When Did "Tips" (Gratuities) Become So High?

[RoJoHen]

I just love how worked up people get about the subject on both sides of the argument.

It's something that has pretty much always pissed me off. I hate tips in general. I'd rather know what I'm required to pay and then be able to be generous on my own terms. Which is why I also get irritated when people make it about being cheap. I don't go out unless I can spend money. When I am with friends, I will often pay the entire bill including the tip. I have no problem leaving a 50% tip for people who are awesome.

I just hate this sense of obligation in making up for crummy wages in a job that someone else chose, the sense of entitlement I see or read when I'm generally getting not so great service, and then seeing people bitch about the low tippers. What, do I have to make up their amount? Screw that.

Man, people just piss me off sometimes.

Well, then, I offer you this wisdom:

Go in expecting great service and be prepared to tip 20%.

Feel free to lower that amount if the service is shitty.

If the service is outstanding, go ahead and leave a little more if you want, but be aware, even amazing servers aren't expecting more than 20%. A kickass server isn't going to see a 20% tip and get upset. Hell, they probably won't even be upset with 15%.

Being in the industry myself, I tend to be overly generous with tips and almost always give them about 30%, even for mediocre service. But that's just me. I also overtip the pizza guy. I actually had one pizza guy yell "Woohoo!" after I tipped him $20 for a single pizza. The weather was super shitty, and he braved the storm to bring my lazy ass some food. I have no problem rewarding him for that.

Also iguana, I hate the drink refill thing. They often come and take away your drink and give you a new one before the first one is entirely done, and I like flat, watered down pop so they take away the most delicious part.

Most restaurants train their servers to refill their soda when the glass is half-empty. I always thought that was overkill, too.

 

[JoeZhang]

Feel free to lower that amount if the service is shitty.

If the service was shitty why would you leave *any* tip? If we are saying that you should leave some extra regardless of service, you might as well go the whole hog and just make it a service charge on the bill.

 

[thestrangequark]

I just love how worked up people get about the subject on both sides of the argument.

Indeed. Not tipping is a dick thing to do, but there are way more dickish things being done all the time that are worthy of more attention.

^Why invalidate your argument on the outset by blatantly admitting it's a strawman?

I was there when it happened. No strawman involved.

Dude, you preempted your statements with "translation."

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Feel free to lower that amount if the service is shitty.

If the service was shitty why would you leave *any* tip? If we are saying that you should leave some extra regardless of service, you might as well go the whole hog and just make it a service charge on the bill.

Well, if I leave no tip, it is possible they'll conclude I simply forgot, and not make the connection that shitty serve == no tip.

Instead, I leave pocket change, so it's clear "I thought your service was worth 8 cents, suck it."

 

[RoJoHen]

Feel free to lower that amount if the service is shitty.

If the service was shitty why would you leave *any* tip? If we are saying that you should leave some extra regardless of service, you might as well go the whole hog and just make it a service charge on the bill.

There are different degrees of shitty. I leave that up to your judgment. I have been known to leave no tip before, but it is a very rare thing.

 

[horatio83]

Shows what you know...waitstaffing is not just "carrying stuff from point a to b".

Yeah, that's why you need years of training to become a waiter.
I am all for proletarian pride but pretending that simple jobs cannot be performed by everybody is pretty embarrassing.
You will probably go ape-shit again and accuse me of being a right-winger but it is not my job to sustain your illusions.

Have you ever actually worked in a restaurant? Believe me, there are a lot of people that can't wait tables. It involves a ridiculous amount of multi-tasking that a lot of people simply can't handle. It's not that any particularly aspect of the job is difficult; it's that your server is probably responsible for a hell of a lot more than you're seeing them do, and it can be really easy for a bad server to get overwhelmed.

Of course it is a tiresome job, you are on your feet all day and you gotta remember customers and what they want and so on.
But it is not like you can deactivate your brain in any other job and whether you like it ot nor, waiting is a low-skilled job. Over here students do it.

I did plenty of low-skill jobs during my life, I know what not working in an office means and I want working class people to be well off. But I will not pretend that you need a PhD for waiting or that generous tipping addresses the plight of poor waiters.

Calling an explotative circumstance exactly that is not "whining"

And yes, if you are not being paid enough money for your labor to live on, or even the minimum required for all other laborers, you are being exploited. You go without to subsidize the profits of the resteraunt, and the meals of the patrons.

Once again, unless restaurants bosses have some form of market power in the labour market for waiters it is not possible that you earn less than your productivity. This is probably not the case where people who work at Walmart or McDonalds might very well receive wages below their productivity ... which you could label exploitation but in fact it is a failure of the responsible monopoly agency to counteract the monopsony power in the labour market of big corporations.

You cannot live with your income? I wonder how the 4 or 5 billion people on this planet who are worse off than an average American waiter are able to live. Your inflationary use of the word exploitation renders it meaningless.

Stop acting like one then.

Not my problem that your gut reaction to hearing an economic argument is that the respective guy is a right-winger. It is very well possible to be a progressive economist, to use your brain and your heart.

 

[RoJoHen]

Of course it is a tiresome job, you are on your feet all day and you gotta remember customers and what they want and so on.
But it is not like you can deactivate your brain in any other job and whether you like it ot nor, waiting is a low-skilled job. Over here students do it.

I did plenty of low-skill jobs during my life, I know what not working in an office means and I want working class people to be well off. But I will not pretend that you need a PhD for waiting or that generous tipping addresses the plight of poor waiters.

And I'm not here to address problems with the economy. Tipping culture is what it is. When I was a waiter, I made enough money to pay for my rent, my car, my phone, health insurance, etc. and still have money leftover for fun and savings. A good waiter in a busy establishment should be making a living wage.


One thing I will say that I think may be getting overlooked:

Tipping is a two-way street. Yes, I feel patrons should be prepared to leave a 15-20% tip whenever they go out to eat, but they should also be prepared to receive great service to warrant that tip. Servers, on the other hand, should first and foremost be concerned with giving great service. Receiving a tip is the last thing that happens when a server waits on a table. They need to be worried about everything that happens leading up to that point to deserve that tip.

 

[horatio83]

As you said, the system works, the douchebag ratio is low and you think that a system with smaller tips would make the best waiters quit and thus lead to worse average service and thus worse wages (basically an adverse selection argument, if there are no mechanisms with which quality can be distinguished there is a trend towards bad quality).

So everything is fine.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Remember, though, that you're not just short changing the server. More and more restaurants (especially the franchises/chains) are going to a tips pool. Some places have been doing this for years, but it's becoming more and more ubiquitous. Plus, more and more positions are getting included in the pool. It's not uncommon for the cooking staff to be included these days (at least the sous and Chef).

Management is using it as away to artificially keep wages low. Depending on the state, once a position is granted a certain percentage of the gratuity, it is only required to be paid minimum wage - X (Where X is determined by state law.)

In a lot of states it's as low as a dollar. In Virginia (I think. Might be W. Virginia.) if a host or buss boy gets at least 15% of the gratuity, his hourly wage can actually be zero. Though I doubt anyone actually does, but it would be legal non the less.

This is a big reason why the "accepted" tip has increased over the past few years.

Another reason that many don't considered is that the majority of tips are being handled as the credit card add-on and not cash. These are all subject to transaction fees that are, sadly, almost always taken out of the server's share.

 

[RoJoHen]

So everything is fine.

I certainly think so.

Really, the key is to hire decent people and train them properly. A lot of that doesn't happen in the industry, which leads to bad service. Shitty servers, luckily, have a way of weeding themselves out. However, they are usually replaced by equally shitty servers.

 

[RoJoHen]

Remember, though, that you're not just short changing the server. More and more restaurants (especially the franchises/chains) are going to a tips pool. Some places have been doing this for years, but it's becoming more and more ubiquitous. Plus, more and more positions are getting included in the pool. It's not uncommon for the cooking staff to be included these days (at least the sous and Chef).

Yeah, this can be annoying at times. A percentage of a server's tips are shared with other people in the establishment. If nothing else, server's usually have to give bartenders part of their tips for making their drinks. When I worked at TGI Fridays, we started having to give the hosts and bussers part of our tips as well.

 

[Misfit Toy]

Have you ever actually worked in a restaurant? Believe me, there are a lot of people that can't wait tables.

I'm one of them. I would never be able to take the kind of verbal abuse that I have seen heaped on servers by some "entitlement whore" customers without dumping a dish or a tray on top of their heads. Just last week I saw a man yelling at a server - the man wanted a glass of water in addition to the glass of iced tea he already had. The server was carrying an armful of food to another table, but this guy wanted the server to stop RIGHT NOW and get him some water. The waiter said "I'll get it as soon as I have given these people their food" and when he returned with the water, that man was furious that the waiter had dared to put him off and gave him the bullshit "customer is always right" speech.

 

[RoJoHen]

Customers are only a right as a business needs them to be. Going out to eat is not a right.

 

[JiNX-01]

I was watching on television about a place literally trying to force a family to pay a "required" 17% tip after a meal.

When did tips become so much? It seems to me that at one time tips were generally considered to be about 10%. Then 13%. Then 15%. Now 17%.

Why do they keep going up? Why not just pay food service people more money to begin with?

I'm not paying a near 20% surcharge to a server no matter how much my meal is.

I've been tipping 20 percent for years. Servers' base pay is chump change and if it wasn't for tips, they wouldn't be able to support themselves.

 

[Trekker4747]

I suppose I'll look like a silly foreigner (when in fact, I am a silly foreigner), but I need to ask: what is the point about "refilling my glass"? For context, here in Italy when you order a beverage, you either get a glass full of it (beer, soda, coffee), or you get a full bottle and a empty glass (wine, water). If you want more, you need to order (and then pay) anther one.

So in my mind, "refilling my glass" means that you are too lazy to lift your bottle to fill your glass and need a waiter to do it for you.

Another interpretation is that waiters go around the tables with a ton of bottles, filling random customers' glasses with their beverages of choice.

Either way, it sounds quite silly.

I had to explain this to Emilia the other day, too.

Here, most people drink soda (soft drinks) with their meals, so if you drink what's in your glass your server has to take it back and fill it up again (some places just bring you another glass, or refill you from a pitcher.) But generally speaking, you can't get your own refill at a casual dining restaurant.

It is customary for refills of soda, tea, or coffee to be free.

I think saying "most people drink soda with their meals" is a bit much and just playing into the "all Americans are soda-drinking fatties" trope. Refillable drinks at restaurants can also include iced teas, lemonade and even plain-old water.

More the point most of the time in most restaurants Americans don't do a lot of drinking when they go out to eat because we live in a wham, bam, thank-you ma'am society where we eat a meal inside of an hour and usually just one or two courses. Sure restaurants may have available a selection of wines and beers (which aren't refillable and are bought by the bottle or glass) but in most cases eating out is just to get your big daily meal in which usually means drinking a non-alcoholic drink especially considering you're going to be driving home in 20 minutes.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I suppose I'll look like a silly foreigner (when in fact, I am a silly foreigner), but I need to ask: what is the point about "refilling my glass"? For context, here in Italy when you order a beverage, you either get a glass full of it (beer, soda, coffee), or you get a full bottle and a empty glass (wine, water). If you want more, you need to order (and then pay) anther one.

So in my mind, "refilling my glass" means that you are too lazy to lift your bottle to fill your glass and need a waiter to do it for you.

Another interpretation is that waiters go around the tables with a ton of bottles, filling random customers' glasses with their beverages of choice.

Either way, it sounds quite silly.

I had to explain this to Emilia the other day, too.

Here, most people drink soda (soft drinks) with their meals, so if you drink what's in your glass your server has to take it back and fill it up again (some places just bring you another glass, or refill you from a pitcher.) But generally speaking, you can't get your own refill at a casual dining restaurant.

It is customary for refills of soda, tea, or coffee to be free.

I think saying "most people drink soda with their meals" is a bit much and just playing into the "all Americans are soda-drinking fatties" trope. Refillable drinks at restaurants can also include iced teas, lemonade and even plain-old water.

Gee, funny how I also mentioned tea and coffee. It's almost like I said things besides sodas get refills, so I dunno what your point is other than to blather about how I may have unflatteringly portrayed Americans to an Italian, in which case I can only say "boo hoo."

More the point most of the time in most restaurants Americans don't do a lot of drinking when they go out to eat because we live in a wham, bam, thank-you ma'am society where we eat a meal inside of an hour and usually just one or two courses. Sure restaurants may have available a selection of wines and beers (which aren't refillable and are bought by the bottle or glass) but in most cases eating out is just to get your big daily meal in which usually means drinking a non-alcoholic drink especially considering you're going to be driving home in 20 minutes.

What does any of this have to do with drink refills?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I've been tipping 20 percent for years. Servers' base pay is chump change and if it wasn't for tips, they wouldn't be able to support themselves.

That's it in a nutshell.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I have always tipped well and always will, but reading these threads makes me not want to.

Same.

If there's going to be a required service charge, then it should be called that and be added to the bill standard, the way it is when you have a large party and the gratuity is put on there already. That was the thing I didn't get about Ian Keldon's story: why the gratuity wasn't automatically added on, because a large party does create a hassle for that waiter and everyone else in the restaurant.

But otherwise, it's a gratuity and something I give at my discretion. In my area 15% is standard. If you do particularly well, or it's a holiday, I do 20%. If I know you well, I may go past that. I rarely don't give a tip, though. I may tip low, but if I do, that is typically going to be with a conversation with the manager so that I make clear exactly what the issue was. It doesn't happen that often, but I do reserve the right.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Customers are only as right as a business needs them to be.

Ain't that the truth.

 

[Count Zero]

I always found the drink refilling thing weird because the common wisdom over here is that restaurants make the most profit out of drinks (including soft drinks) so deliberately renouncing that profit strikes me as odd. Of course, it's possible that this common wisdom is wrong.

One thing these tipping threads also make me notice is that either American customers have quite the sense of entitlement or that I'm overly easy to please. I can't remember a single time where I was so dissatisfied with the service that I didn't tip and I live in a place where people tend to be rude (in a hearty way). Complaining to the manager has never once entered my mind, either.