I hate the system, but it’s there. Having been a waitress, I’m a generous tipper.
The only time I ever tipped nothing was to a waitress who did literally nothing. I had to get up and ask the manager to have someone bring us drinks (the manager did it). I had to get up and ask the manager to have someone take our order (the manager did it). I had to get up and ask the manager to have someone bring us our food (the manager did it). The one time we saw the waitress was after we had our food; she came by, and, in a phony treacly way (obviously hoping to salvage a tip), apologized and asked if we needed anything else.
It’s been awhile since I waitressed, but I doubt that much has changed. It’s likely that:
Your server gets paid only a tiny wage. The purpose of the wage seems to be to take taxes out of. I once got a paycheck for $0.00.
Your server does not have paid health insurance or retirement benefits.
Your server does not get paid holidays or vacations. If they do, the “pay” is the tiny wage, not an amount equal to wages + tips.
Your server may be required to turn over part of his/her tips to the bus boys and/or other low-paid untipped employees.
I usually tip in the neighborhood of 15%, minimum of $2 (so, for a $3 order, I’ll leave a fiver, effectively a 67% tip.) For exceptional service, I’ll tip as high as 33%. For competant service, 15%. For crap service 10% or under.
I tip 20-25% or nothing at all to people who wait on me at table. I tip people who deliver stuff to my home. I even tipped a Comcast employee once who went above and beyond in fixing the cable outlet in my computer room. I tip baggage handlers in airports and hotels. I don’t tip people who draw me a cup of coffee or sell me a slice of pizza.
I’ve never stiffed anyone or tipped poorly, even when the service is poor. If I tip poorly, the assumption will almost always be I did so because I’m black, not because a low tip was deserved.
I tip like Tony Soprano, I see it as an investment toward good future service. I feel like it pays off. Er, I should clarify that the amounts of my bills are typically less than Tony’s, so I’m usually not peeling off hundreds or anything, but the philosophy is there.
Not just Tony, but lots of guys like Sinatra whose tipping is legendary. I think I saw a show once where the topic was how big name people were either next to extravagant ($100 to the doorman, etc.) or miserly. It was a fun show.
I do believe that those places where I have left big tips for extra service remember me and do even better in follow-up visits.
I always tip my barber because I usually wait too long to get a haircut.
Do you count Christmas remembrances to people like the mailman and the trashman as tips?
Another ex-waitress/bartender who usually overtips. I don’t punish the server for the kitchen’s mistakes. I will leave $0.01 for a rude server.
I can’t stand a rude server. I hate waitressing and will have to be very hungry before I do it again. I know it is a suck job. But if it’s your suck job, do a good job. Don’t ruin my meal because you are uneducated or stupid or whatever.
Again, I don’t punish a server for something they can’t control. They can control their attitude. And at places I visit on a regular basis, I will ask to be seated in the section of a server I know gives good service.
I admit that one of the reasons I tip generously is that back when I was waitressing, women were frequently bad tippers. I hope this has changed.
Other notorious bad tippers:
Large parties. They are loud, obnoxious and demanding. They run you ragged, making it impossible to wait on other tables. If left to their own devices, they will frequently leave no tip at all. This is why many restaurants started automatically adding a tip onto the bill for large parties.
Families with two or more young children, especially is it’s obvious that the family rarely goes out to eat. Getting stiffed comes with the job, but it drove me crazy when people I knew were going to stiff me took up huge amounts of my time. These families never knew what they were going to order until the waitress came, and then they’d dotingly go through the menu one item at a time with the kids. The kids usually seized the opportunity to create a power struggle and would want to order the most expensive thing on the menu, which their parents would have to wheedle them out of.
Teenagers. Prom night was a nightmare. I know the kids probably don’t know better, but it’s very disheartening to work for free.
The worst ever (and it only happened once): circus people. Totally disrupted the entire restaurant. One of the kids stabbed me in the hand with a fork to get my attention. Left no tip.
Best tippers: One to four business men after hours. Especially if they were drinking. Tips goes up with attractiveness of waitress. Flirting increases tips.
It’s a good thing I got out of the waitressing business. I was starting to dislike a significant portion of the human race.
In the UK we don’t have a tipping culture like you do in the States and I normally leave about 10% (most meals where I eat come to about £10 + drinks so I round up to the nearest whole pound and leave one more).
When I was in the US (San Francisco) for a few weeks in January I tipped about 15% for most meals, and left a dollar on the bar after each round of drinks (there were 2 of us). I know that’s stingy looking at the above posts, but tipping isn’t something we do alot in this country, probably as the service is generally dire.
Despite my general agreement with Mr. Pink on the whole issue of tipping, I follow the same guidelines as Cyros. I have even been known to tip 200% of the bill for truly astounding exceptional service. You should see the look on a waitperson’s face when they find a $100 tip for a $50 meal. (I’m Italian, and was raised to believe that meals and table time don’t necessarily end just because the plates don’t have food on them. If a restaurant isn’t in dire need of table space, a meal can take 2-3 hours. A server who remains pleasant and inobtrusively attentive deserves to know that the effort is appreciated, IMO, especially if I have just sealed a business deal.)
I generally tip 15-18% routinely. 20%+ if I really like the service. 10% or less if it’s bad (though that rarely happens).
I don’t really see the need to increase the basic tip. 15% is tied to the cost of the meal, which goes up to cover additional costs; a 15% tip today is as good or better than a 20% tip in the 80s.
I wasn’t aware that blacks being low tippers was a stereotype. Didn’t have any idea, haven’t heard that before.
We tip 20% minimum, ever. In Dave’s words, “You pretty much have spit in my food where I can see you do it, and tell me to fuck off, to get less than 15%”. The
servers are charged taxes on 15% of their bills 'round here, so in effect it seems like theft if we don’t.
In Alberta and NWT, servers are paid minimum wage (something in the neighbourhood of $6-$8) and I’m still a good tipper.
I have grudgingly accepted the fact that 20% is the baseline in our area–not 15%, which had been the standard for as long as I can remember. I say “grudgingly” not because I have any hostility toward waitstaff (my wife is a former waitress), but because I am by nature a numbers person. I want to be empowered to legally force people to attend remedial algebra when they explain to me, “But prices have gone up so much. 15% just isn’t enough any more!” Just ain’t logical.
That being said, since 20% is now generally accepted (in our neck of the woods) as the going rate for fine service, that’s where we start. We’ll tip more if the service is outstanding. I’ll revert to 15% if the service had some issues, and even as low as 10% if there were significant issues. I cut pleasant, attentive waitstaff a lot of slack, and we always give trainees a break for mistakes.
I have also left nothing for astoundingly bad service, twice in my entire life, I believe. Sorry, I just can’t reward that. I really enjoy dining out. I cannot compound a horrible dining experience by throwing money at the person who ruined it for me.
That doesn’t make sense. If the managment doesn’t make sure you’re satified with your meal, you won’t come back, and they lose a customer, like in any other business. If the waiter isn’t working for tips but does a crappy job and makes you unhappy, the restaurant also lose a customer. So, if the waiter is crappy, the managment will fire him and find somebody else. Like in any other business.
Tipping is a tradition for jobs where the person acts as your servant (waiters, drivers, porters…), nothing else. If what you say were true, it woul be equally true for instance, in clothes stores, and you could never find an acceptable level of service, since you don’t tip the salesman.
A recent thread brought up the question of tipping movers, and I was surprised to learn that it’s commonplace to tip $20-50 per mover. When I moved into this house I’d never used movers before, and I bought pizza and drinks but it never occurred to me to tip them. And I gotta admit, part of me still doesn’t understand why it’s expected for movers. A couple of examples in that thread mentioned particularly difficult or long moves, in which case I could definitely see tipping the guy(s), but for just a regular move?
When it comes to services with little-to-no room for variations in quality, I don’t believe in tipping as a matter of course. Starbucks barristas top that list. It irks me to see tip jars out on counters where the level of service required is minimal. (Although for some reason I’m ok with tipping delivery people.) But for folks like waitstaff, bartenders, manicurists, and hairstylists, I don’t mind at all: they deserve to be rewarded for their skill and/or good service.
Same here, and for the same reason: it’s much easier on my math-challenged brain to move the decimal place over, round up to the nearest dollar, and double it. I’ve never left a 0% tip; I think the least I’ve ever left was 10%.
I’m glad to discover that 20% has become the norm, because I’ve never deliberately tipped more than 20%, but now I know that for particularly good service, I should (I’ve always just figured I was way over-tipping everyone else).
At bars, I leave $1 per drink (even if it’s just a bottle of beer). Several years ago a bartender friend said that’s a very good tip, and I feel that it’s still more than I see most people leave, but can any current bartenders chime in and let me know what they think of $1 per?
Hotel doormen? 15% Of the nightly rate? By my estimate, every time you returned to the Presidential Suite at the Plaza in NYC, you’d need $2,250 in tip money.
Co-op Apartment Doormen? 15% of the annual maintence fees? If people did that in any of Trump’s luxury units, the doormen would make more money than he does?
Dance Club Doormen? 15% of the non discounted cover charge? The only reason I’d consider giving the doorman at Roxy $4.50 would be if he asked for ID.
