This! Tipping is nothing but the employer passing the buck and guilting the customer.
But even if it happened FOR SURE EVERY TIME. What an inefficient system! Rather than just paying the minimum wage up front, with predictable, projectable costs, businesses spend person hours on calculating tips, hours worked, per employee, etc. And then have to pay (potentially) widely varying amounts at the end of the cycle.
I get that some customers and some servers like the practice of tipping. But why not require employers to pay (at least) the minimum wage, period. You could still tip if you want to, and an you can still try to earn a tip if you want to. But now it's more like a bonus, gravy, than the difference between rent and no-rent.
you can still try to earn a tip if you want to.
But now it's more like a bonus, gravy
I suspect that the escalation in the US has something to do with employers getting greedy and trying to reduce wages to factor in tips. I don't have any evidence to back this up.
Florida based for reference, tips are self reported here too but our POS system would automatically transfer tip amounts when a credit card was the payment method. So our payroll system already has that amount. Then we had an electronic time clock where servers scanned their hand to clock in\out, and it was set to prompt them for declared cash tips. It was a nicer restaurant (avg check a bit over 100$). Occasionally a server wouldn't declare enough tips to hit minimum wage for a pay period and the first thing HR would do is check to make sure they were declaring cash tips. In 5 years working there I can't remember a single time a server was actually under minimum wage for a pay period, they just weren't declaring cash tips because CC tips usually covered it.
I have been out of hospitality for a few years but I am seeing even smaller places with POS systems run on Ipads. I would assume since we live in the future these have similar features to the ancient 'micros' brand POS system we used and could integrate with quickbooks or better accounting software to run payroll and do these calculations.
P.S. for any server (or employee anywhere for that matter) who thinks their company is doing something illegal you don't have to even talk to your manager/boss/owner, just call the Department of Labor they pay people to fix these problems for you.
I've waitressed before and when I was a little short of minimum wage several times due to us being a slow/cheap restaurant the management just said "Some weeks you make more some you make less" and didn't try to correct it. I couldn't risk loosing my job. Sure, if they fired me for reporting them they'd be in trouble, but how long would it take for me to get justice and force them to pay? I wouldn't be able to eat while I waited for some kind of justice to be doled out.
The implication is that not only is this restaurant, which we ended up paying ~$80 a person to eat dinner + wine + dessert at, screwing their customers with the mandatory service charge, they're also screwing their employees by keeping 40% of it for the owner. I won't eat there again...
Edit: Added visual proof (and name and shame): https://s3-media4.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/t3UUaCU8gl6zPsVQghlv...
I would be happy to learn that the 40% was going to the cooks. It's still a shady practice, and what makes it worse than not informing your guests ahead of time is that they're doing this in the name of "providing a livable wage for our staff." Pay your staff a livable salary and stop screwing your customers over...
Depending on the city and state, this could be illegal. I'd encourage you to ask the server if the 40% goes to the kitchen or the owner. If the latter, write a letter or make a call to your labour law enforcement group.
https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs15.pdf
>A compulsory charge for service, for example, 15 percent of the bill, is not a tip. Such charges are part of the employer's gross receipts. Sums distributed to employees from service charges cannot be counted as tips received, but may be used to satisfy the employer's minimum wage and overtime obligations under the FLSA. If an employee receives tips in addition to the compulsory service charge, those tips may be considered in determining whether the employee is a tipped employee and in the application of the tip credit.
[1] http://www.tipcompliance.com/polLearningCenter.cfm?doc_id=89
Probably not. In the restaurant I worked at was customary for the waiters to tip the kitchen and support staff. Owners were not tipped.
http://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/seattle-restaura...
In most cases, they'll also be fired quickly if they don't, so they'll overreport tips to "make" the minimum wage even if they don't actually receive enough.
Whether or not tipping should exist, if it does, it shouldn't substitute for the minimum wage, it should be entirely on top of it.
When a person walks into a restaurant in the USA they can waive a $20 bill at a waitperson and say if you do what I want, and if I like you, and if I'm feeling generous, I might give you some of this.
Of course, they might not too.
Labor laws, minimum wage, etc are all there to make this illegal in a work contract, and it should be illegal for tipping too because it's gross.
Its definitely worth a read.
For example, if the wait person takes your order and brings your food and nothing more I wouldn't tip.
If they do the above and keep your water glass filled constantly without need to ask, if your meal, drink orders and dessert come out promptly and correctly, if they ask if everything is ok throuought the meal at appropriate times, etc I would tip.
Getting good service is starting to get hard to find. Some waitstaff are really good some hate their job and really don't care about the experience you have at the establishment you are in. It's just a job.
Also I've worked in kitchens, I know what douche nozzles customers can be. That's when you can see who your best wait staff is. During times they have to deal with them.
This shouldn't be considered exceptional. It's what I'm paying for and should not require tipping.
>> if they ask if everything is ok throuought the meal at appropriate times
I understand you included 'appropriate' but this is honestly the thing that irritates me most about tipping culture. When I visit the US the barrage of 'how is everything etc.' throughout every meal drives me insane. Leave me alone to enjoy the food and conversation, stop interrupting it.
But I can't tell you how many times I've not had a fork, or needed a drink and my waitperson never came to ask if I needed anything. The frustration can go both ways.
Where I grew up (The Netherlands) this simply does not exist. If you need something you ask the waiter and only then they'll come to you. Likewise for the check, the check only comes when you ask for it. It is considered extremely rude to get the check before you've asked for it.
Of course, after living in the US for 5 years I've become accustomed to all kinds of weird things (like the insistence of having salad before the entree, and entree not being an appetizer, simply blows my mind).
In my opinion, absent of delivering food, asking if people want refills, or addressing an obvious problem, you really shouldn't be interrupting people. The end result is good service without being annoying.
When the meal is finished. If there's a real problem all it takes is for me to catch the eye of one of the many weight staff walking around and raise my hand and they'll come over.
repeat visits is what you do for good to exceptional service/product at a good price.
tipping culture is just the lazy way for restaurants owners to deal with high attrition rates and lack of training and decent wages.
And yet fully half of those things are beyond the control of the person you're tipping for it.
If manager or owner hoses the servers and doesn't staff appropriately then they aren't going to be able to "ask if everything is ok throuought the meal at appropriate times" and it wouldn't be their fault. Nobody can do the impossible. It's like personally blaming the cashier when the line is long.
I'd also start it earlier with training. If someone isn't trained for the job they are doing and never get any feedback from management, is it really their fault if they do it wrong? (I say this as someone who worked somewhere where training was more or less "yeah, go figure it out" so I have a lot of empathy)
I wrote on HN a while ago about my experience waiting (at least) a half hour to pick up a site-to-store order at Walmart when there was literary no customers. I never personally blamed the staff for it though because I could see the dysfunction in the system they were given to work with (and I could see the physical discomfort the staff was in dealing with it).
Abolish restaurants. Might be interesting to you to give it a chance.
I was thinking the other day that the 1800 world of servants living upstairs/downstairs has been replaced by privatised slaves who have no job security, no guarantee of lodging and nothing other than temporary masters. The situation we have right now is demeaning, these people have little choice.
No doubt someone will tell me if we kill these businesses people will have no jobs, but I want a more radical reform than this.
The job is demeaning because it's made to be so. Cooking in and of itself isn't demeaning. I love to bake. I don't love to bake and be treated like crap and get paid like crap and have no financial security.
Well a lot of that comes from tipping culture and low pay. Like you need to lick my shoe in order to get your $3 tip. It's a power dynamic-- you're reliant on their money, so you're lower than them. And society looks down on restaurant workers in general as lazy people. People's views on restaurant workers needs to change.
I've waitressed before too. I knew people who liked their job most of the time, you get to be around people, you get the satisfaction of someone enjoying a good meal you've made and being happy about it. Some people prefer physical work. I don't think the job itself "has" to be eradicated. But of course no one likes the people treat you like crap or the awful pay.
The power dynamic comes from creating a system where people are forced to work to meet their largest expense: rent.
I'm all for automating jobs in general, but we're not there yet.
Those further up the value chain have more of a give-and-take relationship with their employer, the supply/demand curve is more in the favour of the employee. The employee has better savings and is not facing missing next week's rent if they are fired. A very different dynamic.
Not sure about what could be done about supply/demand. They are low skill jobs. Most people could learn to do them pretty quickly. That doesn't mean they don't deserve to be paid properly-- the current economy is creating those jobs, we still need service people. They are working hard. But as far as supply/demand goes, I think there would always be a surplus of people who have the ability to do those jobs.
That said, the system creates these imbalances so I would not look to simply treat the symptom.
Progress depends on a deficit of cheap labour to encourage automation. Globalisation has seen companies move manual low-skill jobs to other countries. Meanwhile land prices are up and so are rents. People must take what they can get whilst the usurers run rampant.
So you also dislike bonuses for white collar professionals?
Because it's exactly the same thing.
A bonus is paid to you by your company (evaluated by your boss) and is more like profit sharing.
A tip is paid directly by the customer. The customer has no way of knowing if you are being paid a living wage or not. They have different incentives if they are a regular or not. The waiter at a busy restaurant will see hundreds of customers a day, but the customer may only interact with this waiter once. The waiter understands the house systems and knows how to maximize tipping. These are all ways that the waiter has an information advantage and can wield it against the customer. Maximizing tipping and providing good service to everyone are seldom the same thing.
People like to think that tipping puts the customer in power but it really just sets up the customer to be gamed. This aspect doesn't exist when we're talking about bonuses with your employer.
I do dislike them, because in a way they are the similar - you work really hard and you can't be sure if you will get it or not.
It's the classic carrot on a stick motivation.
> Because it's exactly the same thing.
At most companies, how you get a bonus and how much it is is very clearly defined, and so in that regard, it's not similar to tipping at all.
I'm surprised that this has been your experience. In many cases, even cases where bonus is 3x annual salary, the bonus is "discretionary" and little is clearly defined.
It's a completely different situation than bonuses on top of a salary that already covers living expenses.
Can you teach me how this tax avoidance works? It seems that I am missing out. Can you also specify the jurisdiction where this works?
> mostly part of their contract
I can think of many people whose bonuses are 3x or more their salary and who do not have a guaranteed minimum bonus or even a strict formula based bonus.
1. The Percentage Method
The IRS specifies a flat “supplemental rate” of 25%, meaning that any supplemental wages (including bonuses) should be taxed in that amount.
This works for bonuses up to 1 million.
> I can think of many people
Yes, there are plenty of idiots even in finance.
(It's mostly a disadvantage. I get about 60-70% of my income in bonus and stock which is treated the same; it just means that, if I don't plan ahead for it, I end up with a surprise tax bill on April 15th. I do plan ahead, but the whole process is obnoxious.)
But it's absolutely not correct that paying people with bonuses lowers their effective tax rate.
Or if your bonus is in January you can have a higher witholdings from salary and the default 25% from the bonus. Just balance it by the end of the year.
But that's just simple stuff, there are also other benefits to the company.
Bonus makes up a significant portion of my regular income. I'm sure that's true for many other HN readers.
> It's a completely different situation than bonuses on top of a salary that already covers living expense.
In many cases, salary does not cover living expenses. In some instances bonuses can be 10x annual salary or more. Even if bonus is only 3x annual salary, you wouldn't say that salary covers living expenses as few people live on only 25% of their income.
Also, if you're still working there and looking for fresh CS grad (Scala and Linux admin experience), my email is in my profile ;)
New York State's budget situation is good or bad based on how good or bad bonuses are -- we're talking billions of dollars.
Even in the very unlikely event that you have an airtight contract, there are instances where the employer simply will not pay you. Legal action might be the only recourse in this situation. Sometimes you are required to go through arbitration and sometimes you have to sue.
I'm all for the no tipping and i happily work without a bonus. And i would expect other to as well. If you can't show up and be consistent in performance without a carrot then thats maybe not a great reflection of how you work and what you value.
It's not just banking. I was horrified at some of the behavior I saw from the sales folks at a software start-up I worked for (including the CEO). As a sales lifer, our CEO came up with some pretty generous comp packages for the sales team that promoted bad behavior and short-term "wins" that the rest of us would be cleaning up for months.
I think this should be obligatory link in all bonus related discussions:
I am not aware of a study on this, but I would bet my annual income that those factors affect your bonus.
It's possible that they're unavoidable given the volatile nature of business revenues and perhaps a system with no bonuses would result in lower total compensation.
A server gets their tips probably about once an hour or so and the amount from one customer may differ with essentially the same service for another customer. Esentially random and arbitrary.
Do white collar professionals always expect to get a 20% bonus, no matter how well the company does?
The key for restaurants is to minimize the menu item price when you decide what to order. Even if you have a mental limit of $15, you might spend $17.55 on lunch because the menu said $14 when you ordered.
Phrased as if it was a good thing.
As for humanity, imo capitalism is the wrong model if we want to optimize for global happiness. Directionally, basic income seems better, though I'm sure the devil is in the details...
The tipping is dumping.
The seller(who is the employer) offered a product with the price they choose. That price should reflect all the necessary costs of the product, including the salary to the workers.
By demanding the tipping, they make the price cheaper than it actually is.
That is dumping.
No. This would apply if you actually paid less than it actually is
It might be false advertisement though
If it's demanded by the establishment, it's a service charge, not a tip. They are legally distinct things.
A tip may be expected by the server as part of social custom, but it is not demanded by the establishment from which you purchase.
And I read articles about how companies like Doordash are not making profits and are riding on VC money. It is just passing the buck onto the customers to keep their uneconomical business models afloat.
That said, who says "the worker's salary is a employer's responsibility?"
Monetary culture is ancient and emergent. It's culture. Complicated, organic, varied and local. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't want to change it if it's bad or impractical. But, is a culture of tipping bad.
I like that this article is culturally focused. Wage disparities, the social outcomes of these etc.
...The employer does the second they hire the worker
Why would it not be? The employer pays the employee for their labor. The exception is with tipping, in which the employer passes most of the paying responsibility to the customer.
You get a beer somewhere, it's 1.75€ and you round it off to 2€. That's a reasonable tip that says "service has been fine, thanks.".
You get dinner somewhere, it's 57.25€ and you round it to 60€. Same thing as above.
You get dinner somewhere, it's 57.25€ and you pay exactly that amount. The message is "the price was fair enough for what I got". Nobody will look badly at you.
You get dinner somewhere, it's 57.25€ and you pay 70€. The message is "you have been wonderful hosts, thank you VERY much".
Also, tips are not just for the service, but for the entire experience. You tip if you want to compliment the service, but also/alternatively because you want to compliment the food, or the ambient, or whatever.
Personally I always give a generous tip, (unless the server intentionally does something bad), just because it feels good to. It is not charity or pity for low wage. It is just that I would welcome a tip too if I were in the waiter's shoes, no matter how much my wage would be.
No disrespect intended, but like with things such as gun control laws and plastic currency in different colors materials and sizes (two examples of things implemented on a wide scale in other countries with NO adverse effect), I am always bemused when US based people keep insisting that it will never work there.
The obvious way to get rid of the tipping culture is to not give them, or give as much as you the customer believe it is worth (rather than a standard 15 / 20%).
Doing this it will be the waiting staff that suffer rather than the restaurant owners, who you are trying to pass the message to.
It also should not be mandatory, that's right.
The thing about tipping, though, is that even if the employee were "fairly" compensated, they could still be "underpaid". This of course is only in the case where the tip is after the service.
What I mean by this, is when the tip is after the service, if the person is tipping fairly (or tips at all - some of these buggers just don't tip!), they will tip based on the level and quality of the service. That is what a tip is for.
If the person goes above and beyond their customer's wants and desires, and does so regularly (if the customer is a regular), those tips can be (and should be) a fairly large percentage. For instance, when I tip - if I get adequate service, I'll do 20%. But if I get better service, my tip rate will go up; I have done well over 100% at times when the service was worth it.
Now, I know that's an anomaly on my part - but going over 20% shouldn't be unexpected, if the service is worth it. It should also go the other way, of course (poor service -> less of a tip). It should serve as feedback to the employee as to how customers view their service, and how to improve it.
If the person does their job correctly (and makes an effort to go above and beyond customer's needs), and people tip properly (always an issue in today's world), then the employee can easily make well more in a day than what they would get being "paid fairly" by their employer without any tips.
However, today there are multiple problems: First, in so many cases, employees don't go "above and beyond" and so don't see the proper sized tips. But there is the other issue of people not tipping or tipping poorly - and so we have a feedback loop to the bottom. I'm not sure what has caused this, because I know it didn't use to be this way here in America.
For instance, my wife works in a service industry job. Recently, she had to cater to the desires of a customer, ultimately going well outside the parameters of her job and position to make this customer happy (I won't go into much detail - but it was room service with a multiple course meal, in a hotel chain that doesn't provide this service, for a family of four). Despite preparing and delivering enough food to feed a small army, doing so with a smile and a wave, and going out of her way to do this (while staying late on her shift) - she received zero tip from these people. These are long-term guests of her employer, too (they've been there longer than she has worked there); they have never been treated unfairly by her.
It's an unfortunate consequence of our system and society, and perhaps cultural - for some reason, many see service workers as "beneath them" or something, and refuse to tip. In other cases (like your's), there are other cultural conditionings from that side that makes tipping seem unnatural or foreign in some manner. All of this ultimately feeds into these employees doing a worse job than they might otherwise, again leading to a negative feedback loop.
That said - everywhere my wife has worked, after she has worked there for a limited amount of time, the customer satisfaction scores for her area have increased; she does receive accolades and positive response from staff, guests, and her employers. People write glowing positive Yelp and other reviews mentioning her, and how her attitude and assistance made their experience extremely enjoyable. Furthermore, when she has left positions (for one reason or another), those scores drop like a rock (she follows them afterward sometimes), and customers generally follow her to her new employer - her service is that good.
I shit you not, she has groupies.
And she generally makes good tips. At least from those who understand what tipping is about and for.
You are. A tip is, by definition, not something you have to pay.
How about you pay your damn employee or fire him for being incompetent?
20% is an easy calculation. Move the decimal point over one, and double. $24.30 becomes $2.43, doubled you get $4.86 which is your tip. Round it up to $5 if you want. Did you really enjoy the service? Add another $2 or $3. Terrible waiter? Subtract $2 or $3.
You just take a zero, and add a dollar sign to the front.
Really? Surely if they're a terrible waiter/terrible service, you shouldn't leave any tip.
I say this as someone who has worked for both very dysfunctional management as well as very functional, process oriented management. The difference between how well customers were served was like night and day. Some issues that contributed to the dysfunction was lack of training and lack of feedback.
Also, in many places tips are pooled, every single person I know who was a tipped employee was part of a tip pool, so you probably taking away salary from an amazing server in the process. Sometimes back of the house is tipped out a small percentage as well.
Restaurant service is, above all, a team effort, so basically tipping is super unfair no matter how you slice it.
In places where they don't pool the direct wait staff might still need to give a cut to others. It was explained to me that the busboys will sandbag you if they feel cheated, and then good luck turning over tables in your section when they haven't been cleared.
Of course management doesn't have an incentive not to over staff because they aren't paying the employees hardly anything anyways. Add that with employees bribing^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htipping other employees and, wow, what a dysfunctional system.
I'd imagine bartenders would pretty much always be required to pool tips with each other since whenever there's more than one working they always work in a team.
If you actually speak up they'll have a better idea.
You can demand that the bill be discounted or waived entirely (or that what you paid be refunded) if you didn't get what you were expecting. For instance, if you walk out of a movie because the sound was a half second out of sync and the picture was out of focus, you could just eat the price of the ticket, or you could find a manager and get your money back for the low, low cost of just voicing what was wrong with your experience.
What else would you do? Angrily write a bad Yelp review in your car?
Fortunately, I live in an area where there is no end of new restaurants to explore, if I have bad service at one, then I just won't go back there. Problem solved (for me).
For the record, I've never tipped 0% (but have tipped only 10% for particularly bad service).
I wouldn't leave a $0 tip in a country where tipping is an essential part of the server's income, but I do think such a system is backwards.
You can recommend 25% of the total if you want. Heck, recommend 40%. But as long as the restaurant business continues to operate with respect to employee pay in the same fashion that is has for decades, I will continue to consider 15% of the pre-tax total to be a reasonable tip for median-quality restaurant table service. If that ever becomes such a bad tip that servers can't be arsed to work for it, I guess I can pay higher percentages with proportionally higher service expectations. If you want me to tip 25%, you can bet your ass that if I so much as order a burger, I will be asking my server what the cow was named, how old it was at slaughter, and to identify the stockyard where it was finished. (Note: My grandfather actually asked one of those questions. At a diner.)
Of course, according to my brother-in-law, mine is "the most stubborn family that has ever lived". Recommending 18% on my bill is a great motivation for me to calculate exactly 15%, to the penny, instead of estimating and using the ceiling function to the next whole dollar. People like me are just one of the many reasons why tips are not now 80% or more of your bill, and why you can't yet buy Christmas decorations in the seasonal aisle of your local retailer on Memorial Day. You're welcome.~
The only reason to increase the percentage of table service tips is if the restaurant employee does more for the customer. I have not observed this to be the case in the last decade, in larger cities or out of them.
It's completely retarded in every conceivable way.
I probably will continue to write both as I'm a little paranoid about people making changes to the values before they get put into the machine, and having to change 2 lines is harder than 1.
Maybe consider not using this word anymore.
I should have been fully informed how much should I have to pay before I purchase something or some service. Any extra demand from agreed amount should be illegal.
I also don't want to waste my precious time on paying the tip for calculating tax.
The worker's salary is a employer's responsibility. If the the worker become underpaid without the tipping, then the worker is underpaid by the employer.