Should we get rid of mandatory tipping in the US?

You hate it, just don’t do it. Why ban it (as if you could!) and deprive those of us who enjoy leaving a little extra when we feel well served?

They DON’T earn minimum wage and even if they did, minimum wage is no longer a living wage.
The only way I would consider this is if the minimum wage were increased to a living wage and the law allowed for annual CPI increases to the minimum wage without further intervention by congress.

@Judi Yes they do. It’s the law. Also, why should servers be tipped while other minimum wage workers are not? What makes them so privileged?

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room I said tipping shouldn’t be mandatory. People shouldn’t have to feel guilty for not wanting to tip. If you personally still want to tip, go ahead.

If you can’t afford the tip, you can’t afford the meal.

@Judi See your angry reaction to this question? This is why I hate tipping.

Tipping is optional in Europe and Australia and they seem to get by just fine.

@flip86 , and the minimum wage (at least in Europe) is a living wage and includes health benefits. No comparison at all.

I’m from the Netherlands, and here we do not have a mandatory tipping fee, nor do we have a a standard added percentage of ‘service costs’ in the service industries.

I have worked as a waiter in different restaurants a few years back, and did not earn minimum wage. Tips were a gladly accepted addition, but management usually told us we had to put the tip in a shared jar. Said tips would be used for team trips and such. In one establishment, all tips would be divided based on how many hours you’d worked.

I personally believe that tipping should not be mandatory. Someone in the service industry should always provide the service up to its standards, and can themselves choose wether or not to go all out providing it. A tip should be a reward for the extra effort involved trying to enhance the customer’s experience.

@hellothisisdon , was your healthcare covered? Was it legal for them not to pay you minimum wage in the Netherlands?

Apologies, @flip85, I read the question too quickly. Still, I tip when I feel moved to do so, which is most of the time, and don’t tip when I feel it’s unwarranted or unnecessary. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anyplace where tipping was mandatory.

Oh god, I hope no one posts the tipping scene from “Reservoir Dogs.” Tarantino is a hack and a plagiarist.

@Judi It is illegal for companies to pay below minimum wage. We are ourselves responsible for healthcare, partially. We need to be insured, but any problems concerning health are discussed and shared between employer and employee, and should be solved internally. I am not exactly sure how this works, I’d have to look that up.

In most places in America it’s optional too.

@flip86 You said, ” why should servers be tipped while other minimum wage workers are not?” Perhaps you didn’‘t hear @Judi. Waitresses do NOT make minimum wage. My first job was as a car hop at Sonic. I was paid .90 an hour. The minimum wage then (in 1975) was $2.00/ her.
The IRS assumes they will make up the difference via tips. As such, they assume a minimum wage income on the tax return, whether the waitress actually made that much or not.

Also, a good percentage of waitresses are also single mothers who are really struggling.
The same applies to hotel workers…the maids that clean your room. I always leave a tip for them too.
Not leaving a tip is just mean and stingy.

@hellothisisdon. Are you from America? The last time I waitresses we weren’t paid minimum wage. Perhaps that has change?

I summed up my feelings on tipping over here.

@Michael_Huntington Just for you :P

Minimum wage is adequate in your view? Not in mine. And tipping does improve my service as I see every time I go into my neighborhood breakfast joint and am greeted with a smile.

@Judi Restaurants should pay their employees a full wage from the start, and should reflect the cost in the price of meals. That is how it should be done. That is how every other business does it.

@Dutchess_III Servers get a base pay to start that is supplemented by tips, If the tips don’t match the full minimum wage for the state, then the restaurant has to pay the difference.

@Dutchess_III No, as stated before I’m from the Netherlands. Law is very strict concerning minimum wages. Perhaps it had to do with age or the place you worked?

@flip86 , if they paid a full living wage and included health benefits I could support optional tipping. But I can’t support it under the current system.

Tipping is optional. Failing to tip doesn’t make you a criminal, it just makes you an asshole. The fact of the matter, however, is that waitstaff in the US get a raw deal. If you want to follow @Judi‘s suggestion and bring about a world in which they are paid a living wage and receive benefits, great. But that needs to come before we stop tipping.

I’m with Steve Buscemi all the way & yes, I saw the clip warning shit.

@hellothisisdon , there is a safety net in the Netherlands that doesn’t exist here. If you get cancer without insurance here you die. Pretty barbaric. Even if you have insurance, if you get sick and lose your job you lose your insurance unless you want to pay for it out of pocket, but how many unemployed sick people can afford that?

@Judi I would like to point out that I always tip.

@flip86 So what is your complaint then?

@Dutchess_III Probably similar to mine. I shouldn’t feel responsible for the wait staffs wages and guilt tripped into tipping.

@uberbatman Exactly.

@Judi Yes, the safety net situation is different. I am guaranteed to get a welfare check if I get sick or lose my job, or worse, both.

Then again, looking at the service industry (and having worked in it for 5 years or so), I believe it depends on what quality of service you get, and on the kind of place you’re dining.

If you work hard to give the customer a good experience, it is only right you are rewarded for that. The problem is, a tip is not guaranteed. There have been situations where I would run all over the restaurant, doing everything the customer asked, without getting any reward.

This of course can be forgone by making a tip mandatory, but it forces the customer to pay for a quality of service he might not receive, because it allows the service provider to slack off. It’s a double edged sword.

If I get the service I expected, i.e. orders on time, food is up to standard, a smile and positive attitude, I’ll gladly tip. If not, it’s their loss and they missed a chance to earn a bit extra for their own.

I agree entirely. It’s not that I don’t tip and don’t mind to tip, but rather I hate being obligating to tip for a waiter or waitress who doesn’t do anything but take our order and one refill. Thanks so much for doing your job, here’s $5? I don’t think that makes sense.

They do a lot more than that @kiyo! I guess you’ve never been a wait person.

It didn’t start out that way @uberbatman and @flip86. I imagine tipping started long before a minimum wage came into existence. Since it was already an established practice, it kind of left the IRS in a quandary when they DID decide to come up with a minimum wage, so they simply factored in the assumption of X amount of money going to the wait persons under the table.

I agree with Mr. White, and not @Michael_Huntington . BTW, Tarantino has a couple Oscars for writing. I don’t think Hollywood gives those to hacks, generally.

In America my view is tipping a waitperson at a restaurant is not opitonal. It is an expected custom, and the gratuity is not added into the bill in America, with a few exceptions. Other tips can be considered optional, but those people are not being paid the lower minimum wage.

It is true that waiter minimum wage and tips must equal the standard minimum wage, or the restaurant is responsible to pay the waiter the difference. That’s the law.

One thing about tipping that DOES upset me is when they automatically add a “gratuity” to the bill. At that point it is no longer a “gratitude” gesture. AND they don’t tell you that they’ve done it, in hopes that you’ll leave cash on the table.

Are we allowed to cross that off of our bill I wonder?

@Dutchess_III I have never been somewhere that added a gratuity and it wasn’t clearly indicated.

@Dutchess_III In fact, tipping has always been a reward (If I remember the hotel business school lessons correctly) for exceeding expected service. Service/gratuity costs therefor make no sense to me either: You’re already paying someone to provide you with something, then you’re paying them more to actually do it?

Interesting you mentioned the IRS though, almost forgot service providers here have to file an expected % of tips as part of their taxes, seeing as it is ‘under the table’.

@hellothisisdon No, waiters are not being paid already to do the service. They are being paid a nominal amount, but if they were paid a reasonable amount the price of your food would be more expensive.

Many restaurants here automatically add a gratuity to the bill if there is a party of five or more people. It is clearly stated when the bill is presented.

I err always on being a generous tipper, dealing with what is and not what should be.

Tipping is not mandatory, it’s optional, usually. Nobody holds a gun to your head to make you tip, except in the example given by @gailcalled where they add it on the bill for larger parties. That said, I never object to leaving a tip, even if the service is not great. I will also tip the cable guy and other services, as a thank you.

@JLeslie I should rephrase that. Here it is custom that the price of the meal already includes the service of preparing it, carrying it to your table and dealing with your requests, in essence, the hospitality you are receiving. My frame of reference is hospitality industry in the Netherlands, I have no idea how it works in the US. Extra service costs are uncommon here.

@flip86 “Yes they do. It’s the law.”

Actually, most of them don’t. Federal law permits “tipped employees” to be paid just $2.13 per hour, with tips covering the remaining $5.12 (“tip credit”). Some states don’t agree with this law and require employers to pay the federal minimum wage (or the state minimum wage, if it’s higher). Other states allow a tip credit, but a smaller amount than the federal $5.12.

In most states, however, employees are covering at least part of the minimum wage with their own tips.

Er, hmm. Mandatory tipping is usually, if not all the time, (at least where I live) included in your bill, so you automatically pay the tip as it’s included in your full price. Never heard of no law that forces you to leave a couple coins on the table though. If you don’t want to do it, don’t. What are they gonna do, get you arrested because you didn’t leave a tip?

People are bringing me food and drink and every other thing I want for a temporary time in my life. I like a friendly face and good service and I recognize it when I see it. These people work hard all day and put up with a lot of shit from people they are waiting on. I don’t personally get this kind of treatment at home, so I may appreciate the service I get more than others. And the fact that even though I count myself down near the bottom of the food chain here, I’m still not a cheap bastard. I tip because I want to and it’s the right thing to do, unless the service is so bad the whole meal isn’t worth paying for.

I don’t get why restaurants add tips to large parties, like what @gailcalled said. When I use a coupon, they also pre-add the tip so that you pay based on the price without the coupon. Why not just put the coupon after the subtotal? (It also shows that restaurants are trying to tip off of the total bill and not the subtotal.)
The placement of tips on a receipt in any way seems rude to me. It’s still a tip. According to dictionary.com, gratuity is “something given without claim or demand.”

“Waiters and waitresses, in a round about way, earn the full minimum wage for their state and usually more. If their tips don’t equal or surpass the minimum wage, the restaurant, by law, has to pay the difference.”

False assumption. To refute that is to refute reality and to prove that you have absolutely no idea how the really real world works. The biggest wrong assumption here is that the law is obeyed.

Now, if you want to eliminate tipping, then you must insist that minimum wage is equal across the board and get rid of the lower minimum wage for service workers.

Large parties use up a lot of commercial space,er, tables and take more people to service. And they are hedging that most of those attending the event are non tippers anyway.

What @jerv said. Min wage for food servers is lower.

Good point, @jerv. How could it even be proven that the waitresses didn’t make at least minimum wage at the end of the day? Do they give their money to the boss to count out to see? Hmmm. “Yeah, boss. I only made ONE DOLLAR in tips today. Here, see?”

@woodcutter: When @gailcalled referred to large parties, the word “party” does not just refer to a catered event, it refers to a group of people, as in “party of six.”

When the establishment adds on a mandatory tip to a large party (i.e. parties of 8 or more) or some restaurants add it on to their bills automatically, Some people don’t scrutinize the bill, they open their wallet, take out their card, put it with the bill, and when the receipt comes back they sign and add a tip, not knowing that a tip was already added.

@hellothisisdon I am only talking about America, which I said in my first answer, but failed to in my second. America is one of the only countries that the expectation for a large tip is customary. Some other countries do tip, but the amount is less, or considered more of an option. In America it is not an option really. Not in a practical sense.

@Dutchess_III Or the sort of stuff that happens at Amy’s Baking Company.

After their little PR debacle their new hires must sign this contract

Note #19 :“The wait staff understands that any and all “tips” are property of the “house.” This isn’t’ so much of a problem now that the contract also stipulates a base wage of $8–12/hr, but back when they only paid just above the state minimum for tipped workers (around $5/hr).

@hellothisisdon You’ve never been to the US, have you? Other countries actually do pay their service workers enough that tips really are a reward, but here in ‘Murica, they are the only way that most wait-staff survive; it is expected that their main source of income will be tips, and their employers are not always scrupulous about making up any shortfalls.

@dxs I got in a big fight with a restaurant over something like this. I went to a “fancy” place in philly because I got a really nice coupon online for a sampler course for 2 for 25 dollars which was originally supposed to be like $150. Got horrible service the whole time because we were just another “coupon couple” but I thought whatever I can’t really complain I’m not spending that much on this meal and then the bill comes out to the table with tax for the original $150 price and a $30 tip on the bill. So my $25 dollar meal just turned into $65 meal. Uhhh no, not gonna happen.

That is so stupid @uberbatman. The coupons are a way to lure you in so that you’ll come back on your own sometime. That was just a dumb move, business-wise.

Personally, I like the custom of tipping. I lived for many years in countries where there was no tipping (Japan, Germany) and I personally like that I get to reward good service with a generous tip, AND that I can tip far less for poor service.
Many of the places I lived previously did not have good, friendly waitstaff..and I always wondered if, perhaps they would do a better job for the customer if they were incentivized like their American counterparts. (Better service gets BIG tips from me.)

For example, I love my hairdresser so I always tip her generously for a job well done. This is NEVER done in Japan.

Don’t tip. Just don’t go back to that restaurant unless you like spit or urine in your food.

I’m not made of money, but I always tip. Servers work hard for little pay. Actually, I usually over tip.

I read somewhere that lower income people often tip more than those with higher incomes. Empathy is lost on so many people.

@uberbatman You are supposed to tip on the regular price of the meal. Two for one entrees are common coupons, and also free appetizer or dessert, but the expectation is to tip on the regular meal. Only the restaurant is supposed to take the hit, not the waitress; she still did her job. In your case $30 instead of $150 sounds very extreme and odd.

What’s sad is, it’s a pretty knee jerk reaction to leave a dollar bill as a tip. Well, that’s an average of what we got in the 70’s, a dollar bill. A dollar bill doesn’t mean nearly as much today, but that’s still what they get.
I tip a minimum of $2.00.

I’m in favor for mandatory riffing

I haven’t read all the preceding posts but my understanding is the minimum wage in the US is insufficient for a person to live on. It’s paltry. Tips therefore supplement the miserly wage many wait staff are paid. You’d need to fix that if you want to change the system.

In Australia, (I went back and read some posts), staff are paid a decent living, minimum wage. There is no need to tip to ensure those employed to serve us can actually earn a decent amount of money. We still leave tips if service is good but there is no pressure to do so. Average pay for a waiter:

In Australia

In the US.

If you can’t afford to tip, get carry out. Otherwise, you are just shitting on someone and saying their time is less valuable than yours. They get you drinks, anything you need, clean up after you make a mess, make sure you have everything, refill your beverages, deal with your bullshit when you don’t like something. If you don’t want those luxuries get it to go and eat it outside on the curb or at your house. You are paying for the service. I do not understand people that don’t get this!

@deni I think @flip86‘s concern is why aren’t those things covered by the cost of the meal. The employer should then pay a fair wage for the job. At the moment it seems, the employer takes the money for the meal but doesn’t provide the staff with decent wages and there is no legal ramification if they don’t pay a fair wage. So the customers have to pay for the service side of their restaurant experience on top of the cost of the meal.

I have no idea how the cost to the customer of a similar meal eaten in a similar restaurant in the US and say UK or Australia compares.

If you can afford to even go out to a restaurant, then you can afford to tip. If you are so broke that leaving a good tip is going to set you back then don’t go. Or eat under the golden arches. So many skin flints here on a progressive leaning majority, site.

I think that tells a story.

A lot of poor readers here, too.

We should ban planetary knitting

@Jeruba Myself included. I don’t (or rather, can’t) eat out often, but when I do, I make sure to leave a decent tip. Do you know what I do when I can’t afford to leave a decent tip? I take another look at my finances and ask myself if I should be eating out in the first place.

@Bellatrix Last time I was there, prices were generally comparable overall. Food was notably cheaper, beverages considerably pricier… overall, about the same.

@jerv I did a bit of searching to see if there was a site that really showed a comparison since @flip86 mentioned Australia but I can’t see anything that specifically deals with different types of ‘eating out’. I’m supposed to be doing real research so I don’t think I should go down a rabbit hole and look anymore.

In fairness, because Oz was suggested as not requiring tipping, I feel it’s important to look at the bigger picture. I think most things I did find suggest food is generally more expensive here. That wouldn’t surprise me. I know a jelly who recently returned from the US said things tend to even out with regards to cost of living when you look at the big picture but my minimal research suggests it’s more expensive to eat out in Australia.

It would be interesting to see comparisons between different types of restaurant in each country. That way we could assess whether the tipping/or not tipping leads to a cheaper or more expensive meal. If eating out in the US now costs significantly less than it does in Oz even when you add in the tip, I doubt people will be prepared to pay more for a meal in the US to ensure the wait staff receive a fair, living wage.

However, I think I’m just creatively procrastinating and should get back to work.

Just for the record, I usually tip about 25% of the total bill (including tax). Servers work so hard, make very little money, and are often required to share their tips with other employees—busboys, bartenders, hosts, etc.

If I can afford to eat in a restaurant, I can afford to be generous with the people helping me.

@uberbatman That was an insanely good coupon, so I don’t see anything wrong with leaving a tip that’s $30 (granted the service was good), but as I said, there’s just something wrong with putting it on the bill. I’ve found that coupons always seem to let me down. And putting the tip on the bill just gets me more upset. If I have a buy one get one only coupon worth using at sit-down restaurants for me granted I’m a single guy, I’ll always seem to spend more money then I though I’d have to.

@uberbatman: Did you pay it or argue it?

@Bellatrix That was both Perth and Sydney years ago. I only know about restaurant prices (not grocery prices) since I wasn’t cooking when I was there. I’ll have to ask my childhood buddy (a chef who lives about 20 miles from Sydney) what it’s currently like. I figure he can give me a better idea of the truth than some abstract statistics site.

@jerv I know how much it costs to eat out in Australia now. I eat out pretty regularly and travel quite a bit.

Perhaps we should make a decision on cuisine and share some links to menus? You know – Top end restaurants, mid level, steakhouse, pub. Chinese/Indian/Italian… I’m sure there are differences there from city to city or more regional areas. There are here.

Maybe some of the UK jellies would participate?

@jca I argued it. The service was abysmal at best. The waiter spilled water across the whole table and didn’t come back to clean it for 30 minutes. Extremely unattentive to us in general again I believe because of the coupon. It was just an overall horrible experience. I think even after all of that I still would have left a tip since I’ve served before and I know how it is, but just being told YOU NEED TO PAY THIS MUCH, for something that wasn’t worth half that is ridiculous.

I should also add that this supposed $150 course was barely worth the 25. We ended up going to a Middle Eastern place across the street after and had a way better time as well as spent a fraction of the money.

@Bellatrix I’m not a Top-end restaurant sort of guy. I find their stuff tends to go more for exotic ingredients and high prices than flavor. Keep your saffron-infused truffle-oil and your caviar garnish; just give me well-executed food made with simple, quality ingredients. Aside from a fondness for Indian food I’m accustomed to farm-fresh stuff that generally doesn’t need much seasoning, and definitely nothing fancy that quintuples the price while detracting from the flavor.
Most of my Australian eating was mid-level and steakhouse. Good, honest food that was neither pretentious nor factory-made like most chains. That place where I ate breakfast in Perth was great, but the OJ cost as much as the rest of the meal. Places where I ate lunch tended to charge almost as much for soda or beer as for a 12-ounce steak. It was actually cheaper to eat someplace, then go to the pub and wash the food down with rum!

@jerv, I don’t eat in top-end restaurants that often either. I too prefer simple, honest food. I bet you can find their websites and a menu or two though. Just for the purpose of comparison. :-)

@uberbatman So, did they allow you to pay a lower amount? I can see arguing to leave 10%-15% in the case you described. I’m on your side now. 10%-15% of the $150. Some coupons state what the tip is going to be. Did this one?

@uberbatman: @JLeslie makes a good point. You answered my question but didn’t put what the final result was.

@jca & @JLeslie Sorry about that. The coupon didn’t state anything about the tip (I’m generally pretty good at reading the fine print) nor was there any signs in the restaurant about it. In the end the manager ended up getting my fiance and I a drink for the inconvenience and I left $20. Definitely will not be going back to that place ever again though.

this should be question of the day

I think to get rid of “mandatory tipping” meaning “obligatory tipping,” the higher costs of the wait staff’s wages would have to be added to the menu prices, which would mean that people would see a now-mandatory higher price on their food bill, PLUS the service would probably be compromised, as the wait staff would have less of an incentive to give extraordinary service because their salary would no longer depend on it.

I also want to put in that wait staff doesn’t get as royally screwed as everyone seems to think. I know a lot of people who serve and leave work most nights with 100+ for a couple hours of IMO easy work. The cooks in the back are making low wages too but we don’t feel the need to tip them, why is that?

Tips are good at high end steak houses but I doubt the gal at Denny’s gets a whole lot more than minimum wage after tips.

@Judi My sister works at iHop and regularly brings home around 120–150 on a Saturday for 5 hours work.

What about Monday-Thursday?
Or the after church on Sunday crowd?

She said she averages around 70 for those nights. Still quite a bit higher than the minimum wage I make cooking at one of my jobs.
Edit: She said on the REALLY slow nights she’ll usually leave with around 40–45

@uberbatman Yes, you can have some really REALLY good days, and other days you’re lucky to bring home $3.00. Why are you whispering?

Shhh I don’t know.

I know how it fluctuates, I used to serve. My point was, on average you generally end up making a LOT more than jobs that are actually minimum wage jobs.

@uberbatman And they put up with a lot more shit than many people who are in minimum wage jobs. Besides, minimum wage is not really a livable wage. I have no idea why it gets treated like some sort of gold standard. It reminds me of a Chris Rock joke:

“Before I started comedy, I used to work at McDonald’s making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? It’s like, “Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it’s against the law.”

@SavoirFaire Working retail puts up with just as much if not more shit. At least as a server you have minimum contact with clients and can go in the back and curse up a storm about them to vent.

@uberbatman Depending on the store, retail can also offer far more rewarding experiences. My wife has worked both a lot of retail jobs and a lot of food service jobs and she says that food service is definitely worse. Moreover, her coworkers who have worked both sorts of jobs all agree. Maybe your experience has been different. Either way, we’re both just relying on anecdotal evidence. And even if retail is worse, that’s just an argument for paying retail workers more as well. It’s not an argument against tipping.

@SavoirFaire No but my argument is more akin to that of Mr Pink, why do we feel the need to tip some but not others?

@uberbatman ” At least as a server you have minimum contact with clients and can go in the back and curse up a storm about them to vent.”

And, let’s not forget spitting in nasty customers’ food.

Why, oh, why would anybody be rude/cruel/condescending to someone who’s handling food? Payback is sweet, and isn’t it obvious what the outcome will be?

@SadieMartinPaul Yea, never bite the hand that feeds. Thankfully in all my years in a kitchen I’ve never experienced much of that. I wouldn’t stand for it if I did. Now delaying your food coming out for the next hour on the other hand is something I have no qualms with :P

All customer service folks wind up getting abused!

Moral of the story, people=shit lol

@uberbatman Because waitstaff get paid less than minimum wage, and because we live in a society that values the sort of service that waitstaff provides. If you don’t like it, then try to bring about a society in which waitstaff get paid a living wage. But like I said to @flip86, that needs to come before we stop tipping.

@SavoirFaire But it’s not equilateral appreciation. Why don’t we also appreciate the service the person at McDonald’s provides us? They do the same amount of work if not more than your average server. I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t tip people (honestly I feel everyone should work at least one food service job to see the type of shit we have to put up with), I’m rather arguing that the system is down right broken. Something does need to change, am I the one to do it, probably not. So until that happens I’ll tip, but I sure as hell won’t be happy about the whole situation :P

@uberbatman I’m not convinced that McDonald’s workers do the same amount of work as the average server, or at least not at the same level. Regardless, I don’t think we’re really disagreeing. I agree that the system is broken insofar as it doesn’t really provide any of these workers with what they really need.

I don’t see any virtue in being unhappy with tipping in the meantime, however. It just habituates us into feeling bad about generosity, and such bad habits have a nasty tendency of crossing over to other aspects of our lives as well. Thus why I try to be happy about tipping. It accustoms me to good behaviors and good attitudes.

Yes, tipping should be optional not mandatory. But in the US, waiters and waitresses first need to earn more. Perhaps they should organize a country-wide strike for better wages.

I tip crazy well at Denny’s. I love that place. If I’m at the bar i can yell over at the chef when I get a good bite down. “CHEF YOU ROCK !’’

Ok but the cost of the food is covered by what you pay for it….that is what you are paying for. If you want the food and thats it, order it and eat it outside on the curb like I said. But, people who eat at restaurants want more than that, they want waited on and catered to, they want any problem they have resolved, they want questions answered. It is an optional service. If you do not like to tip, please do not expect to be waited on hand and foot!

No…I’m capable of reading a menu on my own. All I need is you to bring the food 10 feet from the kitchen to my table and then deliver the bill when I’m done eating.

I’m actually made really uncomfortable by the idea of people serving me.

I hate sitting near the kitchen. I can do that when at home. In fact sometimes at home I might just eat right at the sink…out of the pan I cooked the food in. But all that is doing is making a turd… totally biological without enjoyment, ok I enjoy it. But the rare times I go out, and put on clothes that don’t look like I found them on the ground somewhere done that too I like it to be better. I’m nice to the waiters and all I want is them to be nice to me. For that one moment in time life is good. Sort of like at the Bunny Ranch.

joking, Joking!

@uberbatman: I’m sure that even though you only want the food served and then the bill brought, you still tip, correct? I hope so.

Many food servers are on the bottom end of the service industry, and they have to deal with not only customers but their employer’s best interest as well. Personally I’m glad that I have the option of being able to leave a tip, though I won’t jump on you about being angry at the expectation of having to leave a tip. The least that could be done by removing the tip incentive is to pay these workers the required minimum wage.

—@uberbatman You’ve never said, “Well, I think I would like a piece of pie,” after you’ve finished your dinner? You never had questions for your waitress?

Do you bus your own table or want a refill on your drink?

“Could I get this to go?”

@jca As someone who has served for a year and cooked for 5+ of course I do. Usually 20% if not a bit more.

@Dutchess_III these are basic skills that IMO don’t require an extra pat on the back for accomplishing them. Do you not do the same thing when you walk into a retail store? Do you tip the person who made your sandwich exactly how you specified when you go to a convenience store?

@Judi Bus, no. But I do organize all the plates in neat little piles so that the server can easily grab everything in one go.

I stress again, retail store workers and convenience store workers are paid at least minimum wage. Waitresses are NOT.

@uberbatman: Ok, I asked because from what you wrote above mine, it seemed as if you were saying you’ve got simple needs and my impression was that you were saying you didn’t need to tip.

@Dutchess_III and I stress again that at the end of the day wait staff walks away with a lot more money than those other jobs. Why do we feel the need to tip based on percentage of total bill? If I ordered a steak vs chicken fingers did the wait person do any more work for the steak?

But not if nobody tips, @uberbatman.

Did I not say above that I tip? I just don’t agree with the whole practice and how we go about it. If i were more of a flat rate like 5 dollar per person thing I could get more behind that as apposed to it being based on a percentage when the wait staff does the same amount of work regardless of what entree I order.

I ignore the percentage/

@uberbatman and @Dutchess_III: Yes, but if the bill is $100, chances are the server had to do more serving than if the bill were $15. So therefore, a percentage of the bill makes sense. To do a flat fee as @uberbatman suggests would mean there would be times the server would be totally busting their ass bringing many dishes for a lesser tip.

There’s also the fact that it’s harder to get a job at more expensive restaurants, and so the waitstaff is supposed to be better. In most industries, more accomplished employees get paid better than less accomplished ones.

@jca All you can eat pancakes at Denny’s. $4.
I eat a lot of fuckin pancakes.

@uberbatman: You got me!

@jca :P I’d also be inclined to say the wait person at places like Dennys have to put up with a lot more bullshit than those in a fancy restaurant. Damn hooligan college kids and such :P

@uberbatman: Yes, true. That’s why, hopefully I never have to wait tables, but if I did I’d prefer to do so in a better restaurant than a crap restaurant.