should there be more tipping or less tipping

I can't figure out how to guess at what ending tipping would mean for food costs

Anecdotally, one place I worked at, on a Friday night, had seven hour shifts with 15 waiters (3 or 4 table sections), 3-4 hostesses, 3 bussers, 2 food runners.
Gross sales/waiter were $1000+, we'd walk with $125-150 after tip-out (2001 $$$). Hostesses, bussers and food runners got the same $2.13 as waiters and a set percentage of tip-out.

Hourly labor costs move from $52 to $325-330.

(based on $17.50/hour, which would be low these days)

if a customer came in and didn't pronounce 'asiago' as 'asagio' I sometimes felt like tipping that customer

so many hands involved in a good burrito assembly line. who gets the tip? dude spooning out the chicken if he's generous.

― that Django got me Nuages (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, January 31, 2013 7:50 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

usually gets spread evenly at the end of the shift

tip jars are awesome at minimum wage jobs, i'd always forget about it and then end up with an extra hour's worth of pay

america would just become a land of diners. fuck this stupid country.

Not 'how does it benefit workers', more 'why is this particular element of the costs of a meal so different?'

There are more than workers in the transaction, for a start. It sees a nonsensical and needless extra PITA at the end of the bill, particularly so if it's 'automatic' yet also subject to change based on service. Why get all management accountant on just one particular cost? Why then not leave the whole cost of the meal down to the customer's satisfaction? Why leave a living wage down to chance/uncertain generosity?

It's not really about whether the staff are better or worse off, as a criticism- we'll all quote anecdotes and argue the toss on that anyway

It's not actually a PITA at all is the thing. Tipping is actually really, really easy - if you're a functioning adult, you have enough experience with both numbers and dining out to get in the 15-20% ballpark without thinking.
Automatic gratuities are just that - 15-20% specified on the menu by the restaurant. They come up automatically (or with a manager's approval) and aren't "subject to change based on service" - unless a server rolls the dice and overrides the grat, assuming the person paying will tip better than the set percentage.

It should be about whether the staff are better or worse off if arguments are going to start with the savagery of not paying service jobs real wages.

Maybe I'm overestimating the mathematical abilities of the average person, tho, since people have created apps to tell people how much to tip.

I dony understand any of yr examples enough to countermand them. Sorry. Promise i'm a functioning adult tho.

Again, i'll repeat that a living minimum wage does not magically make tipping stop. I feel this has been assumed in yr posts, giving you idk prob 10-15% leeway in your argument that ppl are better off working for 2 bucks and hour and goodwill as opposed to say five times that and goodwill.

but the cost to the restaurant would be increased and they wouldn't make as much money or they might have to raise prices do you see

If I am served via dance off, do I tip the dancer?

Through the garter iirc

How is this not a frogbs thread?

does frogbs have to tip you now?

obviously

some of this depends on how yr doin generally. like, if you are richly blessed and work a job you fuckin love and make better money than you could legit have expected to make if it weren't for some lucky breaks and people doin you a solid here and there, then you better tip the shit out of every waiter/waitress/cabbie/doorman you meet or I judge the living shit out of you

No arguments, tipping is AGL and one i subscribe to

'here, directly pay our frontline staff wages, we can't honestly be fucked to do so' is less so imo

Again, i'll repeat that a living minimum wage does not magically make tipping stop. I feel this has been assumed in yr posts, giving you idk prob 10-15% leeway in your argument that ppl are better off working for 2 bucks and hour and goodwill as opposed to say five times that and goodwill.

Let's be real - if you increase restaurant prices 15-20% to pay servers what they make right now, tipping will stop in the US. If prices increase 12% to bump waiters up to a slightly-above minimum wage, tipping will still be pretty much dead, because the asshole family at Applebee's figures $9.50/hr is plenty for the college kid waiting on them.

That it continues to exist in other cultures is fine - but that's been the norm, so no one bats an eye. If you announce to the entire population of the US that now servers will be making a decent wage, no one will make a meaningful amount from tips. It will be like Starbucks or a deli - maybe an extra hour's worth of income at the end of the day.

so just change the parameters of the job so that it's not that much more taxing than working at starbucks or a deli, no biggie

some of this depends on how yr doin generally. like, if you are richly blessed and work a job you fuckin love and make better money than you could legit have expected to make if it weren't for some lucky breaks and people doin you a solid here and there, then you better tip the shit out of every waiter/waitress/cabbie/doorman you meet or I judge the living shit out of you

― available for sporting events (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 1 February 2013 01:39 (12 minutes ago) Permalink

this works nicely w/ my rich people should tip literally everyone they meet proposal

also I think what would be more likely than milo's 'asshole family resents server now that he gets paid $9.50/h' is 'asshole family still tips but eats out less because it's more expensive to eat out'

I think it's a lot harder to anticipate the effects of changing the tip system to server wages than some of you are thinking. I mean, restaurants currently generally give servers anywhere from a 3 table section at a conservatively managed restaurant to as large as an 8 table section at a place like IHOP. But you can give servers 3 table sections because you can afford to have like 10 to 20 servers working because they don't cost you anything. But if you have to start paying them what you pay your dishwasher, then you might very well decide you don't actually need that many servers, and so 3 table restaurants become 8 table restaurants and you get IHOP level service just about everywhere. (I don't mean this as any implied knock on IHOP servers. I know they work hard and often bus their own tables even, but 8 tables is madness and it requires superhuman skill to provide great service to that many tables at once.)

People tip grudgingly, often because they're shamed if they don't. That shame would disappear under a salary system.

So people will eat out less and not tip.

I've probably said this before but what perplexes me is that we tip almost the same percentage in Canada as people do in the US, even though server wages are sometimes four times as much AND restaurant prices are higher. Anyway, my vote was for

service workers who get tipped should be getting regular paychecks instead

I've probably said this before but what perplexes me is that we tip almost the same percentage in Canada as people do in the US, even though server wages are sometimes four times as much AND restaurant prices are higher

AND taxes are higher (some of which goes to servers' health care)

I wonder if canada has fewer restaurants per capita / fewer restaurant workers per capita

also something to consider is that if you didn't have a tipping system, it could become easier for the waitstaff; instead of only assigning one waiter per table, you could have like a free-floating system where any table can flag down any waiter for service, you could have waitstaff whose only job it was is to bring food to a table and to clear tables, etc.

well lots of places have started tip-pooling, particularly medium to high end places. i dont think this makes things any easier for servers but it does help ensure better/more seamless service for patrons, all of whom are disgusting savages

what do you tip @ tim horton's?

also servers in canada still make less than provincial minimum wage, which is why you still tip

I realize that server wages are less than the regular minimum wage. I'm just questioning why we tip the same percentage that people do in the US.

why would you tip less?

"Tipping is actually really, really easy - if you're a functioning adult, you have enough experience with both numbers and dining out to get in the 15-20% ballpark without thinking."

in check splits, one guy usually gets stuck with covering the majority of the tip because the other functioning adults (often white collar professionals who work with numbers all day long) couldn't do this. sales tax also a curveball. some places deliberately price food so that it comes out to an even number with tax -- they should extend this to include tip.

I think tipping should be expanded as a social practice because it's a good way to get money out of rich people, like every interaction w/ them we can try and guilt them into tipping us, the whole economy can be constructed on guilting rich people into tipping / making them feel good about themselves for tipping

Ahhhahahahaha, guilt them into tipping, right.

well the transition to a guilt based economy will take time

well that's kind of what we have right now, though right?

Voted 'blah blah' cos i've known a lot of servers over the years and if you know what you are doing and work the busy shifts you can clean up. Then again i don't have much experience outside of America so maybe it is way cooler to have a paycheck.

One of the things i value highly in life is leaving a good tip. I figure if you are going into a place of business where they tip, you should take care of the people serving you. I usually just ballpark 20% in my head (seems easier that way, $10 is 2 bucks, $20 is 4, etc.) and leave that or higher. Often i'll get a coffee and tip a dollar cos i make my coffee at home if i want to save money.

i tip bartenders very well

LOL @ guilting rich people to tip. If only it were that easy, the entire economy would be a completely different story.

the longer it gets since the last time i waited tables, the more strangely unsettling it is when I find myself out to dinner with someone who waits tables for a living now. they get REAL SERIOUS about leaving a huge tip. and i usually tip 20-25% anyway but the telegraphed camaraderie of the whole act is kind of a weird thing to witness.

fwiw i work a (mostly) desk job that is (mostly) sales/project management and maybe two or three clients a year will give me $100 - $200 in an envelope at the end of their event. (This happened more like 6-7 times a year before the '08 crash)

Is there a tip jar out at establishments where they're not bringing food to your table, besides in New York? cuz that is sooooome bullshit.

Milo, tipping continues at around 10-15 % avg elsewhere ime despite yr assertion that it it would die a death in the US with the introduction of a decent minimum wage. Idk why 'let's be real' in this case translates to 'let's assert the opposite of the likely outcome'.

Would fewer people eat out, would they tip less, would servers clear less after tax, would cyborgs be developed to wait tables? Likely enough, except for the last one, but to the extent of the tumbleweeding of the industry? Nah.

Also with the whole 'absurdly low wage is the only way the job is worth keeping to the employer' is yknow a worrying argument imo, and i'm not sure the history of mankind or economics would support it tbh

Is there a tip jar out at establishments where they're not bringing food to your table, besides in New York? cuz that is sooooome bullshit.

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Friday, February 1, 2013 3:23 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are establishments where they bring food to your table with tip jars?

Saw that at a concession in a bingo parlour in Sarnia, Ontario: Pay $0.50 to the woman at a cash register, she gives you a styrofoam cup and points the way to the coffee pots, where you pour your own - and discover another cup optimistically labeled "TIPS...Thank You". It was empty.

xpost

Is there a tip jar out at establishments where they're not bringing food to your table, besides in New York?

This is basically it, where I live. Cafes and lower end restaurants all have a tip jar on the counter. Ppl will chuck the change in it or a dollar or 2 if theyre feeling generous.

Our minimum wage is something like $16p/h and places that have been caught charging less, like $10/hr (the horror!) have been fined and legally forced to back pay the staff in question.

Is there a tip jar out at establishments where they're not bringing food to your table, besides in New York? cuz that is sooooome bullshit.

I see this often enough, e.g. at the Second Cup (Canadian version of Starbucks) in the nearest mall. I usually see coins in the cup but I don't think there's an expectation of an automatic cup.

"automatic tip"

not only that but the server actually pretends to care about your life and your personal well-being, before trying to upsell you on the 2-for-1 watermelon daiquiri margaritas and wouldn't you also like to try the deep fried cajun breadfood?

― 乒乓, Friday, 1 February 2013 00:39 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for fuck sake I go out to eat to talk to my friends and family - who I don't see anywhere near often enough - I don't want to waste that precious time being blethered at by some exuberantly tipfishing jack-in-the-box... I don't think I'd like America. ( continue, this is the end of the grumpy old man's ranting ).

tipping is not normal here in ireland or whatever, although the opportunity is always there and exceptional service deserves *something*

Tipping is normal here