Should you tip the waitress and how much thread

One thing that's also nice in a non-tipping society is you never run into that fucked up situation where you're sitting next to a table of like 12 and you get mediocre service all night because the server is working the 100 dollar tip instead of your 3 dollar tip. They're getting paid just the same either way so you get as much attention as the big table does.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

How in the hell did the hospitality industry become tied to tips?

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I'm not saying you should have to. They do it because they want repeat business. I'm just saying that if you don't tip your server the worst that happens is they call you a prick behind your back. I've never gotten shitty service and had to spend 2 hours scraping cement off the floor. I had a leak in the pipe behind the wall in our bathroom. The plumber fixed it, but left a giant hole in the wall where he bashed in to get at the pipe. He figures it's his job to fix the leak, not to make it pretty. I learned to do most of my electrical/plumbing myself real fucking quick because of shit like that.

Point being, tipping doesn't get you better service. Tipping just lets the owner who probably lives in Florida and owns like 140 fucking restaurants he doesn't give a shit about buy a bigger boat each year. It's a scam from top to bottom. I just stopped eating at places you're expected to tip.

Every time we go to the Turkish Star the same server comes out, asks us if we want the usual, will make sure to make some fresh bread for my kid. We never wait more then a minute for a table even on the busiest of nights because they will go out and buy another goddamn table if we have no place to sit. They put extra tomato in my wifes salad and extra croutons in mine. He's never fucked up my order even when I ask for stupid complicated things. He stops by every few minutes just to make sure we need nothing else and if I look to the server station one comes running over to get whatever it is I want because they don't have sections.

And then at the end of the night they tell me how much the food and drink cost, I pay it, they thank me for my business and we leave.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p3148.pdf

Pony up motherfuckers.

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:

It's like some of you don't realize that there are restaurants outside of America. I've had nothing but amazing service, fantastic food and the price is still very affordable. The servers don't resent me because I expect them to do cartwheels to make minimum wage off my generosity. They're paid to be nice, they're nice and if they aren't nice they get fucking fired by their manager who isn't going to tolerate one of his employees being a shit head to customers. A reliable income and customers who are nice because they don't hold that 15% tip over your head make for happier servers. Who would have thought.

You know who you should be tipping? Your plumber or the cable installation guy. Anybody that does work in your home.

Ever watch as he meticulously cleans up after himself, washing your toilet or vacuuming up any dust from drilling a hole in the wall? Yeah, they don't do that here. I had to scrape concrete mix and spent 2 days mopping and sweeping to clean up after the plumber installed our bathtub. I had to throw out my sons baby bathtub because the plumber had used that to mix the concrete in. I'm still finding bits of wire from after the internet guys left a month ago. It was kind of funny watching him take the modem out of the box and then throw the box, instructions, twist ties and plastic etc...onto the floor like he didn't give a shit.

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Actually, I clearly stated in this thread that I was unfamiliar how things are handled with tips overseas. The question I posed is how well those servers were actually compensated. I'm not talking about a 4 star place, your average family restaurant.

Here in the north east it's possible to actually make a living off their tips. The only response I got about the experience outside of America was the service was very good in the non tipping environment, but the servers were not compensated very well.

My biggest curiosity is how much the prices are driven up on the menu in non tip places. Also if service is bad at a non tip place how is it handled? is their a service charge on the bill or just built into the menu.Here you just don't tip the server,and generally the restaurant will comp something. Seems fair to me if the food is fine, but service is bad that server has no one to blame but them self.

I only read the first few pages, but here are my thoughts:

I've only completely stiffed two servers ever.

First was at some steak place when I was going to school in SoCal. The dinner started off awesome, server was friendly, nothing to complain about...until a shift change. Our original server introduced the new one to us and that was nearly the last we saw of her. Took forever for our food to come out, couldn't get refills, one girl at my table got the wrong order. But our waitress wasn't even coming by to check on the food to TELL her she gave us the wrong order, so for the first (and only, so far) time ever, I got up and went to the hostess to ask her to send the manager over. Told him what was going on and he started blaming the first server for "not communicating" or something..."No, she was great...everything was great until this server took over." Anyway, the manager was a douche and didn't offer any comps or even an apology other than to make sure the girl got her correct order, which she wanted To Go at that point. I don't know if it sounds that bad, but I remember checking the time and we were waiting on refills for 10-15 minutes. Easily the worst dining experience of my life and they're lucky we even paid our tab. Actually, I seem to remember I might have left an extra penny or something like that because I thought that would be more insulting than nothing.

Second was just a month ago on a business trip to NorCal. I had time to kill waiting for my hotel room to be prepared, so I went to Denny's. Server took my order, brought my food, and I never saw him again. Well, that's not true...I saw him waiting on other people, but never even looking my way so I could flag him down. Oh...I got up and asked the manager for a refill finally, then my waiter came back to give me an updated check charging me for the refill! I was still going to leave $1 up until that point.

Other than those two instances, I'll usually give somewhere between 10-20% based on the service. It's easier for me to give a larger tip now than when I was in college, so it's usually 15-20% unless they give me a reason to lower it.

Hardest thing for me to do is tip a pizza delivery driver. I used to manage a Papa John's, so I know how much they pull in for very little work (compared to the people actually making your pizzas). And then they started charging for delivery and still expecting tips at some point. I usually will still give a couple bucks, but that one is hard for me. If I had a way of knowing that the delivery driver would give the people working inside a cut, I'd tip more and feel better about it.

*EDIT* Forgot about one story I was going to add about pizza delivery. I was stuck in Santa Fe when they had a snowstorm come in. I was in a hotel room with no food and the delivery service for the TexMex place I wanted told me they weren't going out. I placed an online order for Domino's and immediately got a call from the manager telling me they can't deliver. I explained my situation and told him I'd give any driver that came out to me $20 on top of my bill. "Well...I do have one guy with 4-wheel drive, but it might take a while..." It ended up being an hour after the time I was told and the pizza was no longer hot. The delivery driver started apologizing..."I told your manager I'd give you an extra $20. Here's $25 instead and please be careful out there tonight." Not sure what the other people he delivered to had said to him, but he wasn't expecting that at all.
I had NO problem tipping THAT driver.

I go out to a bar with a group of friends every Thursday night and will give my bartender about $1/drink (unless I'm ordering something that's more expensive than my normal Rum&Coke...then I might give a % at the end of the night if that will be a higher tip). They actually just closed down our regular bar after their lease got raised significantly, so we're finding a new one, but at the old place the bartenders all knew us and treated us well. Any place that I plan on being a regular at, I will tip very well.

How much are waiters paid in decent restaurants where there is no tipping?

Gamma Rays_sl said:

Surprised to read here that you tip a bar-man. To fill a glass with the drink you want and put it in front of you?? That takes a few seconds and pretty difficult to get wrong or go slow. Now that I've read it here I know.

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Good luck getting another drink if you don't tip your bartender (in the US anyways).

Dis_sl said:

Before you post, please clarify you are not from the US. US waiters get below minimum wage, so stiffing a table for average service is bad form, and being a cheap fuck. So much for knowing infinitely more about the subject

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It also means that the server ends up paying to wait on said person after the tip shares they have to pay out. Obviously if that happened all night their hourly pay would be rounded up to minimum wage but fuck dealing with whiny assholes all day for minimum wage.

Dis_sl said:

No idea about California law, but basically you are a cheap fuck. Got it. Everyone knows they cover the difference, andeveryone in the restaurant business should know being a waiter is not worth minimum wage. I get not tipping for bad service, but stiffing for average service? Hope you are not a regular at any restaurants...

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Why? What makes a server in a restaurant so important that their job is worth more than minimum wage? It's an unskilled, entry level position.

My wife and I, both with degrees (me: Finance and Computer Science, her: Applied Mathematics), have worked several jobs making at or just above minimum wage that required a degree. Working in a restaurant is "stressful" in a way that people with no life experience believe stressful is. Like I said, my first job was in a restaurant and I made a ton of money for the effort required (in fact, it wasn't until 3 shitty jobs later and several promotions in the Army that I finally made more than I had in a restaurant). Having had 3 "career" type jobs since then, I say restaurant workers are whiny motherfuckers.

Elurin_sl said:

Why? What makes a server in a restaurant so important that their job is worth more than minimum wage? It's an unskilled, entry level position.

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I think it would be almost trivial to make the argument that every job is worth more than minimum wage. Because minimum wage in this country is shit.


Bam. Can of worms.

Elurin_sl said:

Why? What makes a server in a restaurant so important that their job is worth more than minimum wage? It's an unskilled, entry level position.

My wife and I, both with degrees (me: Finance and Computer Science, her: Applied Mathematics), have worked several jobs making at or just above minimum wage that required a degree. Working in a restaurant is "stressful" in a way that people with no life experience believe stressful is. Like I said, my first job was in a restaurant and I made a ton of money for the effort required (in fact, it wasn't until 3 shitty jobs later and several promotions in the Army that I finally made more than I had in a restaurant). Having had 3 "career" type jobs since then, I say restaurant workers are whiny motherfuckers.

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I worked as a food and service employee at Six Flags, bagging at a grocery store, military for 4 years, sold cars for about a year, and waited tables for just about 4 years when I finally got out of college and got into the IT field. Waiting tables by far and away was THE worst job I have ever had. It got so bad sometimes going to the job made me physically ill. I put up with it because of the fact that I COULD pull more than minimum wage. I would never, NEVER wait tables for minimum wage. I would rather sell ice cream (done this at six flags), work in a book store, retail cloth store, sell games, whatever the fuck you want to name, before I would wait tables for minimum wage.

Yeah...most of my jobs were more stressful before I graduated college and got hired by a Fortune 10 company.

All of my jobs were stressful before I graduated college and founded my own Fortune 1 company.

Actually pursuing a career in culinary is one of the most stressful things I've ever undertaken - I'd disagree on the assertion that it's only stressful in college/directly after college. Granted, the restaurant part became one of the easiest parts as you start your way up. It's a fairly ruthless climb, to go from culinary school, to restaurant worker, to personal chef.

Grand Inquisitor Kegkilla_sl said:

shut the fuck up tranny

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Kitchen work is one of the most stressful jobs you can have. Waiting tables is not. It isn't even comparable. You'd have to work in a kitchen for longer than six months to understand, but it really is absolutely ridiculous what your average cook has to put up with on a daily/nightly basis in comparison to almost any other job out there. It requires a certain type of person with a specific type of personality to willingly work in that environment and enjoy it. The average mexican cook(no offense, shitloads of those out there!) is doing it because rarely does criminal background or legality to work take precedence over the ability to put up with the sheer amount of shit that is dealt with on a daily basis in the average kitchen.

After doing it for years, I had to see how the coin was from the other side. Not even close, especially in the recompense area. If I didn't already know how servers work and understand that money sent "to the chef" meant "to the waiter's pocket" I would tip at least 50% most nights, because the guys/lesbians in the kitchen are working 10x harder than most people in the world for barely above minimum wage. On the other hand, I know they get fucked (especially in SoCal) and that if I gave them money, it would be manhandled by management if they even let me in the back to make the drop in the first place. I carry clout locally but not quite that much.

If cooks received a baseline tip percentage in every restaurant, it would go a long way towards rectifying the issue. But they don't (in my experience) and even if I make my servers tip the cooks a %, they will -always- undercut their sales and tip payouts before making that percentage. I've never gone back to a place with shitty food and great service, but I sure as shit have gone back to places with great food and shitty service. I'm not sure how other states handle this, but I know in Cali the cooks make absolute shit in comparison to the waiters, and that makes absolutely no goddamn sense to me. I can't change it, so I try to make it as easy on my cooks/lesbians as I can. A man can only do so much, however.

Grand Inquisitor Kegkilla_sl said:

rolf

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Waiting for Lyrical to pop in here claiming he founded to top 743 Fortune 500 companies.