To tip or not to tip?

Great Debates
41

Monthly expenses:
Rent, $670.00
Electric: $50.00
Gas (heat): $75.00
Phone: $40.00
Car: you must be joking, it’s long gone. So is the cable.
School: $200 a month
Jobhunting for anything better: $100 a month
Food: whatever I can scrounge at work without getting caught

Monthly income:
Widely varied. Anywhere from $600 to $1200 a month. Once had a month in which my total take-home was $513.00. Spent months afterwards getting utilities turned back on and trying not to be evicted

Do the math…

Actual wages: $3.09 an hour, which is whittled down by taxes to about $1.03 an hour
Hours worked a week: varied, depending on manager’s whim, number of current employees needing hours, ability to scrounge shifts off coworkers, and senior employees pulling rank to get hours: anywhere from 20 to 45. Anything over 35 leads to lecture from mgr. on “labor controls”

Typical amount of sales per shift: $370
Typical tips recieved: anywhere from $30 to $90, usually around $40
Tips immediately given to other employees: 18% of daily take
Take-home tips: $21.60 to $64.80
Length of shift: anywhere from five to eleven hours
Breaks: one, twenty minutes in length, if shift longer than seven hours
Number of hours spent per shift doing maid work, no customers or tips involved, but still at $3.09 an hour: 2.5
Nature of work: Backbreaking drudgery, interspersed with nauseating buttkissing and receiving constant abuse - Result: half my head’s gray (I’m 33), my back hurts too badly to do anything much away from work, and I only faintly remember the good old days, when I had a nice job in IT and could budget myself with a spreadsheet and save up to buy a house. Savings long gone. How I WISH the federal government would take the uncertainty out of my life and revoke that law that allows my employer to pay me such slag. I don’t particularly need, want, or care about owning a fancy car or a huge wardrobe, but it would be nice not to live with the stress induced by never knowing if I’ll still have lights next month, or an apartment.

What a racket the restaurants have going for them! Labor costs are dirt cheap! It’s up to the customer to pay me! Unfortunately, many do NOT. I’m a damned good server, and 99% of the time, I did not deserve to have my pay cut to below minimum wage by some cheapskate.

This is why, in America, tipping is not an option. I do not condone rewarding poor service with a lavish tip, but work was done on your behalf.

42

[hijack]
Hey Deb!
[/hijack]

Sorry, just have to say Hi to a fellow CustomersSuck poster.

Welcome to the SDMB.

43

I do not like tipping. I think it is a stupid way of arranging things. Wait staff should be paid by their employer. A lot of the reason we (my family) eats out is because we don’t want to cook and clean up. So we go to a restaurant. I don’t want to negotiate payment for service separate from the price of the meal it should be included. We tip anyway because that is how things work.

Does anybody remember when tipping went from 10% to 15% and we were told it was because of inflation. Man we were a bunch of suckers to fall for that one. They are trying to run it up to 20% now.

44

So, because you disagree with the way MANAGMENT and the law works, you are going to take it out on some poor server?

45

To lend support to a view-point already defended above: all things considered, it would probably be best for employer’s to pay servers a flat, livable wage, but that’s not going to happen. As wrong as it may seem to you, your server’s livlihood depends on you as a diner, and it’s probably wisest to simply factor in a tip as part of the cost of eating out, reconciling yourself to its payment.

Of course, tips exist outside of the world of food service, and are even more necessary in certain other industries. My father, at the moment, manages a poker club in Manhattan. The dealers at the club have no salary and, in fact, pay a $10 cleaning fee to the owner every night they work (as they do not have to clean up after their shift, which some dealers do). This is not entirely unreasonable, however, as a dealer working an (admittedly rare) all-night shift (say 6 PM to 4 AM) stands to make about $400 for the night. By way of comparison, my father works an all-night shift every night but clears only $150 per. No tips. He’s currently requesting a demotion.

46

And what’s wrong with having a service charge included in the bill instead of leaving the waitress to the mercy of the customer? That’s the way it’s done here in Sweden and I do beg your pardon, but I really must say that I find the American way of, in practice, cumpulsory tipping rather ridiculous.

I remember some 25-30 years ago when the menus in many finer restaurants didn’t cover the service charge, but it was added to the bill. Something I can only interpret as an attempt to make people believe that it was cheaper than it really was (it was also somehow part of the industrial agreement between the waiters’ union and the restaurant owners’ association, something that couldn’t interest me less).

47

Has anyone tiped before getting the bill? At one resturant I frequented, I gave my waitperson cash before we ordered. When they would introduce themselves, I would reach out to take their hand and slip them cash, normaly a 10 spot. I never had bad service. Just something I learned from Dad.

You need to be careful doing this. Once I did not look close enough at the bill and handed over a $50. Great service though.

48

Well, it’s nice to have the service charge added onto the bill-gratuity-but not all restaurants do that-so people should tip then.

Besides, as Deborah has stated-many customers will argue until the gratuity is taken off the bill-www.stainedapron.com

Don’t like the system-fine. But don’t take it out on people who are at its mercy and have no control over it.

49

I don’t like the idea of tipping,(although I always do) for two reasons. First, the server’s pay shouldn’t be left up to what a customer feels like giving them and second, I think it’s done to leave the customer the impression that it’s cheaper than it really is, like floater said . And, sure people will complain about an added service charge and try to get it taken off, but I don’t think floater meant that a service charge should be added at the end, but that the menu price should be increased. A service charge of 15% added to a $100 bill might be disputed, but how could anyone dispute the bill if the menu prices added up to $115? Of course, along with that,we’d have to get rid of this “you can pay servers less than the minimum wage business”, It always seems to get abused anyway (printing paychecks in such a way that to endorse them is also to certify that your tips brought your wages up to the minimum ,or being paid sub-minimum at a place like Dunkin Donuts where three of us were lucky to split $10 in tips per shift)

50

i guess i was trying to say in my original post that the job paid for my needs. when my needs outgrew the job, i changed jobs.

if you ain’t cuttin’ it waiting tables, get a better job, get better at the job you have, or learn to live on less $$.

its a cruel world and i dont make the rules. i just live within them like everybody else.

51

HI GUIN!!! This is all your fault, you know, that I’m here.

I’m working on it, gatopescado. Take note that first, I did, once upon a time, have a job doing IT (help desk trainer). IT market went kaflooey, see, particularly around Chicago, where something like seven of the major corporations recently all decided to dump 98% of their IT departments onto the streets. Perhaps that has somehow slipped past you. So now I’m in school to pick up IT certifications and degree. A friend of mine with a master’s in computer engineering from MIT was just downsized. What hope do I, with my associate’s in bio, have?

God, I hate it when people tell me to quit whining and get a “better job”! How dare you presume to offer advice to a perfect stranger about whom you know absolutely nothing?
Sure. Former network engineers are fighting for my old job, people who had my job are all now working crap jobs (unless they are EXCEEDINGLY lucky, and they are terrified) and attending classes, and I’m one of them. There are currently something like 50,000 unemployed and desperate IT people in Chicago; most of them are far more qualified and have more experience than I do. Don’t you think that if it were THAT easy, I would have done it already? God knows I spend enough time studying and looking for ANYTHING else at all. Even been trying for lowly little gen. office, anything, however, the response is always, “You’re far too overqualified and I’m afraid you won’t be happy in this low level position”. I want to jump up, shake them, and scream, “I’m not happy NOW!! For the love of God, get me out of waitressing before I kill someone!”

I am not a lazy, unmotivated, undisciplined crybaby, I’m a downsized SOL geek struggling to remedy her situation, so get off the soap box. I am also an exemplary waitress, as witnessed by the fact that my bosses always trust me to handle twice what any other server does and always call me first to cover call-ins, and I have about two dozen regulars after three months on the new job, quite the trick in a place with few repeat customers. The only way I could possibly enhance my customer’s dining experience would be to get under the table and service them in another way, and THAT I am not prepared to do.
The tips, I think, are terrible here for two reasons: one, there’s a recession, and no matter if the person in question is safe or not, they’re all acting as though they may be broke tomorrow, so they go out to eat in a flash of defiance and then when it’s time to tip, suddenly recall their precarious position in life. Let me tell you about precarious, guys. I can tell you allll about it. The other reason? It’s a national chain, and for some reason, that means lower tips. Perhaps there is a delusion that a chain will pay more. No. A chain won’t even entertain the idea of a raise.
As for learning to live on less money, yeeeeah. I suppose I could always learn to live in the dark, or in a gutter, quit going to school, quit jobhunting, quit eating, or any combination of the above. I do not spend my money going out partying, thankyouverymuch, or impulse shopping. Hell, I only own two pairs of shoes and my idea of entertainment is reading/studying/working out/surfing the Net (which I don’t pay for; a spare AOL account donated by a friend). My lifestyle is not what you or anyone would call extravagant, unless you count having my own apartment extravagant. I’d get a roommate but the last four cost me too much money in overdue rent, unpaid rent, unpaid or overdue bills, and damage to my possessions; I’m not going through that again.
I am also not about to get a boyfriend just so he can help me financially, so please do not bring that up either!

52

Here’s another issue with tipping: tip jars. Like at coffee houses. I never used to tip them (and my friend even worked at one), then I had a change of heart and started tipping. Now I think I’m having a change of heart again (That’s right, I can say I’m doing a 360 so ha!). Here are my reasons.

  1. They usually make not only minimum wage, but beyond it.
  2. Almost every time I don’t get thanked for it. Maybe that’s just my experience but I’ve done it at quite a number of shops all over. I’d like at least some kind of acknowledgement, please.
  3. I don’t get “special” treatment for my tips. You hear stories about bartenders hooking up customers with a free round. Never happened to me at a coffee shop. Realize that I’m not expecting anything special, I’m merely putting this in as one of many reasons why I don’t think I’ll tip anymore.
  4. I don’t need to tip just because you throw out a jar and say I need to.
  5. You’re doing your job! Yes, yes, I realize that so are bartenders and waitresses. But often times I’m just ordering coffee. I get an empty cup and I have to fill my own.
  6. Prices aren’t tip friendly. I feel like a frickin cheapskate tipping you .14 on an 86 cent purchase.
53

Do not feel cheap. 14 cents is more than 15% of 86 cents.
If my math is right, 12.9 cents is 15% of 86 cents

54

abracadebby- you make a lot of good points there and i didn’t mean to offend. you are right and the economy and local business environment have a lot to do with it. it sounds like you will do fine, you are smart and tough. my remarks were meant as a “blanket statement” and not aimed at any one person. i feel for ya, and know what it is like to be underemployeed and unable to get any chance for advancement. i made less than when i was a waiter for a number of years after getting laid off from my “good job”. i went to apply for a job one time for a position that was “dirty” (driving a solvent reclaimation truck on a route) that paid about 40k a year. the interviewer asked me why i wanted to drive a dirty old truck with my fancy college degree. i told her i wanted to make 40k a year! didn’t get the job, was overqualified. i’m doin’ fine now however and i wish you luck. i eat lunch almost every day at a local restuarant and i alway ask for peggy and overtip her because the service is exceptional.

55

Oh, I know that. But tipping someone 14 cents? Hey, here’s four pennies, try not to spend it all in one place. Or better yet, here’s a dime. I’ll just keep the pennies all to myself, thankyouverymuch.

If the barista helps me pick out a certain coffee bean to take home or goes out of her way to prepare something or do something extra, I’ll tip. No problems there. But just putting out a jar that says “please tip”? EVERYONE can do that. I can’t afford a 15% tax on my life.

56

This is my first time here but I have to jump in, I have in the last week left my “good” job with the post office to go back and bartend where I left years ago. Good service gets you good pay, in addition to an immediate job review from every customer. Tipping not only supports the service industry financialy but weeds out the people who shouldn’t even be allowed to deal face to face with anyone.

57

yo, mailk9! problem is, it does not weed out those unworthy. it just leaves a bunch of customers with crappy service who then feel compelled to tip and are not sure how much to leave if anything at all. the most neurotic of those people then end up on the web discussing it…HEY, WAIT A MINUTE!!

58

Tip non-degreed workers who handle your body (barbers, cab drivers) or bring food to you (waiters, delivery drivers). Also tip those who take custody of your possessions (valets, bellboys). The rationale is that these aren’t the people you want to piss off.

That said, I’m a delivery driver, and the tips don’t really correlate with service because there isn’t much I can do to affect the service. If the food is late, it’s because the kitchen is busy, we had to wait for other nearby deliveries, or there was some unavoidable road condition. If the food is early, it’s because the kitchen isn’t busy. And usually the customer has already decided how much he’s going to tip before I come to the door.

59

i generally tip 15 to 20% and generally resent it. I would prefer that service was simply part of the bill, and the whole thing was upfront, as opposed to every time i eat out, it becoming an act contemplating social justice.

it takes all my joy out of giving when it’s required. I’d happily give a real tip for unusually good service. And I enjoy doing so when it’s not expected (the piano tuner, electrician, etc.)

I worked for 8 hours tonight on my feet in an intense environment, in uncomfortable clothes, people barking orders at me, doing moderately physical labor. At the end of the night, I got paid … my agreed upon pay. no more no less. (then drove home 50 miles. and btw, I love my work.) The non-tipping solution seems to work just fine in so many other venues.

as has been pointed out above, the waitstaff can legally only be underpaid ** because they are tipped! **

it’s simple. I’m being told that the employer is holding an economic gun to the head of his/her employees, and it has somehow become my responsibility to pay the ransom. I’d rather not participate

60

My rule of thumb about tip jars – if it’s an independently owned coffee house, where I’ll be returning in the future, I’ll throw in my spare change. Often, the folks behind the counter will overlook your getting a second or third refill when you’re only permitted one, of they’ll leave you alone if you’re sprawled out alone at a table for four and the place begins to fill up.

At places like Starbucks, where you’ll never get a free cup of coffee, and the service tends to have an air of pretension about it, I won’t tip.

There are usually signs at the coffee counters of national chain bookstores reading “No Tipping Please.”

I’ve seen tip jars at carry-out Chinese restaurants (one with a hand-lettered sign sign ordering “YOU TIP PLEASE”), Burger King and Fazoli’s (but not McDonalds, KFC, Carl’s or Wendy’s), and at independently owned bookstores.

I’m wondering about tipping ettiquette in New York City, where supposedly almost EVERYONE gets a tip. I’ve been told by New Yorkers that you’re supposed to tip movers, skilled tradespeople such as plumbers and electricians, cable television installation staff, and so on.