I can’t believe you didn’t search much.
From Customers Suck:
http://www.customerssuck.com/forums/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=3911
As Guinastasia says, the amount of tax we pay is determined by our sales. The more we sell the more we pay, whether we take in more or not. Here in Pennsylvania everyone seems to agree that claiming an income of 8% of your sales will keep the IRS off your back. There is also another expense to consider. Often the waitstaff is required to “tip out” a certain percentage to the buspeople and the bartenders. Where I work I tip out 2.55% of my total sales.
Having said that, tipping is not mandatory.
If the service sucked then don’t do it. If things went wrong and a table stiffs me then I don’t feel any special animosity toward them. I’ll curse them on my way back to the kitchen but I do that with all my tables. Tipping is supposed to be done in exchange for service and I feel the amount should reflect the value recieved. Some people don’t have what it takes to wait tables. Automatic tipping just discourages these people from seeking other employment, lowering the level of service for us all. Don’t tip and don’t go back for a while.
Low tippers are annoying but I reserve a special contempt for the worse enemy of all- campers. “Campers” are people that linger on long after their meal is finished to chat or do business. Even if they give me 20% they are costing me money. Servers get paid when people leave. Holding up one of my tables through the lunch rush can cost me as much as 25% of my daily take. People that special order their food ( mostly women ) also grate on the nerves a bit. What they need to understand is that then I have to go back and negotiate with the ex-cons in the kitchen. They only want to cook what is on the menu and will often take it as a personal affront that a customer would want to modify an order.
Just my 2sense
A friend of mine told me once that he always tips.
“Always? Even if the service is terrible? And you had to wait? And they got the food wrong?”
“Yep. In cases like those,” he said, “I leave a nickel.”
“A nickel? Why even bother?”
“If Ileave nothing, they might think I just forgot, or that I didn’t bring enough money, or that I didn’t understand the custom. If I leave a nickel, they know it’s from the lousy service.”
I always think of this when I’m tempted to leave no tip. 
Let me start by saying this: really poor service and surly waiters/bartenders etc. irritate the hell out of me. Having worked in the industry myself before, i go out of my way to be polite and friendly and not too demanding when i eat out. Despite this, some service staff don’t even give you a chance, and are bad from the moment you begin.
That said, i have a few questions for those who sometimes refuse to tip at all: ever had a bad day at work?
Ever had days where you just can’t get it together no matter how hard you try?
Ever had days where you feel like snapping at people for absolutely no reason?
Ever had days where you feel like everyone wants everything all at once, and that no-one is even considering the limits of your human endurance?
Ever had days of absent-mindedness, or lethargy, or even illness, where you knew that you weren’t giving it your best?
And, if you have had days like this, have you ever received a paycheck at the end of the month in which your company paymaster says “Gee, sorry Joe, reports indicate that you snapped at three colleagues last week, had two grammatical errors in your latest report, and your inbox is still piling up. Now we know that you’re a really good employee, but little lapses like this can’t go unchecked, so your pay this month has been reduced by 18%.”
I’m not saying that there aren’t situations where it is reasonable not to tip, but try and keep in mind that your server is a person and not a robot. Also try and remember that there are some aspects of your experience that the server can’t control, and some of these are the ones which frequently lead to lack of a tip, such as a long wait for food.
The thing I like about my job is that I am paid, at least partially, on merit. I don’t want to be paid an average wage because I’m better at this than most. Sure I have bad days. I conceal this from my tables because otherwise it costs me money. Most people don’t want to hear about your problems though there are exceptions. There are also people that will pay to be treated badly in a joking manner. Identifing these tables is part of giving good service. As ShibbOleth alludes to good servers read their tables and give their customers what they want.
mhendo makes a good point that the server can’t control every aspect of the dining experience. If the kitchen is “in the weeds” then you just aren’t going to get your meal in a timely fashion.
Just my 2sense
Actually, it is not quite true that employers can pay half the minimum wage to tipped employees. Rather, they are allowed to credit tips against their wages to a certain point. If a waiter worked, say 10 hours and only made 1.00 in tips his employer is legally required to pay him at least (minimum wage * 10)-1. The $2.13 figure that is mentioned is the minimum the employer can pay if there is enough in tips to make up the difference.
All this information is on the signs that employers are required to post, and can be found at http://www.dol.gov/dol/esa/public/minwage/mwposter.htm
I don’t know how well this is enforced, since I have never worked in a tipped position, but the DOL website does mention penalties, civil and criminal, for employers who misreport tips.
Doug K wrote:
Thanks for the info Doug - you are quite right. I still think it’s pretty bad system that lets employers pay their employees considerably less than the minimum wage and expects customers to make up the difference. This is the sort of rule that is particularly easy for an employer to get around, particularly with staff who may not be aware of the exact legislaton or who are too frightened of losing their jobs to speak up.
Barbara Ehrenreich discusses her experiences with this legislation in her book Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, and in this interview in Z Magazine (December 2000) she says:
I’ve never had anyone bring up the fact that a tipped employee must earn at least minimum wage when I was working for Mom and Pop operations. In my experience corporate employers insure that they won’t have to pay a higher hourly rate is by insuring that the servers don’t claim less than enough to cover minimum wage. The requirment isn’t that each server must reach minimum wage every hour worked but rather that over the pay period they must earn enough in tips on average. Since I get to work at 10:30 AM and get my first table around 11:30 AM I never earn more than $2.83 for that first hour. It’s just part of the game. Management keeps an eye on the tallies and if a server is claiming too little early in the week they are “counselled” about how to improve their service to earn more. These sessions tend to leave the tipped employee no doubt as to what will happen if they fail to claim they are making more money. I’ve never seen it happen but if someone didn’t do so I believe some reason would be found to let them go rather than paying them a higher hourly rate. I also once saw a company call a meeting with “delinquent servers” and give them the chance to increase the amount they had claimed in earlier pay periods.
Just my 2sense
Hi! I’m a Weenie What’s your sign?
To 2sense
If this happens, you should report them to the proper authorities. I’m sure that sort of intimidation must be illegal.
Read customerssuck.com -many many employers are getting away with blantantly illegal practices, and no amount of complaints and threats and reporting helps-often then the server is out of a job.
It’s a sick, sick business.
Greed, Hate, Envy for cake will do
Fuck the game don’t let the game fuck you
Follow tha rules say cool and rock jewels
Greed, Hate, Envy for cake will do
- Nelly
Unless someone has concrete information to the contrary, “Tipping” is derived from “To Insure Promptness” (TIP). But that was then and this is now. As we all agree (I hope), tipping in the US is far more expected as well as wide spread to numerous job titles.
I am surprised no one mentioned the opening scene from Resovoir Dogs. Mr. Pink refuses to tip because he doesn’t believe in it. He is immediately reprimanded by the others as why tipping is important. Of course this is in a Diner and not a fancy restaurant but you get the idea. The same can be said for your bathroom attendent, airport baggage attendant, bell hop, taxi driver etc. These people, for the most part, are not working to pay for grad school. They are at the limit of their earning potential in terms of education and qualifications. Tipping is important to help make ends meet.
My take on tipping batenders:
Bartenders (strictly bar only service)- depends how much you drink or plan to drink. In NYC, a bartender should remember a good tipper and provide them with better service, remember their drink orders, and of course give them “buy backs”. A buy back is usually a free drink for every three bought. It does get tricky in Night Clubs and more crowded “college Bars” for the Bartender to remember you but if he does make sure you remember him. You should be rewarded. Use your best judgement on the amount. There really is no % rule.
“Buy Backs” are not the norm however in Hotels, Airports, Fancy and Franchise Restaurants etc. Most of the bartenders from these type places are not allowed to “buy back”. The beer bottles are counted and the liquor is measured. Trust me, the owners know how much was served. Do not take it out on the bartender, s/he still needs your tips.
During my trip to Ireland, you did not tip the bartenders and they did not offer you buy backs. Quid Pro Quo.
I usually start at a 20% tip, and the waitstaff have to work to earn less. Every time they annoy me or fail to do something basic, they lose 5%. If they get down to zero, I leave a nickel or a few pennies as suggested above.
I agree completely that it makes more sense for the employer to pay the equivalent of tips to their employees and just charge more for food–we don’t tip at grocery stores (although I did see one with a tip jar a few weeks ago…) or gas stations any more; it seems like we should be able to get restaurants et al. switched around, too.
However, if I go to a place where the service has been bad and they automatically included gratuity in the bill, I don’t go back to that restaurant, as I no longer have a non-confrontational way to inform the waitstaff that service sucked.
NYR407 wrote:
The Oxford English Dictionary dates the use of the verb “to tip”, in the sense that we are using it in this thread, to the early eighteenth century. It also says that the probable origin is the same as for the use of the word in the sense of touching someone/something lightly, as with a point. There is also a reference to the late German and Dutch word tippen.
Here in the UK (and my experience in ireland) is that you almost never tip bartenders, but you do in restaurants and such. I always tip black cab drivers because anyone who is willing to pick my drunk ass up at midnight and unfailingly knows where to go should be goldplated and framed. In the US I tend to round up or tip 10-15%, whichever is the larger, more if its been good. However I went to a bar in NY and the total tab for all of us was over $800 (ouch). It wasn’t like we had dozens of beers or anything, so is there an upper limit for tipping?
Off on a tangent, but I’ve been out with Dutch friends and they’ll actually take the 10% inclusive service charge off a bill if they haven’t been too thrilled with the service. And at my ‘local’ restaurant too. Can’t go back there for a while if I don’t want to be served the Sneezer.
moonshine, what is it that you guys ordered for $800? Was it six bottles of dom perignon? If so, then you probably don’t need to tip them $120 to uncork. If it was 100 margaritas, pina coladas, and mudslides you guys had, I’m thinking somewhere in the vicinity of $250 is acceptable.
By the way, what is the acceptable amount to tip someone for bringing you a really expensive item? Picking out the right $100 bottle of wine isn’t much harder than filling up a glass of water and the whole “wine ritual” isn’t worth 15 bucks.
i worked my way thru college as a waiter. it was one of the easiest jobs i ever had. all i had to do to make great tips was be pleasent, somewhat accurate and promt with orders and provide the service that was expected. i found i always made more than the “carreer” waiters and waitresses (all of them soon hated me, and would talk shit about me while smoking in the stairway as thier customers food sat under heat lamps) i made enough money to pay for 4 years of school, books, rent and beer. i could probably still make enough to live on as a waiter, but i chose to leave that line of work. now, when i am dining out, i leave a tip comparable to the level of service i get. i can be pretty generous sometimes, when a server really makes an extra effort. i will also be a real bastard when i get crap service. one time, after a diabolical dining experiance, i asked the server on the way out (after i tracked him/her down for the bill), “want a tip? try a job where manners, hygene and competance are not required.” mom is still mad at me.
I think the tipping system has it’s problems, but it is similar to a sales comission. A server gets more money for selling more, but must also give decent service. In my extensive experience as a waiter/bartender I never saw a poor server consistantly make more money than a good one.
OTOH, I did work in a place for a short period where tips were pooled. The worst server in the place got the most shifts because she was cute and flirted with the manager. Flirting with the manager might get you a better section and better shifts in a normal tipping place, but if you’re not a decent server it won’t do you much good.
One place I worked they had a policy that the server with the highest sales for Friday night got the biggest section on the next friday. This system had resulted in one particular server holding onto the section for about two years. Once I was trained in, I asked some friends to come in earlyish and ask for me. They ran up a $500 bill and were gone by 6pm. That was a big boost on my total sales, but I was proud to be the highest sales by $512 (a total of around $2400 tips around $500). The next 3 weeks running I broke the restaurant record for most sales. But the management then figured out that their policy was bad and started switching us around more randomly. I quit that place fairly quickly. The management was screwed up in more ways than one.
My point is, it’s a system that can work well, but great resaurant managers rarely remain restaurant managers for long. (it’s a thankless and underpaid job) And so, the system gets messed up.
I made more money as a bartender than I do now as an IT Manager, but there is no promotions in bartending, unless you count manager which is a DEmotion in a lot of ways.
I know many servers who make decent but not spectacular money. It has to do with being able to handle the rush times and being able to schmooze when it’s dead. Being able to show up looking sharp every day is a big plus too.
Ender, it actually was only four bottles and some glasses of mineral water, and none of them needed corking and sniffing or anything so I though that 20% was a bit much. I believe there is an under-limit for tipping, like you don’t leave 25 cents if you’ve just bought a beer for two seventy five, I think there is an upper limit too. What’s the deal in the US with tipping if there has already been a service charge added onto the bill? Here in the UK my experience is that it doesn’t make much of a difference to the tip because I don’t assume that that service charge is really going to my waiter anyway?