Jesus, a $5-10 tip on an $80 tab? I don't make a ton but I do everything I can to always tip between 18-25%. I'm also more sympathetic having worked in food service before, but those people are just cheapskates.

 

It's like people that don't tip bartenders. If I'm drinking heavily, I may miss one now or then, but I will always tip $1-2 per drink.

You have no idea. Some people will get a bill for 38.75 and will just round up to 40 bucks, leave two 20's and walk away.

And I get Valentines Day Ex Sex. Talk about an unEXpected win!

YOu have sex with your ex? how does that work?

It's like people that don't tip bartenders. If I'm drinking heavily, I may miss one now or then, but I will always tip $1-2 per drink.

I usually start off with a real nice tip on my first few drinks so the bartender knows who I am and then will tip a $1 per drink going forward. And from me that's a nice little night for that bartender.

You have no idea. Some people will get a bill for 38.75 and will just round up to 40 bucks, leave two 20's and walk away.

 

There was one time my GF and I went to Applebees just because we had to eat somewhere. I typically hate chain restaurants, but we figured it'd be cheap. We got to our table and our server was young, nervous, inexperienced, and bad all around, and we could tell right away. Our food came out and it was not good - which wasn't his fault! - and we got the tab, like $40 buck. I tipped him $10 from my card, gave him an extra $10 in cash, and wrote him a note to "stick with it, it'll get better."

 

No idea whatever happened to him, but hopefully something good.

I had an extended work trip last summer with myself, one guy in his mid-30's and two guys right around 70. The two of us younger guys made sure we tipped heavy to make up for the 10% tip the older guys would leave.

Is it really frowned upon to confront cheap tippers? Is that a fireable offense? I would think most managers would back their staff if they're getting a 2% tip. 10-12%? Ok you're just an asshole. 15-20% average and acceptable. But 2? If I were the manager I would jump in (I say this not knowing a thing about the restaurant biz and ignoring that margins are incredibly thin).

 

 

Good service is 20%. Bad or mediocre service gets 10-15% depending on how upset they made me.

I hate tipping culture. I do tip, but I wish tips were just included in every bill so that way these controversies would not be present.

If you take away the incentive you take away the quality of work. If the tip was standardized the quality of work would suffer.

Sometimes, depending on the venue. At our club, tip is included, of course you also get rated by members and get fired much more easily.

 

As a server, you WANT someone to overtip you so you work your ass off if you actually care. When I was a bartender or server I always remembered people and treated them like friends. That plus responsiveness is the recipe to huge tips.

Basically, as long as you're not like the waiters in this video, Average Joe should give you a fair tip.

I could have sworn studies show that how nice and attentive you are means very little In the tip that people give. I think This American Life did a podcast on it.

I've always said that everyone should be required to work in customer service for at least a year. You can always tell who never has.

I could have sworn studies show that how nice and attentive you are means very little In the tip that people give. I think This American Life did a podcast on it.

yep. I always got the best tips from people i treated like s***. and the reverse was also true.

YOu have sex with your ex? how does that work?

Haha yeah. we're only not together because of life circumstances like me living in NYC and her in LA. We're really into each other, but it doesn't make sense. It's pretty much become a friends with benefits situation until one of us has a new significant other. Someone will probably get hurt, but until that point, it's fun. And we're both being really honest and straight up with each other. Plus it's not like I'm in LA very often.

Is it really frowned upon to confront cheap tippers? Is that a fireable offense? I would think most managers would back their staff if they're getting a 2% tip. 10-12%? Ok you're just an asshole. 15-20% average and acceptable. But 2? If I were the manager I would jump in (I say this not knowing a thing about the restaurant biz and ignoring that margins are incredibly thin).

 

Really depends on the manager, but in my experience, you're pretty much just expected to suck it up. I got reamed out hard for calling out a group of... raspberry lemonades... who thought the dollar and change they left on a huge bill was acceptable.

If you take away the incentive you take away the quality of work. If the tip was standardized the quality of work would suffer.

 

I hate this argument, I'll make sure to tell my boss to give me a tip everyday or my quality of work will go down tomorrow and see how well that goes.

I could have sworn studies show that how nice and attentive you are means very little In the tip that people give. I think This American Life did a podcast on it.

Yep, it's a really crappy signal. But man do customers hate it when you take away that power.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culture...ng_tipping.html

 

In most of the rest of the world and in most non-service jobs, we manage to function without tips.

 

Eta longer, multi part read on this guy's experience running a tipless restaurant.

http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observatio...art-1-overview/

Edited February 19, 201511 yr by StrangeSox

I hate this argument, I'll make sure to tell my boss to give me a tip everyday or my quality of work will go down tomorrow and see how well that goes.

If they halved your salary and made the other half "commission" I bet your quality of work would be pretty high.

Yep, it's a really crappy signal. But man do customers hate it when you take away that power.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culture...ng_tipping.html

 

In most of the rest of the world and in most non-service jobs, we manage to function without tips.

 

Eta longer, multi part read on this guy's experience running a tipless restaurant.

http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observatio...art-1-overview/

So, in your opinion, most of the working world doesnt have things like commission or bonuses to worry about?

So, in your opinion, most of the working world doesnt have things like commission or bonuses to worry about?

 

Most people working in this country don't, but even when they do, bonuses and commissions are coming from your employer, not directly from your customers. Most of the rest of the world's service industry doesn't rely on tips or at least not to the extent that we do in the US, though.

 

Look what rabbit and several other people who have worked as waiters have said above. Tips can be completely random and you can get a crappy tip on a big bill and you have no idea why (other than "those customers are a bunch of assholes"). It's not that the idea of better pay for better performance is wrong, it's that tipping is so random and if you have a problem with your service, letting management know or telling the wait staff directly is much clearer.

Edited February 19, 201511 yr by StrangeSox

Most people working in this country don't, but even when they do, bonuses and commissions are coming from your employer, not directly from your customers. Most of the rest of the world's service industry doesn't rely on tips or at least not to the extent that we do in the US, though.

 

Look what rabbit and several other people who have worked as waiters have said above. Tips can be completely random and you can get a crappy tip on a big bill and you have no idea why (other than "those customers are a bunch of assholes"). It's not that the idea of better pay for better performance is wrong, it's that tipping is so random and if you have a problem with your service, letting management know or telling the wait staff directly is much clearer.

Commissions come directly from customers and can be very random.

 

I've worked in the service industry for over a decade as well and although tipping can be random in certain circumstances, overall I've found there to be a direct relation between performance and compensation. Valentines day is another animal all together as well as other holidays like New Years, St Patricks day etc.

 

My point is there are many professions where your employer pays you less banking on the fact tips, commission or even bonuses will bring you back up to the level you expect.

Edited February 19, 201511 yr by RockRaines

Most people working in this country don't, but even when they do, bonuses and commissions are coming from your employer, not directly from your customers. Most of the rest of the world's service industry doesn't rely on tips or at least not to the extent that we do in the US, though.

 

Look what rabbit and several other people who have worked as waiters have said above. Tips can be completely random and you can get a crappy tip on a big bill and you have no idea why (other than "those customers are a bunch of assholes"). It's not that the idea of better pay for better performance is wrong, it's that tipping is so random and if you have a problem with your service, letting management know or telling the wait staff directly is much clearer.

 

All of this.

 

Even in sales or real estate, the commission is set. The customer can't change the amount you make for entirely trivial and subjective reasons.

All of this.

 

Even in sales or real estate, the commission is set. The customer can't change the amount you make for entirely trivial and subjective reasons.

They can decide to go with someone else at the last minute and screw you over entirely.

This study finds interesting racial disparities in tipping, which has been found in other ways in previous research. When service is rated "perfect" by a customer, white servers get 24% tips on average in the study (don't read into the exact number too much). Black servers got 16.6% when service was rated "perfect." Because of this finding and others like it, there is some murmurs that tipping violates federal discrimination law that requires businesses not to employ payment practices that result in systematically worse payment for demographic groups regardless of work performance - regardless of employer intent.

 

Also, more relevant to this discussion, all indications are that - on average - black people tip less than white people, even when controlling for income. Other racial tipping differences have been documented at different times, but they are complicated by deciding on whether Hispanics can also be white and things like that. This study found that almost all of the differences in tip amounts can be explained by the fact that - again, on average - black people perceive the social norms about tipping differently than white people. When asked what the average person would tip, they state a lower amount than white people. That also holds true for what they think their best friend would tip and what they think the server would expect to be tipped. If you control for those perceptions, whites and blacks aren't any different. Only about a third of black folks surveyed were aware of the 15%-20% tipping norm.

Edited February 19, 201511 yr by Jake

Is there a study done on why certain ethnicities find it necessary to split their bill 8 ways when dining with a group of 8 people?