I tip 20%. It's a flawed system that waitstaff rely on tips to make ends meet, but people refusing to tip isn't going to solve that... It's just going to make it hard for your waiter to make rent.

I'll tip you guys $50.00 bucks to stop talking.

It used to be one which paid a living wage. There's no reason to disrespect people for what they do. Many people would consider being a waitress to be more respectable than what we do. Who are you to judge anyone simply because they make less money or have different skills?

Lol, thanks for that memory. I totally forgot all about it that one. :1orglaugh

Agreed.

Starbucks is a gray area. If you're ordering something straight off the menu and they throw it at you like it's McDonalds, then yeah, no tip, but if you're ordering a crafted beverage and it's made with care than IMO they deserve a little extra.

If you go to a real coffee bar I think you should tip like you would at a traditional bar. Essentially the barista is doing the same skilled work an providing the same service as a bartender, sometimes even moreso. Just my :2 cents:

In that situation that is pretty much how I handle it too. There have been times where the food runner has been more attentive and hospitable than the actual waitress / waiter, so I make it a point to seek them out and put some cash directly in their hand. Honestly though, at the Olive Garden I pretty much expect the server to be a dumb ass.


I don't really agree with that. Are you talking about the restaurants where they have like 4 servers on different levels wait your table and / or a server that stands by your table while you eat? I never really cared for that type of service myself. It's overkill.

Personally I generally tip 20%. If the service is poor I go down to 15%, if it's great I go higher. If the service is abysmal then I literally leave :2 cents: I've only done that a few times in my life though, and the server has to be pretty much fucking with me or someone else at the table to get it (ie- trying to hide meat in a vegetarian's food, intentionally spilling a drink on someone). If I do it, I don't go back and it's usually accompanied by having words with either the server or the manager. Like John Oso said, if you don't actually explain to the server or the manager that the service wa bad they are just going to chalk it up to you being a cheap fuck.

Also if your waiter / waitress hooks you up or you get any type of discount (ie- appy hour, etc) you should always tip on what the price would have been. If the drinks are 2 for 1 tip on 2 drinks, if the server knocks some shit off your bill hook them up in return. You shouldn't short your server for saving you $$

Also with the hiding the meat in the food thing, one of the veggie burgers had bacon on it and a salad had chicken under the lettuce- like old, dried out floor sweeps chicken snibbles. The veggie burger kept getting sent back and it kept coming back with bacon on it. The first time the bacon was only half peeled off, the second time it was remade with the bacon hidden in a different spot, like it was a fucking game and the server laughed about it.

I know some of you might think it's funny too, but it's someone's life choice and its pretty much as disrespectful to someone as you can fucking get. I'm sure there was probably spit involved too. No one ate their food, I only paid for the drinks and left the 2 cent tip, bitched out the manager and wrote a scathing letter to corporate.

Corporate sent me a bunch of vouchers for the restaurant. I think $200 worth if I remember right. Not gift certificates but actual vouchers from corporate that might as well have had a big red stamp on the back that said "please spit in my food". I had them sent to an office where I worked at the time. I guess someone I worked with had sticky fingers and couldn't resist but help themselves to some of them. To be honest I didn't mind. Kind of like instant Karma, a restaurant has to give out food for free and a theif gets their meal fucked with. LOL

Wtf, this means bartenders make more money than 95% of population? 1$ minimum, so 2$ average, 500 "tipped" drinks - at least 1000$ a day?

That's quite a bit for a normal bar, although I can see dropping that much at a decent club. I might use that strategy in the future.

30% just because higher end restaurant and despite if they did a good job or even if they not mixed the order?

Since when? When was being a waitress something that paid a living wage? What are you basing that on? Thats a pretty broad statement given the fact that a restaurant could be 5 star or a diner or fast food.

I've got news for you. You can make $500.00 a night being a waitress at the right place. You can make $20.00 a night being a waitress at the wrong place. As an individual, you are supposed to be striving to improve yourself, your skills, your knowledge and your value in the job market and move upwards. Not devote yourself to a job that requires no skills, no talent, no education and then start demanding more and more and more. We are not in the Soviet Union. If you want to make more money, keep working towards a better job/career. That is how life works. Most people learn that before they get into the job market.

This whole pathetic conversation is like arguing that a guy who delivers papers in the morning should be getting $25.00 an hour... because he deserves a living wage. He is supposed to be improving himself and looking for something better. Delivering papers is not supposed to be a career.

If you don't like the money you make doing your shit job, then find a new job.

If you don't like the money you make doing your shit job, don't expect me to pay you extra just because you are unhappy

If you want me to pay you extra... you better go above and beyond and earn it. I'm not in the business of going around all day passing out 5 and 10 dollar bills just because people feel that life isn't fair. I got my own to worry about.

I suspect we just have different ways of seeing the issue as well as different ethics. The way I see it - long story made short - if you don't want to pay your employees a living wage then you should have to do it yourself. I see all the looking down upon them and the disrespect for their labor as just a way to justify and rationalize paying them less (iow, to exploit them).

tipping IMO is mostly bullshit these days. with coffee places expecting tips to waiters(es) saying 20% should be the norm? fuck that.

If you want 20% then you better provide excellent fucking service.

All you waiters and waitresses... when I go out to eat and order a $100 bottle of wine versus a $25 bottle of wine, what extra fucking work do you put into it that you think you deserve $20 for opening a bottle of wine versus me giving you $5? Because its more expensive? GET REAL :1orglaugh

I tip around 15% on food and $1 or $2 per drink and $5 per bottle of wine. When I go out to clubs/bars I tip NICELY for the first round depending on your poor. If you poor like shit, don't expect a tip from me.

I will normally order a scotch on the rocks or rum and diet. If you make it strong, then I'll tip pretty well, sometimes $5 or $10 on a drink so you keep hooking me up. Ive had times where the drink is $11 and I give a $20 and say keep it, they take my glass and fill it with booze to where a rum and diet looks like a browish see through drink

Your view assumes they are "exploiting employees" which is a wildly subjective concept. I know waiters at high end restaurants who make a killing. 100K a year. I know people that think they are being exploited no matter what you pay them or not matter what the circumstances... Just ask any teen who's being asked to clean up his/her own crap or take out the garbage.

I am not in the business of paying other peoples employees. If someone sells coffee for $5.00 a cup, that's my obligation. I order it, they give it to me. Everything beyond that is on the individual.

If you want to run around throwing money at people all day long to clear your conscience, that's fine. But just to do that because you feel any minimum wage job should be paying a livable wage? That's not me. I tip for people who give great service and where tipping is customary. I don't go around throwing money at people out of pity.

BTW... i checked my lunch bill for today. $19.00. I tipped $4.00. They always go out of their way to take care of me, I acknowledge it and show my appreciation for the effort. But I don't "owe" them something just because they might be trying to turn a low wage job into a career, that's on them.

In the end you are entitled to your opinion and what you decide to do with your money. The biggest problem I have with what you have said is that you seem to look down upon those who perform these jobs. That's entirely your right but it seems a little judgmental to me and I think you should reconsider. Not everything is about money and someone isn't necessarily a "failure" because they work as a waitress. That is a very disrespectful attitude and unfortunate.

I notice something. The server was probably fucking with the vegetarian because they didn't respect the life choice and were judgmental about it. But then it comes full circle here when we see people who fuck with the servers because they don't seem to respect the occupation and look down upon them as "failures". It seems like a little more respect and less judgments from all parties might go a long way. FWIW, I think messing with someone's food should be a felony.

in this thread: angry food service workers :D

I agree with you and my disrespect. It is the attitude that i have no respect for however, not the person performing the task. I can also appreciate that you are a bit more mature about it than I am.

It is not that i "look down" on someone bringing me my food, shoveling shit or cleaning toilets or whatever. Those are all functions in a society that someone must perform. My issue is what I believe to be the complete lack of perspective on the issue. If McDonalds pays 6.50 an hour and the employee is displeased, they are supposed to be. They are supposed to look for something better, to better themselves and strive to improve their station in life... not demand more from society to compensate them until what is their own personal sense of "fair" is satisfied.

I also strongly disagree that I "owe" it to them. That's not what tipping was. That's simply what tipping has become. Furthermore, this general idea (one so popular here among those who will never earn real money in their lives) is how people are now rationalizing their own poor life choices - poor career choices. Shitty jobs are just that. Whether its making 6.00 an hour working at a car wash, 5.50 an hour delivering newspapers or shoveling horseshit. It's not anyone's place to start demanding more.

People who think a business should pay more don't seem to get that people are paid exactly what they are worth based on the demand for those jobs and the employers ability to fill those jobs. There is a high turnover with these kinds of jobs because they aren't supposed to be careers. They are just the thing you do until you find something better, finish school, finish getting your degree or whatever.
:2 cents:

Its just a good rule of thumb to treat everyone like a human being, how you would want to be treated.

The world needs dishwashers / ditch diggers too- shitty quote but it's the truth.

Who am I to shit on someone's station in life. Makes us no better than the people who judge us for what we do and call us smut peddlers. :2 cents:

in theory yes.

I know bartenders that pull 1500+ a night.

But the bars they make that at are only open a couple of few nights a week. Friday and Saturday nights are really the only nights you'll pull that number, the rest of the shifts you work are so you CAN work Friday and Saturday nights.

In most 3rd world countries i've been to they are fucking ecstatic for a quarter.

See that is just fucking ridiculous.

How do you figure? Have you ever tried to serve 500 drinks in 6 hours? On top of that, have you ever tried to serve 500 drinks in 6 hours to people who are increasingly drunk and needy?

High-volume bartenders work their asses off. Not only do they have to serve drinks for several hours without stopping, but they have to KNOW every drink that gets ordered, know where everything is behind the bar, and deal with a bunch of drunk fucks screaming at them for hours.

The most I had to put out were about 300 drinks by myself between people at the bar and two cocktail waitresses, and I was sweating my fucking ass off. I probably ran 3 miles that night behind a bar that was only about 50 feet long.

Should the bartender at your local Olive Garden be walking out with that kind of money? Hell no. They really aren't doing shit.

But high-volume bartenders and people who hand craft designer drinks (the ones that win awards and are more than just jack and coke or vodka and redbull) really earn the money they make.

They serve DRINKS. This is not rocket science, it's serving drinks. If they get paid so well from tips then it just goes to show that the tipping system is flawed.

They are also most definitely not going above and beyond by doing their job - ffs pour a drink and expect a couple dollars :1orglaugh In Australia the bar tenders would not last 5 seconds if they expected this.