Day 15, Tipping (not a city in China)

[sparr]

Let'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.

Comments

[saxshooter.livejournal.com]

I tip exactly the same on either of those bills. On a salad or a steak, I am going to give the same tip for the same quality and level of service.

I'm not sure what you tip, but do keep in mind tipping $6 on a $30 bill is not equal to $6 on say a $100 bill. Former case being a good tip, the ladder being a poor one. Almost all restaurants make servers tip out. Some of those tip outs are based on a percentage of there sales. The server tips out that percentage no matter what tips they received.

Plus higher bills do tend to equal more work.

This is just another reason why following the standard for tipping is the most fair way of showing your appreciation or dissatisfaction with your service.

My grandmother use to think it was OK to leave a dollar no matter what the bill. If someone left me a dollar I would end up paying to serve them after tip out.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

While I sympathize with the predicament of some servers in this situation, there is no way that I can know how bad your [pseudo]contract is.

See original post for rebuttal of "following the standard for tipping is the most fair way". The system you promote is neither fair nor standard.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Okay, what I'm seeing in this (these) conversations is either one person arguing theory and the other interpreting it as a suggestion as to how everybody should act (and being incorrect that this is the intent) or one person discussing the real consequences of a given strategy and the other person insisting that current reality has no business intruding on his Wa.


Your tipping algorithm, in a perfect world where perhaps everybody or a majority of people tip that way, might encourage the behavior you're trying to encourage. In the current world, servers get /taxed/ on an 18% assumption re cash. Or they pool their tips. Or they "tip out", whatever that is, which likely assumes an average amount.

In this case the Waffle House lady getting $10 on a $10 bill will likely be happy and grateful, but unless you include a note explaining your algorithm the $10 on a $100 bill for average service at Hard Rock will be interpreted as either "what did I do wrong?" or "that cheap schmuck.'

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

I agree that there has been mis-application of arguments. Some of the replies in this thread go off-topic.

Please be more precise, your "current world" is "current United States". I know, many folks tend to have tunnel vision on this issue, but realize that my tipping strategy is both common and welcome in a LOT of places.

Servers get taxed on what they report and/or what their employer records. In my experience, almost all of them under-report, but that's a different issue for a different day. If you are getting taxed on 18% despite getting less than 18%[1], one of is confused about what you mean by "get taxed on", and someone (who probably isn't you) is breaking the law.

[1] 18% is a hell of a good average tipping rate, more than anyone I know gets.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Please be more precise, your "current world" is "current United States". I know, many folks tend to have tunnel vision on this issue, but realize that my tipping strategy is both common and welcome in a LOT of places.

My apologies. I made the assumption that you spend most of your time in the United States. Based on some of your other posts that had seemed the case - I didn't realize that much of your con circuit is abroad.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Well, I was oversimplifying... In a lot of the US waiters make $6/hr or $8/hr or more as their base salary (minimum wage) and tipping isn't nearly as socially-mandatory. I travel to those places a lot. I travel abroad not at all, but that has no bearing on the validity of the point.

[saxshooter.livejournal.com]

It's just the way it is. If you don't want to tip what is acceptable, don't go out to eat. Or expect any place you go and don't tip appropriately to treat you accordingly.

These standards are not there to subsidize poor tipping. If I were to ask you to do that I would say tip 25%-30% of the bill. 10% is not an acceptable tip for good service when dining out. It tells the sever they didn't do a good job or that you are cheap. Any server making an average of 10% is either working at the wrong place with cheap ass clientèle, or not a good server in the slightest.

I can tell you right now your example of the $200 vs $100 is not accurate. If it's a slow day, that does suck, but you know you'll make it up later in the week ect, that is one of the positives in the industry. Also, you and you boss will know you still did a good job if your tip percentage is high. Higher tips mean more customers satisfied meaning better shifts and sections for the server.

If someone made $100 making 10% tips, they have done twice the amount of work someone who made $100 making 20% tips. Could it be the 10% server sucks? Sure...or it could have been a bunch of people who A: don't understand what it is to work in the food service industry, or B: just a bunch of ass holes all day.

You are full aware of what servers make an hour. That is eaten up in taxes or insurance if the establishment provides those benefits. They live off of the tips. It's nowhere near the same as tossing a bellhop a couple dollars for taking care of you bags. Plus the bellhop doesn't have to deal with you for 30min -2hrs and gets a higher hourly rate.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

If you don't want to work for the tips you get, don't take a tip-based job. Or expect anyone to tip you according to how you treat and serve them.

The standard is obviously there to subsidize poor tipping. Does a server make 18%? If so, they make a lot more than any servers I know. If not, then suggesting an 18% tip is encouraging subsidy, since you are doing so knowing that someone else is going to tip less than the average.

I am not referring to a slow day. I am referring to the cost of meals. If you serve vegetarians all day, your %-based tips are going to be lower for the same amount of work and same level of service, and that's not fair to you. You, and others, keep confusing "higher tips" with "higher percentage tips". If one waiter makes $200/day and another makes $100/day, it doesn't matter what the %s are, the one making $200/day is going to have more money.

Or C: tipped for service, and the waiters level of service is not equivalent to how good his boss thinks he is as a waiter (see elsewhere in thread for alternate definitions of the quality of a waiter, including ability to upsell). Or D: only served vegetarians.

A bellhop makes the same $2.13/hr that a waiter makes. He has the same taxes and benefit costs deducted from his tips. He has to tip out to the lead bellhop, the guy who waves down taxis, and potentially the valet and concierge. His situation is effectively identical to a waiter, except he has far less time to do his job well or poorly and make a good or bad impression. Making inaccurate statements such as two of the three in your last paragraph detracts credibility from the rest of your arguments.

[saxshooter.livejournal.com]

I know plenty of servers who make more than 10%. As I said before, I averaged 15%-18% daily in tips from my total sales. So did most of my coworkers. Asking someone to tip that is asking for someone to tip average. Not an unfair request if you ask me. You obviously do not know good servers. They should find another job if they cannot average more than 10% tips.

I was unaware a bellhop made the same hourly rate a server did. This doesn't negate my other points. Just the one on the bellhop making more an hour if this is true. The bellhop comes into contact with more people with more chances to receive tips. They have less time to make an impression, sure, but they don't spend 30min to 2 hrs waiting on your party and surly are not expected to memorize a menu nor wine list.

You obviously do not see how giving the same tip on a $30 check as a $100 screws over server. Nor do you seem to care. Hopefully you stick to low end places where if you give a few bucks it's still a decent tip. You have never said what YOUR standard is! Is it 2 bucks for crappy service? 5 for good? 8 for great? Even at that if you bill is over $30/$40 your tip is poor to average. Maybe if you gave example of how you tip people would lay off you. You are lucky that not everyone feels the same way about tipping or every decent server would go find another job and leave your dining experience to the people who "can't read there own writing".

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

As stated elsewhere in the comment tree, I tip on a scale based on the quality and level of service that I receive. The range is somewhere around $0-5, and maps pretty linearly to the potential range of service. This means I am a 50-100% tipper for great service at Waffle House, a 10-25% tipper for average service at Hard Rock, and a 0% tipper for abysmal service anywhere.

[saxshooter.livejournal.com]

Do you double it when you pay for someone else? Or are you always only paying for yourself?

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do. And I increase it when we spend a lot of extra time sitting there not ordering anything, but I don't really have any numeric rules for that part (yet).

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

On your average day, if you deal with 100 customers and they have $10 meals, and you average 18%, you should be bringing home $180 per day. I don't know any [other] servers who manage that on an average day, and I think 100 customers is a reasonable estimate and $10 is very conservative at most restaurants these days.

[saxshooter.livejournal.com]

LOL...

You are not going to serve 100 customers unless you work a double with no break on a busy day. Then actually you would make about $150-$250.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

For 4-6 hours almost every evening there is a line out the door at the Vortex in L5P[1]. For those hours, every table is full as often as they can be cleared. One server working three 4-tops that have 90-minute meals is going to serve 48 people during that short shift.

I have never taken a large party (8-12 people) to that Vortex and not had our server ALSO serving at least one other table, so the seats-per-server is actually closer to 18 than to 12, and that pushes the total of 48 up to 72, and that's still on what amounts to a short shift.

Is 90 minutes an unrealistic estimate for the average meal length?

[1] This is the most average-priced restaurant that I frequent, entrees from $8-15 in general. Better or more data points are welcome, although my experience at Highlander and Hard Rock and Savage Pizza and Mellow Mushroom closely follows these numbers.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

The bellhop comes into contact with more people, and is tipped proportionally less on average. A bellhop spends 3-5 minutes on me, a server spends 15-20 minutes[1]. A bellhop gets a $0-2 tip, a server gets a $0-5 tip.

[1] A server who can handle three 4-tops who sit for two hours is only spending about 10 minutes on each customer, so my 15-20 is a very generous estimate.

[saxshooter.livejournal.com]

They might not actively be interacting with you...but they are watching your table and checking your food among other things. Not to mention. You are taking up space that no other customer take while you're there.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Sorry, let me restate... The total of all of the time that the server spends on me, including interacting, watching, turning in my order, carrying my food, resetting my table, etc is 15-20 minutes. I thought my explanation in the footnote would make that clear.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

How is a server at all screwed over by me giving them the same tip for the same amount of time and work? If you fall back to the tip-out argument, I'll once again reply that this was a bad decision on their part, and is not even close to universal (some servers apparently tip out over 50%, while others tip out 10-20%, or nothing at all, and I have no way to know that).

Also, however much you say I am screwing them over, they are at least that much screwed over by someone who doesn't order an expensive meal. Are you going to bitch at someone for wasting your time by ordering a salad, or water instead of liquor, if you expect a % tip from them?

What the server-expectation argument boils down to is this question:
Would you rather have me tip you $5 on my $30 meal and $5 on my $10 meal (which is how I currently tip for great service), or $6 on my $30 meal and $2 on my $10 meal (which is a 20% tip)?

[saxshooter.livejournal.com]

Saying it's not your fault if servers have to tip out is a cop out. No it's not universal, but the places that do have high tip out, that server may very well end up PAYING for serving YOU.

When you tip out on sales, you don't get screwed over by the tip on a lower check if it's an adequate tip for the total bill. You just don't have as high of sales that day and don't make as much, but you're not screwed over.

As I've stated before...when you get great service tip more! Why not give 6 on that $30...or 5 on that $10 anyway. The guidelines are a minimum...it doesn't say you can't tip more. What if you bill is $50...you still going to give $5? That is not a good tip at all no matter how you look at it.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

$5(.51) for 15 minutes work is a quite respectable wage.

If waiters have to tip out, that should be announced to the customer. If you want me to tip enough to cover tip-out, then I need to know how much that is. I am not going to give every waiter an extra 50% just because SOME waiters have to tip out that much.

[saxshooter.livejournal.com]

Most of the time your tables are varied enough you do not get stuck only serving vegetarians or non-drinkers ect. So that argument is pretty irrelevant. How well you do depends on how busy it is and what section you have.

I brought these things up because they factor in how much a server makes. The happier you make your employer, the better sections you get. The better sections tend to make more money. As in total sales. The more you sell, the more chance you have of getting "higher tips" not to be confused by "higher percentage", though those go hand in hand in a lot of cases.