Tipping

[Raphael]

Ok, this is a big discussion on one of the boards I frequent and it's made me curious about tipping standards. Now, I know that tipping is done differently in different countries.

The long and short of it is that, apparently, restaurant owners in the US don't pay their wait staff even miniumum wage and it is expected that patrons help to pay the wages of the waiters & waitresses, even if the service is bad. Is this the case everywhere (in the US, at least)?  The person who brought this up mentioned that she'd only tipped 10% and the manager actually came after her to say she'd miscalculated the tip and embarrassed her into tipping more (which I so do NOT agree with). Has anyone experienced such a thing?

Do you tip 15-20% in a restaurant, no matter what the service is like?  How can restaurants get away with not even paying miminum wage?

[Michaelangelo]

Wow yeah, someone TRIED to pressure Fae into paying more for a tip at a place in DC.  We refused, and stuck with 10%, they tried to tell us that it was the norm for 15% all over in the US and we're like no.  We decide on what to tip.  We didn't give any extra, wouldn't let them pressure us into it.

But the truth is, that this is a fact of being a waiter or waitress, my cousin has been one for over 20 years and she lives mainly off of tips.  Though she does good service and get good tips.  Personally if the service is good I'll do 15% to 20% sometimes even more.   Though if the service is bad, than they get a 10% tip. 

SOME places put the tip on the bill, so you are forced to pay the 15%!!!  Which I hate, and when I bump into those type of places I do not go back.  I feel it's rude, because we deserve the right to pay or not pay with tips. 

All it takes is doing the job right to get the tip they want... if they're lazy and don't care, than they don't deserve anything from us.

[Ninjara]

   I tip anywhere from 15% to 20% normally.  Sometimes more if the service is exceptional, or they went out of their way to make my time there really special.

  I'm worse than Mikey though.  If the service was bad, and it was due to the person not really caring to do their job, they get zip from me.  Nada. 

   As far as our labor and wage laws go here in the U.S.A.....beats me.  I just know the food service and entertainment industries here don't have to pay minimum wage.  I've never looked into the why of it.  I've worked in both when I was in my early twenties.   

   Getting back to what is the expected tip here in the States....the guy that told you 15% is right.  That is the minimum now.  The waiter's wage has most likely gone up too, even though it isn't minimum.

 But yeah, there has been an overall increase in everything in the last few years.  Tips too.

[Amicitia]

Here is what I know about tipping.

In the States you give 15-20% for ordinary/good service. If you have a coupon, you figure the percentage on the undiscounted total. For bad service, 10%. For *really* bad service, you leave one cent. Some restaurants will calculate the tip for you, at the bottom of the receipt, and it's not uncommon to have the gratuity automatically added to the bill for large parties (restaurants that do this will have a warning on the menu).

In Australia and New Zealand, you generally don't leave a tip, unless the service was exceptional. But the service works differently there, and presumably they don't have this less-than-minimum-wage nonsense.

[Danceingfae]

I only tip good with good service. 15% for really good service but I'll only leave 10% if it's just okay. And that is cause I'm nice.

The one people who tried to make me tip more, that was so wrong. I told my hubby about it later and he was saying I should just have not left any tip at all. You know I wish I had thought of that. If they're going to try to pressure me to paying for I should have told them to screw off you get nothing, deal with it.

But yeah, if you work in a place that get tips, remember. Do your job and make the person's night memorable. Nine times out of ten you'll get a really good tip because of that.

[Raphael]

Now, that's my belief - good service gets good tips.  The folks on the board I mention are of the firm belief that the buying public is responsible for paying the salaries of the wait staff. I don't agree with that. It's enough that people are going in and paying for food/drinks, it should be the employer's responsibility to pay their staff.

I've looked it up - in the US, restaurants do not have to pay minimum wage to employees who get tips BUT only if the employees make enough tips to bring their wage up to the minimum.

In the UK, tipping is across the board. You don't pay in a pub if you pick up the food/drinks at the counter, but you should if they bring it to your table.

Something that's happening here more often is that people are tipping in Tim Horton's (aka 'doughnut shops'). I'm waiting for us to start having to tip in grocery stores, or fast food restaurants, or movie theatres...it's getting out of control.

[Michaelangelo]

I've never worked a wait job before, though I have had jobs where I got tips including my first job.  When I did the birthday parties, people would give tips at the end of the party... sometimes $15 to $20... for each of the costume characters (Mikey and Bebop).  They were already paying $125 just to have us there, so we were surprised people wanted to tip us on top of that.  Though more than tips was food, people would tell us to get out of our costumes and join them for the party dinner.  That was always fun, getting to sit in the mix of the kids and hear them talk about Mikey coming to their party... they didn't have a clue that I was even a part of that... I was only 14 to 16.. so I looked like a fellow kid at the party *G*

Auntie Anne's we were told we're not allowed tips, but some people insisted on tipping me.. and if the boss wasn't there I wouldn't turn it down.  It didn't happen often, but the times when I would go out of my way to make sure the person got what they were asking for.  Which sounds easy enough, but it isn't always.  At Jeepers people would tip me when I did face painting for their kids, normal tips was under $5, but like once or twice I got $20's... with people telling me I should take that up as a full time job.

House Keeping at hotels... growing up I stayed at many hotels and never once thought of tipping the house keeper.  Till I got the job and saw how hard of work it was and learned that other people do tip house keepers.  It's very rare... but it happens.  Now if I feel the house keeper did a great job, I will leave tips at hotels... if I can afford to.

The last area where I ended up getting tips was when I worked at a Laundry Matt.  We had a lot of elder people come in that I would help, and some of them would insist on tipping.  Also some people would leave tips when you'd do the "drop off Laundry" which I had to do everytime I worked.  (Not the dry clean stuff, but the stuff that goes out in the normal washing machines). 

None of these jobs required tips, but people do like to tip when service is good where ever you are to show respect.  I like to tip too, though I know some places do not allow it.

Tipping should never be required.  It's when people start to except things out of others that it becomes an issue...

[Phoenix]

I've had bad service before, but I still tip, though its considerably less than what they would have gotten if they had done better. My normal tip is about 16%. *shrug* Don't know why, it just is.

I have never worked in a restaurant or in any job that I tip is considered normal. Though, once at The UPS Store, I did receive a $20 tip from a customer. I ended up having to stay nearly an hour after closing to help him out with some stuff he was doing. It was strange, but welcomed (especially since that was more than triple what I would have made in that hour).

[Michaelangelo]

Heh wanted to post about something from this last week...

When we went to the midnight showing of Indy last week, a couple came around looking for seats... they saw some seats near us and came over... talked to each other than looked to us.  "Can you hold our seats?"  The man asked, and we said sure.  The lady grabbed out her wallet and started to pull money out.  "Want a tip?"  we turned it down.

I got a kick out of this thinking back to our topic here on when to and when not to tip.  Hehe  Never got offered a tip just to hold someone's seat before. 

Thought I'd share this story.

[TurtleNinja]

From what I understand, tips are SUPPOSED to be given only when service is good or exceptional. Decent service is 10-15% depending on the place(most places seem to be around 15% these days, or at least the ones I frequent), and 20% is fore exceptional service.

Personally, I tip when I can afford to(rarely do I ever have cash on hand and I do feel bad about this), and most of the time, the service I get is good enough to tip 15%. On occasion, when service is outstanding and I have the money for it, I've been known to tip over that. Tipping is a matter of what I can afford and the sort of service.

I don't believe for one minute that we, the paying customers, should be supporting waitstaff with tips. Tips are "extra" for a job well done, not meant to be an actual wage. The people who hire the waitstaff are the ones responsible for giving them their wages, not customers, and if for some reason they can't seem to manage even minimum wage, they need to look at their business practices to see why and adjust accordingly.

This shows the sad, sad state of our world that people who patronize restaurants are forced, guilted, or otherwise tricked into giving tips that are supposed to be a reward for good service. I haven't seen this sort of behavior where I live, although admittedly, I rarely eat out, although in a couple of places(like Starbucks and our local Cold Stone Creamery), I've noticed "tip jars". Not entirely sure what the deal is with that.

Honestly, if some place I went to to eat actually had the sheer nerve to be so rude and crass as to come back to my table after I paid the bill and told me I "miscalculated" the tip, I most certainly wouldn't return to that place. Customers decide whether or not the service was good and whether or not to tip. It's not obligatory. Wages, however, are, and that's the responsibility of the waitstaff's employers, NOT the customers.

*looks around and quietly puts the soapbox back*

[moronqueen]

Tipping? Isn't that a town in China?

*ahem*

15% is the norm for us, too...Brent and I have both worked in food service before, but not so much waitstaff as the back, and the wait-staff in the places we've worked at were supposed to give the behind the scenes folks a percentage, which is how the resteraunts rationalized paying minimum wage or below.

Personally, we've never left nothing. If it's bad service, sure the tip will be less, but I wouldn't stiff 'em. It's a really shitty job to have, usually, as most service jobs are, but in this economy, some of these folks don't have much choice in the matter.

On a related note, how do people feel about commission? You can look at it the same way...part of a the wait-staff's job in a lot of places is to 'sell' the special, or extra drinks. Sure, the customer gets to decide how much to tip based on service, but when you buy a tv, car, appliance or even house, those sales people (which is what a realtor basically is) usually get paid straight commission or commission plus base-pay. Would you not patronize a place paying their employees commission because you can't control what percentage they get?

('Course as far as appliances go, I'm a scratch'n'dent girl, as I know the monster markups that stuff gets. *G*)

As with all things, consumer beware.

[Raphael]

Hmm...interesting comparison, Mo.  Personally, I don't look at commission the same way as tipping though. When I buy a tv, it's $500 + tax.  How the store divvies up that $500 is up to them.  When I go to a restaurant, it's $20 + tax + tip.

I'd be more inclined to avoid a place that relies heavily on commissions just because I can't stand the high pressure sales tactics that the sales people will use to make a sale. 

My issue isn't necessarily with whether I tip 10, 15, 20 or 50 %...it's being told that I have to tip at least a certain percentage, even if the service has been absolutely crappy, because the restaurant is too cheap to actually pay their workers minimum wage.  I guess that's the part that annoys me more than anything. It blows my mind that companies can get around paying an employee the government determined minimum wage.

And that's funny that you were offered a tip for holding seats, Mike.

[moronqueen]

It blows my mind that companies can get around paying an employee the government determined minimum wage.

Yeah, that's the rotten part about business and corporations still having as much power as they do. I did some research into this quite a while ago, but my brain's so foggy at the moment.  I could go on...

But yeah...I can deffinately see where you're coming from, too. The tipping issue is pretty tricky as it's consumer vs server.

Gotta say I agree that it's rediculous when the manager comes out and questions the customer about the tip...I'd not go back, either.

[Raphael]

It was that whole bit with the manager embarrasing the customer over the amount of the tip that really got to me. That's when you want to come back with something like "The amount of the tip is up to the consumer. If you weren't so cheap, and actually paid your employees minimum wage, this wouldn't be an issue".

Around here, employees get minimum wage. Tips are a bonus for a job well done.

Not a huge fan of tip pooling, either. Yes, I think folks like the busboys deserve something, but if Fred, the waiter, does a great job and gets a lot of tips because he goes over and above, why should he have to share his tips with Barney (also a waiter), if Barney is a total slacker and barely does the mimimum?

[Michaelangelo]

Another true Tipping story:

Today I treated my mom out to a steak place near our house called Logan's we had a cupon..

Now when we first walked in everything started off nice, the waiter took our drink order and our food order at once.  And we sit there, a little bit goes by and my mom gets her salads.... still no hot bread or our drinks (which was just two glasses of water).

When the main dishes came out, we still did not have hot bread or our waters.  It was a different person who brought the food to our table.  My mom's dish was wrong so it had to be sent back, and I asked the lady for our bread.  She got our bread and I sat there eating realizing I should of asked for our water too.  So we caught our waiter's attention finally and asked for our water.  He brings the water over.   My mom finally gets her food.   So we're sitting there, he comes over and takes our desert order... and walks away.

Our desert was something they have in little cups, it takes a second to take out, put in the tin and put whip cream on it... such a second that it's not even taken out of the little cup the little cup is dropped into their little tins.  So it shouldn't take long for desert.  I have Fae on the phone when we ordered desert.  She's working doing a delivery... she even puts me on hold to do her delivery and came back, we were still waiting for our desert... this wait was getting insane.   The waiter has a lady bring us our bill... but than remembers we had a $5 coupon so he took the bill back with the coupon.    While we make mention that we didn't get our desert yet.

Desert comes, and than comes the long wait of the bill to be brought back to us.  The bill is dropped off... but than we have the long wait for him to swing by just to pick it up and run it.   I can say that this is the worse service we ever got at Logan's.

Mom and I decided on only a 10% tip, which was just $2.  As we were getting up to leave the manger walked over and asked us how our time was.  We told him what happened.... he seemed shocked and glad we were honest.  He even told us not to tip the waiter for the poor service.   Though we told him we just gave a smaller tip than we normally would of.

The waiter wasn't rude, he was just slow... super super slow...

And of course what was on my head while being there....  this topic in fact I had it open reading it on my phone before we started having all of our problems, cause TN was one of the most recent posts on here while I was  having this dinner.