Not tipping is now a service to the waiter... what?

[Rageaholic]

This guy is full of fail.

Young people have to learn to earn their gifts. They need to work hard and have a great ethic about them. In past generations, young boys and girls had to really hustle to survive. Today, we have children living in their parents’ homes until they turn thirty. According to a recent article in Forbes Magazine, many of this generation are too lazy to find work, blaming the recession and waiting around the house until things get better.

For that comment he can go fuck himself. Jobs may be easy for him, but for many such as myself, we are competing with several others for that one position. He's making a blanket statement, assuming that everyone who doesn't have jobs are just lazy bums who won't work. That kind of thinking is exactly what pisses me off. And it's no surprise that he's using the bible to justify his "screw the poor" ideology.

And as others have said, waiters rely on tips, so his analogies are crap. If they were actually paid minimum wage, maybe they wouldn't rely on tips as much.

I have to stop now, but man people like this guy are at the top of my shit list. Uncompassionate, talking about the good ol days, and using religion all in one. What a douchebag.

[Jack]

I actually stumbled upon the site from a link on "how to tell if your husband is gay" thinking it was a satire site or something like that (and if you read that particular article as satire, it is damned funny), and at the bottom of the page on related links was that one which was just... yeah...

You would love adequacy.org I think.

If it's like some of the places I've had friends work at, failing to make enough in tips that they have to cover the difference is grounds for termination, because obviously if you were providing quality service you wouldn't need the company to make up for lack of tips...

Oh, wow. The joys of at-will, neh? :\

And the author's attitude re: "Young people should work for their gifts" is so silly to me. I guess the other 2/3 or so of min wage is a gift. From God I assume.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Here are my rules for tipping. I'm not saying that I expect others to follow my personal rules, just that these are the ones that my wife and I follow.

Awesome service - 20% tip and a talk to the manager on how wonderful our server was.
Decent service - 15%
lackluster Service - 10% and a talk to the manager about what I had issues with
Cruddy service - 5% and a talk as above.
Really cruddy service - Two pennies and a letter to the corporate office or the owner explaining my issues.

As for places that automatically tack on an 18% gratuity without me being able to determine if the waitstaff was worth it? They get told why I refuse to pay that without knowing if I have a server worth it or not as I leave (before being seated if possible, if it is on the menu I'll leave before ordering.

A good example is in the Manalapan Diner in Manalapan New Jersey. One month we went with about 30 people and we had someone who couldn't remember anything. Gave me three Diet Cokes in a row before getting it right. When asked the fifth time where the carafe of Hot Water and the Tea Bags were, we were told that "I only have two hands". Mind you we asked him about the tea when all the food had been ordered and he had come back to check on us.

Poor bugger was lucky to get a couple of bucks per person as a tip.

The next month we went back with the same 30 people (SCA Business Meetings) and the waiter stayed after his shift to work on our tables, did his level best to get everything right, corrected his mistakes quickly and efficiently. Always had a smile, cracked jokes with us, never let a drink go empty for long. In short, worth the tips he had. Everyone paid for their orders and usually left a $20 to pay up and all said "keep the change". Since this being a diner and all the meals came to $10-12 dollars, this was between $8 and $10 per person as a tip. So this guy made between $240 and $300.

In the end he thanked us for the tip as we were leaving (including him) and we thanked him for the wonderful service.

All I can say, if you want a good tip from me then do your job to the best of your abilities. Service with a smile, an apology and a quick fix for mistakes made, and some effort goes a long way with me.

I know how tipping works and I know that servers get the shitty end of the stick since they don't get Minimum Wage (something I think they should @#$%ing well get), but a gratuity is just that. A monetary representation of how gracious I feel towards you and the services rendered. Give me shit and you ain't gonna get shit from me. Give me good service and you get a good tip.

Simple as that.

[Nyoibo]

Young people have to learn to earn their gifts. They need to work hard and have a great ethic about them. In past generations, young boys and girls had to really hustle to survive. Today, we have children living in their parents’ homes until they turn thirty. According to a recent article in Forbes Magazine, many of this generation are too lazy to find work, blaming the recession and waiting around the house until things get better.

Fuck himself indeed, when my mother bought her first house with my father they paid $20,000 for it and were each earning I think $10-20,000 a year, when I was working fuul time I was earning $25,000 a year and a house would have cost me $300,000, there's a reason I'm still living at home.

[Racket_Man]

Oh, wow. The joys of at-will, neh? :\

And the author's attitude re: "Young people should work for their gifts" is so silly to me. I guess the other 2/3 or so of min wage is a gift. From God I assume.

you would be surprised. I posted over at CS a little over a year ago
http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...highlight=memo

it may not seem to the article writer that these "youngin's" do not work for their "pay" but then again tell that to the IRS when the decide to audit your ass and pull out the BIG and LONG probe and you have to spend like $10,000 (yes ten thousand) to defend yourself and still have to pay the IRS.

tell that to the poor hairdresser in Seattle when the IRS "claimed" she did not report enough income
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Tax/w...ory?id=9270893

and the IRS punished her parents by auditing them and denying them both (MOm and parents) the right to claim Mom's two sons as dependants unless they kept EXACTING records of every PENNY spent on the children.
http://2164th.blogspot.com/2009/12/i...-down-for.html

[Lace Neil Singer]

This guy sounds like a miserable old git to me. My mum, who's a practicing Christian, would not think much of his behaviour; especially considering Jesus' own attitude towards the poor and needy.

As for tipping, in England it's not compulsory. I will leave a tip for good service; however, if I get bad or indifferent service, I won't tip. I don't see why bad behaviour should be rewarded. If the service is particularly bad, I will speak to the manager about the server so that they can be corrected.

[tropicsgoddess]

Meh, the poster there was just trying to justify being a tightwad.

Rapscallion

Agreed. SO and I give out good tips and if the service sucked we'd still tip...but at 10%. There's a HUGE difference between being charitable and Christian versus being an outright cheapskate.

[Arcade Man D]

Awesome service - 20% tip and a talk to the manager on how wonderful our server was.
Decent service - 15%
lackluster Service - 10% and a talk to the manager about what I had issues with
Cruddy service - 5% and a talk as above.
Really cruddy service - Two pennies and a letter to the corporate office or the owner explaining my issues.

I actually start with 20% as my default tip, and go to 25% for awesome service, personally, but I figure it helps make up for the cheapskates (and I'm usually eating alone, so getting decent service is actually above-and-beyond some places).

Otherwise, this is similar to my own scale. And I've only done the 2 penny (well, suggested it to my folks, as we were out for my dad's birthday) once. When we were completely ignored by the waitress while she was chatting with some young man who was apparently her boyfriend, didn't even ask my dad if he wanted a second beer when the dinner (finally) came (15 minutes longer than it should have taken and lukewarm because it was sitting on the counter for that time), and all around acted like she didn't give a shit about her job. That is a 2 penny tip to me. Had she at least acknowledged us every so often, it would have been entirely different.

[ZedOmega]

As Christians we are guided to be charitable. We are asked to tithe 10% to our churches.

My eye was already twitching pretty bad while reading this article, but that line just takes the cake. Isn't the whole tithe thing supposed to be 10% of total income?

[Rebel]

The authors take on tipping might work in a place like Australia. That's only because minimum wage is about $16/hr and the hospitality union pretty much negotiates a wage increase every couple of years to coincide with the raising cost of living.
Hell, I remember working in the hospitality industry and not knowing what was going on when someone left a tip. Figured they'd forgotten their change and actually reported it the the manager.

I figured that because of Americas crappy minimum wage (is it like $6/hr? Even less?), that tips were just a fact of life when you go out to eat. The customer is essentially paying for the service.
When I eat out these days (in Canada), I always try to tip appropriately. Though I will admit that I'm one of those people who tries to work out the %, panic, then just grabbed a handful of money, put it on the table, then run away.

If the author doesn't want to tip, then maybe he should campaign for an increase in the waiters wage to a decent level. Then he won't have to tip. He will have to pay more for his food though, but hey, as long as he doesn't have to tip those lazy damn waiters.

[fumblebee]

The only time I didn't tip was when I was out with a group of friends when we were about 12 or 13. I was in a theatrical production and we had free time for our dinner break between matinee and evening show so we would go out to the local restaurants near the theatre. There were 5 or 6 of us and I guess the waiter figured we were just kids so we were treated to horrible service. I remember he made some snarky remark about any of us needing a childrens menu or a booster seat but since we were hungry and determined to try all the restaurants near the theatre, we stuck it out. Never once came by to refill our pop or water, never checked on our meals and just stood there, watching us as if we were going to do a runner. So, when we got the bill, we divided it up between us, paid the exact amount and we wrote a letter and left it for him because we figured, if we didn't tip him then it would justify his poor treatment of young people ("well, I knew they weren't going to tip so why bother trying hard?") we told him the service was absolutely horrible and that was why we didn't leave a tip. Just because we are young, doesn't mean we don't deserve the same treatment as anyone else. We told him we were performing in the theatre down the road and we would be telling the rest of the cast about our experience.

I remember it well because we ended up getting a free dinner from the place because we told our handler/chaperone about it and someone ended up calling the restaurant and letting them know about our treatment. Didn't matter to us if the waiter was going to pass the letter on or not (figured he wouldn't) but we just wanted to make sure he knew we weren't going to stiff him just because we were kids.

whew- I feel better now!

ok - done with my little venting moment!

[Arcade Man D]

I figured that because of Americas crappy minimum wage (is it like $6/hr? Even less?), that tips were just a fact of life when you go out to eat. The customer is essentially paying for the service.

$7.00/hr, I believe, however the "tipped job" minimum wage is $3.00/hr or so.

That's right, a waiter/ress is being paid less than half minimum wage and needs to get caught up with that on their tips before they get into making money.

[HYHYBT]

I thought the employer had to pay tipped employees up to minimum wage if they didn't make it in tips.

I'd think it would be tough to prove you *didn't* get enough tips; after all, they're so often done in cash.

[Anthony K. S.]

Christwire.org is actually a satirical website . . . Although I don't know if this guy was just making up this viewpoint outright, or if he was simply exaggerating a viewpoint that he actually does hold.

I mean, when christwire.org ran that story about NBC creating a clone of Sarah Palin in an effort to discredit her, it was pretty easy to dismiss that as a joke.

Here, though . . . It's possible that this author really does believe at least part of what he was saying here.

To the extent that he does, I will agree with the people who say that he can go fuck himself.

[MadMike]

Fumblebee, I don't think anyone would blame you for not tipping in your case. If they're ignoring you and being rude to you, fuck 'em.

Shortly after I joined CS, I posted my own story where I not only didn't tip due to bad service, I also complained to the manager. I actually felt guilty about it, but everyone on the board -- even those who waited tables -- backed me up.

My wife, my son, and I went out for dinner at Friendly's, and at first, everything was fine. We ordered our drinks, and when the waitress brought them out, we ordered our food. When the food came, my wife asked the waitress for a refill on her drink. When she brought the drink back out, she accidentally spilled it all over the table and all over my wife. The waitress was freaked out about it, but we made it clear that we understood that accidents happen.

After that, the waitress vanished. She never came back to see if we wanted dessert, if we needed anything else, or to bring us our check. Hell, she didn't even come back to clean up the mess. We finished our meals with soda and ice all over the table. There were a few times when we'd see her briefly emerge from the kitchen area, venture into an empty station, and then vanish again.

We finally got tired of waiting, so we went up front and told the manager what happened. We made it clear that we weren't upset about the accident, just about the waitress's vanishing act afterwards. He apologized for it, and let us pick out a half-gallon of ice cream to take home for free.

I would hate to be that waitress when the manager got a hold of her. Not surprisingly, we never saw her there again.