I hate tipping of any sort and I wish the practice didn’t exist. Don’t get me wrong, I tip at restaurants and bars like everyone else but I don’t like it.
I’ve heard that tipping is a way to make up for a lack of a decent wage for waiters, delivery persons etc who have to work hard. My question is why can’t they get paid a market rate like everyone else? What is different about restaurants and bars? Another reason I’ve heard is that you should tip for good service. My question is, if the person is just doing their job then why do you have to pay extra? Most workers get compensated for doing a good or exceptional job by raises, promotions, bonuses which comes from the employer. I realize this compensation gets passed back to the consumer but I’m ok with that. I’d rather that food prices in restaurants go up 10% to pay for a better wage for workers (if the wages are too low). I also haven’t noticed any correlation between tipping and service – it appears that most waiters expect a tip and their performance is based on other factors.
Million Dollar Journey recently had a discussion on this topic and I was amazed at some of the things people tip for (baggage handlers at the airport? Shouldn’t you get arrested for that?). One of the things that bugs me the most about tipping is why some workers get tips and most don’t? Gates wrotes a rather excellent reply to MDJ’s post here.
It seems that waiters and bartenders, delivery workers are the biggest recipients of tips. But if you tip a bartender for grabbing a beer and removing the cap for you, why don’t you tip the person who works at the beer store who has to go into the back and grab the beer? What about gas stations attendants? What about the postman? Do you give them a tip for making it to your house that day? How about if you get great customer service on the phone? Do you offer to paypal a tip to them? And what about the 10 year old in Asia who spent part of his 12 hour work day on your new running shoes, did anyone tip him? I just can’t understand why some people get tips and others don’t.
In Australia, there are no tips in restaurants and when I was there a few years ago I didn’t notice the service was any worse than it normally is here in Toronto so it can work. The other great thing about Oz is the taxes are included in the menu price so whatever the menu price is, that’s what you pay.
When you go to the dentist/doctor – do you give them a tip? What about their receptionist? If they do a great job why not reward them a little extra. What about your bus/street car driver? What about your co-workers? If one of them gives you a little extra help do you give them a tip?
And what about social situations where you have a group bill and different people want to tip different amounts? I personally think that generally 10% of the gross bill is sufficient but many times I’ve been in the situation where I’m out with some people (usually after hockey) and the bill might be $100 – I think we should leave $10 tip, $15 max (we’re talking very average service here) but some guys want to leave $20, and some guys want to leave $30 or $35? Never mind the fact that the amount they put in doesn’t always correspond to the amount of tip they think we should be leaving. Do I have to put in extra money to make up for the fact that someone else wants to overtip? Do they have to put in extra to make up for my lessor tip?
I read a great story a while ago (can’t remember where unfortunately) where the person went out to lunch with some co-workers, they had individual bills, and one of her co-workers thought she gave too much tip and proceeded to take some of the tip and put it in her own pocket (I call this stealing).
Am I out of line here? Does it not make more sense if tipping didn’t exist and let the work/wage equation sort itself out?
{ 4 trackbacks }
{ 52 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
I was a waitress before and I can safely say, if you want to eat out and not tip, that’s your perogative. I worked hard and treated patrons nicely. Sure, if I didn’t get a tip, I was a bit annoyed but I was still surprised at how well I did for the 3-4 hours I was at work, at it wasn’t at a fancy, uppity restaurant either.
Who defines “supposed to”? I’m “supposed to” get a bonus every year but guess what, last year I didn’t. Does that mean I should stop doing my job? Treat others around me like crap?
I guess I must not be very curteous – I’ve never left my postman a “bonus”, maybe he gets one from his employer, after all, that’s where he / she gets his pay cheque (and significant pension).
sewiv, since I didn’t get my bonus at work last year, I hope the next time you purchase a car, you leave a little envelope for the engineers like me that designed your vehicle. It would be “incredibly ignorant” of you not to.
Zurk – why would a Club Sandwich cost $25 if the “tip” was included in the food price?
It seems to me that if the average tip is 12%, and a restaurant decided to ban tipping – they would increase the price of the food by 12% in order to create the revenue to increase the hourly wages of the wait staff, cooks etc. Since I’m already paying that 12% (or whatever) in tip form now, there would be no difference in total price for the consumer.
Mike
Hi Sewiv – thanks for dropping by!
As for your suggestion of not eating out if I don’t like tipping – I agree! I put up with the tipping if I’m with my wife or a very small group but I can tell you that there would be a lot more group dinners if there wasn’t the stress of figuring out the tips and how much everyone owes. For 30% tip is not unreasonable to get separate bills??
Postpeople (politically correct term) in Canada are unionized to the point where they make a ton of money. I have a friend who in fact “semi retired” from his well paying managerial job ($120k) to become a postman. I don’t know his salary (not $120k) but he says he can finish his route in about 25 hours (per week) but still collect his full time pay. No tip for him!
Hmmm..maybe a rant about postal delivery workers is next in the pipe?? Nahhh..way too dangerous to piss them off
Mike
Great conversation. I already left my opinion on Million Dollar Journey, so I won’t repeat it here.
I just wanted to play devil’s advocate with Mr. Cheap and his surgeon/lawyer comment.
surgeons manage to successfully perform surgery even without the “incentive” of a little kick-back if the patient survives
That kick-back is actually known as a decrease (or lack of increase) in malpractice insurance premiums. Oh, and keeping their license to practice.
Lawyers manage to win cases, even if they’re working on an hourly rate.
Lawyers who lose too many cases do not find themselves lucratively becoming partners in decent firms, nor do they find new clients.
Everyone stands to gain financially from giving above-average service, whatever their position. It’s not a good counter-argument in this case.
That being said… Would good waiters still do better than bad ones financially even without tips? Probably. They’d be more likely to work at better restaurants, which in a no-tip society would have to pay higher wages to keep the best staff, just like other industries do.
Oh, and I so believe that people would complain about the shape of the plates. I’ve never been a server (which you can all be grateful for, by the way), but I have worked retail and I spent one (short-lived) stint as a motel maid. It’s amazing what some people think they’re entitled to just for deigning to breathe in your presence.
If only I’d had a pot of hot coffee in my hand on a few of those occasions…
Fecundity: I appreciate the reply, but the point I was making wasn’t that there’s no financial benefit to doing a good job (obviously there is), but just that most people don’t need an IMMEDIATE financial incentive waved in their face in order to do their work.
I stand by my counter argument
.
Fecundity – I agree with your basic logic that all workers are financially motivated in some way to do a good job regardless of how they get paid ie a waiter will get tips, surgeon keeps his practice and insurance, Telly gets the bonus she so richly deserves but my point (and complaint) is that the financial incentive shouldn’t come directly from the consumer (ie in the form of a tip).
Personally, I find tipping to be insulting and deeming. Since it appears to be the way of things I generally max my tips out a 15% when dining out.
I just don’t understand why the restaurant doesn’t add 15% to the prices of the menu items.
I thought I would leave some insight on why gratuity is automatically added to large groups.
The restaurant where I work automatically adds 20% grat to a party of 20 people or larger (you’re also allowed to do separate checks, by the way, if you specify that on the reservation).
We didn’t always do the auto-grat until we had multiple parties where the server(s) would end up with $10 on a bill of at LEAST $500 in all, with over 30 people.
Not only did this party run the servers ragged, but they made working out the separate checks near impossible (not sitting with who they were sharing a ticket with, moving seats multiple times [you're known by your seat number... we can't memorize what face had what meal], getting up when we were organizing the tickets, etc), and left the biggest mess in the room they had reserved. It took the 2 servers, busser, hostess, and manager an hour just to clean just the tables of that room.
So these servers basically lost money working that party (they had gas & babysitters to pay), not to mention the opportunity cost lost when they weren’t able to have other tables.
So now it’s automatic for a party to get grautity so that when a server (or 2+) only have time for YOUR party, they’re guaranteed a tip, not just the $2.13/hr wage we get in my county. As stated before when it’s one check, that person is sometimes overwhelmed by the full price and hardly leaves anything (even though the party stayed there the full time we were open, got perfect service with servers dedicated just to their party, etc). With seperate checks, they sometimes decide to not look at the bill and assume gratuity’s automatically include, which it wasn’t.
The best part of working private parties is when they pay the gratuity & leave an additional tip. Servers and restaurants make note of that group/company/etc and may next time waive the room deposit, and continue to give you the best service possible. We will bend over backwards for you if we know you’re going to appreciate it.
J-Tex – thanks for the interesting comment.
I think your story lends credence to my argument that waiters would be better off as well if the tip was included into the food price and they got a better wage. That way the problems you mentioned (except the cleanup) couldn’t happen.
Mike
Only tip pizza delivery guys. And why not tip McDonalds workers? They work MUCH harder/longer than any waiter I’ve ever met.
jim: I used to work at McD’s (in high school) and we were forbidden to take tips (that’s what the donation jars are for I guess). If a customer insisted, we were supposed to give it to a manager (who I suspect would have put it in their own pocket).
I never worked counter, so I didn’t get a tip, but unless the policy has changed they won’t accept tips.
OK guys;
I brought up the McTip in my post (thanks for the link FP), it’s not allowed.
I personally agree with the “flat rate” for waitresses, but we’re definitely missing something here as evidenced by Sewiv’s comments about the postman. Here, in Canada, all mail carriers are government employees as Canada Post is a crown corporation. You don’t tip government employees b/c (a) you’re already paying them and (b) it’s not really legal, when dealing with government representatives, everything errs on being a bribe.
However waitressing in the US vs. Canada is also a completely different story (again mentioned in the post). In the US, in many states wait staff make half minimum wage (i.e. $2.31 /hour), in Canada, wait staff make minimum wage (i.e. $7-9/hour based on province).
The completely “tips” the scale (:)). I personally feel wait staff should be making about $15/hour for what they do, and honestly feel that cooking staff should be making much more (say $17-20) based on training requirements. So I’m going to tip commensurate with that belief.
Obviously, the huge disparity in base wages means that these percentages will be wildly different between the US & Canada. It’s also worth noting that food costs tend to be significantly higher here in Canada as are taxes (many provinces charge 7 or 8% tax + a federal 6%).
So to put that into perspective for our southern fellows. A $10 plate (average cost of a meat & potatoes dish @ Denny’s, Perkin’s chain-style restaurant), we’re already paying $11.30. Add in a US-style 20% tip and you’re now at $13.30. Take out a family for dinner and your $60 menu orders become a $78 final tab and you’ve just paid your waitress $12 ($9 after tip out) or the equivalent of $18 (assuming a 1 long meal) to take your order, carry your food and refill your drinks!
And that’s just for your table!
Your waitress probably tackled 4-5 tables that hour! Now you see why I don’t mind just leaving them $6, especially if I wasn’t causing any trouble.
Again, these rules are completely different in US, so it’s definitely not worth comparing. Each of your plates probably cost $1 or $2 less b/c they aren’t paying the waitress anywhere near as much.
← Previous Comments