Do you think we are paying waitresses wages by leaving a large tip

I have mixed emotions when it comes to leaving tips. As customers at a restaurant, we are somewhat obligated to leave a required percentage for the tip. However, every waiter does not earn a good tip. Why give a waiter with lousy service a good tip when they didn't earn the tip? Let's just say you dine at a restaurant and the waiter is slow coming to the table, they take forever to bring you drink, they get your order wrong, and they don't come over to ask if everything is ok, nor do they come to check to see if you need a refill. In the end, they are still getting their 20 percent tip because it is somewhat required from patrons. I don't think it is fair.

 

@Ebby23, the reason you should leave a tip is the same reason your employer should pay you every day for coming into work. I'm assuming you don't work as a server based on your comments, but based on your logic, you are in effect saying that it's perfectly fine for your employer to dock your pay each day because they didn't feel like you got much done. You wouldn't like that at all, would you? How often do you think your employer would *conveniently* come up with yet another excuse about why they aren't paying you, day after day? Take it up with the management for not paying their employees fair wages, don't take it up with the servers who have no control over that.

Restaurant owners take advantage of stupid policies here in the US that essentially allow them to get labor for next to nothing, and you not tipping only exasperates that problem. Servers aren't obligated to wait on you for free then kiss your ass end beg for a decent tip when your meal is done - they're workers who waited on you and deserve to get paid just like anyone else. There are many threads on this forum about why it's your responsibility to leave a tip, quit playing ignorant and regurgitating the same tired old arguments.

 

I agree!, well said. We are VERY good tippers. The problems I see with tipping is not the amount, but the fact that our server has to often split the tip with other server's. You can always tell when this is done. When other servers than your own bring out your food, not your own server. I don't mind of course, but when it comes to the tip, I always actually wonder if it was fair since they did most of the work.

But still, we do tip very well.

 

I've worked in the service industry before, and I always make sure to leave a decent tip. I'd say nine out of ten times, it isn't the waitstaff's fault that your service was terrible. Not saying it's the diners, but there's more going on behind the scenes than most people realize. Also, very rarely is someone else bringing your food out indicative of tip sharing. It's usually that the waiter or waitress is too swamped to expo food quickly enough.

I usually tip $10 on all orders up to $50, then tip accordingly from there. Very rarely do I give "bad" tips, and if I'm at a buffet I'm not compelled to tip as well since most of the time the staff is on an hourly wage.

 

In my country you pay 10% of your total bill in tips, it's the standard. They will automatically charge that on your bill. You are not obligated to pay, you can ask for it to be removed, but nobody does unless service is really really bad... I think 10% is a fair amount to pay. Plus you can leave some extra bucks if you feel like you should pay the extra. I sometimes do if I really enjoy the service.

 

It's funny that you say this, because it is in fact the employers, that is to say, the management who has full support of the government, that dock the employee's pay. And it is perfectly fine, which it should be. Now, as a customer, let me say that I am fully willing to take my own orders to the kitchen and bring myself my food, refill my own water, etc, if it meant I didn't have to tip. We actually have such establishments, they are called fast food. Why it doesn't extend to other types of dining baffles me.

Now, I have worked in fast food, and our policy was that if you were eating in the restaurant instead of taking it to go, we'd bring you your food. It's not like I ever got tipped for any of that, most of our tips came from people who were getting takeaway. Riddle me that.

Personally I'd say I tip normally. 15% for normal service, up to 25% if it was very good service (and if my meal wasn't expensive). If it was very bad, I may not tip, but the people I eat with will tip so it's not like the waiter/waitress wasted their time with our table.

Now let me just say that i

 

I think they should get rid of tips and force restaurants to pay their servers better. Food service is the only job that depends on customers to pay the employees wages and that seems wrong.
Why should restaurants get away with underpaying servers and make customers pay their wages? There should be a law that servers get paid at least minimum wage.
The people that seem to benefit the most from the current system are restaurant owners ,because the customers are paying their employees for them.

 

Coming from the industry when I was working as a bartender, tips are pretty important to these people's wages. I'll qualify my statements by saying that this only applies to place where servers, bartenders and people who work those types of jobs are concerned. The tips that waitresses make are often split among many of the various trades in a business.

So, if you order a drink and I make the drink, then the waitress might have to tip out to me. The busboy who cleans your table is another person who might get a percentage of that tip. The specific percentages can be different based on the place. but the over all practice has been the same at the various places I've been.

 

I very much agree with you. In Europe, this is the norm. Servers/waitresses are paid a higher wage as their service is expected to be exceptional. It eliminates tips based on performance or obligation.

 

I pay tip, every time. I do this simply because I know they depend on it for their wages, and so I'll pay between 10-20% based on service. I do think, though, that I shouldn't have to. I've heard the argument "tips make for good service" so many times, and I can say that it doesn't matter. Some people are just bad servers, and some are just bad tippers, and when you have either the other party suffers. Moreover, I've never seen bad service fixed by low tips, as most bad servers still make enough to be above minimum wage. I've instead found that restaurants that just add a tip to the bill automatically seem to have happier servers. They know that they will get a good tip, and so they generally perform well. If they don't, management can fire them. The only thing I can think of is to take it a step further and just have restaurants pay minimum wage upfront as then the disparity in tips based on time is eliminated, as well as servers trying to push more expensive entrees or drinks (hasn't happened too often, but it has happened more than once). I think the tip system should just be eliminated, and that we move to wages.

 

It's the nature of the restaurant industry. It's not just the waitress who gets the tip, but that tip you leave out might end up going to 2 or even 3 different people. Also, while we can complain about leaving a tip and the restaurant owners should have to pay more, the employees who depend on tips are still struggling. As I worked for 6 months as a waiter, it made me appreciate tips that people left a great deal. That' why I'll tip whenever necessary and maybe even a bit extra if I felt like I got great service that time out at a restaurant.

 

I also worked as a server and know how hard a server works for the tips they receive. I didn't mind tipping my bus boy because he helped me get more tables, if I had a food runner I also tipped that person but they helped me to be a better server by getting the food to the table quicker while I was free to wait on another table. I do believe the system could and should be better so that wait staff is not taken advantage of. The wait staff has to clean the restaurant and set it up for the next day at no additional pay. The tips are the major portion of the wait staff's income. Some restaurants even pay the bar staff a higher wage and they still get tipped out by the wait staff.

 

According to your "logic" any person working in retail should have their wages supplemented by the customer? Just because people in food service WANT this, doesn't make it automatically right. I think it's atrocious that restaurants don't have the same standards as other service industries have. That doesn't mean that the customer should have to support both the boss, and the waitstaff. Tips should be purely gratutious, not mandatory.

 

It's a dreadful system and just gives employers an excuse to pay poor wages. Happy staff will deliver great service and diners shouldn't be expected to make up the shortfall in the server's pay.

 

The fact is: servers are human. They don't dream about being servers, they typically don't have a choice. They are doing it because they need the money to live. As far as bad tips for bad service, how do you know they didn't just find out their favorite aunt just died? Or was up all night taking care of their baby they can't get medicine for because people are so shallow they won't tip if their sweet tea gets low? Maybe it's their first day on their own. You don't know what that person is going through. The only thing you know for sure is that they are working at a thankless job, serving selfish people who want them to do a tap dance on the table to earn a dollar.

 

I am not a big fan of the tip system. I do think servers should be making the minimum wage. I dont think its right for costumers to have to pay for the meal and an ever increasing expectation of tips on top of that.

 

I have wondered why waiters and waitresses are paid so low. I was going to accept a job once as a waitress in a fine hotel, but then I was told I'd make 2.45 an hour plus tips. I just could not comprehend. I did not accept the job. It totally opened my eyes to that industry.

I have a sensitivity to those who are serving me, so I am sure to leave a tip.

Especially at the hair salon.

 

I almost always live a tip. The only reason I would not do it is if the service indeed bad.

If you think about it, service jobs are not exactly carreer makers. Nobody becomes a waiter becomes that is his or her dream job, but just to make ends meet for a while before getting their break. And service jobs regardless of the pay are hard: you have to be nice even if you have a bad day, you are always on your feet and you do not really enjoy what you are doing. To me, that is reason enough to tip.

Also, most service workers pull their tips, meaning they share it with the cooks, bus boys etc

 

I think if you don't leave a tip it's disrespectful to your server and makes you look cheap. I have been a cocktail server and waitress and was getting paid $4 per hour. I was on my feet moving all day and delivered service with a smile, but if I depended on living solely off $4 per hour my children would have starved. Not to forget that my hourly wages were sucked up by Uncle Sam anyway because 10% of all sales were claimed to be taxed on. If you are accustomed to not leaving a tip and you are a regular at any dining establishments you better believe that the servers cringe when you walk in and nobody wants to help you. In the industry I have often heard that you shouldn't mess with the people who handle your food...