Leave a tip or stay home!

[tricolordad]

I recently went out to eat at an establishment, it was reasonably priced, had quality food and a diligent wait staff. I went to college for Hotel/Restaurant Management so I know how difficult the jobs are. Food service is typically the lowest paid job with the highest number of hours worked per employee.

People don't tip and management is supposed to make it legal. Most do not. In Wisconsin, minimum wage for a tipped position is $2.33 an hour. Servers typically work full time. In addition to that, most people will leave $1 for a $35 bill, which is not enough. On average, people in Wisconsin leave something like $1.50. Let's say that said server has 3 tables an hour. If the average dinner bill is $35 for the dinner rush and $25 for the lunch hour. On an 8 hour shift, the server made $2.33x8 which makes $18.64 BEFORE TAX. 3 tables an hour, puts it at $2.40 in tips per hour. The poor server only made $4.73 per hour for the lunch rush. Add in the 4 hours of dinner rush and the hourly rate jumps to $4.90 an hour. But there's another problem with that. Freqently, another employee, such as the hostess at Applebees, will rush in and clear the table and pocket the tip while your server is clearing the first table. Those tips simply "disappear." Also, up to half of you cheapos don't leave tips at all. You look for the slightest reason to not tip. Let's say Amber breaks eye contact has a grumpy look on her face. Maybe she just watched someone not leave a tip, maybe somebody just STOLE her tip, maybe her kid is sick and she was supposed to be off work 45 minutes ago and was told "stay or your're fired." Happens all the time.

Now let's take the servers wages, $4.73x4 + $4.90x4 =$38.52 minus 14% tax. You can damn well bet that management keeps tabs on the tips, even the ones they steal.

I ate at 3:30 yesterday. My bill was $38 something. I left a $6 tip. On the way out, I noticed my waitress with the hood of her car up. I was returning to I-94 a few hours later to head home and saw the waitress' car still there and that she was in the front seat. I turned around to help, turns out she was supposed to be off an hour before I arrived, was told to stay and didn't make enough to maintain her car and support her kid by herself and her engine seized due to a bad oil pump. I gave her $50 and took her home, she cried the whole way. She also told me that I was one of 3 people to leave her a tip and that she lost it all to taxes.

You walked in there with a gun on your hip. Guns aren't cheap, neither is the self defense ammo you load it with. Leave a damn tip. What if that was you? Your mother? Your wife? Your daughter?

 

[jdsonice]

I would agree. Even though I have never worked in a restaurant, the job is hard and most of us are demanding. So if you get good service I say leave 15 to 20%. I generally double the sales tax and add $2 for tip.

 

[Icemanii]

I always tip, but the amount depends on the server/service. If it is minimal, then I tip around 15%. If it is good, I make sure they are compensated accordingly.

Never worked in the industry but do know they work for crap wages.

 

[DLeeHarley]

Tricolordad this is one of your best Posts! I was raised by my Grandmother and she was a waitress most all of her life, and you are correct as they get $crewed by coworkers, people who don't tip, either enough or anything, their Gov't. by taxing and their employers by low pay. They work their A$$e$ off and most are very good at their jobs and nice to their patrons. I always leave at least 20% if not more. Thanks Tricolordad for bringing this to the forefront.

 

[tricolordad]

Not only do the wages suck, but you develop back and neck problems as a result of years of backbreaking work. The sad thing is, this girl lost her car. Had her engine not seized, I would have bought her the pump and installed it. I cant do anything about it now. This will probably cost her the job.

 

[Ronsmag]

You forgot to mention that the waitress has to tip the busboy and the hostess and the bartender I always tip 20% unless the service was really bad then 15% never less everyone has a bad day once in awhile they still have to make a living if you can't afford to tip 20% you shouldn't be eating out. You can bet your ass if there was no tipping and the resturant had to pay a fair wage that meal would cost you 40% more and then we wouldn't be able to afford to eat out

 

[BC1]

I always tip 20% of the bill. Servers depend on tips for their salary.

 

[exnavydiver]

Having worked as a chef in northern Wisconsin for 5 yrs I know well the cheap turds that leave squat for tips, I have NEVER left less than 20%. I know well the difficulty of the job and the sad conditions most wait staffers have to deal with. Where I worked we had a bar tender who made loads of tips, her mother started as a hostess then went on to tend bar. She was useless as a bartender and should have been fired but she bitched to the owner and demanded 10% of the wait staff tips and the owner made it a fact. The next week she lost her entire wait staff after one girl said she would not give up 10% of her tips for an angry cow that pissed off customers all the time. The owner told her she either split her tips or looked for another job, the waitress walked out to another BETTER job and the rest of the staff left with her. So wait staffers don't only have to deal with cheap customers but also useless bar staffers also..

 

[Andrew49417]

I always leave a minimum of $3. Even if my total bill is only $5. Otherwise it is 15 to 20%, rounded up to the nearest $5. A couple extra bucks never hurt me much.

Example: if my bill was $31. Normal tip would be $4.50. That makes the total bill $35.50. Hell, why not leave $40 and make someone's day better? I can afford to drop $5 extra if I can afford to eat out anyway, right?

 

[Rich M]

I remember the jar of coins mom had in the closet, a small wad of ones. It was all we had to depend on.

Tricolordad, I commend you sir.

 

[tricolordad]

I remember the jar of coins mom had in the closet, a small wad of ones. It was all we had to depend on.

Tricolordad, I commend you sir.

When I was in high school, I worked as a busboy in Manhattan at a Japanese bistro and pushed a hot dog cart on the weekends. A few lazy aholes that worked at Merryl Lynch would come in and drop over $100 and get drunk with their buddies and never even have more than a handful of nickels and pennies for me. I had to trade my day's tips (around $5) and front some food to a few thugs sometimes just to stand on that corner and conduct my business. The cops were no better than the gangstas I had to pay off. I almost starved to death a few times, if it wasn't for my buddy's mama, I'd be dead. To this day, I have yet to fill a jar of any size with change that belongs to me.

On a different note, sometimes I would wait for some of the wealthier vendors to leave and go to the bathroom and I'd hijack their carts and sell off a bunch of dogs, falafels, pretzels for a buck a pair and run before they got back just to get the $2 to ride the subway home instead of walking and taking the Staten ferry.

 

[the dark]

Absolutely - not a job I would want or be able to handle. Good service = 20% tip.

 

[santanzchild]

%15 for crap service 20-25 for good service. Always at least $5 even if its just coffee. She did bring it over and have me take up a table after all.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727

 

[wolf_fire]

Wow! Thank you for posting this. Too many people think the tip is "extra". I start in my head with 25% of the bill as my tip for my server. Depending on how bad their service is, I'll go down to 15%, but no lower. But they're still getting 15%.

In PA, servers have to report a minimum of 7% of all their ticket sales as income EVEN IF THEY DIDN'T GET 7% FOR A TIP!!! If you aren't even giving 7%, they are actually paying taxes on monies they never received because you were too cheap. Don't be a cheapskate. If you can afford to go out, leave the standard minimum of 15%. If they did a great job, make their day and raise it. You'll be surprised how good you feel when you see their smile.

 

[fudo]

You forgot to mention that the waitress has to tip the busboy and the hostess and the bartender I always tip 20% unless the service was really bad then 15% never less everyone has a bad day once in awhile they still have to make a living if you can't afford to tip 20% you shouldn't be eating out. You can bet your ass if there was no tipping and the resturant had to pay a fair wage that meal would cost you 40% more and then we wouldn't be able to afford to eat out

I went on active duty in 1975 and went to Japan for 2 years. There is almost no tipping in Japan. Meals, drinks and other services are either paid for by a separate service charge, or by including the cost of their employees into the cost of their food/ drinks/etc. I prefer that system. If service is better than average, I usually tip 20/25%, if the service is average, 15%. If the service is poor, I do not tip. I always speak with the manager after dinner and most of the time I'm complimenting the service and the food, because the managers and waitstaff know me and treat us pretty well. I have only not tipped once, and I told the manager about why I did not tip.

 

[Hoganbeg]

The the last I heard the state of California was assuming that all food servers received an additional 15% in tips and taxed them accordingly, whether they actually got it or not. That may have changed. So, the waiters were getting taken by the management, the government, and some of the patrons and their own co-workers. Well, the restaurant should price the food and service at what it truly costs, then they could pay their people what they deserve and a tip could be what it was originally intended to be: something extra for outstanding service. If that puts it out of reach of some folks I won't worry. It would level the playing field for everyone.

As for my own strategy, I figure out about how much I.m going to spend and what the tip would be, and then tip my server about half of that right up front. That lets them know that I'm not going to stiff them, puts them in a friendlier mood, and I tend to get better service. When I get better service, I don't mind having to tip. So, it becomes a win-win situation.

 

[foxytwo]

If I receive good service I always leave a 20% tip. The service has to be really bad for me to leave a very small tip. The wait staff deserves a decent wage and would do ok if decent tops were left.

 

[dcselby1]

Excellent post, Tricolor! My mother was a waitress in the 40's and 50's and raised my sister and me, often on tips.

I grew up, spent a lot of time in the Army and on the drinking side of a bar. Never thought much about tipping, but left a little for the barkeep, more if he was a she. (I know, I know).

ANYWAY, when I left the service one of the jobs I tried was driving a cab. Small resort town, long hours, interesting. One thing I noticed was that the best tippers were almost always waitresses. Hmmm.

After I left the taxi company, tried a job in a factory, yuck. Not my cup of tea. I did a stint as a bartender, low wage, for tips. To top it off, it was a VFW and most of the guys were WWII types. $.90 draft, they left a dime. I discovered, to an extant, how hard waitresses have to work (not to mention what they put up with, as a guy I had it easy!) because I had no waitress and had to work the tables, too and this changed my whole perspective regarding tipping.

One thing I've noticed that you didn't mention was the "invisibility" of the waitstaff! How many people who eat out actually communicate with their waitperson? Or even NOTICE them? I remember many times that I didn't even know WHICH WAITRESS brought my meal!

But after the stint as a bartender I learned to pay attention to them and, since I left the bar, have always been a good tipper, ESPECIALLY for good service. I will admit that I have this thing about decent service and if a waitperson is surly or makes too many mistakes, their tips suffer, but I'll generally leave more than a buck. The last few years, I've tried to leave at least 15% and usually 20% for decent service. Waiting tables is an HONORABLE, honest, DEMANDING job and we should all appreciate recognize how hard they work.

One other thing that I've learned is how "invisible" SO many workers are. Do you notice and acknowledge the janitors, the cashiers the sales clerks in stores and other places? How about the members of the cleaning crew in your office? Do you know their names or anything about them? I worked in an office the last 18 years I worked and I always made it a point to get to know a little about every member of the after hours work crews.

Well, if you want to see someone perk up, ask them their name. Or how they're doing. Or if they have kids or just anything at all to make them feel like someone. You will be surprised at the change in them.

I just wish that I had learned this at a much younger age, but I think my mother would be proud of me for learning it al all.

 

[tricolordad]

One thing I've noticed that you didn't mention was the "invisibility" of the waitstaff! How many people who eat out actually communicate with their waitperson? Or even NOTICE them? I remember many times that I didn't even know WHICH WAITRESS brought my meal!

How the hell that slipped my mind, I do not know...

Probably because I was thinking 'what piece of trash leaves a beautiful girl like this with a kid and a dead end job and busted ass car?' while I loaded up her kids' car seat and diaper bag into the back of my SUV...

Good post!

 

[K7lvo]

I don't like the concept of tipping - it's no longer a reward for exceptional service, it's part of the price of the meal. That being said, failing to tip only victimizes the service people and is no more logical than complaining about the price of gasoline to the gas station employee