I Mean, When I Order Coffee I Want It Filled Six Times

This is not true uniformly in the United States. I have worked in restuarants where tips were distributed by the restaurant itself to the bar staff and bussers.

Also, my tax records included tips.

However, this was partially due to peculiarities of the restaurant: it was within a country club, and most tips were paid at a minimum of 18% on the member's accounts. Sometimes there was extra cash if customers were generous, but the actual bill almost never involved cash transactions.

THIS. I am a piss poor student (like, sometimes I skip meals to save money. That broke). The fact that I can actually pay the stated price for food and bar drinks is fucking wonderful.

 

Regards point 1: I am not questioning skill is involved. This however is mostly learned on the job. My point was there is no natural barrier to entry such as education.
I sure as fucking couldn't roof a house. It is a skill. Roofing however is in the economic sense an unskilled job.

 

I went to Yolk in Chicago (it's apparently been voted best breakfast in Chicago) and we sat at the bar and could see in the kitchen. I was absolutely mesmerized watching everything that goes on between the chefs and manager and waitstaff. I walked away very impressed and with a new respect for those people.

 

15-20 percent, always. I'm never a snob when it comes to eating out and I've never sent food back so the service has to be wretched for an "insult" tip.

Oh, and a waitress busting her ass carrying two trays in a coffee shop deserves a bigger tip than a lazy one in a hoity-toity place. Remember that.

 

Here's why I hate tipping: it's a horrible profit-maximizing scheme that has been put in place by managers so as to lower their operating costs, at the expense of the customer.

The only reason that the pay scheme is the way it is in the US is because it works out VERY nicely for management.

Consider: Job A is a waitstaff job. Job B is a manufacturing job. In order to attract employees, all else being equal, they'll have to offer competitive wages.

Let's say that's $12/hr. Say tips are on average $8/hr. Minimum wage is $7.50.

The management of the manufacturing plant has to pay that employee $12.
The restaurant owner, however, can get away with paying their employees only $4, a below minimum wage rate, because of the tips.

Who ends up footing the bill for this segment of pay that the management doesn't have to pay? Why, you, the diner. On top of the prices for everything else. Wonderful, I'm paying for an inefficient wage scheme.

 

I always tip at least 50% because I'm in the industry.

Aside from eating at cheap Vietnamese places that aren't big into tips (they cash you out and hand you back your change), I did refuse to give any tip once. I was put in a table right next to the exit with less than a foot of spaces between me and the tables on my left and right. Felt bad for the waitress, but I had fatass tourists passing by me the whole god damned time.

Question - I've read that, in the U.S., minimum wage for wait staff is on a sliding scale that depends on tips. I.e., if the restaurant is empty with no customers and no tips, the restaurant has to pay her 5 bucks an hour (or whatever). But if it's busy and the waiter's earning tips, then the restaurant only has to pay $2.50 an hour. Is that true? And also, does that still hold in Canada?

 

While technically correct, this argument is cheating.

Over a pay period, every employer is bound, BY LAW in the United States, to guarantee the minimum wage for their employees.

That said, this minimum wage can be paid in a number of ways. Including by both direct wage or by a lower wage plus tips.

If a waiter doesn't make whatever the relevant minimum wage is after tips, the management is required to make up that difference.

So you actually get paid w=min{minimum wage, hourly wage+tips}

 

Exactly, so the more you tip the staff the less the boss has to pay them. So when you give a tip, the server isn't benefiting - the business is.

During the Spanish civil war, in Quasi-Socialist republican controlled areas, tipping was often banned.

Now, I'm not supporting that extreme, but all businesses should pay decent wages to their staff without factoring tips into the equation at all. Tips would no longer become necessary or expected for the servers well being.

 

Got a source? I hate wading through hours of obscure text without guidance.

 

And in a world of no tips, who do you think would foot the bill then?

 

No, outside of having worked in food service and having thoroughly read the poster on wage laws that are required to be on display at any place of employment. But I'll see if I can dig one up.

And Porkins, I know where you're going with this. Trust me, as an economics student, I understand that argument. However, it only holds in a perfectly competitive market with average zero profit. That is not the world we live in, and a substantial fraction of the decreased cost of labor simply becomes capital profit.

 

Federal law source

 

I almost always tip 15-20%, usually more if I'm sitting at the bar. This keeps my drinks coming, the bartender friendly, and a comp or a drink made incorrectly often times tossed my way. As far as I'm concerned there's no reason to not tip. If you have a problem, speak to your server, or the manager. Often times they will take care of what ever is wrong, hassle free, so long as you aren't acting like an asshole. If they don't, chalk it up to a lesson learned and go somewhere else.

 

I apologize in advance for not using the quote function. My phone doesn't allow it. I think the general consensus for restaurants in the US is that it's better to pay with a card and tip with cash because that tip can go unreported (as cash tips, if reported through the restaurant management and not by the server, are calculated based on cash sales). Still, the tipped out staff is rarely fucked over because the tip out is based on total sales, not reported tips.

To the person that said they hate tipping when they're waited on by multiple servers in a visit because they feel no one particular server deserves it, please understand this: several restaurants have been gearing their waitstaff towards a team mentality. Everyone helps everyone. If someone's food comes up before yours, you run their food instead of waiting for yours. If someone gets double sat, you greet one of their tables or run their drinks. That way, no table is left waiting for something if one or two servers get slammed and everyone else is standing around because, well, it's not their table and not their responsibility. Don't penalize your waitstaff because you don't understand the mentality behind their serving methods. As long as your service is up to par, why do you care who delivered your burger or beer?

And PIMPTRESS: You lucky girl, you. Are you lead serve? Because, like Indiana, I've never made more than $2.13 an hour in a tipped position. However, I know that head wait/lead serve, or even trainers, can make a few bucks extra per hour.

 

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm</a>

Under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act

Minimum Cash Wage: $2.13
Maximum Tip Credit Against Minimum Wage: $5.12
Basic Combined Cash Plus Tip Minimum Wage Rate: $7.25


Edit: Looks like Nettie got it too. Thanks.

 

I don't disagree. But, we're discussing an assumed to be exogenous change in the price of labor, say, a law mandating waitstaff be paid full minimum wage. In that case, for the restaurant owner, the cost of labor increases, and in all likelihood meal prices will increase to cover this increase in costs. Now, in a perfect world, tips would decrease significantly, or go the way of the dinosaur altogether as a result of the increase in pay for waitstaff, but because they're so ingrained in our culture it's likely that they'd still be around in some form. So what's the result? Customers are paying more.

 

Oh yes, I'm not suggesting that a sudden shift in labor law policy would eradicate the issue. Tipping would not disappear tomorrow if you changed labor law, due to it being an established social norm. I'm merely pointing out why I hate the institution of tipping, and wish it didn't exist in the first place.

 

20-25% is the norm. I'm a big believer that the server can make or break a good meal. If the server is on their game and gets back to me every time I have 3 sips of beer left in my glass to ask if I need another I might tip them even more.

Since I travel for work and eat out every day for lunch and at least 5 nights a week for dinner I've experienced every type of server. If I'm in a restaurant I haven't eaten at before I'll usually ask if there's anything on the menu I absolutely cannot miss. I hate it when servers don't know the menu. Give me a good recommendation, be prompt with my drinks, and courteous since I'm out with clients and I'll tip 30% because its all a write off anyways.

I also refuse to leave less than a $3 tip for any sit down meal. I've been to little roadside diners in the south where a cup of coffee and a piece of pie is a $2 Special and I'll still leave a $3 tip. I just put value on good service and the thought of leaving a 25% tip that consists of two quarters as being a shame and my over tipping will get balanced out by the cheap bastards who don't leave a cent.

 

I wonder if this is a regional thing. I live in SF and 20% is truly the standard here. It could be that I go out with people who were or are in the service industry. There are times that I have been chastised for "only" tipping 20%. I even now have my folks tipping 20% (they live in a suburb in the bay area). I just assumed that 20% was the standard now.

When my brother visited from Toronto, he was shocked that I routinely tipped 20%. He is used to 15% (and I think he does 15% to the pre-tax amount). I have heard that Canadians are notoriously cheap tippers and I am sure people here can confirm or deny that. However, my brother also likes to wear Axe body spray and tap-out shirts, so maybe he is not the typical model of what folks in Toronot do (please tell me that city is not all like that).

I am more interested in what people tip for other services. How much do you leave per day for the maid in a hotel room; how much do you tip on a hair cut; how much do you tip the hooker?

 

Luckily, I'm in Illinois which has higher minimum wage than the Federal. That being said, almost every place here works like described before*.

You report 8% of your sales as tips. If you have a slow day, the employer may be paying you himself. On top of that, you tip out 2% of your sales to bus boys, bartenders (if you're a server), etc.

Now, I'll be honest & say very, very rarely when I was a full time server did I make less than 8%, it was usually more along the lines of 18-20%. So I'd do the same, and throw out a few extra dollars in the tip out. The only times I could remember when I made less than 8% were when I had groups that stiffed us, etc.

*Okay, I'm not a server anymore, I'm a bartender. I make true minimum wage. I don't report my tips, because my employer doesn't make me. Then again, I have no bus boy, no server. Just a cook for the busy times. This is in a nice small town bar, that concentrates more on booze than food. On an average busy night, I'll easily walk out with over $100 in tips, all tax free. Working 3 days a week while going to school part time = more money than if I was making more hourly full time, and having to drive further, and pay taxes on everything.