Andre Roberson Leaves a less than expected tip in ATX

So the bolded statement is incorrect. No one in the united states can be paid under minimum wage. A waiter will make $2.13 an hour plus tips. If those two values do not add up to minimum wage the waiter isn't screwed over. Rather, the company then is forced to make up the difference. Let's say minimum wage is $15 an hour. If between tips and my hourly wage I average $10 an hour, my employer is forced to make up the difference. This makes sense, this is because a server is not in charge of promotion. If no one shows up to a nightclub/bar/restaurant it isn't the responsibility of the server to increase foot traffic. That's on the company itself. This is entirely different than commission based sales. Because you are the point of contact, and the driver of the sale you have to go out and find sales. Hence why a lot of sales positions have low base pay (ie $36,000 a year) but then load up on incentives and commission.

Independent contractors are a whole other type of worker all together. Service industry employees can get benefits and are seen as actual employees. Contractors are temps, and do not have the same rights and benefits. Something as simple as going to a company picnic is not allowed for a lot of independent contractors.

Edit: so when someone asks a waiter what he or she makes, the best response is "at least minimum wage, if not more than that". I placed a link to the department of labor in a previous post citing the information above.

 

I have no intention to judge how much a waiter should be paid. All I am saying is that these people should be paid BY THEIR EMPLOYERS their fair compensation. And the owners in turn can put the cost at the prices of the food they serve. The management is responsible for the performance of their employees, just like the vast majority of industries, rather than letting the customers compensate for their servers, which is an unfair system.

If I were a restaurant owner, I would pay my servers well, train them well, demand high performance from them, and prohibit them from taking tips. I would tell my customers that I prohibit my servers from taking tips, that their service was included in the prices of the food. The airlines can do that with their flight attendants, why can't restaurant owners do the same?

 

I agree whole heartily on that point. It's like when Papa John was complaining about Obamacare and saying that it would drive up costs of the pizzas. Someone sat down and did the math and it came out to 50 cents a pizza. Raise my damn pizza price by 50 cents if it means they get healthcare, I sure as hell won't complain about that.

 

What I meant is that the restaurant can pay a wage as low as $2.13/hour and the rest has to come from tips. But yes you are right that the law requires at least minimum wage. So the owner has to make it up so the if it falls below minimum wage. But in practice this doesn't really happen. If the business is doing so poorly that this happens, the server usually gets let go or quits and won't bother trying to fight for the make-up pay on a failing establishment.

I do realize that making servers true independent contractors is ridiculous. One major reason is that they can't just come and go as they please or set their own hours.

But I was just making the point that since the untipped wage is low, their relationship to the customer is almost like that of employer/independent contractor rather than employee of the restaurant. The tip is almost their entire pay and it is a line item where it is understood to go almost entirely to the server.

(Also a lot of service employees are in fact independent contractors. Many hairdressers rent space in salons and aren't employees at all. This is also the norm with dance studio instructors.)

 

Except I don't think anyone has actually suggested to knowingly undertip to "protest" the tipping system. So its really a strawman.

And as far as the OP goes, this is in fact the heart of the matter. When Roberson paid $13 tip to just have a $500 bottle handed over, is that really "screwing over" the bartender? Some people say yes, but many bartenders also say that asking for $100 to hand over a $500 bottle is excessive. As there isn't overwhelming consensus, its not clear that Roberson was being cheap at all, especially if you factor in that he "overpaid" in tips on a just prior tab and which he probably felt "carried over".

 

More is one thing, 20x more is another. Maybe knowing a fancier / more extensive menu warrants a 15% higher tip, or 25%, hell, I'll even give you 50%. But 2000%? In the real world, numbers matter, not just el gnomo's qualitative blabberings.

I would argue that my admin has to do way more than a barista, including pouring coffee. So why doesn't she deserve a tip? It's arbitrary.

As my post clearly states, I'm not directly comparing tipping to slavery, suffrage etc. I'm comparing the same head-in-the-sand, clinging-to-the-past, "but thats the way it has always been and nothing in the world can ever change!" argument you're making to the very same arguments made in the past in attempt to impede process. The fact that you aren't able to differentiate between this really speaks to your reading comprehension abilities.

 

Awwwwww somebody's mad. I must have struck a nerve somewhere. Speaking of reading comprehension, did you not see where I said I'm neither in favor of nor against the current tipping policy? I don't care enough to do something about it, because it doesn't make a difference in my quality of life. If you feel so passionately, why don't you do something about it? Progress in tipping lmfaooooooooo

 

totally agree, tipping should not be mandatory, it's a gesture of goodwill and if the people feel like giving it, fine, it should not be part of the salary system or whatever you see it is.
i have been to a small restaurant where no one is there and we waited more than half an hour to get our food, the waiter is very rude and didn't even answer my question when i asked why they took so long to prepare the food, i ended up not giving any tips and they chased me out to my car and insisted me giving them something, i ended up giving them 1 dollar because my wife doesn't want to waste our time there, but i can tell you that meal really sucked and if i had to do it again, i'd left the restaurant before they served up anything

 

Why does this matter??? Not even remotely interesting. Please delete and refrain from posting crap like this going forward. This is not TMZ

 

Only explanation, the bartender had on a Rockets cap. I get it, but should've talked trash and tipped 10-20% minimum.

 

What? We're worse. We all got crunk over melo landing at IAH. Literally we were looking at his luggage tags.

 

Melo at IAH is somewhat interesting because it relates to the Rockets potentially getting him. Some role player on a completely different team leaving a crappy tip has nothing to do with what this forum is about.

 

It's still worse than TMZ. I like it, but it's obnoxious what we do if you step outside your own interests.