Bite me.

You are high. There are a few states that allow tipped employees to make less than minimum wage. Just a few. MOST states require everyone to be paid at least federal minumun wage, if not more. In Oregon our minimum legal wage will be $7.10 an hour of any employee, tipped or not. To avoid the min wage law, some strip joints were charging dancers a dance fee a few years back. This was ruled illegal also, and back pay was paid to all strippers who were involved in the law suits.
My tipped employees make very good money, but just over half my customers tip. It is NOT MANDATORY. That is absurd. Just last week we went out for dinner. The waitress forgot my beer, forgot a shake. Never filled the water glasses. By the time she remembered the beer, it was after 1:30am so she couldnt bring it out. She remembered only because I asked about it after our food came. She brought us the bill to the wrong table so we were undercharged $20 until we showed the host the wrong bill. She got no tip, she deserved less than nothing. She made our experience less pleasureable than if we had waited on ourselves.
Tips are about appretiation and thanks, tips are about our feelings of gratiousness for the effort the staff puts out to make us happy, hence the word "gratuity".
Just because tips are expected doesnt mean they are manditory. Thats is exactly the reason I know some waitresses that make $200 a night and others that make $50 a night working the same hours at the same club. The $200 a night girls go out of their way to be nice and make sure the customer doesnt have to ask for anything and they are always watching the customer to make sure they are there for any reason. The $50 a night girls wait until the customer flags them down for a new drink, they stay off in the corner talking to each other an ignore their customers and then bitch about lousy tips.
Its all about service levels. Standard service should get tipped whatever you feel in your heart is right. Poor service should get nothing, or maybe a handful of pennies turned upside down in a glassful of water if you are a mean person. Good, attentive, out of the ordinary service that has anticipated your needs before you realize you need something should be tipped very well.
Of course the definition of poor and very well is determined by each persons state of being. If I am buying a $5 lunch and have normally good service, right now I would tip a buck. A few years ago when I was in a better place I would have tipped two bucks. But its not about what I would do, its about what each person feels they should do. By no means is it what they HAVE to do.

Forest, why exactly do these guys deserve huge tips and people having other jobs dont?
Give me a good reason to tip waiters like mad so they can go home with triple the amount of what anybody else would make.

Are they forced to do this job? Is it hell on earth? Is it slavery?
No, its a job like any other job.

I always tip servers at least 25%... their income depends on tips and I can appreciate what they do. Even if I spend $20 bucks on lunch, I'll leave them $10 bucks. I also tip my hair dresser and delivery guys... I'm generous :)

so you proved my point good service gets good tips

bad service...

BUT if you go out feeling you dont have to tip your fucking cheap PERIOD!

Thanx man

and I wish i were hi

Ukraine is a dry town

hmm lets see

bacause a Pilot, or mechanic or whatever KNOWS at the end of the week what his salery is

a waitstaff DOESNT and wont know.

His job performance level is directly linked to his % of tip

and waiters DONT make that kind of money unless they are working in the best houses.

The average waiter in america Proably makes between 80-120 a shift in tips

Thats NOTHING!

and they are on their feet for 6-10 hours a shift and dealing with mostly ASSHOLES

dont you pay girls more for doing anal?

:1orglaugh

Arrgh here we go again.

If you think like that why dont you give money to the other 90% of americans who have a min wage?

Did it eve occur to you that thanks to people like you these guys get overpaid by far! They are making way more money then what they should for their job.
In Holland someone has to work more than a hour for what you tip a person to bring you a shitty sandwich.
You are honestly out of your mind.

Again this is not true. Employees use a form to report to the IRS each week what they got paid in tips. If the amount is over $20 in a 4 week period they are taxed on it. The ONLY time a business is required to tax a persons sales is if they are found to have repeated lied to the IRS about their tip income. If you are caught, they go back for as long as they can and make you pay up to 8% of all sales. If you fill out your weekly tip forms correctly this will not be a problem. You speak like you know what you are talking about, and I honestly thing you know what you are talking about. But someone has fed you bad information that you have taken for the truth. So many of my employees have been told false things like this that you wouldnt believe.

lol, hardly
have you ever seen a rich waiter? I haven't.

you probably don't realize what it's like being on your feet for 4-12 hours straight running back and forth, dealing with asshole cooks, asshole manager and asshole customers. it's a hard job it's not easy.
and if they do make good money they had to work their bloody asses off for it.

I'd never be a waiter again, I'd rather collect cans out of the garbage. it's a hard job and therefore I appreciate the people who do it.

100 bucks a day extra eh?
Thats more than 10 hours of work for the average Dutch guy with an average job who is working just as hard as any waiter.

This is insane..oh no wait, its America where everything has to be bigger and more.

Read above, i did it for 8 years.

Forest, can you please send me some money through paypal.
I work so hard everyday, sometimes up to 10 hours a day and i never know what my income will be at the end of the moment.
Please pity me.
100 bucks should be ok for now.
You can send another 100 tomorrow.

Because servers don't get minimum wage... they get around $2 bucks an hour and their money depends on the tips they get. Minimum wage is like $6 an hour otherwise. And if I could tip other min. wage people for good service, I would... but it's not appropriate in say Walmart or something. I tip whenever I can... it's not about anything other than showing my appreciation for a good service/product. If it's shitty, I don't indulge... but I'm usually on the generous side.

My grandmother was a bartender for over 20 years before she became a nurse... she used to get tips in quarters back in the day and give them to my mom, aunts, uncles for lunch money... she STILL has quarters saved from 20 years ago.... tips mean a lot to some people.

battus

its your european ideas that will never understand our concept of tipping

as waiters we hate waiting on euros for that exact reason

Its Not that your wrong its that you dont understand our way of doing things

and remember if a waiter sells 2k a day in food and booze he must pay tax on 8% of that which comes out of his houlry wage

In Fl, Ny, Oh, Ca, (the states ive waited in) My hourly was LESS than 3.00 a hour

so where do u see the minimum wage in there especially afetr the government takes all of it for the taxes and ALL the waiters get was the tip


I remember getting check stubs with a NEGATIVE amount on them because my hoiurly didnt even match the % of tax i had to pay on SALES!

THERE IS NO EXTRA 9 times out of ten

I understand what you are saying but still, anybody who goes home with 100 or more in tips a day on top of his normal salary has a fucking good job!

If you were to perform some service for me and you performed it well i would have NO PROBLEM paying you extra

and u may work hard everyday

but not for me

I remember getting those too, I forgot about those.

damn, memories of hell :1orglaugh

Impressive. I should have been able to tell you were from Florida by what you were saying about min wage. The owner of the restaraunt I am the GM at moved here from Florida and nearly flipped out when he found out he had to pay everyone $7 an hour.

please re read the post

THERE ISW NO XTRA most of the time

i wish i had some old pay stubs that showed a - 150.00 for the week because my sales far exceeded any houlry i got

That means I had to take an extra 150 out of my pocket at the end of the year for that week to pay the tax on it

florida RAPES their service personel

then we get ALL the euro tourists and canadiens that dont know about american tipping

1/2 the time u get a 5% tip on a 600.00 meal that you worked your ass off for 3 hours on

Thats less than 10 buck an hour

sound rich to any of you guys?

Aight i believe you. But are you still up to date? I mean, this might have been like this 20 years ago but my experience in the US showed me otherwise.

If we go to a stripclub in NY our waitress goes home with 150 bucks from our table alone.

BTW, altho i dont agree with this tipping thing i have to say i always do tip when im in the US, according to US standards.
Im not the euro asshole that doesnt fit in. But still i think its crazy :)

I was a waitress years ago and I remember someone left one of the other waitresses a penny for a tip after their table of 10 people ran her ragged. She started to cry because she'd worked her ASS off for those people who kept insulting her and laughing at her, expecting to get a decent tip from such a large check because her rent was past due and she really needed the money. I went outside and said, "Excuse me, sir. You seem to have left some money on the table." and I handed him his penny. He turned BEET RED. I guess he thought they'd be long gone before she discovered the tip.

I came back in and handed her a $10 bill out of my own tip apron and told her that they apologized and asked me to give it to her. I wish I could have done more but if I'd given her more she wouldn't have believed it really came from them.

Waiting tables is a terrible job. I ending up dumping a desert in this rude bitch's lap and walking out because I got so tired of the bullshit. I remember, and I tip well. :)

Okay, since this is a hot topic:

Why do we tip some restaurant workers and not others?

McDonalds' people don't get tipped... but sit down restaurants do.

Anybody have a coherent theory behind this social phenomenon?

I had a friend leave a .01 tip, once. Sad thing is, two of the people we were eating there with were waitresses at that restauraunt, so they knew the person serving us. They reamed him royally, and he ended up getting embarrassed and paying.

i know in fl this is still current as I am louies atleast 1x a month for dinner drinks whatever

the other states Im not sure of

and Im glad to hear you abide by our customs when here as I do when im overseas as I am currently

:thumbsup

Remember not every state is the same. Only a few states let you pay your people less than minimun wage. We pay $7 an hour to tipped employees. That means that 50% of my employees make more money at the end of the week than I do as the General manager and they work half the time. In fact I just had a guy beg me to go on salary for a 60 hour week at $240 a week because he knows in those 6 days he can make close to $600 in tips plus his $240. Not too many jobs in Oregon will pay someone $800 a week.

McDonalds workers get paid minimum wage or higher, but wait staff are paid much lower, usually around $3 per hour ($3.15 I think?) I believe I heard that the tipping phenomenon started as a way to thank people for performing an extra service. McDonalds makes you walk up to the counter and order your food, carry it to the table yourself, come back to the counter for drink refills, etc. And you have to clean your own table off. But in sit-down establishments someone does it for you. The tip is a thank-you for the extra service. :)

have you ever gotten "sevice" at mcd's?

i havent

dirk

Thats the nature of the beast

At louies ALL my waitstaff made more thyan I as the manager

I haven't ordered sevice at mcd's ... not ceviche either :1orglaugh

I see your theory. MCD = Not "real" service Other restaurants = "service"

I guess the days I grew zits manning the french fry station at Carl's Junior wasn't service. Or my co worker's hand delivery of people's orders is not service either.:helpme

MMMMM

I LOVE ceviche

squid octopus fish mmmmm

well the real theory on service is if I am sitting and you have to come and serve me i will tip you

Tipping has gone WAY overboard in america

went to the record store before i left america

at the check out there was a Tip Jar

I thought WTF no one even helped me

:1orglaugh

you have to tip, its not even open for discussion.

Working behind a bar they tell you in the interview if you provide good service you will earn good money and its true.

I used to do what I could to make people have a top time if they didnt tip they waited in line when they came back.

TIPS RULES

Did you tip anything while in Rio?

In Brazil our restaurants bill usually comes with "10% service tax". You pay it if you want. I always do. Very few times I tip more than that. It's not expected.

Do you give tips to the guys that install stuff like cable TV, telephone, etc? I gave R$10 (around $3.50) to the telephone guy and he was VERY surprised, heheh.

High tipping is for fakers.

:2 cents:

I live in New York so it's second nature for me to leave tips. Tip the waiter/waitress, the cab driver, the bellhop, the concierge, bartender, etc... As many know we have 8.25% sales tax here so the easiest way to tip is to just double the tax (my little tip for you folks out of town coming to the Big Apple).

However there was this one time when I refused the tip. I was out with my girl having drinks and dinner at this restaraunt. My food came out cold so I sent it back to reheat it, the service was slow, had to ask to refill our water glasses, etc... all in all the service was not too good. When the bill came I left exactly 15%. Waiter comes to pick up the check and we are getting up ready to leave. On my way out the waiter comes after me telling that I didn't leave enough tip and this is his livelyhood. At first I thought I didn't hear correctly and ask him to repeat what he just said. Tells me again and hands me back the tab, I grab a pen and cross out the tip leaving him nothing. Hand it back to him and leave. Was feeling pretty bad about it but if you have the balls to come up to me asking for more tip after such a poor service you gave me, you are forcing me to be a jerk.

Last tip I gave was about $40, service was good & the food was ok.

You over tipped by $0.35 according the standard 15% rule and you didn't have a party of 8 so you weren't required to tip 20%, so you did the right thing, I usually tip between 10-20%, depending on how the waiter/waitress was but 10% is my lowest and 20% is my highest, although I did tip $5.00 one time on a $6.20 meal because the waitress was hot :Graucho

People tip me, wherever I go, just for the privilage of being close to me.