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My girlfriend and I were at a restaurant today and our waitress was not very courteous to us. We wanted an empty plate and she basically left without saying anything and just slid the plate on the table while she walked by without even stopping. This got me wondering whether or not waiters/waitresses should always deserve a tip. It is a widely acceptable standard American culture to at least pay 15% tip for a meal. However, we would probably not be happy if we went to pay for a copy of a book and they asked us for a tip. Where?? the difference? Someone (or machine) assembles the book, someone might have helped you picked it out, and if none of the above apply, the cashier helped you ring up the register. Why don?? they deserve a tip too?
I?? all for paying a tip for a waitress who is polite and treat us like actual customers, but why are we basically forced to pay a tip? By the way, I have come across many good waiter and waitresses here in Orange County, California. However, I just feel like that if people aren?? forced to pay 15% for the bad ones, the same people can afford to pay more than 15% when someone good serves them. Who started this culture and where did 15% come from? Why not 12% or 18%? I know they pay 10% in Canada, and there really isn?? any standard in places in Asia.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Ha.. We are really nice sometimes aren’t we? I don’t always pay the 15%…
The difference is, the persons making and selling you the books are paid at least minimum wage, but waitstaff are paid a very reduced wage rate, somewhere around $2.10 an hour, and as such are dependent on their customers to make up the difference. Is this fair? Absolutely not, Why should business owners expect us to pick up their slack in taking care of their employees? Not tipping the waitstaff isn’t really the answer, but rather pressuring business owners (and perhaps congress) to set a living wage for all employees and eliminate tipping altogether.
Its very difficult to agree with the previous comment…
being a business owner myself, setting living wage for waiting staff would have a huge impact on the business where operational costs are very high…and profits marginal.
I have noticed something very distinct when the approach to service at a table becomes more personal - the tipping increases exponentially.
In a country where no minimum tip is prevailant, I have noticed service staff make huge tips ( by our standards)just because they have paid more attention to the service at a table or sometimes when a new staff joins the team the tips earned increases dramatically by virtue of his personal attention at tables.
Having said that not many people in my country tip I think its important that people tip, it surely improves your dining experience when you visit the next time around.
Things here are changing for the good though…
I think the idea is so the waiters will work for their tip, which in a way is fair. Sort of like sales people are put on commission so they have more drive.
All I am saying is what ends up happening is we are kind of forced to pay extra even if the service is bad, which does not make sense to me.
I also agree that the business owners should pick up more of the tab and it’s up to them to find courteous workers so people will eat at their restaurants.
pradeep,
I’m not quite sure which country you are in, but in America, everyone tips in some way. Therefore, to get the better experience you were talking about, you really need to tip (20 to 25% plus) and also be a frequent visitor in order to get better service. If you add taxes and everything, that’s like saying a $50 dollar meal will cost $70, quite a bit more than what the menu says.
I think that if the tip standard is actually lower (~ 5%), it will give people more room to pay extra to waiters/waitresses who deserve them.
I am a restaurant manager, and can only say this: Any time I have a guest complain about service, I always try to make up for the bad experience. Most of the time, it is a server who is just having a bad day. Imagine having to deal with the public day in and day out. It does get tiring. As for the “rule” of 15%, that is an old one. I manage a restaurant in NY, and the rule of thumb in NY, and any other state that I have worked in is 18%. A tip of %18 is standard where exponential service will get a server 20%. Think about it. If your bill is $20, what’s an extra $4?
I’m all for leaving %15 - %20 tip, and usually do, even for mediocre service. If you need to make a point about bad service, I’ve heard that making it especially low is the way to go. Otherwise, it appears that you just forgot.
One of the few times I tipped 1% is when I was told about an ingredient that the kitchen was out of after a companion and I ordered it, and only after we had to ask about it, after we noticed it missing. I was especially annoyed because of the way the waitress handled it. The fact that I was looking forward to avocado in my turkey & avocado sandwich was kind of incidental.
Sorry, India.
Here in Canada the standard tip is 15%. Though I know people who will tip pennies if there service is terrible.
The tip should be proportional to service. I always start with a baseline 20% tip (above average) and deduct. I can understand if the place is busy, but if it’s empty like sometimes in afternoons, and the waiter/waitress can’t bother to get me a refill or just disappears, then I deduct. If they’re rude or argue with me (instead of just saying “let me check about that”) that I can’t replace a side-dish when as a regular customer I know that I can, then I do the same.
Usually I tip very well (sometimes even over 20% for great service), but if the service is lousy, I make it sure that their tip is equally lousy. Frankly, hopefully if more people tipped the lousy ones poorly, they’ll either quit or realize they need to change their attitude and realize their job is to serve the customer. (Preferably the latter since I don’t want them wasting my tax money through welfare.)
Tipping is not about charity for me to give some rude prick money because his job pays $2.10 per hour. In fact his job pays $2.10, because it’s assumed that if he doesn’t piss people off, he’ll easily be able to make a living wage when tips are factored in.
Bottom line: Tipping is about fairness and giving them what they deserve for their service; it’s not charity.
One more thing to consider is the waiter’s taxes. At the end of a shift, a waiter must claim all their tips. However, they are taxed on 10% of the total bills of all their tables combined, whether or not they received a tip. And many busboys and bartenders are tipped a % of the total for the night, as well. So, if you don’t tip, the waiter actually loses money while servicing you.
People get so caught up in leaving a tip. If you don’t want to spend the money, then don’t go to the restaurant in the first place.
Also, it’s important to remember that TIP is actually an acronym. It stand for : To Insure Promptness. All other forms of insurance have you pay the premiums up front.
Why not give your server the tip up front. You’ll be surprised how fantastic the service will be.
-limeade
I’m with you, Limeade. What’s the big deal… the tip is part of the price. When it comes down to it, waitstaff are generally hard working people with a real crappy job. They need the extra couple of bucks more than I do. If I get terrible service, I won’t tip well, but they don’t need to do cartwheels to get a good tip.
If you don’t want to tip, get takeout.
I am so sick of whiney servers. If a server does a good job and is half-way polite then they deserve a 20% tip, no less. If they are rude, lazy, talking with their pals at the bar while you need silverware, ignore you, or are argumentative because you don’t like the way something was prepared(we realize that this is not your fault so don’t be so damn defensive!) then they should get NOTHING! I don’t care how much you make an hour. Get a different job. I work with people who do mind-numbing data entry and deal with hateful people over the phone all day for minimum wage. They bring home A LOT LESS than the many waiters and waitresses that I know. If they were to ever be rude to our clientele they would be fired, not merely lose something that was never gauranteed in the first place. I won’t mention the countless factory and state workers that make minimum wage who are locked into hiring freezes that sometimes don’t get a raise for years. If you want a good tip then do your job. If you hate working with the public and feel like you’re under “tipped” then you’re probably an ass and are earning more money in tips than you deserve anyway. Just because a server is “having a bad day” doesn’t give him or her the right to make the customer’s day bad. If a server feels that he or she has the right to be rude to a customer then they should expect the customer to practice their right to not tip.
Wow your comments are amazing.
I am a waiter in a restaurant. Been doing it now cause tips are a great way to make money fast (i’m a student.) We all have bad days, and sometimes we get super busy but a good waiter will always try his hardest no matter how busy he is. A standard tip is 15%, 20 is good and more than that is really good. but before you tip, remember this… leave what you want… just keep in mind that waiters give a certain percentage of their sales to “the house” (which goes to busboys barmen etc) and also here where I live we declare our tips. 8% of our sales is declared as income, so guys keep in mind that if you don’t leave us a proper tip (minimum 10%) we are basically paying out of our pockets for your service. A good waiter though will always try hard to be nice.
So much to say…
Being a server is one of the most difficult and demanding jobs there is. I would like everyone in the general public to come to my restaurant and try to wait tables for a month. I would say 3 out of 4 wouldn’t last that month. The job requires exceptional multi-tasking skills and a great memory. Servers work 6 to sometimes 16 hours at a time, often without a break, regardless of the law. This entire time, they are on their feet. Normally they do not have a set time they get off work, meaning they stay until the business slows down and the manager “cuts” them. You had a family function to attend? Well, guess what? It got busy and you had to stay so you missed it. Sucks for you. Should the restaurant pay the servers more? Maybe. But I’ve been both a server and a manager, and I can tell you that restaurants really don’t profit much. In the company I worked for, a $70,000 per week location would see about $1000 in profits a week. Raise wages and that quickly disappears. Then you’d just see the price of your meal go up to compensate, so you’d still end up paying the same amount, except now it would not be discretionary like tipping is.
Don’t get me wrong - you can actually make good money as a server. But if you’re not going to tip, make sure it’s because you got the worst service ever.
I have about the same education level as most waiters, (High School Diploma), and work just as hard, (landscaping); and think it’s ridiculous that some people think waiters deserve to be paid so much.
If I could earn $50 grand a year without sweating in the hot sun for 8 to 10 hours a day, 5 to 7 days a week I would gladly wait on tables.
Don’t complain when people leave you a $5 tip on a $50 bill, after you, said good evening, took their order, checked once to see if they wanted anything else and brought them the bill. Government labor statistics say those who think waiters average 15% are dreaming because they actually seem to earn far less an hour and a year than they would if that was true. Perhaps you should have done a little homework before you decided to become a waiter. There’s a reason why so few waiters have college degrees.
Half the waiters where I live are students who do it part time so they can get a good education and then get a real good paying job. If you want a better job, do what I am trying to do; go back to school and get a job that really does pay well.