It seems obvious to me that the principle refers to the expectation of a better tip improving the manners of the person serving you, as well as the speed with which they tend to you over others. For example, if someone looks megabucks*, they will usually get better service due to the expectation of higher tipping.
*"Megabucks" didn't get the squiggly red line indicating a misspelled word. smurfing hell.
Oh boy a tipping thread. These are always fun. It always amazes me how passionate you guys in the US get about the tipping subject, and also the proud thingie-waving of "I always tip x% at the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM" that always go on
What I find odd is, it's treated as absolutely vital, as in probably more important than paying the bill itself, but it's not included in the bill. You'd think it'd be easier to just add a "service charge" - I've seen it done here sometimes. If everyone should be tipping anyway, then just make sure it happens.
Anyway I can understand why it's done in the US, with waiting staff not being paid, or being paid less than minimum. What irks me a little is the system being transferred directly to the UK without any regard for the difference in circumstances. They're already paid at least minimum, so no one here should be villainised for not tipping (unless they had the waiter running around changing things for them, customising set meals etc.)
Me, I fit in with whoever I'm with, and I think that's really the system that people use. My parents can't stand the concept so with them no-one tips (and like heck I'm tipping 3x to make up for them!). My friends are fairly loose about it and we'll just leave whatever's convenient by the time we've shared the bill, which is a faff already - sometimes it's decent, sometimes it's just a pound or two. With colleagues things are naturally a bit more formal and it becomes the universally (well, regionally) agreed ~10% no matter what. On my own, I'd often tip 10% but don't feel that I should be obliged to, and treat it as a system of "you're paid already. If you gave me polite and helpful service I may well tip".
If all you did was point at a table then let me go and help myself from the buffet, and you're already paid, then sorry but why. In the US though it'd be completely different, I know the system works differently there and would do the 20% minimum thing.
Today I made a whopping $7 in tips. SUCK IT.
I'm talking to my bills, they sucked it all away, and are still hungry.
This post brought to you by the power of boobs. Dear lord them boobs. Amen
To those implying a service charge is better than tips. It isn't. Ok lets look at the two and how they work...
A tip is a generosity towards the waiter/waitress who served you. In 85 - 90% of cases this waiter is not obligated to place tips in a communal tips jar to be shared out, the server may keep the full tip (unless of course they come up short on the end of the night cash up, anyone who ever ran out on a cheque ought to be smurfing ashamed of their behaviour because that comes out of the waiter's pocket no one else looses. I had one customer ever attempt it with me, they got as far as the curb and I had their ass slammed up against the restaurant window and they got forced to pay their bill I don't give a smurf if it was £500 or 5p you pay your smurfing bills) this means a good waiter will take home a healthy pay packet, they will be encouraged to continue to provide good service because it earns them more money.
A service charge however goes to the restaurant, the restaurant management then get to divide it after taking a cut for the restaurant itself. This means, when in a quiet period the restaurant is not hitting target the money taken from customers as a gratuity is in fact used to make up the short fall and not passed on to the waiting staff at all. This is equally true of communal tip jars, meanwhile the waiters have no individual incentive to provide you with better service. They also still have to pay for any bills that are run out on. This means the waiting staff are often under-paid, with no incentive to do better and more likely to abuse the customers food. This is worse for everyone customer and staff member alike.
The only places I've seen inclusive service charges work better than tipping is countries like Iceland and Japan where you pay a service charge yes, but the service charge is the tip the waiter receives. It is in fact considered offensive in both countries to leave a tip for a waiter or waitress.
streme Wheelie
Recognized Member
Goldenboko's "To Ensure Promptness" makes perfect sense. It's an incentive scheme. The quicker you are, the more you're going to receive. If I tipped you up front, there would be absolutely nothing except your own sense of decency to make you provide me good service.
Over here pretty much every restaurant I've enquired about jobs in or known people to work for the chain it's standard to make the waiter pay. It got to the point that I would often ask in interviews about that policy because it can be such a big important policy to know.Originally Posted by Tifa's Boobs
Thankfully in our branch of Pizza Hut we used to break the rules let alone bend them, if you had a table run and we were still open depending on who was managing the shift you could distribute items to other tables and thus "clear" the cheque and get rid of it. Essentially if Table R4 ran and table R2 then ordered 2 Pepsi's you'd move the 2 pepsi's over to the other bill by paying them on one cheque then entering them printing the cheque and then voiding them on the R2 cheque so it shows on the receipt since customers query it but they won't be giving the cash for them. Amount of times I would have to take care of doing that for staff members was seriously unreal. Still try to run when you're a snot nosed 15 year old on me and I will smurf your trout up.
That system in Iceland etc is the kind of system I was thinking of and would like if I was over there - not one where the management wins (I agree, that's unfair) - just basically one that enforces the tipping system as it stands so that you don't have all the awkwardness or the contradictory thing of "it must be secretive with the pretence of not doing it but you must do it" or people being hated for not leaving something that is technically discretionary etc etc.
One where everyone just pays the tip and it goes directly to the server as it would've done before. Not the management. Not the cooks. Not the tax man. Just a formalisation of what's already happening (or in the cases people complain about, not happening)
Even down to the level of, you could have a mandatory 20% tip but people can tip more if they're feeling generous, on the understanding (somehow, in the culture) that it would never become an expectation.
Side note, in most restaurants I've been to here (cheap ones not fancy ones) while there is usually a named "you were served by" on the receipt, usually a number of people get involved, no doubt for maximum time efficiency. You can easily have one sit you down, another come and take the drinks order, another come and take the meal order, another bring the drinks over, another bring the meal over, another take the plates and another bring the bill over. That can be a different person every time in the biggest extremes in heavily staffed places, or more often 2-3 people.
Oh also, according to a mug I had not so long ago with some little "facts" written on it, TIPS is actually an acronym. To Insure Proper Service.
(Still, promptness works)
And in countries where tipping isn't culturally enforced, good service is incentivised by not getting fired hehe. Or more often, from the person generally having a nice attitude towards others and work ethic in the first placeEspecially when you think about somewhere like Japan where that kind of thing is ingrained into the culture.
Last edited by Cloudane; 10-17-2012 at 11:50 PM.
Um, that's because they're not doing it right. The whole point is that people should be paid decently enough, whether by flat out paying them the required minimum wage, or adding an additional charge on the bill that goes towards paying the wait staff.
Whenever someone argues in favor of tips, it seems to boil down to two things. 1) People in the service industry aren't paid enough and 2) People in the service industry work hard, therefore you should give them extra money.
The less than minimum wage thing is stupid and the laws should be changed so that employers can't get away with that anymore. As for the second thing, a lot of people work hard and do their jobs well and don't get tips. Just because you deliver food to people doesn't mean that you are somehow eligible for MORE money than what you're already being paid (we're talking about situations where people are being paid a proper wage already).
My best friend works selling shoes to people. She actually helps people put on shoes, which when you think about people's feet... it's a pretty heroic endeavor. And she's on her feet for like 8 hours a day. Plus she deals with a lot of stupid people and puts up with customer abuse. She doesn't get tips and she doesn't earn that much money. Why exactly should a waiter get tips when she doesn't?
Well, Miriel, that's the thing, isn't it? Why are restaurants allowed to pay their employees less?
Is there some law about this? I really don't know.
There's an explanation for 2 of these things; the most junior (often a trainee) or short straw waiting staff member must do host duties, this person has to seat every customer. The drinks being ordered by someone different to the food could be because of a dedicated drinks waiter/waitress, though this is rarer and most will let you know drinks are paid for separately to food.
Edit for Miriel noticed her post after posting mine...
Well 1st point no one should ever be allowed to pay less than min wage. I disagree with that if it's a damn min wage legally speaking then in my mind any employer who argues tips make up for wages below that is nothing more than a criminal and ought to be treated as such. In the UK you must pay min wage to all staff.
2nd point: Well why don't retail staff get tips when waiting staff do? Well honestly it's because a waiting job even in the UK is a min wage job even at top end restaurants it's hard to get more than that, why? Because employers aren't expected to pay much for non-skilled labour, despite the fact that maintaining the standards these companies expect means the waiters have just as much skill as any retail employee and even most professionally skilled workers such as office workers. It doesn't make much sense that I can work in retail and earn up to £20,000 as a retail supervisor or department manager but yet I could work as a restaurant shift manager and earn less than £15,000 despite having far more responsibility! It makes less sense that as an office worker who has a far easier job I could earn potentially double what the retail supervisor earns despite the fact that in terms of real world skills a retail manager would have far more skill than the office worker. However that's capitalism for you so smurf it, can't beat it at this point so might as well embrace it else you're just going to get a headache.
Respectively though as someone who has been retail, been waiting staff and now office staff... Min wage makes no sense what-so-ever for any job it simply isn't enough but I've only ever been offered min wage in restaurant work (like 6.05 an hour) in retail it's like £8 an hour and in office work I took a voluntary pay cut to start out in it which put me on 7.56 an hour but my pay is guaranteed to go up with cost of living.
Last edited by Iceglow; 10-18-2012 at 12:05 AM.
Drinks are always paid on the same bill here, but, I am fairly certain that in some restaurants whoever serves the drinks makes commission on them. In said restaurants I've had on occasion up to 3 different servers come over and ask if anyone's dealing with drinks yet. (And they don't look happy if you ask for water!)
Ah right so they're not running around trying to steal drinks orders from each other, that's good and makes sense
Because then the only restaurants that would exist would be giant corporate chains.
Also, nobody is "entitled" to a wage. The employer decides how much he wants to pay for a given task and you can either accept his terms or not. People don't just "deserve" better pay because they need it.
As for the topic itself, I tip based on the service received. If I spend ~$10 the server is probably getting $1 unless they actually do something they didn't have to. Yesterday at lunch the restaurant I sometimes go to was pretty busy, so I asked the server if she thought I should go somewhere else. She put my order in before the party of like 10 even though they had already ordered before I had even got there. This time my tip was pretty close to $3 for a sandwich that cost me only $9.
I have no idea. It seems obscenely stupid. I did a quick google search and found this: Minimum Wage For Restaurant Servers Remains Stagnant For 20 Years Under Industry Lobbying
It looks like Alaska, California, Guam, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, and Washington are the only ones who require the same minimum wage for everyone.
It is such a horrible idea to have customers, rather than employers be responsible for the bulk of a person's wages.
Tipped employees get paid at least minimum wage in California and we have tons and tons of non giant corporate chains. One of our biggest fast food chains in California is actually family owned and pays their employees (even part time employees) several dollars ABOVE state mandated minimum wage, as well as provides health care.Because then the only restaurants that would exist would be giant corporate chains.
I have never tipped at this fast food restaurant. See, it works! Everyone is happy.
I knew there was something along the lines of a "tipped wage" that was essentially a loophole for minimum wage with service jobs so I googled it.
Interestingly, you could go to your employer and have him make up the difference if you don't make minimum wage with the tipped wage and tips. You'll probably get fired for some non-related reason, but still! lol.
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