Restaurant customer arrested for crime of undertipping

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Ernestine

I've worked as a waitress, a bank teller, a store clerk, a supermarket cashier and several other service positions. I always tried to give good service in spite of low wages, yet I was only given tips in one of these positions. Why?

Why does the pizza delivery guy get a tip, but not the UPS guy? How about cabbies? If you are just riding around town without luggage, what do they do that deserves a tip?

I'm generally a good tipper, but I've been in situations where I found out afterwards by horrified family members/friends that I should have tipped someone, but didn't. Once, some guys came and set up a tent in my backyard for a big party we were having. Apparently I was supposed to tip them, but didn't. Oh well, now they think I'm a jerk. I learned my lesson, and then tipped the guys from the nursery who planted a tree we bought. But I didn't tip the other guys who trimmed a tree with a bunch of very high dead branches. I don't think I was supposed to.

It's all so freaking arbitrary. Who starts these customs?

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Ernestine

I hate the whole culture of tipping. Why should any employee's wages be dependent upon the kindness of strangers?

Because tips are not your wages. They are a gift over and above your wages. You are not entitled to be tipped. Your wages are what you agreed to be paid by the restaurant and nothing more. The word TIP is several hundred years old and comes from an acronym To Insure Promptness. It's an incentive for people in certain jobs to perform well but is by no means guaranteed.

I've worked as a casino dealer and as a bartender. I've had to live on my tips and I tip well when the service is good. But I don't hesitate to speak or to vote with my dollars. If someone gives me poor service I leave a poor tip or no tip and I let them know exactly why.

Originally Posted by Ernestine

I've worked as a waitress, a bank teller, a store clerk, a supermarket cashier and several other service positions. I always tried to give good service in spite of low wages, yet I was only given tips in one of these positions. Why?

Because it is only customary in certain situations. Bank tellers, store clerks, and supermarket cashiers generally make more money on their salary so people don't feel that tipping is appropriate. A gift is a gift, and you're not entitled to it. It's not a matter of "aristocracy", it's a matter of courtesy. It's a matter of rewarding those who perform well and not rewarding those who don't. In this way they determine their own income. Nothing could be more fair.

The only problem I had with tipping is the general communist nature of the Casinos. I would work my ass off, remember people's names and their action, I'd help them out if they forgot to press bets, joke with them, and help them to have a very enjoyable experience. I'd sometimes collect a thousand dollars in tips in a night. In the meantime they'd have cold, stone-faced, burnout dealers who were rude and unfriendly to customers (my ex-wife is still one). They'd collect all the tips and divide them equally with all the dealers (except those counting who got an extra share and the high-roller dealers who didn't have to share). I would come in the next day and pick up a $120 tip envelope. I was paying for thier houses, cars, the braces on thier kids faces, etc. I was being punished for being successful and industrious and they were being rewarded for being lazy and inept.

This is a large part of why I'm out of that business.

[lookout123]

The word TIP is several hundred years old and comes from an acronym To Insure Promptness.

oops, already debunked.

[Radar]

http://www.tipping.org/tips/TipsPageDefinitions.html

[lookout123]

Snopes

[Ernestine]

Because it is only customary in certain situations. Bank tellers, store clerks, and supermarket cashiers generally make more money on their salary so people don't feel that tipping is appropriate. A gift is a gift, and you're not entitled to it. It's not a matter of "aristocracy", it's a matter of courtesy. It's a matter of rewarding those who perform well and not rewarding those who don't. In this way they determine their own income. Nothing could be more fair.

I think it would be much better if waiters received a set salary that they could count on and not have to rely on voluntary gifts. It is not always fair because the customers don't always know the full circumstances. For example you have assumed that I earned more as a bank teller than as a waitress when, in fact, I was paid the same minimum wage for all the jobs I named. If it's merely a reward for good performance, why don't you reward the store clerk who performs well? If it's a courtesy, why don't you extend the same courtesy to the sales clerk?

I know waiters who are paid below minimum wage. Sounds sad, until you find out that they work in an upscale restaurant where they often come home with three hundred dollars in cash for one nights work.

I agree with you that tipping is largely a matter of custom, but I think that if the custom changed we would all be better off. Customers wouldn't have the awkward decisions of who and how much to tip and the worker would have a reliable, predictable income.

[Radar]

You've got one website and I've got another specifically about tipping. But even if the acronym is a new one, it's still applies. Tips are VOLUNTARY rewards for prompt and courteous service.

It is not always fair because the customers don't always know the full circumstances. For example you have assumed that I earned more as a bank teller than as a waitress when, in fact, I was paid the same minimum wage for all the jobs I named.

I made no such assumption. I said that they are generally paid more than waitresses which is true. I worked for bank of America for years and tellers make roughly $10-$15/hr to start depending on experience.

I made minimum wage as a casino dealer too. Actually, sometimes I didn't get paid or even owe them money. They report all of your tips to the IRS and take the taxes out of your minimum wage paychecks. If you make really good tips, you won't get a check at all.

I personally prefer the tipping system. As a customer, I like knowing that if someone gives me bad service I have some form of recourse that will hurt them in the wallet. Why should someone who gives bad customer service be paid the same as someone who gives great service? As a worker I also like tips, but I don't like splitting them. I'm perfectly happy keeping what I earn for myself whether it's more or less.

[lookout123]

i worked as a bartender and loved living on tips. it took me 3 years after college to get back to the same income level in salary jobs. the only bad thing was that the state thought they weren't getting their share, so the computer/register were set up to assume that 10-12% of every item you rang up was received as a tip and would report on you w2. even if the jackass ran up a $200 tab and left you a $5 tip.

it still worked out ok. we generally received at least a $1/drink tip. if someone left "small change" on the floor we would sweep it off on the floor and leave it for the cleaning crew. they loved us and the customers got the point.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally Posted by Radar

I personally prefer the tipping system. As a customer, I like knowing that if someone gives me bad service I have some form of recourse that will hurt them in the wallet. Why should someone who gives bad customer service be paid the same as someone who gives great service? As a worker I also like tips, but I don't like splitting them. I'm perfectly happy keeping what I earn for myself whether it's more or less.

I believe that it is common practice at most places nowadays, including restaurants, to put all of the employee's tips in a pot which is split evenly at the end of the night, much like your casino (a form of communism!). But that breaks the tipping system altogether... the size of an customer's tip has little impact on the amount of money the employee takes home, because it is absorbed by the pool. So shitty employees and good ones are paid alike.

Not to mention the question of circumstances... maybe the waiter/waitress is working their ass off to help you, but the cook is a shithead and screwed up the food, and had to make it again, causing a long delay. The waiter/waitress gets dinged on the tip, the cook gets his regular pay, and the restaurant owner never even notices.

I think that tipping is a broken system, especially when it gets pooled, but I don't think it's going away... it's much too entrenched in our culture.

[alphageek31337]

Having just finished a 13 hour wokday that sent me home with $50 in tips (actually not a bad day for a busser, with the $2.83/hr I get, it works out to over $6.67/hr), and having been a busser at 3 different restaurants (2 of which I made less than the regular minimum wage, to account for tips), I feel qualified to talk about tipping culture. Working for tips is pretty much crap for both the server and the customer. As a server, you bust your ass for the most part, and you still get people ordering what we have lovingly dubbed "The Jewish Martini" (water, 2 lemon wedges, 3 packets of sugar), people trying to get Early Bird Specials an hour after the special ends, and people trying to make substitutions on specials ("Instead of the cauliflower, I'll have the African rock lobster."). I'm all for stretching the dollar as far as it will go, but these are the people who will run you around like a medieval serving wench, then consider 10% a gift. Don't get me started on tip-sharing. In a perfect world, everyone would do everything they could to upsell and give the best possible service. Also, I'd be twenty pounds lighter and nailing Lindsey Lohan. In the real world, if you are a good server, you end up leaving with, maybe, half of what you actually earned. It's a system that rewards laziness and calls it 'fairness'. As a customer, tipping is crap, because instead of rewarding good service by giving the server a little extra money, you feel obligated to tip and (if you've ever been in food service) tip heavy because, instead of it being a bonus, the server is counting on your tips to pay their bills. The only person who wins is The Boss, who can get away with paying his waitstaff a pittance of less than $3/hour for a very demanding job (if you don't think waiting tables is hard, you need to pull double-shifts on both Friday and Saturday, at a fairly popular restaurant, then get back to me), and never has to really crack the whip, because poor service punishes itself (unless you share tips, that is). That being said, here are my personal rules for tipping:

1) $5 or 20%, whichever is more. Being the type of guy who frequents King's & Denny's, my bill is often less than $10. A generous tip would be about $2, for occupying (as I often do), at least 1-2 hours of this server's time. I think that a tip of at least $5 is well within my budget, but still generous enough that I'm not a complete prick.

2) Recognize things that are not the server's fault. If your steak is overcooked, and you have to wait some time after you send it back before you get another, this is not bad service. This is a bad chef. Tip as you normally would, and leave a small note for the manager explaining how the chef fucked up. If managers get enough of these notes, you will see a lot fewer poor cooks in foodservice.

3) Poor service should not be rewarded. If the service is geuinely bad (you are left waiting for some time before your order is even taken, the server is an asshole, etc), do tip less than you normally would. However, do also either talk to the server or leave them a note explaining why you're upset.

4) Sidetip bussers. We love it. We know where the beer and/or good tables are, we know which specials are genuine, and which are "We either to sell this today or throw it out tomorrow" specials, and we will help you out if you help us out. It is shameless, I know, but I have student loans to think about.

The pity about tipping is that it's *way* to ingrained into our culture. If it really were just a little something extra in exchange for above-average service, the servers would be motivated to try to get that extra few dollars per table, but they wouldn't be so dependent on the tips as to make waiting tables almost not worth the money, and the customers wouldn't feel obligated to tip, simply because of the low hourly wage servers get.

[xoxoxoBruce]

1) $5 or 20%, whichever is more. Being the type of guy who frequents King's & Denny's, my bill is often less than $10. A generous tip would be about $2, for occupying (as I often do), at least 1-2 hours of this server's time. I think that a tip of at least $5 is well within my budget, but still generous enough that I'm not a complete prick.

Damn, if it took me that long to get a meal at Denny's, I wouldn't go back.

[alphageek31337]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Damn, if it took me that long to get a meal at Denny's, I wouldn't go back.

The meal is usually over within a half hour...it's the coffee and the bullshitting that goes on until dawn.

[bluesdave]

You Yanks have created a real problem for us down here, with your blasted "tipping". :p We (Aussies), have a system where the restaurant, and bar staff are paid a reasonable wage (not great money, but OK), and any tips they receive are truly a gratuity. The staff do not (in theory), have to rely on tips. Forty years ago it was almost unheard of to leave a tip, except in very upmarket restaurants, but now it is almost expected of you, even if you are just buying a cappuccino and a muffin in a café. The staff's wages have continued to increase with inflation, but now we have the tips on top of it.

If it was dinner (evening meal), I will usually leave a small tip to round off the amount to the nearest $10, but anything more would only be justified by outstanding service and food quality. If I have been in a café for lunch, I usually don't tip at all.

As far as I know, tipping is pretty much restricted to the food and entertainment industries. If you get a guy in to prune your trees, you pay his bill only, and would not even think of tipping. The same goes for the carpet cleaner, your mechanic, just about anything else.

I have often wondered how much of the tips the staff actually see at the end of their shift. People just automatically pay a tip, and assume that their waiter/waitress will receive it. I guess that any restaurant that tries to pocket the tips will eventually never be able to hire decent staff, so it is probably OK.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by alphageek31337

The meal is usually over within a half hour...it's the coffee and the bullshitting that goes on until dawn.

Ah ha, so you're actually paying rent on the booth.

[wolf]

I am offended by the recent appearance of tip jars/cups at what are essentially fast food restaurants.

If you're not coming to me, asking me what I want, and then carrying it to my table, you ain't getting no fucking 15% ...