I do see your point. I guess I just don’t eat very often at what I call “diner-style” restaurants that have a cash register, vs. your waiter being your cashier, so it’s never really been an issue for me. Plus I pay with cash 99% of the time so even when I do eat at places like that, the CC issue doesn’t arise. I leave whatever I deem necessary on the table.
But it would irk me to have my server stand and watch me pay my tab and tip them, so I do see your point. If it’s a great tip I don’t want them to feel obligated to be “so grateful!” and if it’s a lower tip I wouldn’t want to have to explain it. (Just from being in the business I’ve never tipped less than 15%. It’s irrational to some but I view it as karma.)
As for your question, Xema, I don’t know about Carlotta’s specific situation but I used to bartend for a restaurant wherein the servers (whose drinks I made all night) were required to tip me out 3% of their sales.
In the beginning they would tip me out in person, and I would initial their check-out sheet so the manager would know they had done so.
All of a sudden management decided that since certain servers were skipping out on their tipout (nevermind that management should’ve looked for my initials) THEY would collect my tipout for me.
And you know what? My tipout from that point on rarely matched that night’s sales.
IOW, if the restaurant sold $2000 that night, minus my own sales, I should have been tipped out approx. $60 bucks, yes?
I’d get anywhere from $5 to $40 less than that. Depending on the manager. One manager was actually fired for this, after months of making gas money on my dime. But did I get the money back? Of course not. Did management keep taking tipout and being shifty about what was sold that night?
Of course. And of course it’s theft. But pursuing it would be a lot more trouble than it was worth. I just got another job.