This always infuriates me. If your employees need tips to get paid enough, they’re just paid too little. Don’t bash the customer, bash the boss! I worked in hospitality for years and tips are purely to show gratitude for better than expected service. If you think differently about this, then you’re just brainwashed
Custom 0% it’s quite simple.
tf is soso
Does anyone just not tip anymore if it’s counter service? It does not require that much effort to take something from a glass case and give it to me.
If you’re actively walking around, giving me and checking in on my meal, that’s when I tip.
if i have a bunch of questions and they have a bunch of answers i might tip… otherwise, never
Full table service = tip Otherwise you’ll get nothing from me
It’s an automatic $0 tip if I have 0 interaction with anyone but the cashier, that’s for sure.
That’s wild. If we go out for a meal (UK) we’ll just leave whatever change we have on the table or hand it to the waitress that served us, maybe 5 to 10 quid. If they try to make it a part of the payment, they’ll get nothing.
That’s because the UK has stronger wage protections than the US. Here the Federal minimum wage for “tipped positions,” which are their own special category, is only $2.13 per hour. The management literally expects you, the customer, to make up for their payroll shortfall.
Related fun fact: The reason the US (still) has such a tipping culture at all is, as usual, the result of post-slavery racism when business owners flat out refused to actually pay any of their newly freed black employees, and instead demanded their customers to do it for them. For those positions, tips were the only way those people got paid.
So yes, US business owners would absolutely force their employees to work for no pay if they could get away with it.
I live in a state where our servers make state minimum wage. 16+ dollars an hour. They still ask for tips. So the fed minimum doesn’t really change anything in making up the payroll shortfall.
Correct. And anybody who states the federal minimum wage as $2.13 is lying.
In every state, you will make whatever the state’s minimum wage is. The employer in many states can discount that wage down to whatever the tipped minimum wage is.
Let’s assume a restaurant that only ever seats individuals and only sells one item. That item costs 10$. Let’s also assume the worst… that the normal tip is 10%.
So if you work in AZ and work a full 8 hour shift.
8*14.70 = 117.6. This is your minimum wage that you can walk away from that shift with. (let’s ignore taxes for the moment). Let’s start looking at how many tables you’d serve in a reasonable shift. When I was working in restaurants as a teenager, I was handling ~4 tables /hr average. So lets assume lower, at 3 tables. If a restaurant cannot give wait staff 3 tables an hour, something is wrong with the restaurant itself or management.
811.70 + (83)(101*.1) = $117.6, $0 over the minimum wage. However you busted your ass and this probably doesn’t feel “worth” it. Actual wage of $14.70/hr
Except reality is that most tables are probably on average going to be 2 people… and 20% is much more customary at this point. 811.70 + (83)(102*.2) = $189.6, $72 over what you’d get on minimum wage alone. Actual wage of $23.7/hr. Which is respectable.
Let’s take a much “worse” state in AR. Same calcs…
811.00 = $88. 82.63 + (83)(101.1) = $45.04… Oh no! Less than the state minimum wage… Except that’s not possible. The restaurant must cover the difference. You will leave with $11/hr 82.63 + (83)(102*.2) = $117.04. Actual wage of $14.63/hr
Now keep in mind we were working with a fictitious case where food was only $10/plate. And no drinks or anything like that. The numbers go up substantially if we put more real figures into the equation. At a more reasonable 4 tables an hour… and 15-20$ per plate, drinks, and 20-25% tipping… etc… the numbers go up significantly.
A real world case for a family of 4. $150 check for the table. 18% tip is $27. We were there for 40 minutes. Assuming the waiter had NO OTHER TABLES the entire day. He would have made $15.08/hr. My one tip alone put him over the minimum wage for AZ for the whole day… He had 2 other tables while we were there, and another whole 7 other hours of work if he’s pulling an 8 hour shift.
Here’s the kicker though… The MAJORITY of states don’t observe the federal minimums at all. And all of the more populous states with higher cost of living are in the majority.
I did research not that long ago and even though the federal minimum wage is something like $7.25, if you do a population distribution of the USA and their respective state minimum wages, you find that the actual average minimum wage for any give person in the USA is something like $11.70.
$2.13 is a lie. Tipped workers in well run restaurants tend to make so much money over minimum wage, that you rarely find wait staff that are FOR killing the tipping system. None of them want to be paid flat rate. They all want tips simply because it can bring you so far above your state’s minimum wage.
$2.13 is true and wrong.
The minimum wage plus tips is $7.25.
In other words, if you tip someone under federal law, and that person works 40 hours per week, after 1 week, 40*5 = $200 were stolen from your tips by the employer from employee. As if the person earned $0 in tips, the $200 would have to be covered by the employer.
And in reality, the number of restaraunts which track tips and actually make up the $7.25 difference is functionally zero.
The management is explicitly operating under the assumption that they’ll weasel out of it anyhow with the expectation that you’ll pay it yourself on top of their already profitable menu price.
My point wasn’t that wait staff is paid better than 2.15. my point is, they are getting robbed.
Ah, yes. I made a slight edit; we’re largely making the same point.
Semi-hijacking: delivery apps are notoriously good at finding legal loopholes and can very often pay sub minimum wage in places other than the US too. As a European, I try not to order food from them, but when I do, those are the only people I tip more than 10%/rounding up.
custom
0%
-100%
If I saw those numbers it would be cancel then shop elsewhere
lol 100% tip? Your tipping culture is so bad.
It’s not just the tipping part of our culture that’s bad. The entire thing is rot.
maybe a revolution would be in order. :)
got any tips on how could we do that?
I’m afraid I cannot go into details as that could be interpreted as a call for violence.
I’ve never seen anything above 30% suggested anywhere in the US. This is an extreme outlier and would make even people used to our crazy tipping culture balk.
I have most definitely seen higher effective suggestions at coffee shops. I ordered a single drip coffee (~$2.50) and the suggestions were $1, $2, or $3.
I’d cancel my order and leave.
I’d hit the custom button and leave my customary 20%. If course if they gave me any shit I would never return
error. must be between 150% and 1000%
For this? I’d hit the custom button and put in $0.02, and then tell them exactly why they’re getting that tip. I only get “thank you!” if I double the cost of my order? fuck off. 30% is not a “so-so” tip, that’s the upper end of the best tips I give.
Americans, your tip coulture makes the rich richer. Having labour laws and unions in place, forcing the payment of a decent minimun wage and the extinction of tip culture would transfer the responsibility to the owner.
Edit: before you say “prices woild go up” 1- you alredy pay “up”. 2- He can only go so much higher before he starts to loose clients.
Now is really not the time to be nitpicking the lesser points of American culture. We’re kind of dealing with an existential crisis at the moment.
lol you are right. But maybe something small will be the last grain of sand that’ll make the bag burst
Tip is a recognition of an excellent service, not a right. I would pay without any tip and leave some cash on the table if the service was good (few pounds usually).
Thats europe. In north america, waiters are paid below minimum wage and the tips are supposed to make up the rest.
15% i think is still what the gov expects for wages, so in theory thats for just plain service, forcing us to either hurt the waiter or pay the fee. It’s a terrible system. I prefer to not eat out at all than to cut tips, even for poor service i’ll leave 10% and won’t go back.
Most people who work the service industry don’t claim cash tips, but credit tips are required to be claimed due to the whole being electronic and traceable thing.
If, as a service person, most or all tips are in cash, you just claim whatever brings you to minimum wage for that pay period.
This is obviously heavily dependent upon where you work - some places want you to claim all tips (but you still don’t claim cash usually) others, especially if you make above min wage like most bartenders, don’t care.
However, if you don’t claim those tips you can’t use that as income when taking out loans and applying for housing and whatever else. So it’s fucks people over pretty regularly.
a tipped employee who does that work for years will also see shit for social security later on, as that’s based on your reported and taxed earnings.
Well yeah, if you dont declare all your income to dodge taxes, they shouldn’t be surprised the income can’t be used for credit. But if it’s just cash then it’s not traceable, you can declare less and keep more in your pocket than an electronic transaction
It also depends how the company declares their outgoing tips and contributions (different in US vs canada of even states/provinces).
The vast majority of full service restaurant transactions are by card. Something like 80% of restaurant transactions are by card, and full service restaurants with servers are even higher.
There’s not a ton of cash tips at this point, so underreporting cash tips doesn’t make as big of a difference as it used to.
Thats europe.
most of europe sneers at tipping.
We sneer at it too, but here it’s built into people’s wages. If i could vote to abolish it i would
If i could vote to abolish it i would
yeah, I’m american, same. funny we never really get the opportunity to vote on stuff like this tho. shit’s rigged.
The whole system is absolutely rubbish…
This business is so out of touch. Everybody knows “so-so” means the same thing as “okay”.
Fuck this place, if it’s real
I have seen this around multiple times. I really doubt that it is real. The whole working-for-tips system is messed up, thou, but the biggest I have ever seen recommended is 25%
thou
thy cant’est mean thou
Thou = though in this case I think.
well yeah but that’s no fun
20%
($19.00)
terribleCome on… Not realistic at all… Why is the Custom button not transparent? Or doesn’t it allow to go lower than 30%?
Nah I’d succumb easily for “good” because I strive to be a good boy
