Without turning this into a big bitch, i.e., Why Don’t Servers Get Paid More Blah Blah Blah, I think it’s worth noting that while Bricker is technically correct, I have never seen/heard of an employer who raises server’s wages to correct a slow week. Ever. Period. End of Story. They just don’t do it. And most servers don’t know the law, and the ones that do don’t want to rock the boat, so the vast majority of employers get away with it.
I do know one person who used to work at a Pizza Hut, and two years after he quit, he got a check in the mail for about $400. Somebody had reported Pizza Hut to the wage-an-hour people, and after being audited, everybody who’d ever worked for that Pizza Hut was sent a check for X amount of unpaid/underpaid hours they’d worked. (This was one of the increasingly rare Pizza Huts where you could dine-in, and they had a waitstaff.)
But that doesn’t happen very often.
Creative_Munster, it is possible that she was intoxicated, after four beers in a two-hour time span, but bartenders see far too many intoxicated people to excuse their behavior on those grounds. Alcohol merely makes their actions understandable. Not excusable.
Bricker is correct but, perhaps, not quite complete. We were required to pay the difference between Minimum Wage & actual earnings to employees who hadn’t earned the MW during the month - ex: (y hours worked during month X $minimum wage) - gross wages already paid, including reported tips = amount to be paid by employer. I’ve never heard of an accounting period other than monthly, but there may be some exceptions for weekly/quarterly/whatever - Federal Wage & Labor would be the best place to check into this.
I’ve had my own bad experiences with credit card receipts at bars. The worst was adding $44.50 to a $6.00 tip and filling the result in as $20.15. When I stopped by the next day, they had totalled it correctly already, and I certainly wasn’t going to complain. A few times, I’ve added in little arrows with words such as “thirty” just in case my drunken scrawl looks incomprehensible. But I’m a good customer, and a good tipper (when I can do the math), so they tolerate that sort of thing from me.
We’d always go by the total if the math didn’t add up or the writing was unreadable when I waited tables.
Blalron is convinced that in order to keep being a cheapskate, he just has to act like servers and bartenders made up the tipping system and refuse to participate. Because that’s gonna change it. :rolleyes:
Anyways, lime green girl was a dumbfuck and is really lucky you’re so cool, Audrey.
In defense of Blalron, some of us young-un’s are a little new to the tipping scene, and may not be accustomed to some of the unwritten customer obligations.
We’ll figure it out eventually. Either that, or we’ll get stabbed to death by a disgruntled bartender with an icepick in the washroom or something
Audrey we went out for dinner once with my father-in-law. He was feeling particularly generous (which he sometimes gets when he’s had a wee drap too many) and gave the waiter a hefty tip on the creit card slip.
The waiter took the slip away and, aghast, came charging back to our table in a tizzy. He thought that our little old man had made a gross error. My SO doublechecked it and said “no, no, it’s okay, that’s what he meant to put.” And the grateful waiter said “really? thank you so much!”
We were impressed that he took the time to doublecheck with us and not “rip off the tipsy old man.” He honestly looked a little panicked.
When I am finally Undisputed, Much Beloved Ruler of All, my first law will be that anyone who expresses the “Mr. Pink” attitude shown above, will be sentenced to a 3 year term working full-time as a night shift waitress at their local Denny’s. No parole, either.
Bull. I remember well the first time I went out to eat on my own (well, without my parents anyway, it was a rite of passing that I shared with a friend of mine). I was about 14 I think; my friend and I walked to a local diner and had teriyaki sandwiches for lunch one summer’s day. The most prideful moment of the whole experience for me was figuring out the exact 20% tip.
I second White Lightning. I went out to eat without my parents when I was 13, and I knew to leave a 15% tip even though it probably took me a good 10 minutes to figure out what that tip should be. (Yeah, yeah, I’m not that good with arithmetic…) My parents didn’t even take us out to dinner that much before that point, so I wasn’t Joe Gratuity (or Joanna…) or anything when I went out on my own. You must either be very young or very sheltered to not be “accustomed to some of the unwritten customer obligations.”
Er, just a little pointer for those of you who find the math difficult (and I count myself among you - this is the only way I can figure it out!): Figure TEN percent - that’s easy. Now take half of that ten percent, and add it to the original ten percent. So if the bill is 25.00, 10% would be 2.50. Half of that is 1.25. Add it together, the 15% tip would be 3.75. And since you’re a nice person, round that up to an even four bucks.
Wow, waterj2. That’s a suicide-watch, for sure. Why don’t we go ahead and throw in some elementary school teachers on lunch, with separate checks, all day long? And why not some Ghetto Lemonaders, too? (For the uninitiated, “Ghetto Lemonaders” are people who order a glass of water and ask for a bunch of sugar and lemons to go with it. Yes, this happens often enough for a term to be ascribed to it.)
Oh, and just for a little more viewing pleasure, I think we should also throw in the after-church-on-Sunday crowd. Always one of my finest hours as a waitress.
And while I applaud you, LifeOnWry, for your savvy mathematical skills, I always tell people who can’t figure out 15% to just go ahead and make it 20%.
I don’t frequent bars very often (really!) so I don’t know what the rule of thumb on a drinks-only order is. Do bartenders usually get 15%/20%, same as servers? Somehow I thought bartenders were different, perhaps b/c there’s bartending schools so I thought they were more along the lines of chefs and paid accordingly. Appreciate the clarification on this.
What about when you go to a buffet but they refill your drinks?
[slight hijack, if I may] We’re really generous tippers, not b/c we have money but b/c it’s only fair. Except for this ONE TIME when we went to this Chop House in downtown Chicago & the server was taking my order for filet mignon (I think we were celebrating hubby’s graduation) and she asked how I wanted it done. Now I remember my father explaining to me at great length (sort of like this post, but anyway) that what makes a filet mignon special is that it’s wrapped in bacon and cooked so that the outside is done but inside remains somewhat pink. So I said to the server that I thought filet mignon was prepared in a specific manner. And she leaned towards me - leaned - and said in this really snide low tone “This isn’t McDonald’s. You can get it anyway you want”. We tipped her $1. [/hijack]
FTR, Audrey, I can totally see being pissed at that customer. There’s nothing like making an effort on someone’s behalf and then getting a slap in the face.
I waited tables, and even though I tried really hard, I wasn’t very good at it. I would forget things, spill, etc. It was awful. I was lucky though, because some kind souls tipped me very well. From then on I have always been a generous tipper because I know how bad waitressing sucked for me and I feel like it’s the least I can do for them. But, I’m probably a minority on that.
fessie, an easy rule of thumb is a buck per drink. If you run a tab, a tip of 15%/20% is appreciated. As a bartender, I am paid the same thing a waiter or waitress is, which is $2.13 an hour. So I live off tips, just like your waiter. (And depending on where you live, your bartender may be paid more, but the rule stays the same. Mainly b/c the only bars that pay really well are the ones in cities with such a high cost of living that everybody gets paid more per hour, so it balances back out again.)
As far as the buffet people go, I don’t know what the “rule” is on tipping them, but I always throw down $2/$3 bucks, which seems to be par. If I were going out with friends, I’d say a buck per person. (Which usually equals out to about ten percent, which makes sense. They’re usually paid minimum wage + tips so ten percent is good.)
Indygrrl, I think you have the same problem I do; even when I get bad service I can’t tip badly! I can’t help remembering all the times when I really screwed up a table and they still tipped me; it’s like karma. I just have to tip.
fessie, an easy rule of thumb is a buck per drink. If you run a tab, a tip of 15%/20% is appreciated. As a bartender, I am paid the same thing a waiter or waitress is, which is $2.13 an hour. So I live off tips, just like your waiter. (And depending on where you live, your bartender may be paid more, but the rule stays the same. Mainly b/c the only bars that pay really well are the ones in cities with such a high cost of living that everybody gets paid more per hour, so it balances back out again.)
As far as the buffet people go, I don’t know what the “rule” is on tipping them, but I always throw down $2/$3 bucks, which seems to be par. If I were going out with friends, I’d say a buck per person. (Which usually equals out to about ten percent, which makes sense. They’re usually paid minimum wage + tips so ten percent is good.)
Indygrrl, I think you have the same problem I do; even when I get bad service I can’t tip badly! I can’t help remembering all the times when I really screwed up a table and they still tipped me; it’s like karma. I just have to tip. Unless you’ve done it, you’ve got no idea what hard work it is; a good waitress/bartender just makes it look easy.
As a fair-skinned redhead myself, I must demand photographic proof of said cuteness.
I’m sorry, I was a teenager in the eighties, and thus have learned to despise neon colors.
Audrey, I don’t drink alcohol, but I still tip for sodas even if the bartender doesn’t charge me for it. I assume that’s customary, although Mr. Amanita - who tends to the cheap - told me I didn’t “have to”.
For buffets, I generally start with a buck per person at the table, and add a buck for every trip the server makes to the table to refill drinks, refresh bread, etc.
