Day 15, Tipping (not a city in China)
Aug. 15th, 2010 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparrLet's talk about tipping food service wait staff professionals. These are people you would typically call "waiter" or "waitress". I am going to systematically address every argument I have heard in favor of commonly advocated American tipping practices.
Before I start, I need to tell you that I give my waitress a larger tip than her average, on average. I tip more than most people in my party, most of the time. I am not a cheapskate. *I* am not the problem.
First, let's address the concept of exaggerated tipping "standards". Regardless of how you care to calculate your tip, people who advocate consistent tipping of almost any sort tend to suggest amounts that are higher than average. Ask your closest waiter friend how much they make in tips from an average customer. You can safely assume that almost anyone who tries to tell you how to tip will tell you to tip more than that. They are trying to make you, a possibly rational, likely generous, potential tipper, subsidize everyone else who tips poorly or not at all. My leanings toward socialism notwithstanding, I refuse to accept that I should subsidize another person's poor tipping. Anyone who says you should tip 20% is perpetuating this particular problem, since you can easily work out, or just poll your friends to find out, that most servers get an average tip closer to 10%. I am disinclined to listen to the arguments of people who do this, because they are starting out with a dishonest principle.
Next, I have to establish that I tip for service. My bellboy gets a tip based on how carefully and quickly he delivers my luggage to my room. My masseuse gets a tip based on how good the massage was. My pizza delivery guy gets a tip based on how well he follows my special instructions and whether he set the boxes on their sides or crushed them. And my waitress gets a tip based on how well she remembers my order, how often she lets my drink sit empty in the middle of my meal, how personable she is, and other factors related to how well she does her job (you know, that metric that dictates how much people get paid in a healthy free market).
A good waitress at Waffle House deserves a bigger tip than a bad waiter at Maggiano's. Tipping more or less is how you, as a customer, exert influence over the long term quality of service. Servers who get bigger tips will be encouraged to seek out more difficult tasks (hosting larger parties, etc). Servers who get smaller tips will be encouraged to improve or seek another line of work. If you give more money to worse servers, you are providing the wrong sort of feedback, and you are the reason the rest of us keep getting shitty service at expensive[1] restaurants!
Next, I send a big "fuck that noise" to percentage-based tipping. If you say a waiter analyzes his income based on percentages, I call shenanigans. For the same amount of work, a person who brings home $200 one day and $100 the next is going to make the obvious conclusion about which day was "better". If you think they will be happier on the $100 day because they got higher-percentage tips that day (despite getting a lot less of them) then I think you're deluded, and would be happy to take that extra $100 from the first day off your hands.
If you think that I should tip a certain way because "that's just the way it is", let me debunk that on as many levels as I can. First, "American style" tipping is specific to our country and a select few others. The vast majority of people in the world today don't use a percentage tipping system, or even "mandatory" (read: expected) tipping at all. Second, our system is relatively new. People who are alive today can remember when there was nothing like "the 15% rule" (or is it 18% or 20% these days? that's an even newer revision). If this isn't how we tipped 50 years ago, it's probably not how we will be tipping 50 years from now, and I enjoy being ahead of the curve. Third, I refuse to do ANYTHING just because it's how "everyone" else does it. Something something jump off a bridge something something? Fourth, not even everyone in America does it that way. I'm an obvious example of that, but the better example is everyone who doesn't tip, or who tips based on breast size or monetary need (bigger tips for the waitress with 4 kids to feed).
Now, many arguments can be made that the subjective level of service you receive at a more expensive restaurant is greater. As a whole, and based on thousands of experiences, I reject that notion based on my previous definition of "service". I do not typically see any better service in expensive restaurants than elsewhere. Ignoring that, I explicitly state that I neither want nor need the additional bits that make up that higher level of service. I do not need a waiter with a degree in food service. I do not need a waiter who is trained to suggest wines, or discuss culinary history with me. If I need those things, I will seek out the service of someone whose job title is not a synonym for "person who takes my order and brings me food and drink".
Another issue is that some wait staff are required to perform non-tip-generating duties. They may have to fold napkins, roll silverware, prep menus, or even do random bits of labor. That this is allowed to take place is a flaw in the design of our minimum wage statute[2], which you are welcome to address your thoughts on to your local legislator.
In closing, and to repeat myself, I need to tell you that I give my waitress a larger tip than her average, on average. I tip more than most people in my party, most of the time. I am not a cheapskate. *I* am not the problem. Despite having included this paragraph TWICE, at both ends of this post, I expect some replies will STILL call me cheap or insinuate that I do not tip well or often or enough.
[1] For the sake of this post, I am discussing the typical range of restaurant prices encountered by my friends (particularly of the LJ variety) on a regular basis. "cheap" is somewhere around $4 entrees and $6 meals, at places like Waffle House or Denny's. "expensive" is $20 entrees and $30+ meals, at places like Maggiano's and Ruth's Chris.
[2] Georgia has, afaik, the lowest state minimum wage in the country. It is one of a handful of states that do not improve on the federal laws in this regard. Almost every server in the country is earning more than $2.13 as their base wage.
Before I start, I need to tell you that I give my waitress a larger tip than her average, on average. I tip more than most people in my party, most of the time. I am not a cheapskate. *I* am not the problem.
First, let's address the concept of exaggerated tipping "standards". Regardless of how you care to calculate your tip, people who advocate consistent tipping of almost any sort tend to suggest amounts that are higher than average. Ask your closest waiter friend how much they make in tips from an average customer. You can safely assume that almost anyone who tries to tell you how to tip will tell you to tip more than that. They are trying to make you, a possibly rational, likely generous, potential tipper, subsidize everyone else who tips poorly or not at all. My leanings toward socialism notwithstanding, I refuse to accept that I should subsidize another person's poor tipping. Anyone who says you should tip 20% is perpetuating this particular problem, since you can easily work out, or just poll your friends to find out, that most servers get an average tip closer to 10%. I am disinclined to listen to the arguments of people who do this, because they are starting out with a dishonest principle.
Next, I have to establish that I tip for service. My bellboy gets a tip based on how carefully and quickly he delivers my luggage to my room. My masseuse gets a tip based on how good the massage was. My pizza delivery guy gets a tip based on how well he follows my special instructions and whether he set the boxes on their sides or crushed them. And my waitress gets a tip based on how well she remembers my order, how often she lets my drink sit empty in the middle of my meal, how personable she is, and other factors related to how well she does her job (you know, that metric that dictates how much people get paid in a healthy free market).
A good waitress at Waffle House deserves a bigger tip than a bad waiter at Maggiano's. Tipping more or less is how you, as a customer, exert influence over the long term quality of service. Servers who get bigger tips will be encouraged to seek out more difficult tasks (hosting larger parties, etc). Servers who get smaller tips will be encouraged to improve or seek another line of work. If you give more money to worse servers, you are providing the wrong sort of feedback, and you are the reason the rest of us keep getting shitty service at expensive[1] restaurants!
Next, I send a big "fuck that noise" to percentage-based tipping. If you say a waiter analyzes his income based on percentages, I call shenanigans. For the same amount of work, a person who brings home $200 one day and $100 the next is going to make the obvious conclusion about which day was "better". If you think they will be happier on the $100 day because they got higher-percentage tips that day (despite getting a lot less of them) then I think you're deluded, and would be happy to take that extra $100 from the first day off your hands.
If you think that I should tip a certain way because "that's just the way it is", let me debunk that on as many levels as I can. First, "American style" tipping is specific to our country and a select few others. The vast majority of people in the world today don't use a percentage tipping system, or even "mandatory" (read: expected) tipping at all. Second, our system is relatively new. People who are alive today can remember when there was nothing like "the 15% rule" (or is it 18% or 20% these days? that's an even newer revision). If this isn't how we tipped 50 years ago, it's probably not how we will be tipping 50 years from now, and I enjoy being ahead of the curve. Third, I refuse to do ANYTHING just because it's how "everyone" else does it. Something something jump off a bridge something something? Fourth, not even everyone in America does it that way. I'm an obvious example of that, but the better example is everyone who doesn't tip, or who tips based on breast size or monetary need (bigger tips for the waitress with 4 kids to feed).
Now, many arguments can be made that the subjective level of service you receive at a more expensive restaurant is greater. As a whole, and based on thousands of experiences, I reject that notion based on my previous definition of "service". I do not typically see any better service in expensive restaurants than elsewhere. Ignoring that, I explicitly state that I neither want nor need the additional bits that make up that higher level of service. I do not need a waiter with a degree in food service. I do not need a waiter who is trained to suggest wines, or discuss culinary history with me. If I need those things, I will seek out the service of someone whose job title is not a synonym for "person who takes my order and brings me food and drink".
Another issue is that some wait staff are required to perform non-tip-generating duties. They may have to fold napkins, roll silverware, prep menus, or even do random bits of labor. That this is allowed to take place is a flaw in the design of our minimum wage statute[2], which you are welcome to address your thoughts on to your local legislator.
In closing, and to repeat myself, I need to tell you that I give my waitress a larger tip than her average, on average. I tip more than most people in my party, most of the time. I am not a cheapskate. *I* am not the problem. Despite having included this paragraph TWICE, at both ends of this post, I expect some replies will STILL call me cheap or insinuate that I do not tip well or often or enough.
[1] For the sake of this post, I am discussing the typical range of restaurant prices encountered by my friends (particularly of the LJ variety) on a regular basis. "cheap" is somewhere around $4 entrees and $6 meals, at places like Waffle House or Denny's. "expensive" is $20 entrees and $30+ meals, at places like Maggiano's and Ruth's Chris.
[2] Georgia has, afaik, the lowest state minimum wage in the country. It is one of a handful of states that do not improve on the federal laws in this regard. Almost every server in the country is earning more than $2.13 as their base wage.
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 04:45 am (UTC)Likewise, the *house* wants that person to get their sales up, and encourages licensing, knowledge, etc...getting more money is the point of the transaction on the other side.
Now, if *nothing* extra that the house or waiter does is going to change the way you tip a whit, then they don't need to concern themselves with you. Even if you tip less (and I'm not saying you do) because you resent that the waiter is trained in food, tastes, and wine, and you didn't 'need' that, the cumulative effect of this is they get $1 or $2 less from you. Compare that to what a waiter who really hustles and upsells can do with all the other customers.
Conversely, a waiter who works on upselling, who trains outside of work in wine, who pays attention to food and external media is likelier to be a better waiter. Perhaps not for you.
The waiter isn't there to save you money; they in fact want exactly the opposite thing. It's a badly paying job that rewards sales; a tip, in a lot of ways, to a waiter, is more like a commission. Regardless what you value in a waiter, what gets rewarded is managing to get return customers who tip well. That's the actual job of a waiter.
When you don't return, all you're doing is freeing the table and their time for the guy who orders two bottles of riesling and tips 20%, even when the waiter is short. From a house perspective, they are simply a better customer, worth keeping, than you.
Is that fair? Maybe not, on your half of the equation. But that's where the real capitalism lies.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 05:02 am (UTC)