"It's not tipping I believe in. It's overtipping. "-Vinnie Antonelli
Posted on 11/30/2009 10:29:46 AM PST by big black dog
On their feet?
Yes because the same thing never, ever happens in the USA. /s
But here YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT? Leave a minimal tip.
What do you think restaurant owners in the US will do to their prices if, instead of half of minimum wage, they now had to pay all their waitstaff enough in wages to attract good workers?
Think about it a minute.
“Fine Dining” is a bourgeois concept, FRiend, and the dictatorchip of the proletariat will not shed a tear when the last vestiges of it are driven from our glorious revolutionary democracy.
They would raise them of course. But restaurant customers already pay more as a result of tipping. If the raised prices were comparable to the existing price and tips, there would be no difference.
Well, in America, you do.
By virtue of waitstaff being exempted from minimum wage laws, you, as a customer are assuming some payment for their services.
Now you know what all that cussing was about when you left a US restaurant without tipping. The poor sap had to cough up income tax on 8% of your bill, also. It's almost like you stole his services.
He’s also dead.
So, the price would be the same, but the service would be worse.
Sounds like a European solution, but, again, you seem to lack faith in the marketplace, along with some Canadians and other Commonwealth subjects.
I have trouble tipping when they constantly tell me that my needs and my requests are “no problem.” I’m glad to know that I’m not a problem to them, but it doesn’t make me happy.
They probably think that it’s a PRIVILEGE to serve them, so why isn’t that enough.
"It's not tipping I believe in. It's overtipping. "-Vinnie Antonelli
I broke some contract? Then he can see me in small claims.
Look, it's not like I don't tip, I do. But I tip for service and good work, not because some snarky waiter demands it. In Canada, you see, waiters already are at minimum wage - often above - so it's much less of an issue. That may be why your experience with Canadians was as bad tippers. They don't see how little American wait staff are paid. I do see it, and I tip well in the USA especially. But not if the server are obnoxious jerks as they too often are.
Some ethnic groups expect the wait person to leave THEM a tip. I’ll leave you to guess which one.
Thanks for the tip...
You don’t even round up?
Ah-HA! You have seen through my lamentably transparent attempt at humor!
If you have bad service, by all means tip poorly or not at all. But be very sure to speak to a manager (or owner if possible) and tell them precisely what you didn’t like about the service.
A bad waiter hurts their business and the other wait staff’s income. No one in the restaurant is sad to see a bad waiter leave.
Your point is well taken. I had always thought 15% was the standard, but had taken to tipping 17-18-20% when I was happy and the dollar amount wasn’t too painful, but then someone “informed” me that the standard was now 20%, and I was like, by who’s authority? And as the other poster (maybe you) pointed out, tipping by percentage means that inflation covers itself. I think all the waitpeople better get used to 10% again or a lot of them are going to be out of work.
I like how you laugh off your own provincialism by trying to make fun of what I said.
> You don’t even round up?
Never. Because our lowest coin in NZ is the ten-cent piece, it would be seldom necessary to round up, even if we wanted to. And because GST is built into the price of restaurant meals, the price is the price is the price. That’s the amount of money you take out of your wallet, that’s the amount you pay.
Works for me!
> If the waiter doesn’t make the sale, he doesn’t get paid.
I think you’ve answered your own question there. Waiters don’t “make” sales. At best they up-sell and cross-sell.
The waiter generating any sales activity at all: the decision to purchase was already made the instant you walked into his employer’s restaurant. From that point on, there is no competition: he is either going to order from the waiter (become a customer) or on the rare occasion, he is going to walk (not become a customer). The only decision he will be making is deciding how much he is going to spend, and what on.
That is the difference between an order taker and a salesman. Order takers should not / usually do not receive commission because they generate no sales activity.
> If the waiter doesn’t make the sale, he doesn’t get paid. Heck, sometimes he makes the sale and still gets screwed, which seems like something awfully unlike “charity.”
If the waiter (who is an order taker and not a salesman) “gets screwed”, who is “screwing” him? It isn’t the customer, it is his employer. His employer makes his margins regardless The Tip is an entirely optional act of charity by the customer for the waiter: it is actually the employer’s responsibility to ensure his staff is paid adequately.
Why should the wait staff carry the business risk for the restauranteur? If you opened a gas station, would you expect your staff to be paid by customers tipping them? Of course not: paying your staff would be your business risk.
If you opened a hobby shop, would you expect your customers to pay your staff a percentage in addition to the cost of the model aeroplane they just bought? No, that would be silly: staffing is a business risk borne by the business owner.
So why should restaurants be immune? Paying underpaid restaurant staff via tips is an act of charity.
LOL, got it.
That is the difference between an order taker and a salesman.
Then it must have been some kind of remarkable bit of randomness that always had the same waiters in my restaurants racking up the most sales.
As for the other comments, what should be is an interesting thought experiment, but ultimately irrelevant. The wage structure for waiters is set up by law. Employers could pay more than required by law(some do), but the food biz is extremely competitive and low margin, and they would be putting themselves at a disadvantage.
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