Tipping

[shiznitz]

Hotels: maybe the valet if I have a buck in my pocket.

Take out: Only if I pay cash and there is a tip jar for the coin change. Coins are clutter.

[Samwise]

Why should I pay you for doing your job properly?

[Ironwood]

See, this is the problem I have since that bloody movie came out ;  He was entirely right (if a complete asshole) in what he said.

[Malakili]

Isn't paying people for doing their job kind of the point?

[NowhereMan]

I think the point is people are paid to do the job, why do you have a system in the US where customers need to pay the individual worker extra for them to do the job properly. In fact I think it almost perfectly sums up my attitude towards tipping to say I feel the same way about bribing border guards or immigration officials in South East Asia to actually process my paperwork as I do about being expected to pay 20% extra on my bill for someone to take my order and do their job.

[Malakili]

I think the point is people are paid to do the job, why do you have a system in the US where customers need to pay the individual worker extra for them to do the job properly. In fact I think it almost perfectly sums up my attitude towards tipping to say I feel the same way about bribing border guards or immigration officials in South East Asia to actually process my paperwork as I do about being expected to pay 20% extra on my bill for someone to take my order and do their job.

There's two questions here.  One is should it be that way and the other is given that it works this way (how well) should you tip?

I think most people seem to think a wage that evened things out so tipping wasn't necessary would be better, even if it meant higher prices for the food or service in the first place.  I agree with that.  In this sense the 20% isn't "extra" it's just "how much this costs."

By all means, let's have a system where people actually get paid well for their work.  But until we do I'm not going to be the asshole that doesn't tip because I object in principle to the way the system is put together at the moment. 

[Paelos]

That's why to me there is a difference in tipping at income levels. For lower tier food I'm likely to tip more than higher tier food in restaurants.

The lowest I'm likely to leave assuming the waitress didn't insult me is 10%. That's dead minimum. 0% is reserved for when I had to wait for 10 minutes just to get somebody to take my drink order, and the food showed up wrong.

[Mandella]

Putting it another way, it may not be your fault that the system is what it is, but it is your fault if the server does not make a living wage from your table...

[Trippy]

I used to work for tips when I was in school, so I tend to tip higher than "average".

I pretty much will never tip under 15%, usually tip around 20%. Good service almost always is around the 25% range for the kind of places I frequent.

For places with a tip jar that are just carry out type places I don't usually leave anything as those employees are paid like normal hourly employees.

That's basically what I do except I had friends that worked for tips in restaurants so I learned about that life that way. I also tip a smaller amount for take out/food trucks just cause it's the SF Bay Area.

[Teleku]

There's two questions here.  One is should it be that way and the other is given that it works this way (how well) should you tip?

I think most people seem to think a wage that evened things out so tipping wasn't necessary would be better, even if it meant higher prices for the food or service in the first place.  I agree with that.  In this sense the 20% isn't "extra" it's just "how much this costs."

By all means, let's have a system where people actually get paid well for their work.  But until we do I'm not going to be the asshole that doesn't tip because I object in principle to the way the system is put together at the moment. 

Question here is, would you be happy not tipping if they made minimum wage?  There are a shit ton of other jobs and industry where people make minimum wage, work their asses off, and you don't tip them.  In California and a few other places, waiters make minimum wage (and our minimum wage is better than most places).  We still have to tip.

Just sort of seems shitty to be tipping them and not others.  But also fucking stupid that I'm directly paying them instead of their boss in the first place.  I'd sort of just like to see what would happen if tipping was outlawed, and we saw the market take effect.  People worth a damn would quite until they got something decent they could live by.  Doing something like that might be the only way to fix the system.

[Zetor]

Hmm, I have some 2012-2013 Politics forum deja vu. IMO - like others said - tipping is just manual correction for the disparity between a livable income and their salary. It's a huge pain to figure out when going abroad, too: when I was in Canada/US this fall, I was surprised to learn you're supposed to leave a tip for the cleaning crew in an envelope or something. Dudes, it's expensive enough to stay in your hotel as it is! What can I say, I'm an asshole.

random aside: in Hungary you're expected to tip your doctor (if it's not a private practice, that is) for basically the same reasons. They have laughable salaries, even compared to something like a random local yahoo with a programming BSc, and if they didn't get tips, they'd emigrate in even larger numbers than they already do. This also means that there's an increasing shortage of doctors that generally don't meet the patient and thus can't receive tips such as anesthesiologists and pathologists. :secondworldproblems:

[Paelos]

I never tip chamber maids. Ever. I think it's fucking ridiculous. It's what I mean about tipping in hotels. I'm paying an absurd rate to stay there already. Everything about hotels and the financial culture of them fucking you like you're in an amusement park with pricing makes tipping out of the question for me. If you're willing to work there, oh well. I tip the bare minimum at every hotel if at all.

However, I do tip my maids for my personal house at Christmas. So it's not as much about the service as the consistency. I know them and I like their services. Same thing with the front desk people in the building.

[jgsugden]

Cows: 90 degrees.

[NowhereMan]

I think the point is people are paid to do the job, why do you have a system in the US where customers need to pay the individual worker extra for them to do the job properly. In fact I think it almost perfectly sums up my attitude towards tipping to say I feel the same way about bribing border guards or immigration officials in South East Asia to actually process my paperwork as I do about being expected to pay 20% extra on my bill for someone to take my order and do their job.

There's two questions here.  One is should it be that way and the other is given that it works this way (how well) should you tip?

I think most people seem to think a wage that evened things out so tipping wasn't necessary would be better, even if it meant higher prices for the food or service in the first place.  I agree with that.  In this sense the 20% isn't "extra" it's just "how much this costs."

By all means, let's have a system where people actually get paid well for their work.  But until we do I'm not going to be the asshole that doesn't tip because I object in principle to the way the system is put together at the moment. 

Like I said that's how I feel about getting the shakedown from officials in South East Asian countries like Cambodia. In the same way I'll go along with it when I'm there because I'm aware I'm making more than them and their pay is shit. I'm just making the comparison because I feel a lot of the time when people in the US complain about others not tipping or not wanting to tip I think that comparison gives some idea of how bizarre and skeevy the system feels to an outsider. Also because I know plenty of Americans who will complain day and night about getting 'shaken down' or ripped off by touts at those places and it turns out it was like $3 more than the accepted rate for something. They don't object to tipping though because that's some sort of meritocratic reward for hard work while they were forced to pay up (or end up waiting like 4 hours for someone to file a few bits of paper).

Also paying doctors is a thing in Hungary? I'm genuinely curious is it genuinely a socially accepted thing where people are concerned and want their doctors to stay working in the country or is it more along the lines of China where if you're not bringing a red envelope then you'll probably be at the back of the line on your next hospital visit. I do see a big difference in tipping in a service culture where you get the work done and pay more if it was good (or in the US, if you got it) and more crucial areas where you want costs, etc. to be up front and if it's government operated should be tax funded. If they want private money to supplement things it should be more above board.

[Samwise]

See, this is the problem I have since that bloody movie came out ;  He was entirely right (if a complete asshole) in what he said.

Saying the system is stupid is one thing, and correct.  Saying that as a consequence you're going to refuse to participate by going out to eat and then not tipping is being a wrong asshole.  If you want to boycott the system, don't go out to eat.  Giving the shaft to the person in the situation with the least power to change it (and conveniently pocketing the difference yourself) fixes nothing and just makes you a cheap bastard.

[lamaros]

What if the difference isn't being pocketed by yourself, but by the hotel/restaurant/whatever, and you're expected to compensate their staff for their greed?

[Samwise]

That's illegal in California.    Employers aren't permitted to pocket their employees' tips.  So if that's happening here you have a criminal situation for which there are better remedies than just not tipping.  I don't know about the rest of you living in the third world.

[lamaros]

That's not what I'm saying.

[Samwise]

Cool, thanks for clarifying.

[Zetor]

Also paying doctors is a thing in Hungary? I'm genuinely curious is it genuinely a socially accepted thing where people are concerned and want their doctors to stay working in the country or is it more along the lines of China where if you're not bringing a red envelope then you'll probably be at the back of the line on your next hospital visit. I do see a big difference in tipping in a service culture where you get the work done and pay more if it was good (or in the US, if you got it) and more crucial areas where you want costs, etc. to be up front and if it's government operated should be tax funded. If they want private money to supplement things it should be more above board.

It's mainly a holdover from the Communist days, when it was just one way of low-level bribery required if you wanted to get service at all, in basically every field (so more of the second example). However, since Hungary's become a capitalist country, it's been more of the first option. Healthcare is one of the big blindspots of the country, where everyone expects that it'll "just work like it used to", even though the operational model during the Communist regime was completely untenable to begin with. So yea, on one hand everyone is entitled to free healthcare (and is not obligated to pay anymore), but the old habits are still there; on the other hand, doctor and healthcare salaries in general are laughably low to the point that there's a severe shortage as the older doctors retire and new ones move out of the country almost immediately. It is also a way for the patient to give "feedback" to the doctor via the tip amount. Some services have an almost fixed-size tip you're supposed to give, ie. 80-100k HUF (that's a pretty sizeable amount, more than 1/3 of the average monthly salary) for delivering a baby.

We even made up our own word for it, which sounds properly Latin and shit (paraszolvencia -> para + nounified version of 'solvo', "side payment"). Legally it's taboo and shouldn't exist, but well... it does. It's not something a foreigner will ever encounter, though, since if you need medical help in Hungary, you'll either be taken to a private practice or the 'high-end' wing of a hospital, and you / your insurance company will get a regular bill for all incurred costs.

[Ironwood]

That's illegal in California.    Employers aren't permitted to pocket their employees' tips.  So if that's happening here you have a criminal situation for which there are better remedies than just not tipping.  I don't know about the rest of you living in the third world.

Right, 'cause we're the third world because you don't pay enough so that customers have to make up the difference.   

Also, not what I was saying either.  For the avoidance, I do tip, even over here where I don't actually fucking have to.  I waited as a student, so I get the idea of being paid extra for good customer service.  What I object to (and the guy in the movie did) was the idea that you have to hand over cash to a wait staff because you got waited on.  That's... not the idea.  Like, at all.  I don't pay your company to come and train me on the software and then hand you a twenty for a 'good powerpoint clarity'.  The very idea is fucking stupid.  You might be getting paid buttons, sure, but that's not in the fucking social contract between us.  You get paid by your company, I pay your company, you fucking train me.

People who say 'but the service industry is different' are just ignoring the fucking problem and enabling it.

Also, the amount of fucking companies that STILL screw the staff over who get tips, don't even get me started.  Even in the third world.  Especially the new automated 'just tip using your card'.  Yeah.  'Cause the pretty wee lassie will see that someday.  Sure.  Right at the end of the fucking rainbow in the crock.

( Also, the tipping system and wait staff pay is broken, so don't go eat out is fucking stupid and you know it.  You Bastard.)

[Samwise]

( Also, the tipping system and wait staff pay is broken, so don't go eat out is fucking stupid and you know it.  You Bastard.)

It's less stupid than "wait staff pay is broken, so I will take a moral stand against the employers by not tipping the staff and spending the money on cocaine instead, look at me I'm a hero."  By orders of magnitude.  But both are stupid.  Just fuckin pay ya tips, ya cheap bastids.

[Ironwood]

What thread are you reading ?

Don't think anyone's taking a 'moral' stand.  But I sure as fuck won't be emotionally blackmailed to part with cash for no cause.  So many fellow waiters when I was young would say 'Cheap bastards didn't tip' and I had to bite my tongue from saying 'You didn't give them bread, you ignored them to flirt with the other staff and you were generally an ignorant cunt on the floor'.  Tip that ?  Fuck off.

Seriously, I'm probably coming at this from a different angle than you, since you're talking to the demons in your head, rather than what I'm saying, but there's fuck all moral about this one.  You're saying 'The System is Broken, so you HAVE to step up'  That's baws.  Big sweaty baws.  I'm under no fucking obligation, moral or otherwise, to pay extra money for The Same Service.  That's NONSENSE.  It's got fuck all to do with being a 'hero'.  No idea where you get that from.  Or the cocaine.

By your logic, I should also be tipping MacDonalds staff and The guys who deliver my food when I get takeout.  When does your belief start to realise to itself that you're just a charity at that point ?  Because, you know, you kinda are.  And I do my charity giving in other ways.  Both are stupid, so just give me your money.  No.  Not a fucking chance.  Earn it, fucko.

But anyway.  Who cares.  Seriously, this is a cultural thing and I ain't in your culture, so we're missing each other by miles.

[Johny Cee]

Meh?  If you don't make enough tips to come up to minimum wage, the employer is required to compensate you the difference.

I agree, tipping as a system is outdated and we should probably get rid of it.  But it is the system.  Server compensation and menu prices are calculated based on tipping.  Getting rid of tipping isn't magically going to make server pay better, it just means menu prices will go up 20% across the board, the employer will pay the servers directly, and there will be knock on effects like more difficulty in staffing busy times (at flat rates the choice shifts will be non-busy shifts) and maybe some low-end restaurants close or go to minimum wage counter workers over waited tables.

The unfounded argument that somehow tipping is a system that employers use to screw over servers is dumb.  At restaurants where tipping is a thing, servers tend to make pretty decent money for someone with little formal schooling.  At this point, servers are as likely to be the ones who don't want tipping to go away since underreporting of tips is fucking huge.  Most clients I have, servers just try to get away with claiming the credit card tips (which is tracked through the POS software, and since its the first thing that gets audited in a sales tax audit you don't fuck with).  Cash tips just disappear.

Low end restaurants largely already used minimum wage labor behind counters rather than paid wait staff.

Do some employers screw over some non-busy time wait staff?  Probably.  Those are the same places that get into shit with the local Sales Tax officials.  The better argument is probably that servers are pressured into working the shitty business shifts with the promise of eventually getting the "good" shifts, so are underpaid relative to their peers at the same place.

Honestly, I think getting rid of tipping will see compensation for servers at the better mid-tier and above places go down.  Tipping means that server compensation is inextrictably tied to menu prices.  When prices go up, servers automatically get a pay bump.  The employer paying 100% of wages gives the employer bargaining power over servers who now must negotiate for their wages, in an industry with fairly low education/qualification requirements.

Ten to twenty years ago, there was probably more shenanigans.  At the current level of technology, where you have to have a modern Point of Sale system to track sales tax and where your credit card receipts are reported to the IRS by your processor (and many people pay by debit/credit card), not so much.

[lamaros]

Or you could have a system where people get paid properly, and tipping is seen as an optional extra that customers willingly give for good service, like happens in Australia.

[Rendakor]

Johny's point is that paying servers "properly" at high end restaurants will mean they get paid less. Which sort of sucks, since waiting tables is one of the few decent paying jobs left for relatively unskilled workers.

[lamaros]

Why? They still get tips. We tip well at top end restaurants. They just get better base pay too. They're not exclusive.

Unless you're just talking about people avoiding paying as much tax as they should. In which case, fuck that.

[Samwise]

But anyway.  Who cares.  Seriously, this is a cultural thing and I ain't in your culture, so we're missing each other by miles.

It's definitely different in the US, where 15% tips are assumed as the norm and both compensation and taxation get determined accordingly.  That's what makes Mr. Pink an asshole for saying "I refuse to participate" as his form of protest against the system, being in the US.  Like it or not, failing to tip here is stiffing your server out of their wage; that's the fact of it.  Attempting to frame it as some form of boycott (as Pink did) is bullshit because the point of a boycott is to hit the offending party in their wallet, and that's not what you're doing, you're hitting the VICTIM in the wallet.  Fuck that.  The only way to hit management in the wallet is not to eat at their restaurant, so do that if you care so much.

If you're in a country where that doesn't happen and tipping is in fact optional, whatever.  Exercise your fucking option.  My "third world" comment was aimed at the non-coastal US which is almost uniformly a shithole.

disclaimer: drunkpost.  Sorry, flyover people, I love you all.

[NowhereMan]

That would make sense if the 'tip' was included same as sales tax or something, an unlisted but mandatory charge and reported accordingly. If that's the case in the US then you've got a totally fair point and Mr. Pink is a total asshole.

Otherwise you've got a system that simultaneously wants to pretend tipping is an optional gratuity to reward a particular segment of service staff for the personal service you received above and beyond what they are paid to provide while at the same time insisting that this is totally part of their necessary compensation. The point being if this is the system you don't get it to have it both ways by wanting it put down as optional and opaque (and also outside of any tax records) while also insisting it's compulsory and there's a problem with not including it.

[Mandella]

That would make sense if the 'tip' was included same as sales tax or something, an unlisted but mandatory charge and reported accordingly. If that's the case in the US then you've got a totally fair point and Mr. Pink is a total asshole.

"Parties of six or over will have gratuity added."

[Selby]

My "third world" comment was aimed at the non-coastal US which is almost uniformly a shithole.

Really, California considers itself better than the rest of the country (especially the east coast) with exceptions of Washington and Oregon almost being "California Jr." to most residents.  I laughed out loud when I read it ;-)

And I tip 15% minimum, just did 20% tonight on the ACTUAL bill before using a $25 gift card - which I've seen people using gift cards as justification to stiff the waitstaff on the tip, which I consider to be another asshole thing to do.  I tipped the lady well because she remembered me and how I like my food prepared before I mentioned it, which as far as I'm concerned is going above and beyond the usual "Whaddya want?" and "Here's yer shit" type service of most places.  She also accidentally screwed up and put in 2 orders of dessert that we didn't order but gave them to us anyways and didn't charge us for it.  My local lunch counter pharmacy actually has taken to giving me discounts like not charging me for drinks or knocking off a few bucks because of being a regular, so I still tip even better as a result.  THAT's the type of service that deserves good tipping and I do my best to encourage it.

I will say though, if someone completely BLOWS at their job, has put zero effort into it, gotten the orders wrong, AND is obviously giving zero fucks about things being wrong, I'll tip a quarter or dime just to drive the point home.  Usually I'll not return to that establishment again...

[Johny Cee]

That would make sense if the 'tip' was included same as sales tax or something, an unlisted but mandatory charge and reported accordingly. If that's the case in the US then you've got a totally fair point and Mr. Pink is a total asshole.

Otherwise you've got a system that simultaneously wants to pretend tipping is an optional gratuity to reward a particular segment of service staff for the personal service you received above and beyond what they are paid to provide while at the same time insisting that this is totally part of their necessary compensation. The point being if this is the system you don't get it to have it both ways by wanting it put down as optional and opaque (and also outside of any tax records) while also insisting it's compulsory and there's a problem with not including it.

Edit:  Apologies for coherence and snarkiness.  Had to tell a guy he needed to come up with 200k for estimated taxes, got yelled at in Italian and broken English.

 

Okay, for the foreigners, with examples in New York since that is where I practice:

For waitstaff/servers at restaurants:  There is a lower "tipped minimum wage".  In New York, minimum wage is $8.75/hour and tipped minimum wage is $5/hour.  The server declares all tips to his employer with his timecard, and appropriate payroll taxes are withheld by the employer on their wage (base rate + declared tips).  If tipped minimum + tips don't equal the minimum, employer makes up the difference. FOR THE US, IT IS CONSIDERED THE SOCIAL NORM TO TIP BETWEEN 15% AND 20% OF YOUR BILL.  Sometimes people don't tip, sure, but the vast vast majority of patrons tip 15+%.

For a mid end restaurant or bar, a server/bartender can make $300-$500 a "busy" night just on credit card tips.  In most cases, servers will try to get away with declaring just credit card tips, which are in any modern Point of Sale software (since PoS software is used for both credit card processing, internal reporting, and sales tax records).  Cash tips will often fall through the cracks unless declared to the employer.

Functionally, having a full-time waitstaff gig and decent shifts (whatever your busy hours are for your venue type) after tips pays very, very well considering in most cases there are no educational or technical requirements.  For instance, one of my clients is a relatively high end boutique restaurant.  The full-time servers that work the Friday/Saturday evenings easily clear 40k in just the declared tips, and we are in rural New York.  Adding cash tips its probably 50k plus.  Considering the other employment options are retail, fast food, or basic administrative work, which all pay fairly low?  Yahhhh.

For servers, tips are already worked into compensation.  It also means the servers aren't dependent on bargaining with the owners for their wages.  The employers set menu prices to meet their financial expectations, and so every time the employer bumps the menu prices it's an automatic raise to all the servers.  

The very low end type stuff isn't tipped at all.  It is pure regular minimum wage, you work the counter.  Fast food clerks, pizza joints, etc.  Or its under the table (various ethnic restaurants that also have issues with undocumented immigrants;  and/or family joints where family works undeclared).


The other kinds of tipping:

Hairdressers, maids, personal services, etc.  No set social norms for tips, and employee compensation doesn't take tips into consideration.  You tip because you like the person, or you are buttering them up so if you ever really need to sneak in to get a haircut, or bump up an appointment, they will work with you.  If you don't tip them, they don't take it personally.


Addendums:
- Large parties and some restaurants have mandatory gratuities, between 15 and 20%.  It's basically saying "I'm adding 20% as my cost of labor that is going to the server because we don't want you to cheap out".
- Not tipping or tipping low for a server is a pretty major faux paux.  There are regular threads on reddit/facebook about 0 tip bills, or waitstaff/managers chasing customers out to the parking lot.  


Basically, the major change if the US eliminated tipping would be that menu prices would go up between 10 and 20%, and more than likely the formerly higher earning servers would take a haircut in wages since they would end up on the same wage schedule as everyone else.  Also, it would be alot harder to find servers for Friday/Saturday if working the less stressful Sunday-Monday paid the same and you would now could have your weekends free.

Servers would be less dependent on buddying up to owners/managers to get the good shifts.  On the other hand, now they have to try and negotiate with the owner for raises.

[lamaros]

You seem to be making the assumption that just because you do away with the 'tipping minimum' that people won't tip anymore?

That's not at all the case in Australia, where tipping is something that happens in restaurants and bars most of the time (more in some states than others), and also in other areas depending on service quality/people being generous sorts.

[Viin]

Every hairdresser/barber I've been to that's not Great Clips has expected me to tip. I usually do, though it varies from $3 for meh to $8 for a nice quick haircut. The price of the haircut usually has no bearing on the tip amount.

[KallDrexx]

You seem to be making the assumption that just because you do away with the 'tipping minimum' that people won't tip anymore?

That's not at all the case in Australia, where tipping is something that happens in restaurants and bars most of the time (more in some states than others), and also in other areas depending on service quality/people being generous sorts.

When I lived in Brisbane none of the Australians I hung out with ever tipped.