I was referring to the fact that I often tip delivery drivers at less than 15%, whereas I never tip waiters in sit-down restaurants less than 15% unless the service is substandard. In addition to the arguments stated above, if my order is a PITA order (extra gravy, light sauce, etc) it’s not the delivery person’s PITA, it’s the PITA of the person working in the kitchen. But I readily admit I may be in the wrong here, and am willing to change my ways if you can all convince me I’m wrong.
Others in the thread argued that delivery drivers should be tipped at least as well because they are going out in the weather, putting wear and tear on their vehicles, etc.
This got me wondering whether I’ve been under-tipping delivery drivers? Our typical bi-monthly Papa John’s order comes to about $25.00 (including a $2.50 delivery charge), which I generally put on the debit card. But I always tip the driver in cash, about $3.00, maybe $4.00. I will also note that in a sit-down restaurant, even if the bill is paid for with a debit/credit card, the tip is left in cash, for the ease and convenience of the waitstaff.
Now, if you are from another country where tipping is not “the norm”, your opinion may not be applicable here (which doesn’t mean I won’t be happy to hear it).
Absolutely. If you gage tip levels by effort expended to perform the job, think that while the restaurant server will travel five yards from kitchen to table with your meal, the delivery person comes from five kilometers, never mind distance from car to your door. And still try to find some way to keep your chow from getting cold en route, and probably use their own vehicle to do it in. Yeah, that’s worth a couple of bucks.
Pizza delivery people should get $2 extra, no more, no less. If that comes out to 15%, bully for you. If not, oh well. Unless you’re talking about wild order involving multiple sheet pizzas and other sides, then I could understand the argument for paying more.
See, this plays into my reasoning (which doesn’t mean I’m not willing to have my mind changed). When we order pizza, I like to order two large pizzas; enough for dinner that night, plus breakfast the next morning (pizza for breakfast, imho, is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy). But I don’t think it’s any harder to deliver two pizzas (approx. $25.00) than to deliver one pizza (approx. $12.00) whereas it absolutely is more trouble to bring $25.00 worth of food to the table (in a sit-down restaurant) than to bring $12.00 worth of food to the table.
Well, I never worked pizza delivery (full disclosure: I was never a waitress, either; in fact, I’ve never worked a job where tipping was a real factor), but my sister’s experience starting out as delivery person with Domino’s (she now manages three Little Caesar’s) convinced me that I would nevernot tip the driver. If you can’t “afford” the tip you either can’t afford the pizza, or you damned well pick it up yourself.
Well, you can see in the OP that the place we order from is literally close enough to our house that you can stand on our front porch, turn your head to the right, and see the pizza store. And 95% of the time there is ample parking right out front. So I don’t see fuel costs or vehicle wear-and-tear as being significant. My tip (approx 15% as per the OP) is solely for the effort of the delivery person. Even the Chinese restaurant I reference in the OP is less than 1/2 mile away.
I will say, though, that I keep the tip in my pocket, usually in $1.00 bills, and if the delivery person were to be particularly rude or surly (I’ve never had this happen), I would probably tip less than I had originally intended.
You’re right it’s not much different from one pizza versus two (although you are right about pizza for breakfast, that’s some good stuff there). But two larges are very different from two sheets and chicken wings and extra sauce and god knows what else. That’s where the extra would come in.
You’d think so, but apparently it’s a great injustice (per any server you speak to) to tip less than 25%. Fuck that. If I demand $30 an hour, do you think there would ever be multiple page threads about librarians not being paid enough just because they want it and people siding with the librarian? Never in a million years.
Well, for me, it’s not an ‘obsession’ (at least, I don’t think it is; maybe I should start a thread on that? Lol) It’s just that I’ve noticed that sometimes popular opinion seems to clash with mine.
In my experience, we are blessed to live a middle-class existence, and if I’m “cheating” people who are trying to make do on much less, I’d like to know so I can correct that behavior.
That, of course, is why this thread is in IMHO instead of in GD.
Where I order delivery, the places are within 2 blocks of my home. So, no wear & tear except on their shoes - they get 2-3 dollars, which is 10-15%. IMHO, $2-3 is fine money for a walk across the street (and yes, some days I am THAT lazy).
These places don’t have full-time delivery staff- they send whoever isn’t doing something right then. One particular place run by a sweet couple has on occasion sent their 12 year old son (they know us fairly well). And that’s fine with me (I tip him the same as anyone) Seriously, its ACROSS THE STREET.
Gee, I tip more than 20% for delivery. Maybe it’s raining or icy. Our driveway is often hard to get up. A delivery person can’t serve nearly as many meals as a waiter, and delivered meals are generally cheaper than the nicer restaurants, too. We are at least 3 miles from the closest place that delivers. Plus, the bad corner just down the road from us has seen several pizza delivery cars go into the woods. I always give them about $8 or more, or around 20% to 25%, whichever is bigger. It seems like they have to work harder than I do, and for all I know half their nights are quiet nights that produce hardly any income.
It’s a bit of an apples to oranges comparison - anyone can deliver pizza, there’s nothing to it. Show up with pizza, you did great! Fail to show up, you did bad. Being a waiter/waitress is a much more challenging affair, we’ve all seen excellent, fair and abysmal serving staff. If I applied myself with extreme diligence to waiting tables for the next ten years I don’t think I’d ever rate more than a fair to middling waiter. It’s a skill some people have that gets recognised in their tips.
So you should tip whatever makes you happy, but the two activities don’t correspond. May as well ask ‘should I tip a taxi-driver the same as a waitress?’
Delivery drivers generally pay for their own gas, risk their life and property driving through bad neighborhoods at night, have shitty hours, and have to pay for the maintenance of their cars, not to mention the weather issue (where you live, anyway). Consider this: because you were too intoxicated to drive, or it was inconvenient for you to leave the house, or you were too lazy to go down to the pizza place yourself, someone–possibly a college student who, after textbooks and registration fees, can barely make rent and buy enough gas to drive pizzas all over town with no money left over for food, so he eats nothing but pizza he gets for free, which is really not healthy–put his life and finances on the line so that you and others could get your pizza without movin’ yer bum more than 30 feet. Is that really worth less than walking past your table and refilling your drinks for 45 minutes?
An excellent point, but consider that your second pizza is taking up more room in his car, where he could have put a second order, for which he would get more tips.
It adds up. The delivery person had to drive to work, too, and will probably be driving into bad neighborhoods later, and will probably get stiffed on the tip several times that day.
OTOH, since your order is pretty regular, it’s not that demanding (no chicken wings, big sodas, salads, etc.), and you’re close, it’s not like you’re committing some grave injustice here. I would contend that delivery people should get more than waiters, but if someone’s going to tip them a little less, I’d rather it be you than, say, Napier’s roommate.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I don’t see what the confusion is, I’ve always tipped delivery drivers, always - for the exact reasons you said. Actually, until recently I had no idea they paid for their own gas, but I took into account the crappy neighborhoods and having to get multiple orders to houses on time, etc. You also have to consider that the delivery person is the one who often has to deal with the shit storms that come because an order is wrong, even though the poor guy/girl had nothing to do with it. Customer service sucks, tips help a lot.
Tip the delivery drivers, they deserve it (that is to say, they got their on time and are not rude). If you can’t part with $2-$5, then maybe you should drive your lazy ass over and get it yourself.
Well, keep in mind that through all of this, I’ve maintained (because it’s correct) that I tip $3.00-$5.00; ~15%. It’s not a question of whether to tip. I get that I should tip, even that I should tip significantly.
Your post seems to focus on whether to tip at all, whereas my OP focuses on whether ~15% is enough of a tip.
I know, I jumped ahead a little as its a sensitive subject for me (I’ve never delivered pizza, but I’ve been in customer service for 5+ years and get touchy with people who are fussy about tipping). Also, a guy that I work with also delivers for Pizza Hut, and this is a sore subject for him - people in our town are very cheap.
That being said, I’m sorry that I went off topic - though it was not targeted at you.
I think 15% sounds about right. I think the factors that would motivate a higher % tip are different for sitdown and delivery. For example, if I had a small order at the far end of the delivery range, I’d likely tip a higher percentage. If it is a large party at a sitdown restaurant, that would motivate a higher percentage due to the hassle of keeping it all straight. The hassle of keeping 10 people’s drinks filled, places cleared, etc. is proportionately more than the hassle of transporting pizza to feed 10. But back on the other hand, bad weather would motivate a higher tip for delivery, when I would almost certainly ignore that for calculating a sitdown tip unless it were a holed-up-for-duration-of-the-blizzard situation.
I don’t understand this reasoning. Surely, you don’t apply it to ordering in a restaurant.
It’s no harder to pour expensive wine than cheap. It’s no harder to serve a plate of truffles and filet than it is to serve a salad. But you don’t tip based on a per-person or per-plate basis in a restaurant; you tip a percentage.
Think of it this way: When you order a single pizza, the delivery guy is probably not getting much in the way of tips. If everyone ordered a single pizza, he might not make enough to keep working. The pizza place would either have to pay him more base salary (which they’d do by charging more per pie) or skimp on something to keep delivery workers. But people who order a dozen pizzas and tip accordingly make up for it on average. The same applies in a restaurant. In a restaurant, if you order the cheap dish and drink water, the waiter probably doesn’t make much. But it evens out because some people order filets and champagne. For the customer who orders filets and multiple pizzas to say “Hey, this guy isn’t doing any more work for me than for that other guy, so he doesn’t deserve a bigger tip”, you’re missing the fact that the tip for a cheaper meal, or the food itself, or something would have to be more expensive if that were the standard for every tip.
I tip the same as I would for a restaurant: 15% for adequate service, a bit more for extra good service (for delivery, I’d count inclement weather), nothing for really bad service (very rarely).
That said, if there’s a “delivery” charge, I count that as part of the tip. For example, if I order $30 of pizza, I’d plan to tip $5 or so. If there’s a $3 delivery charge, then I pay $35 total. I understand the arguments on both sides of this, but that’s what I choose.
No one mentioned it, but I generally tip just a little bit when I pickup. Often, the person manning the phone and packaging the orders is a waiter who could otherwise be covering more tables. I don’t tip the full amount because there really is much less work for a pickup order.
