, it would be in the self-interest of those who currently make above-average tips to prefer the status quo, and that demographic should comprise roughly half of all service workers. So I have strong doubts that the service workers themselves would unanimously or overwhelmingly support the reform others have called for. And if the status quo is fine for them without them perceiving it as a humiliating class thing, then I think it’s good enough for me as the customer on the other side of the transaction.
Having said this, I do agree that in the U.S., the tipping thing has somehwat got out of control. From my experience travelling the country, it seems that in some parts the expected tip has gone up to 25 %, which is a lot. My points above are more intended as counter-arguments to the argument about the class difference involved in tipping.
It most certainly would be fairer to have uniform pay regardless of how sexually attractive the customer thinks the server is.
And it most certainly would be fairer to have the server’s pay not be determined by the actions of the cook.
The point of the post I was replying to was that it was impossible to break down which of all these many considerations, some of which are fair to base a distinction in pay on and some of which aren’t, drive the tip. I agree with that. What I don’t agree with is to draw from this the conclusion that we should abolish the tip entirely and pay all waiters the same. Doing that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because you’re also abolishing some distinctions that would be fair to base a distinction in pay on.
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?
Do you think people in non-tipped lines of work are all being paid more unfairly than people expected to be paid in significant part by their tips?
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 don’t, for instance, care about the degree of service orientation in the factory worker who made an industrial product I bought, and consequently I don’t think it matters much that factory workers are non-tipped.
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.