Tipping in the U.S. . - Page 3

[jwenting]

I was in a restaurant a week ago (in Avon, England) and had 10% option gratuity added to the bill. How the hell is it optional - they added the bloody thing to the bill. Am I now going to make a fuss and put a damper on the evening by asking them to take it off? It's my money, I decide if I want to tip, bloody cheek.

If I see a line item like that on a bill I don't ASK to have it taken off, I take a pen and strike it out, calculate a new total without the item, and pay that.
The restaurant (only place I've ever seen in) can also forget about me leaving a tip on the table (though I might give something to the waiter who helped me directly).

And no, I'm no cheapskate.
If warranted, I'll tip anyone whose service I enjoyed individually resulting in a total tip far higher than the "required amount".
But I won't be bullied into tipping any set percentage or amount determined by someone else, instead always letting the service provided determine what if anything the person gets.
Last Christmas, we tipped the musician in the restaurant €10 (in addition to something like €50+ for the waiters and cooks). Guy was astounded to get anything at all, NOONE in 2 days had thought of doing that (and I doubt he'd get anything from the communal pot of tip money as he was not an employee of the restaurant).

[WaltP]

My Ghod, you have no idea what you are talking about! Do you honestly think restaurants are breaking the law? Are the people that uphold the law that daft? Sorry, you've just proven my point -- you have no idea what you're talking about and have no idea how the service industry works. Research what you don't understand and learn something new.

Next thing you're going to tell us is that gets() is a good function because after all, K&R wrote it!

:icon_rolleyes:

[jwenting]

If they're not breaking the law, there's something seriously flawed with the law that allows them to pay below the minimum wages set down in that law.
Still no reason for me to award someone for services not delivered, which is exactly the current situation.
You get to pay excessive "voluntary mandatory" "tips" and get nothing in return except a scowl.

It just strikes me as strange that an industry can pay their workers below minimum wage. After all, these people aren't self-employed. They are employees and should be paid min hourly wage or above, surely? The fact that these employees are depending on charity for the shortfall in their meagre wages is immoral. I'm sure many waiting staff, etc. would rather the current system as perhaps they earn far above the min wage when tips are included and taxes deducted, but this isn't necessarily true for all. What a ridiculous, arcane system.

[WaltP]

Yep. http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm. They're breaking the law.

As I said, research. Learn and understand something out of your sphere of knowledge. There's more out there beyond your world of understanding.

Yep. http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm. They're breaking the law.

As I said, research. Learn and understand something out of your sphere of knowledge. There's more out there beyond your world of understanding.

I was just replying to comments posted. No need to be a d*ck. But in reply to the link (thanks for that), if employers have to make up the difference anyway, why can't everybody stop tipping and make sure that they pay their staff properly? Like I said, ridiculous system.

//EDIT
It works like this does it? Tip more, employer pays less. So effectively, you're putting money in the employer's pocket.

[BestJewSinceJC]

I was just replying to comments posted. No need to be a d*ck. But in reply to the link (thanks for that), if employers have to make up the difference anyway, why can't everybody stop tipping and make sure that they pay their staff properly? Like I said, ridiculous system.

I think he was only responding to jwenting, he just has impeccably horrible timing.

I think he was only responding to jwenting, he just has impeccably horrible timing.

Ah, I apologise. Well, I should apologise anyway, not the nicest way to reply. (munch ... munch ... eating humble pie)

[VernonDozier]

Self respect and work ethic: two completely reasonable incentives for good service regardless of where you work and what you do.

What a WONDERFUL idea! How about just doing a good job simply because it IS your job and you take pride in doing a good job, whether you're performing neurosurgery or you're the guy who gets paid to paint over the graffiti that the bad kids spray-painted in the classroom in that other thread. I'm not seeing the difference between the guy who serves me well at the hardware store (you can either walk me to the paint section or grunt in that direction) and the guy who serves me well at the restaurant. As Ancient Dragon pointed out, you're not even ALLOWED to tip the guy at Walmart who goes out of his way to find something for you or loads your TV into your car.

[VernonDozier]

It works like this does it? Tip more, employer pays less. So effectively, you're putting money in the employer's pocket.

ardav, you've hit the nail on the head. The biggest guilt trippers I've ever met in these conversations are the restaurant owners themselves. They spend five minutes explaining the facts of life to me:

1. My waitresses are among the hardest working people out there.
2. They get paid hardly anything.
3. They're single mothers and there's no way they could get by with their wages.
4. Hence if I don't tip them well, I'm a cheap bastard who is literally stealing from the mouth of babes.
5. Inevitably that's when things get ad-hominem and the restaurant owner compares how hard I work to how hard his waitresses work and I come up severely lacking. Somewhere in there it's usually pointed out that I have a "fat ass" and I need to take it down to Safeway and buy some food and cook it myself if I ever even consider tipping less than 15%.

Things to note:

1. Pronouns and passive versus active tense. See item 2. It's not "I pay them hardly anything."
2. Pronouns again in point 4. He's not ripping them off. I am.
3. Complete lack of any sense of irony and self-awareness. Reminds me of that mine owner in Utah after the big cave-in who always talked about how dangerous coal mining was and how under-appreciated and under-paid his miners were.

[Lardmeister]

If the cook spits into the food and the waitress puts her finger into the soup, I usually pay only a 5% tip.

[jwenting]

If the cook spits into the food and the waitress puts her finger into the soup, I usually pay only a 5% tip.

if they do that I pay nothing at all, except the seconds for a phone call to the police.
They'd be doing something that looses them their business license, and I'd have no qualms helping them loose it.

[jwenting]

If the cook spits into the food and the waitress puts her finger into the soup, I usually pay only a 5% tip.

if they do that I pay nothing at all, except the seconds for a phone call to the police.
They'd be doing something that looses them their business license, and I'd have no qualms helping them loose it.

[Lardmeister]

if they do that I pay nothing at all, except the seconds for a phone call to the police.
They'd be doing something that looses them their business license, and I'd have no qualms helping them loose it.

There is loose and there is tight.

[jephthah]

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[jephthah]

companion thread needs reference

[vegaseat]

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[vegaseat]

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Could end up in Morse code!

or:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 16777216 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 4864 bytes) in /home/daniweb/httpdocs/forums/includes/class_bbcode.php(172) : eval()'d code on line 1

[vegaseat]

What do you tip if the food is good, but the waiter has a pronounced body odor?

[jwenting]

I tip based on the overall package, not any particular component of it.
If the food were great but the delivery terrible I might ask to see the cook and tip him in person, so he gets some recognition while those who don't pull their weight get nothing.

[avatar103]

Tipping should only be paid on the level of service. The US shoud move to the european way of eating out etc. If me lunch sucked but my serice was excellant then I would pay for service. If my food was the best i ever had but the service was poor then I would leave nothing.