You Are Viewtiful
Member
I think it was a joke, not an insult haha xD I like that stereotype even though it's not really true
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Forced to pay 25% tip at a restaurant
- Thread starter gaming_noob
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I think it was a joke, not an insult haha xD I like that stereotype even though it's not really true
LaserBuddha
Member
We find you adorable. You should listen to Smodcast some time.
I have family in Maine and they are basically Canadian up there.
OrangeYouGlad
Banned
Life, Liberty and Low Income baby!
bunbun777
Member
Has this been posted yet might shed some light on the varied rates of compensation across the states...
http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm
So what up with that restaurant? Seems pretty lame to me wouldn't go back chargeback time?
http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm
So what up with that restaurant? Seems pretty lame to me wouldn't go back chargeback time?
AlphaTwo00
Member
That restaurant is in the white area above that map, you know, in Canada...
LaserBuddha
Member
Tatersalad
Member
A lot of touristy places ask for tips even if tipping isn't expected in their country. Gotta get paid son!
Zoe
Member
The onus shouldn't be placed on the customer when the employer is breaking the law.
Liljagare
Banned
Yepp, and some places steal their tips too.. *cough*Amy's Baking Company*cough*
Seriously, that is just a silly wage.
Also, a lot of people who become regulars at a particular restaurant will request to sit in the same section every time they go, so as to have the same waiter. Servers generally get regulars, and in a lot of ways this generates a more stable income for the srever. This tends to be more prevalent at diners rather than fine dining restaurants.
Kaleinc
Banned
No problemo
and so on.
Tips are optional, optional goes either way. $0 is a legitimate way and not only for waiters who of course work hardest and get least paid of all human beings.
TelemachusD
Member
Just replace all the waiters with robots. Order your food from a tablet. Robots don't care if they get tipped or not, and make fewer mistakes.
Zoe
Member
Congratulations. You're doing the job you get paid for. Now why do I need to tip you when I'm already paying your boss for the restaurant visit. You need a better minimum wage, not a tip, because you're just doing what your boss wants you to do.
Jesus fuck. That should just be plain illegal.
How about we just do away with tipping all together and replace it with servers getting a proper minimum wage? I mean, for fucks sake, a part time employee at McDonalds has a steadier wage than that.
Zoe
Member
Because servers in general make much more than minimum wage.
fuzzyreactor
Banned
i don't tip on a set %
If my bill in between 10-25 you get 2 to 4 bucks. if it's 40-70 you get 5-8 bucks.
Never have to worry about anything else as my bill is rarely over $80
if you suck, you get nothing
If my bill in between 10-25 you get 2 to 4 bucks. if it's 40-70 you get 5-8 bucks.
Never have to worry about anything else as my bill is rarely over $80
if you suck, you get nothing
Hopefully someone will explain this better than I, but here goes:
As I see it there are two extremes when it comes to how waitstaff can earn their money in the restaurant business: (1) Servers get paid nothing by their employer and make all their money off of tips. (2) Servers get paid a decent wage by their employer and tipping is not expected, encouraged, or practiced in general, i.e., they make no money from tips.
The US (and Canada?) are closer to number 1, except that instead of having no salary they have a very small wage (~$2.85/hour). Europe and much of the rest of the world are closer to number 2, where servers are paid a decent wage, and still get tips, but it's sometimes not expected or it's a lot less than what's expected in the US.
What are the ramifications of these differences? First off, the price listed on the menu for entrees, appetizers, drinks, etc. will be less in the first scenario than that of the second scenario, because tipping is expected and on average the price of eating out should be the same between the two scenarios, once tipping is included. Secondly, the quality of service is highly correlated with how much money one earns in the first scenario, since if the server acts poorly to their customer, they may get little or no tip. Thus, the first scenario encourages servers to act better than in the second scenario.
Please correct me if I'm wrong in this assessment, or include what I am missing.
Dude, you're so hasty to jump in with a smart-ass comment, you clearly didn't read the post all the way through. At no point did I dispute the work. That tip you leave is part of our pay.
If you have a problem with that, do something effective about it or don't go out to eat. But do NOT go out to eat, stiff your waiter, and think that you've done your part to challenge the system. Because you haven't. You just cheated the waiter out of that very pay you brought up.
Kaleinc
Banned
If I have that option don't call me a dick. Save that for your employer.
Same:
if you don't want to wait don't be a waiter.
Life is full of choices. In some instances you can choose to be a dick.
Exactly.
You're not going to be invited back to a restaurant if you just refuse to tip, for no reason, and management finds out (which the server will tell them). This is not some like optional power vested in you.
When people tell you to not eat out, you need to understand that you aren't welcome. YOU. are not welcome.
When people tell you to not eat out, you need to understand that you aren't welcome. YOU. are not welcome.
the_prime_mover
Member
I personally like the idea of a gratuity in general as it is a payment made by me directly to the person providing a service, irrespective of the product or the establishment. I view wait staff, delivery persons and installers as self-employed and they are paid for the services they render to me. The establishment should be responsible for reasonably compensating them for all services provided to the establishment that are not directly related to me (i.e. busing, cleaning, helping in the kitchen). If a lower minimum wage reflects that work load, then that seems reasonable. I assume that at some establishments this work load is not balanced and these people are paid too little or too much by their primary employer.
In the end, a percentage of the bill seems like a reasonable measure by which to gauge the value of services rendered, but ultimately the payment should reflect the actual quality of service relative to the cost of similar services. With that said, I believe that an employer should be confident in the quality of wait staff they are employing and impose a minimum "cost of service" on all customers. If the quality of service provided falls below this minimum then complaints directed to management should shed light on the conduct of the server, or the character of the customer. This may result in a lower overall average tip, but the minimum charge should be transparent and customers should be encouraged to tip in excess of that if the services rendered warrant it. A disclaimer on the menu or bill would be a good start.
Ultimately, North Americans are expected to tip, it is part of the income calculation in these service industries and a no-tipping system would be more likely to result in lower pay and higher prices (and a worse class of server). Not tipping in a system designed around tipping is similar to stealing. I appreciate that some may believe the employer is responsible for paying their servers for exchanges between the customer and the server, but in a service situation like this, the customer far more closely fits the roll of employer than the establishment as the customer is the one delivering orders and demanding certain levels of service quality. The restaurant just provides a venue and a product.
In the end, a percentage of the bill seems like a reasonable measure by which to gauge the value of services rendered, but ultimately the payment should reflect the actual quality of service relative to the cost of similar services. With that said, I believe that an employer should be confident in the quality of wait staff they are employing and impose a minimum "cost of service" on all customers. If the quality of service provided falls below this minimum then complaints directed to management should shed light on the conduct of the server, or the character of the customer. This may result in a lower overall average tip, but the minimum charge should be transparent and customers should be encouraged to tip in excess of that if the services rendered warrant it. A disclaimer on the menu or bill would be a good start.
Ultimately, North Americans are expected to tip, it is part of the income calculation in these service industries and a no-tipping system would be more likely to result in lower pay and higher prices (and a worse class of server). Not tipping in a system designed around tipping is similar to stealing. I appreciate that some may believe the employer is responsible for paying their servers for exchanges between the customer and the server, but in a service situation like this, the customer far more closely fits the roll of employer than the establishment as the customer is the one delivering orders and demanding certain levels of service quality. The restaurant just provides a venue and a product.
You are absolutely ignoring salient arguments and fighting straw men.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=109047708&postcount=348
These aren't really my points though... they're cribbed from a restraunter that ran a tipping and non-tipping restaurant (i.e. gratuity compulsory and stated on bill - no option to tip more or less) and this is his experience after nearly a decade in the business. The tipping restaurant had to close down btw.
Honestly, I would only say your first point in that post approaches a salient point. I mean, you raise genuine concerns (certain types of servers being tipped more, ways the system can be cheated, etc), but very few of those points are unique to serving. Most of those points could apply to any sort of merit based job (stripping, sales, most commision-based jobs, etc.). So why is it servers that seem to draw the most ire?
TimHortons
Member
If there was indeed no way to adjust the % they would have gotten a big fat 0% even if the service was amazing.
Davey Cakes
Member
It's not a huge deal but it doesn't hurt to be somewhat calculated too.
I may tip for good service but it's not my job to subsidize your wage. Ask your manager to pay you a wage you can live on instead of trying to make the diner feel guilty about it.
LaserBuddha
Member
I want to punch a wall when I read logic like this.
TheBryanJZX90
Member
A much more ubiquitous job that far more people are going to encounter far more often than say, a stripper. And unlike commissioned sales the server expects extra pay from the customer, not from their boss.
Arrogant Bastard
Banned
There is only one party that wants the culture to change, the customer. The business owner wants it to stay the same because they are making out like bandits. They are able to have excess staff all the while paying them sub minimum wage. I would argue that the server doesn't want it to change either. They are making out far better than they would if they were paid a steady wage.
Side note, just went to Chili's for a quick dinner and a round of beers. Guess what, they have this 'new' system. All of our ordering was handled through the kiosk, when we wanted another round of drinks we just hit the re-order drinks button, when we were ready to go we simply hit the pay bill option, swiped our card, signed the on-screen display and a receipt printed. Not before asking us to include a tip which automatically started at 20% (we paid 15%).
The server did take our original drink order, drop off our food and drinks, asked if everything turned out as we ordered, and stopped by at the end of our visit to thank us for coming in. We were, everything was fine.
Did the server really deserve 15%, lol no. Apparently these kiosks have been rolled out to Chili's and Applebee's throughout the country. Seems it has been a thing for a while, guess our area wasn't in the original test run.
Source
Who wants to be a Scrooge? Again, the social stigma that you are an asshole, dick, cheap ass, Scrooge, etc. All because I do not go along with the notion that you should be getting an automatic X% simply because I came to the restaurant. Tips should be just that, tips. It should be based on the actual service received not some social standard.
The tip shouldn't be part of your pay. I'm already paying for the restaurant. If your salary is raised, the prices are raised; but everyone immediately knows what is expected.
No, it means I'd have forced the owner to pay the difference as the law dictates. But the truth is neither waiters nor owners want to change the system because they're both making money on it while berating people that understand a deeply flawed system where waiters are expected to get paid twice for doing their job.
Bad servers will still get fired because the restaurant owner now has to take responsability. He can't claim you're just a bad tipper instead of him offering bad service. Otherwise some deadbeat waiter that doesn't care about tips could just keep up shitting his job up.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Being coerced to be a decent person isn't quite the same thing. The restaurant did the OP a favor, imho, and they were lenient. A lot of places, 30 percent is considered average.
One time four of us went out to dinner at a steakhouse that was having a special $5 Prime Rib night. so we went, expecting dinner to be cheap. We all had Prime Rib, one drink each and ordered 2 SHARED sides. The fucking bill was $132!! They had the nerve to impose a gratuity of 18% for "Tables of 4 or more patrons" but the kicker was the "tip" was based on the original price of the Prime Ribs (approx $27 each) The tip was double the dollar amount of the 4 steaks we ate.
It came out to be a $10 tip per person....
We complained to the owner and haven't been there since.
It came out to be a $10 tip per person....
We complained to the owner and haven't been there since.
-COOLIO-
The Everyman
damn yo. where's that?
if 3 people eat out, that's like paying for a fourth person to eat.
Zoe
Member
Ugh, I'm a fan of automation, but that's supposed to bring down the cost, not raise it.
Whatever happened to playing the dot game with your kids
I have never seen mandatory tipping going over 20%. And it's more commonly 18%.
Unless it's noted upfront, no it's not the norm and 30% isnt considered "average" at a "lot of places".
AlphaTwo00
Member
May I ask where 30% is the average? I would really like to know.
Junior Mint
Member
ffs, the stupid shit getting posted in tipping threads just gets worse and worse.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
Did you pay it in the end?
Arrogant Bastard
Banned
Same, sounds like I need to change careers.
I get the impression that they did.
Yeah, damn his logical reasoning.
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