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There I was sitting in a restaurant in Alamogordo, NM eating a meal and the 'server' said when you are ready you can use the device on your table to pay your bill.
Ok, I thought I'll do that.
What irked me was the initial setting for the tip for the 'server' was 25%. Please bear in mind that my total interaction with here was,
1) One tall Don Equos please.
2) I'll have one of those (pointing to the menu)
3) thank you (as she placed the ordered item in front of me), I'll have another beer.
4) Yes everything is fine.
If that level on interaction deserves a 25% tip then my name is Godzilla (Saw that last night. I was the only person in the theatre...)
Can someone please explain how that level of service is worth 25%? IMHO, it clearly is not.
In my eyes, a tip is for service above and beyond the basic what you are paying for in the price of the meal. If the chain (shall remain nameless) are paying their staff so poorly that they expect to get 25% out of every customer to bolster their earning, then I will not be using them again.
Yes, it is hot here. 100F almost all day. Walking a trail up to the dwellings north of Silver City was not my idea of fun. Then a 3 hour drive to here in sizzling temperatures was not great. Totalt of 509 miles driven today. Ugh!
Samantha, Grumpy old so-and-so tonight.
Comments
Tips
As a British person I still have issues with tipping in the US, that said I think even my US friends would be surprised with 25% as the default, iirc 15% is about the norm and I'd certainly not want to pay any more than that and based on your interaction maybe a little less.
Hugs
Cat
-
You can't choose your relatives but you can choose your family.
Samantha, I have worked in
Samantha, I have worked in the restaurant business for 10 years here in the states and can tell you that the servers make $2.10 an hour so yes they do rely on tips to make a living.
$ 2.10???
I don't know what state you work in, but minimum wage in my state is $9.10. Mind you, that's barely a living wage; it wouldn't leave you any discretionary funds and a really tight grocery budget.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Wait staff are not required
Wait staff are not required to be paid minimum wage because they are tipped workers.
Oregon, Washington, Nevada and California
Only four states have minimum wages for tipped employees higher than 7.99 an hour.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Americans Tend To Overtip
25% is ridiculous. Even 15% might be too much in this case. In nicer restaurants with attentive service, 20% is okay. In many countries where we've been lately, 10% is the norm. Many European restaurants do include service in the bill. Read the bill carefully. If service is included, do not tip on top of it.
In the US service personnel are paid far below the minimum wage. If they did a good job, they should be compensated.
Portia
25% is excessive -- and excessively optimistic
I think it is likely to annoy people rather as it did you. But if it was a bar, it actually isn't that unusual for people to tip 25%.
Still, tipping in America is figured into people's wages and they are taxed on tips that they may not even get, or may be stolen by their employers under threat of firing. The whole system is broken with some of the lowest paid workers paid so little it is embarrassing that this happens in America and then they are often ripped-off.
Sixteen states have minimum wages for tipped employees of $2.13 cents. You heard that right. And those aren't just Republican states or Deep South states, either. Another eleven states have tipped wages less than $3.63 an hour, so in more than half of all states, it is legal to pay tipped employees less than half what the federal minimum wage is for other workers. New York and Connecticut have another wrinkle, the minimum for tipped jobs that are usually held by females is lower than it is for usually male tipped jobs.
Ain't no-one doing nothing about it neither.
Hugs to all,
Erin
P.S. New Mexico is one of the $2.13 an hour states. -- Erin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_States
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
US Minimum wage...
... is no less than $7.25 per hour. Period. (Some places have enacted a higher minimum wage, I'm just using the basic federal minimum here.)
But employers in a vast majority of states are able to take a credit against expected tips, and their portion is less as a result. That is the "tipped wage" Erin's list refers to.
If for some reason the tips plus the employer wage does not add up to the $7.25/hour minimum, the employer is legally responsible for making up the difference.
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As for the place Samantha went to, I think I know the chain she is talking about. It's one of my regular places for Saturday dinner with my mother. The machine is convenient, but the setting is just part of the "tip creep" servers are trying to impose on the public.
Years ago, the "standard" was 15%. Then they managed to make the public believe it was 18%, and now they've pushed it through in most public forums to 20%. I'm not surprised they're trying a number above that now.
Federal law
The FEDERAL minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.13 and hour. There are other classes of employees that are exempt from the 7.25, too. "Tip Creep" is another way of saying servers trying to feed their families and pay their bills. Fix the laws, don't blame the servers.
As far as employers making up the difference, it is to laugh in many cases. Theft of tips is almost as common as actually making up any shortfalls. Yes, the average person who gets tips and wages does well enough to get by. That's like saying that on average, everyone has brown hair. Some people don't.
I have worked for wages and tips, and I made good tips and got treated well by my employers. Know why? 'Cause I could go out and get a different job and didn't have to take the abuse. Lots of people are not so fortunate.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Quoting...
http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm
"If an employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 an hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference."
See also 29 USC 203(m).
Yes, employers may violate this law. But it is the law.
Still funny
It's like a speed limit. Yes, some people obey it. Maybe even most. But the idea that you can pay people very little is just SO attractive. We'd probably have a problem with people cheating on whatever wage law there was but this one is DESIGNED to be cheated on, seriously. Just try to get the laws changed to something more rational and see how much lobby money the restaurant and hotel industries throw at Congress.
When I go out to eat, I take the tax, 8% in CA, double it and round up to the nearest half dollar. That's the tip I leave, or more. If I can't afford that, I don't go out to eat. Okay, if the service sucked, I round down instead of up. Everybody has a bad day now and then. Look at the line below my sig.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Yes
By law, the employers are supposed to make up the difference if an employee's tips added to the base don't add up to minimum wage. I used to work in bars and restaurants for a long time (service industry regular) and I can't even count the times that my employer would make up the difference for a slow night. Why? Because it never existed. Employers are supposed to do something, but they don't. Just like the whole Papa John's CEO saying that if a store makes profits, it should be for the manager/owner and not for the workers.
No restaurant is really afraid of anyone forcing them to comply with the law either. Mainly because most of the servers at such restaurants are generally young and tend to acquiesce quickly if threatened to drop their complaint or be fired. And yes, that does happen as I've watched it happen myself. And if you are tipped in cash, there's even less reason for you to be compensated if it doesn't meet up as there is no documentation of it.
That being said, 25% is ridiculous unless the service was outstanding and beyond standard. So I wouldn't tip that amount for most service I get.
Samirah M. Johnstone
As a tipped worker myself
I tend to tip big. I consider it an investment in karma. And if I cannot afford to tip big, I don't eat out.
But I would never expect a 25% tip from anybody. That is nuts. I love it when it happens, but to expect it and put it forward as some kind of standard? That would take quite a bit of chutzpah.
Whose chutzpah is the question?
I sincerely doubt that the servers in question, wrote, designed or set up that number. Restaurant and bar owners like to encourage tipping generously because that is less money coming out of THEIR pockets. And any ill-feeling, as here, tends to get directed at the server.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Hear, hear! But...
I worked as a waitress for many years, and the “minimum” wage laws are a joke. In most of the places one sees a “tip jar” on the counter, the owner takes the whole amount and tucks it into their foxy little pocket. I tip very generously, and put it directly into the employee's hands, even if paying by credit card, since lots of owners will stake their claim on even that through one dishonest trick or another. I usually average around thirty percent, because it’s only fair, once you consider the amount of time servers spend at tasks the customers rarely see, preparing ‘set-ups,’ filling salt- and pepper-shakers, often helping to bus tables, and waiting around for customers on slow days, not to mention fending off the coercive advances of chefs and owners.
It may well be true that twenty-five or thirty percent is ‘nuts,’ but it’s an insanity built into the US system of legalised slave labour that is the so-called Federal minimum wage, which is cleverly designed to preferentially oppress women and minorities.
I personally feel that the only way to purge the system of corruption is to apply the minimum wage laws to legislators and see how they like it. That would be a great way to fix the problem of the VA hospitals as well, just make every legislator stand in the same line as the veterans and receive the same levels of service. With all the finger-pointing, few have managed to notice that it’s Congress that’s failed to fully fund the needs of veterans dating all the way back to the American Revolution. General MacArthur, the hero of the right-wing, made a name for himself as a ‘hero’ by routing unarmed World War I Veterans – and their wives and children – who'd had the effrontery to demand their promised payments during the Great Depression, when many were starving, with cavalry and tanks. Golly! Such a mensch! Of course, he was the same guy who left US prisoners of war – including civilians – starving in their prisons until it was convenient for him to show up and 'liberate' them. Naturally, his name got plastered on thousands of public works. We have a very high standard for ‘heroes’ in the USA.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I felt like a big spender
I'm sure I'm dating myself. But I double dated on my senior prom. The four of us went to a four star restaurant in town. We had dinner, (which included coffee w/free refills) and desert. I took care of the tip and I felt like a big spender because 10% made me put dollar bill and a dime on the table. That was the standard tip in those days, 10%. Ten years later, my fathers cousin was marrying his second wife and the idea of 15% tip was just becoming the thing to do and many were resiting. My cousin's fiance was a waitress and she maintained that a 15% tip was right because everyone got raise over the last ten year, but this was the first time tips went up.
At that time, 10% for a party of four for dinner would have been twice the dollar amount. So I'm still struggling with a 15% tip. 25% is outrageous. We go to a local restaurant where I consider the service is good. There is one waitress there that gives excellent service. She getd something a little over 15%, the rest, whose service is good, get a straight 15%.
I Can't imagine service that's worth 25%.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Having lived on both sides of the tip tray.
The sick thing about this land of plenty people working in the food services industries, where you receive tips, the employer is allowed to pay you one half minimum wadge, but you are paying taxes at a much higher rate. There are instances you must sign away your rights to minimum wage to get employment at all.
I agree that 25 % tip is extortionately high for such a minimum of server contact. It is such a messed up situation, that people are placed into these compromising situations where one person is legally forced into conflict with another for survival.
Sorry for the rant it's my time of the month.
Huggles
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Rate of taxation...
The rules regarding a level of tips that the IRS requires servers to claim is due to servers for years underdeclaring tips. Yes, it sucks.
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This is the one industry that I wish would pay a "living wage." You hear the fast food workers asking for $15/hour wages ... Bump restaurant staff to $15/hour wages and ban tipping.
Yes, the prices of restaurant food will go up. The honest people are already tipping to the level the prices would go up to anyway; and the wait staff does not need to worry about the generosity of their customers, nor does there need to be 46837624378 laws covering special rules for tipped employees.
What I think about tipping...
I've worked a lot of different jobs. I've had jobs where I had expense accounts. I've had jobs that couldn't pay my bills. I understand how it goes.
I will tip unless my server is rude or inattentive. That reason being that in America we have what's called the "waitress wage," which as several people above have commented, is almost as low as a factory job in a third-world country.
When I'm in a restaurant, I will call my server by name and actively talk to them, not at them. Most people don't do this, and because of this I usually receive better than average service. I reward that appropriately, or at least I like to think so. Unlike some of my friends, I do not gauge my tips on how many other tables my server has going, nor do I gauge it by the class of establishment I'm giving my custom to that evening. If I'm at a four or five star restaurant, and you give me bad service, you will get no tip from me. If you give me excellent service at a diner and my meal was under $10, I've given $20 tips before in that exact situation.
Tips are where servers/waiters/waitresses make their real living in America. I understand that, and will tip for excellent service. I will not reward poor service. I will tip for average service.
How do I define poor service? Showing a single customer or couple less enthusiasm (real or faked) than a table of six or more. Rudeness has no place in the Restaurant business. If I have a server who's being rude or snippy, I will call them out on it. Period. Not being attentive. I can definitely understand not wanting to interrupt a conversation, but don't ignore empty drink glasses. Lastly, don't show me that you're having a bad day. I don't care. If you can't hide that you're having a bad day, if you can't check that at the door when you walked in, you shouldn't be in a customer service role.
~And so it goes...
Rude employees...
What a great idea! How about knocking off the entirety of one's payment to a rude plumber, or that idiot who repaired your automobile and then left grease stains on the seat cushions? In fact, one really shouldn't have to pay doctors and lawyers unless they either cured one or won the case. Let’s make *all* payments strictly voluntary, depending entirely upon what one thinks the service or item is actually worth, not the value the provider places on it. I personally think that a brand new Jaguar XE probably isn’t worth more than five thousand dollars, so why don't I just go down to the local dealership and demand one at a ‘fair’ price? Exactly what it’s worth to me!
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Were You Able to Change the Amount?
I would have just changed it to what I wanted to pay. If it couldn't be changed, I would have asked to talk to a manager.
The idea of raising the tip percentage because of inflation is nonsense. The cost of meals rises with everything else bringing the tips along in proportion.
I do have a question; There are a few restaurants that we go to where you order & pay at a counter, and they bring out the food to your table. If we clear off our table and bin the trash I don't leave a tip. If the restaurant staff clear and clean the table after we've left, we usually leave around 10%. What do others think is appropriate?
If not served...
This particular system, you can adjust the tip. They're just banking on people who don't bother to change it.
Additionally, they'll still run the card "the old way" and generate a paper receipt to sign and write a tip in if you ask.
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I'll generally pay around 5-10% for a to go order from a restaurant that you would generally tip if you ate there.
If it's a restaurant where the only contact is ordering at a counter and/or bringing me food, no tip.
Thanks
Appreciate the feedback.
That only makes sense...
if wages have automatically risen with inflation, which they don't, and haven't since they were instituted in 1938. In fact, the real rate of inflation has been deliberately trimmed through bookkeeping fiddles, so that inflation rates have been kept artificially low to avoid annoying the bankers, although of course there's a trade-off, in that the government actually makes money on borrowing money at rates much lower than the inflation rate, because investors have few alternatives for really secure investments.
People who complain about high levels of US debt don't usually understand this, and don't understand the methods whereby ‘inflation’ is politicised through adjusting what ideal consumers buy with their money, primarily though changing what called the "market basket" out from under them. This means that if meat becomes too expensive to purchase, so the consumer substitutes beans, the so-called cost of living and reported inflation rates may actually go down, despite an overall rise in the costs of what one used to buy.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I Understand Your Points
Unfortunately, the weakening of organized labor has depressed wage and benefit growth for most people. I think in many fields wages and benefits have actually been reduced both in real terms and in spending power. I agree about the government inflation numbers. They bear little resemblance to the increases I see in the products and service we buy.
In addition to the political benefits, lower official inflation numbers reduce Social Security benefits growth and increase taxes paid in (as some of the items such as the standard deduction and AMT threshold are indexed to inflation).
I think there was a mistake...
The % was supposed to be a ¢.
I ran into a similar situation with a server, except that I never got a refill or asked if the food was good. I saw the server three times.
1: Seated and take drink order.
2: Brought drink and took food order.
3: Brought food and check, never returned. (I wanted a refill, and was going to order desert.)
I left her a quarter, and never returned to the restaurant which is now out of business. I was there in the mid-afternoon, there was one other occupied table in the section of the restaurant I was in, served by a different person.
At a different restaurant I once asked for a different server. I explained to the Manager that after being seated and asking for a few minutes, I noticed my server sitting with another guest across the room for close to 10 minutes before coming back to take my order. That restaurant closed also. Both of these restaurants were franchises of large chain restaurants.
On the other hand at the diners I semi-regularly eat at, I usually leave a 20%+ tip. The food is diner food, but the servers are all friendly and attentive. Bad service is not excusable from waitstaff, and one of the things that will get me to never return to a restaurant.
Been there, done that, couldn't afford the t-shirt
Having spent fair amount of time in the industry, I'm well aware of how unfairly the so-called tipping system is to the worker. As a result I try to err on the server's side. Depending on the type of restaurant, buffet, family restaurant, upscale restaurant or club/restaurant, I scale my starting point appropriately, generally working in the 10-20% range. I then scale that number up or down depending on how the service is. I've got eyes and I'm pretty aware of what's going on.
The quality of service can be affected by things out of the server's control. For instance, a screwed-up cook can wreck your experience, in spite of the service you received. So I generally don't let a screwed-up kitchen affect how I tip. There is only so much a server can do, they can complain to the cook or even the manager, but if nobody is willing to fix their performance then the wait staff is screwed. I take my food complaints to the highest level of management available and let them know in no uncertain terms that I was unhappy. But I don't take it out on the server if they tried to get things right but were blocked from doing so. I will take my complaint as high as I have to.
Let me add one thing: if you can't afford to tip you can't afford to eat out. I've seen a group of 4 to 10 people eat out and drop $100 to $200 or more on the food costs, then leave a note to the server that they couldn't afford to tip! That's just BS!
Like I said, I've spent a fair amount of time as a waitress, so my viewpoint is a bit skewed, perhaps. But I'm not ashamed to look at my face in the mirror. I've done the best I could.
PS, Off Topic: I think Gordon Ramsey is a total ass. There is no reason to reward that kind of behavior. I really don't care how good a cook he is, it's way past time for somebody to lay down a severe hurting on the little worm.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
I once worked at
I once worked at Fleming's...if you aren't familiar with it, it is like Ruth's Chris or Morton's...but I recall a similar situation when I was a server there. These business people had dinner with their wives and ran up a bill of over $200 as everything is a la carte there. Considering the night, they got very good service (we were shorthanded that night and unfortunately people were having a wait a long time to be seated because of issues) and when I returned to their table after they left the bill, I was dismayed to see a big fat zero for tip on a $265 bill. Especially since at that establishment, I had to tip out to the bartender and backwaiter and busser for every check.
That is something some people don't always understand either. If you are getting an alcoholic beverage, a lot of times, your server is going to have to tip out to the bar. And will almost always have to tip out to the bus person, despite them getting paid a higher basic wage.
Samirah M. Johnstone
Pay to work
I don't like the US tipping situation and of recent years a lot has been written about new workers in the professions having o do up to a year unpaid to get a foot in the door. However to be fair, in the days before any minimum wage, in Britain there were doormen to expensive hotels who paid to get the job
Rhona McCloud
Many thanks
to all those who commented.
Yes is was 25% not cents. I did move it down to a more realistic level.
Perhaps it was the grumpy old fart in me on a day when it was 100F for most of it (90F at 10:00) that made me a bit irked but thanks for the comments, 25% does seem a bit rich.
Thanks again
Samantha
Yep. $2.10
I worked as a waitress for a few months around 2005, when I couldn't find other work and was desperate for work even tho I didn't know anything about being a waitress, and, yes, waitresses really DO get paid below the usual minimum wage.
But (in the US, at least) the minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.10. The government's rule is that, if the $2.10 plus tips is equal to or more than the regular minimum, then it's okay.
http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm
And, yeah, salaries for waitresses/waiters really ARE low. I know. Here are some numbers for you.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Waiter%2fWaitress/Ho...
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