I work at an arena type venue as a cashier for a concession stand. We are allowed to take tips if ppl give us leaving a dollar out underneath register. But the director says NO SOLICITING TIPS!
I assume that means “welcome, we accept tips, give me tips!!!..etc”
So the stand lead I was in working in the stand and other person in stand said I solicit tips and I gotta stop that.
but I never said the word tips that night or anything.
The only thing I can remember saying stuff is “I always try to please” or “I try! :)”
I tend to say stupid funny things cause thats who i am and i just try making me smile and I am a entertainer at heart. But is this called soliciting for tips?
I wouldn’t call that soliciting tips. It’s just good customer service. Soliciting tips would involve mentioning tips or putting a tip jar on the counter. Sounds like your co-worker thinks you are making them look bad by being nice to customers. I would tell that person to pay attention to doing their own job better instead of criticizing what you do.
Another possibility is that the people you are working with don’t really understand what the word “soliciting” means. It does not mean the same thing as “accepting”. So, they might be seeing you “accepting” tips, and think that is a no-no too.
i highly doubt that because everyone knows we can accept tips but I think they might be jealous cause they are miserable and I do “funny things” or smile and say “i try to please” and other corny silly things and i sometimes get tips cause of that.
It’s called being friendly.
I should go to jail I brighten up peoples day. I need to be dark and gloomy and miserable like the rest of the world!
If you don’t put out a tip jar and you don’t say anything about tips then you are not soliciting tips. Being nice to customers is not soliciting tips, it’s called “Making everyone’s life better.”
Yeah, your co-workers are idiots. What, they expect that management would prefer every to serve their customers in a dour, expressionless manner rather than actually, I don’t know, give a shit or at least act like it about their customers? You’re doing fine.
The way I would read no soliciting for tips is to take care of the customers quickly and efficiently and don’t try to be their best friend like a server in a chain restaurant. The arena has a limited time frame to serve their customers before the game as well as during intermissions. So try to avoid small talk about the game or the jersey they’re wearing.
A little off topic, but this reminds me of the time I saw pretty much the exact opposite of this at the airport in Bangalore, India. Someone working in the airport was wearing a t-shirt that said something like “Don’t tip me; this is my duty.” I’m sure his employer forced him to wear that. I’m not sure what his actual job was, I’m guessing porter or something like that.
Ok, maybe I shouldn’t give the OP’s manager any ideas.
I agree should be fast and I do try to be IF THERE IS A LONG LINE or bunch of ppl behind.
but I always try to talk if I am doing something like imputing commands on register, pouring beer, or getting whatever.
I go as fast as I can but say my corny lines and just want to have fun!
heyyy if soliciting is asking for tips…If I got a button that says “don’t tip me” I am saying don’t tip me! Maybe it will have opposite effect and ppl will tip!
lol could I get in trouble for that? That seems like malicious compliance and it’s hilarious
Do you think there might be any possibility that people overhearing you say “I try to please” might be mishearing the end part of it to sound like ‘tip please’ ?
I note you said you work in an “arena type venue”. Presumably this is the type of arena that holds events such as sports or concerts. Have the comments been made to you after the pre-event rush, or after an intermission? It may be that you and your experienced co-workers have entirely different perspectives, and the arena management is going to have your co-workers’ perspective. Your view is that you’re spending a few seconds with each customer trying to brighten up their day, and as a result you’re receiving unsolicited tips. Your co-workers perspective is likely to be that at busy times you need to work efficiently as possible. Say there’s a 20 minute intermission. I’m assuming you’re just ringing up customer’s orders and grabbing whatever they’ve ordered from the back counter and moving it to a collection area. You’re probably expected to get through about 60 customers in that 20 minutes. However, you’re taking a few seconds to be friendly with the customer. Say it averages out to four seconds extra per customer. That means, that in that 20 minutes, you’re only getting through 50 customers. So unless your co-workers are picking up the slack, you’re causing 10 people to either be late back to their seats or abandon the queue.
Try looking at it from that perspective. Your friendliness is great for the first 50 people in the queue, but lousy for the last 10. Also, if you’re getting tips by being entertaining, but your co-workers are picking up the slack because you’re being slightly slow, and they’re not getting as many tips as you, they’re going to be resentful. So keep the smile on your face, but ditch the “stupid funny things”.
I get a lot of people that want to tip our delivery people. I tell them that they’re more than welcome to if they’d like, but they shouldn’t feel obligated, especially since a tip is a nice surprise, but not in any way expected. I’ll also let them know that the drivers are driving our vehicles with our gas and they’re getting paid well.
Getting back to the OP, I’d say ask your boss what the issue is. Just a quick ‘hey, you said I was soliciting tips, I’m not sure what you mean by that, what was I doing?’ If you really, truly weren’t doing anything wrong, the answer will probably be ‘I don’t know, it’s just what [supervisor] told me’ and with that you can probably ignore it unless you hear about it again. If boss gives you an example of something you did, or thinks you did, you can go from there.