Poor Tippers Need To Understand Reality

[kpete]

?1421470368
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/17/1358327/-Let-s-Have-This-Conversation-Especially-If-You-ve-Ever-Been-A-Server-Images

[Renew Deal]

1. The bus and bartenders should make a percentage if tips received

So nothing should come out of her own pocket. Maybe guilt forced her to do it (or company policy?).

[Atman]

3. WTF?

All of them should just be paid a fucking WAGE, not a stipend for showing up.

[BlueCaliDem]

4. Exactly. A gratuity should be just that: a gift, not the wage.

The restaurant owners need to pay their servers at least the minimum wage. Customers should show their appreciation for being served with a minimum of 15% (if the service wasn't as spectacular) to 25-50% (if services is good to great), but customers shouldn't be expected to bankroll a restaurant's personnel.

In California, a server is entitled to the minimum wage (currently $9.00 p/hour and will rise to $10 p/hour starting Jan 2016 - which is sloooow compared to other States) and additional tips. Unfortunately, not all States have the decency to do even that.

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. Not only is a flat % of sales the policy of most,

but back in the day when I waited tables in college, they they claimed the difference between $2.05 and minimum wage as "tips" for tax purposes if your reported tips were less than that amount. If you worked in a credit card intensive restaurant, your tips were most often higher, but if it was cash intensive (like a bar), and you didn't report the cash manually, they would add in that calculation for the difference.

It is just easier (and deemed more equitable) to base support tipouts on a % of sales for the shift.

[alphafemale]

10. You tip the bartender and bus "boys" for faster service to your tables.

Don't tip the busboys and your table may sit uncleared for much longer.

Even though the restaurant is actually paying them.

[justabob]

18. doesn't work like that

Servers tip out bussers, bar, runners based on a percentage of their SALES, not their actual tips. I have to tip out 3.5% of my sales, whether I get tipped on those sales or not.That isn't something you get to decide to pay or not.... guilt has nothing to do with it.

[wyldwolf]

2. good piece

I used to work in kitchens during High School and college and I know the kind of shit servers put up with. A server gets a tip from me essentially for just showing up at the table.

[Jefferson23]

5. Good for her. Tipping 2 dollars on 62? That is disgusting, and her hourly wage is far too low. n/t

[Pooka Fey]

6. I really wish servers were just paid a good living wage and we eliminate tips

unless of course the client feels like putting in something extra.

[postulater]

7. I tip minimum of 20% just for having to put up with me.

I get real grumpy at restaurants when I try to find food I like.

Sometimes I even tip my family for sitting at the same table. They won't take me to an Italian place anymore because I get grumpy when there is only one dish on the menu that doesn't have tomato or pasta in it. Or when one entire page of a two page menu is expensive drinks -- at lunch! And there is only one sandwich on the other page. And that turns out to be a $16 hamburger. I just turn into Drunk Uncle. And I don't drink.

Usually I just apologize to the server ahead of time so they know what to expect. I let them know it isn't their fault.

Yeah, I'm real fun at a restaurant. So I tip well.

[Logical]

32. Wow, you sound like a terrible customer. Easy solution, quit being a pain in the ass. nt

[Dreamer Tatum]

45. How much do you tip the kids on your lawn? nt

[madokie]

8. For a meal that will cost us 25 to 30 bucks

combined I tip 6 bucks at least
I worked wait staff when In Warner Springs California and working at the Warner Springs Resort. Was paid .40cents an hour but made our money on tips. I served John Wayne and Glen Campbell when they were filming True Grit. Gotta shake their hands and visit a tad but no pictures or autographs allowed. Restaurant policy. What little visit had to be disguised as work related, my work serving them. I remember it like it was yesterday and thats been 45 plus years ago.

[FrodosPet]

11. Same thing for cab drivers

Nearly every cab driver is an independent contractor. There is no such thing as minimum wage. Generally, your net profit, without tips and after paying gas is around $4.00 to $5.00 an hour.

So next time you have a $20, $30, whatever cab fare, please don't think the driver is making bank. They probably sat for an hour or two, then burned gas and time getting to you, and will have to burn more time and gas getting back to a staging area after dropping you off. And out of that $30, they are paying half to two thirds of it for the car lease and dispatch charges.

Please tip generously!

[olddots]

12. the worst tippers I've seen are in L.A.

Its as though non of them have ever worked for a living.America is about greed and not wanting to be civilized .

[FrodosPet]

13. I suppose it is one advantage to Metro Detroit

It has more of a blue collar attitude. It's kinda funny (in a fatalistic way) how you might pull a $10, even $20 tip from a college kid or someone living in a modest house in a bad neighborhood in Pontiac, and get stiffed by a former mayor of Orchard Lake who is living in a mansion.

Not a blanket slam of successful people. Some of them are quite friendly and generous as well.

But when you go through a couple three days of "stiffs", it shrinks your wallet and attitude. And when you have a pickup of a carload of H-1B employees - fuggetaboutit! No tip, but everyone wants a receipt to fudge their expenses.

[Gormy Cuss]

51. When I traveled a lot for business, many times cabbies acted like I'd given them gold

when all I had done was give a standard tip. Once a driver thanked me and said "You must be from the East Coast." Busted.

[alphafemale]

14. One place I was a server there was this matron and 40ish virgin son.

They ordered a pot of free hot water and brought their own tea bags and would sit for two hours. Repeated pots of hot water. They would leave me a quarter.

They would insist on my station every day.

I have no idea why they were not thrown out since they never bought anything

[hfojvt]

15. poor tippers are free riders

How much money does she make per hour on average?

According to my brother, his wife was making about $12 an hour as a waitress back in the 1990s. This, at a time when I was making $7.15 an hour. One other waitress told me she was making $12,000 a year just working weekends. This at a time that my factory job was paying me less than $11,000 for working five days a week.

Should a person who makes $7.15 an hour feel guilty for not tipping somebody who makes $12 an hour?

Would you rather have me not eat out? Presumably by eating there, even if I leave only a small tip, I am helping, at least a little bit, keep your employer in business.

[Skittles]

16. so, in other words, you're a poor tipper

[NuclearDem]

17. If you don't have money to tip, you don't have money to eat out.

[alphafemale]

24. Drilled that into my kids heads.

My mother was wretched about it.

"If she makes a dollar of every table tonight she will be doing fine."

Or those things that look like a $20 dollar bill that is a religious tract.

People that leave those need to be beat about the head region repeatedly.

I haven't done wait work since my early twenties.

Hated it at a Shoney's clone place.

Kinda liked it at a family run Chinese restaurant.

Had to work about four times the tables or sometimes the entire restaurant, but at least I wasn't expected to make strawberry pies on the side.

It was a very communal thing at the family run place.

And my eyes still water at the memory of whipping up Chinese mustard 5 gallons at a time. lol

[merrily]

26. If everyone had experience waiting tables, we'd all be great tippers.

I have not waiting tables since I was 14 and working my way through 2 weeks of summer camp.

My duties were more like busing a table. No food choices. Only two courses, entree and dessert, no coffee.

All I had to do was set a couple of the total number of the camp's tables before the kids and their counselors came into the dining room and bring the serving dishes of food and pitchers of water and Kool-Aid, stand by while the kids ate, then clear the tables after the kids left. Maybe the occasional second pitcher of Kool Aid or something minor like that. No one ever gave me a hard time, not the counselors not the kids (aka the "customers&quot and not the camp administration (aka my "employers&quot . The rest of the day, I participated in camp activities, like swimming.

Still, it was such a hard job, even for a healthy 14 year old, that I have been a good tipper ever since.

[Starry Messenger]

21. Yeah, don't eat out.

[alphafemale]

22. Yes. We would rather that you not eat out.

Unless and until you learn how to behave yourself as a proper human being and adjust your practices accordingly.

No server makes that kind of money unless they are working a 5 star restaurant.

[alphafemale]

23. Do you work at L & R Motors? nt

[cordelia]

27. Ha! Love this reference.

I have never waited tables or worked in a job involving tips. The patrons would likely hurt me - some of us don't have the temperament to put up with some horrors I've heard about.

Much respect and appreciation for those in service industries.

[FrodosPet]

28. A waiter or waitress might make $12 an hour in prime hours

Not all hours are prime hours. Not all hours are table service. Wait staff usually does a lot of prep work as well.

So yes, PLEASE feel guilty about being a stiff.

[JI7]

19. in California they have to pay at least hourly minimum wage

[ChosenUnWisely]

20. If one cannot afford to tip 15% or more for a meal in a restaurant then eat at home

or pick up fast food.

The real solution to pay the workers a living wage and not force people to work for tips in order to survive.

[Pooka Fey]

25. If a restaurant owner can't afford to pay her employees a decent wage without hitting up the client

Last edited Sun Jan 18, 2015, 10:30 AM - Edit history (1)

to supplement her staff's wages, she can't afford to keep her restaurant in business.

Tips suck. Servers should be earning between 25K and 30K a year. This goes for all the "tipping" industries.

Employers need to pay their employees a decent wage.

Tips also force servers, especially the female ones, to put up with all manner of customer harassment in order to save her tip. This is wrong.

Tipping is an anachronism.

On edit : if, in addition to the decent wage the server is paid by the employer, the client chooses to add a tip, it's all good

[Freddie]

31. Exactly

I was a server (female) in college back when I was young and cute and the shit I had to put up with to get tips was unreal. The worst were the men who tried to impress their dates by showing off how well they could boss the server around. The saying "the person who is not nice to the waitress is not a good person" is 100% correct.
I ALWAYS tip well. If I can afford the food but not the tip, I'll get takeout, and even then leave a little something if it's not fast food.

[Pooka Fey]

40. Just to clarify, in the USA I ALWAYS tip. I reside in France, where servers are salaried employees

and therefore do not depend on tips. If the customer chooses to tip on top of the bill, that is fine.

This leaves the server the option of being a total asshole right back to his/her asshole customers. It has no impact on his salary. I've witnessed the restaurant owner back up his server when confronted with a total bxxxx customer in Paris. What a lovely sight that was.

France used to be like the USA in its treatment of servers, and it changed after WWII. There is no reason to believe that it will never change in the USA. If we never talk about it, it will never change. But yes, when in Rome, do as the Romans do and tip.

[FrodosPet]

33. The customer ALWAYS pays the bills

Unless someone is a multimillionaire, the income has to exceed the outgo. Otherwise, you run out of money.

I agree that food prices should be raised at least 25% so that tipping is unnecessary. What is currently a $20 meal should cost $25, with the $5 going to wages.

The dollar menu mentality of American consumers has GOT to go.

[FrodosPet]

37. Get your own food and drinks! I know that place!

It's called "the kitchen".

[Freddie]

34. "If you don't like what your employer is paying you, take it up with them"...?

Are you forgetting this us non-union America? If the server needs her job to feed her family, exactly how is she going to force her employer to pay her a living wage when the minimum wage for servers is $2.13 PER HOUR?

[Gormy Cuss]

36. Troll better, please.

This post was too obvious.

[tabbycat31]

38. Well Uncle Sam assumes the server was tipped by you

And he/she pays taxes based on sales not tips.

[d_r]

39. I'm just going to say something here

People can flame me whatever.

People can say that a tip is an award, that restaurants should pay a decent rate.

Fine. That can be how it should be or how you'd like it to be, that's great. But it isn't how it is, and if you are telling yourself its how it is you are wrong.

I've never worked that field. My single mother did.

Ive only been a customer. Thats my pont of view. Here's how it is for a customer. You should know that the price on the menu is "plus tip." You live in this society and you should know that the same way to our know not to stand facing the wrong way on an elevator or how to give eye contact. That's the way it works in the society you are a part of. You can disagree and want to work to change, fine, but right now you are making a choice to participate in an activity that works this way.
When you think of the cost at a restaurant go ahead in your head and count the cost of the tip as a part of the cost. You are smart enough to do that. That's how it works. That's what the total cost is. The menu doesn't have tax on it either but you know that will be added so go ahead and think about that too. If you don't want to pay that don't go. Don't order something if you don't want to pay that cost. Don't say, "oh the menu says $10 so I want to pay that." Use your brain. Think that it costs $12 to begin with and whatever tax you have in that location. That's your starting point on the cost, that's how it works in our society. The menu isn't a price tag.

You can even think tips are a demeaning system, fine work to change it. But don't use it to rationalize being cheap if you make the choice to participate in the system by going to a restaurant.

And if you truly have a bad experience then deal with it on an individual basis. But as a rule of thumb get your head around this is how it works. Again I'm not asking if you like it, I'm saying if you choose to go you are choosing to participate in that part of our society and should act accordingly.

Just be cool and be good to people around you it isn't hard and you'll have a happier life.

[Jesus Malverde]

41. Screw tipping.

In Japan or taiwan, parts of Europe. You never tip, employees get a decent salary and service is still great.

[Beaverhausen]

48. If you live here, you still have to tip

Until that changes, don't complain.

[Jesus Malverde]

53. If no one complains there will be no change.

Lets start by getting rid of the special minimum wage for service workers.

[madville]

42. Tipping Demographics are interesting

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5106466

Damn teenagers, foreigners and coupon users!

[Fumesucker]

43. The Christians are unfairly maligned in that graphic

Some of them leave religious tracts as a tip in order that the poor benighted wait staff can find Jesus and their souls will not burn in Hell for all eternity.

[madville]

44. Apparently if you want good tips

You need to wait on a bunch of gay white male dinner parties that smoke

[MillennialDem]

47. I'm surprised the elderly are rated that high. Not age bashing but got horrible tips from

them in the few tipped jobs I had (was not a waitress).

Here's $1 buy a coke.

[Beaverhausen]

49. Many women I know are great tippers

Especially those who waited tables in the past.

[Gormy Cuss]

50. Note that it was a survey of waiters, not a measure of actual tips.

That means that this is their perception of who tips what. Bound into those categories are a lot of presumption on who the customer is. For example, if the customer has a heavy accent, do they assume it's a foreign tourist? If the person has no obvious accent, do they assume that it's not a tourist? I could go on.


eta: Sometimes the server assumption on the tip potential affects the service and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet another reason the whole tipping system is broken.

[MillennialDem]

46. All should be paid a living wage yes. Pizza delivery people are screwed even worse in a lot of ways

I think they are required to be given the higher of the state and federal minimum wage (so it's more like $8.50? was $6.50 an hour when I did it instead of $2.13 for servers in some states).

That said, generally the tips are smaller - $5 is a massively large tip and I can count the number of times on one finger that I got more than $10. Stiffs are also even more common and there is something that is psychologically terrible about getting stiffed on a delivery that is even worse than getting stiffed as a server...

And that is unless the person is really close to the restaurant I just PAID my OWN money to deliver their pizza. The delivery fee partially goes to the restaurant and the part of the fee the driver gets does not cover the gas of people who are not close to the restaurant. So a stiffed driver is paying for some ingrate's pizza not to mention risking life and limb.

[dilby]

52. Two shitty tips in one night, wonder if the problem might be her.

The fact she jumped online to announce she is bad at her job tells it all. If I stiff you on a tip it's because of you, it's not the food, it's not the restuarant it's not the bus boy or the bartender it's because you are bad at your job and I am not rewarding you for sucking at your job. I tip based on service, 20% for average service way more if I feel you exceeded expectations. But if you sucked and the service was terrible yeah you will be lucky to get a couple bucks. Those instances for me are very rare but they have happened.