sir.. that was my point.... whether I order a 100 dollar plate or 5 dollars it seems like the work load is about the same. Please people don't make it out as if its the hardest job ever... there are plenty of construction workers who work everyday in Houston heat for less than a waiter is making.. heck maybe we should be giving the road workers tips.. they are doing us a service as well..
T-minus ?? seconds til the closing of this thread. You guys can stop the minimum wage talk because it's never going to happen. How would you know how difficult it is since you've never done it? In any decent restaurant, waiting tables is not just carrying food and asking if you want fries with that. According to your profile you are unemployed. I challenge you to go apply for a waiter job. I have no doubt in my mind you couldn't hack it at any given Chili's(where you probably wouldn't even get hired) let alone a more upscale restaurant. Stupid argument from StupidMoniker. They are all already paid what the market will bear. Do you really think that you'd end up getting the same quality of food and service if you simply paid everyone in those positions minimum wage? Every restaurant would end up like your local Denny's. Whether you care to acknowledge it or not, there are cooks, expos, waiters, etc that are the cream of the crop in respective same positions, just like in the rest of the working world and there are people that work at Denny's that wouldn't last a day at place like Pappadeaux. But hey, maybe we can apply your logic to all industries. That customer service rep with your credit card company for instance. All they do is talk on the phone and do some basic data entry. Nothing special there. Let's pay them minimum wage. Thanks for your concern daNasty, but I did just fine. Time to use those Microsoft Accessibility options: No one, I repeat no one has made an argument for tipping for horrible service, so there is no need to keep bringing it up. Carry on. You're compelled to keep repeating your argument, so why shouldn't those of us who have worked in the service industry? You aren't any more right. You're just stating your case, as we are. They money waiters can make is great. It just irks me that people like yourself imply that servers don't earn it. You guys keep talking about carrying plates being the same thing whether is it a $10 or $200 tab. Go get a server job, then get back to me. It's hardly the same. If you think you'd get the same service from a Denny's waitress as say a fine dining waitress, you're only fooling yourself. Yes, construction work is probably harder, but I don't know what they make(probably comparable, if not more than a waiter), but I can guarantee most construction workers wouldn't cut it as a waiter at any of the restaurants I worked at. OK, I'm done arguing this. Have fun, enjoy your dining experiences and don't forget to take care of your wait staff because they are(should be) taking care of you.
I'd say a lot more would make it as waiters than waiters would make it as construction workers.... high school people with no work experience can be waiters, but cant' build a house... as for the other thing.. everytime one of these threads has come up where people didn't want to tip for poor service it seemed everyone wanted to blame it on the kitchen etc and that it can't be the waiters faultt and then go on about the tough job.. the service may be different in fine dining places, but someone on here said they tipped 2000 before for a party of 10.. no way could a waiter possibly do enough work to earn 2000 for serving a table of 10..
one more point.... if i go to dennys. table of 4. we all order 3 dollar meals and the other table orders 10 dollar meals..... how is the waiter doing more work for the table with 10 dollar meals?
Dude, just admit you're cheap, and quit trying to justify it. You know the American custom. You choose to fight it. With idiocy. The rules are there. Go argue why gas is too high, or your phone bill is unjust, or whatever. Just quit trying to explain why you are cheap. All of yall's excuses are stale, and spent.
I'm from from cheap.. answer the question. of how they are doing more work??? If anything Im justifying giving more in this case because otherwise if I gave 15% of the 10 or so I usually spend on myself thats only a couple of bucks, and I think they are doing the same amount of work as if I had ordered more expensive food.. which is why I usually give more than 15%.. don't call me cheap when I've many times tipped over 30%, I just want to know why its based on price, when I don't think the amount of work directly goes up with the food prices.. or down with the food prices for that matter
I'd prefer to tip on how much work they do.. which means on 10 bucks I often end up giving 3 bucks or so.. of course if I tipped on price instead they'd only give 1.50
This isn't difficult. On $10, the correct tip should be $2. On pretty much everything else, it should be 15%, roughly. Don't get me wrong. There can and will be exceptions. But they are few and far between. More expensive restaurant should have better servers. And here is the kicker: If you work at a coffee shop, you know you're going to get $1-2 a table. If you work at LaGriglia, you should expect $10-20 a table. Thems the breaks. We all know it. If you don't want to spend more than a couple of bucks for a tip, there are plenty of places you can go. Some Attorneys charge $100/hr. Other's charge $500/hr. Why is this? They both work the same hours?!? Why should there be such a large discrepancy? Maybe that helps answer your question.
Rocket Fan - Just tip how you want to tip. If someone is calling you cheap but you think you're tipping fine, keep doing it. There is no right or wrong.
After reading most of these arguments here, I've decided to only eat out on special occasions at nice restaurants and tip well. Otherwise, it's cafeteria's, fast food, and eating at home to avoid all the bs. Seriously, I'm seeing the arguments from all sides, and I conclude that the system is just messed up. I liked the tipping system in France better. Of course there was a lot of crappy service, but there were also some great service restaurants too, and everything was tip included. BTW, I always try to tip exactly 15% unless I got some free comped drinks or food or whatever.
Actually, and this might seem like a contradiction to my previous posts, I think service is a million times better in the US than in France, and often also than in Germany. Of course, this has to do with the tipping system as well. I just think that some of the expectations for tips in the US seem to have gone overboard and that it is not right to institute a "mandatory tip". Also, I can understand RocketPimp's perspective, even though I disagree with some of the opinions. I think this has been an interesting discussion.
This sums it up quite nicely. If you think waiters make too much, you can either a) become one, or b) not go out to eat. For those who don't understand the 'system'- the fabric of society is very complex.
So what if you can't cook? Become a waiter, get married to somebody who can cook or starve? And if everybody stays at home, guess what, all you waiters are unemployed. I would challenge anyone on this board to name one job in which the customers pay the wages instead of the owners. Got a problem with the system, whine to the government/owners, don't take it up with customers. They already paid for what they went to the restaurant for, you know, that thing called food? As I've mentioned, I always tip very well, but that is my discretion. I understand some waiters work very hard and there are many very nice waiters, but the tip is MY choice. If it's mandatory, it is a price, so call it such. The whole point is I can't stand the few lazy and whiney spoiled brats who feel they DESERVE tips. The person might be a jackass, but the bottom line is, he tipped and he got arrested because the owner is too cheap to pay his waiters while pretends to be fighting for their cause while the waiters are a bunch of spoiled brats.
In a lot of sales positions, the salesperson makes the majority of his/her money off of commissions. If a person only sells $15 worth of stuff, they'll get a small commission. If they sell $200 worth of stuff, they get a larger commission. Kinda sounds like some other profession. If you can't cook, go to McDonalds or Subway if you want something healthy.
Kinda sounds like a wrong analogy. With the salesperson, the commission is a mandatory percentage of the price which gets paid to the salesperson by the seller (even though, of course, the money originally comes from the buyer). With a waiter, the tip is what it is - something the buyer/customer voluntarily decides to give or not to give - there should be no mandatory correlation to anything.
Basically, you are just not understanding. There is a big difference if something is voluntary or mandatory. Just ask the guy they put in jail (I don't care if he is a jackass).
MFW2310: Listen closely. It is not mandatory. It is expected, but it is not mandatory. If you don't tip what is expected, then you are cheap, and you've done your server a disservice, but you have that right. If you bothered to read my initial posts on this, I said the cheap b*stard who was arrested didn't deserve to be arrested and the case would be dismissed. You have every right to not tip, if you don't want to. And I'll call anyone on here who doesn't tip 15% a cheap S.O.B. who's trying to reason themselves into something we all know is and has been standard etiquette for decades, now. I have that right. And servers have every right to look at a group of teacher's and automatically assume they will be bad tippers. Women, in general, are notoriously bad tippers, as well. Basically, again, if you don't tip appropriately, then you are, at the very least, rude.
If the buyer doesn't give the seller money, then the salesperson doesn't make money. Just because it goes to the company first, then to the salesperson doesn't change the fact that the salesperson made her money off the buyer, not the company itself. Without the buyer, the salesperson makes no money.
