If you don't read anything in this entry, then AT LEAST watch this funny, short video that sums it all up in less time than my detailed explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_vivC7c_1k.
Ok, let me be clear. I don't really think it's ok to tip cows. I actually think that's awful, but I needed a cute name for this note, and that's all I could think of. Anyway, so in light of the past few months that I've been a server, I've finally been given the chance to see things from a server's point of view. It's really hard work, management can be brutal to us, we do all kinds of morning and night time work that we don't get paid for at all, and we have long stretches of 2 or 3 hours at a time with no tables to serve. (So we work several hours each day that we don't get paid for at all.) We only get paid 2.13$ an hour, but for most of our paychecks, every penny of that goes toward paying taxes. By the time most of my paychecks have gotten to me, they've been 0$, no joke. The highest paycheck I've gotten has been 40$ for 2 weeks (about 100 hours.) In a lot of restaurants, the servers have to tip out the hosts/hostesses, bussers, food runners, barbacks, etc. At lots of restaurants, if you make 10% or less on a table, you actually lose money on the table you just served, because you have to give all of that money or even more to the host/hostess. As for my restaurant, I'm lucky, because I only have to tip out the bartender. Sometimes by the time we tip out the bartender, we have made less than minimum wage for the day. Lots of days, even when we don't tip her out, we make less than minimum wage. The other week, 2 days in a row, I worked 10 hours and went home with a measly 50$. And since my restaurant, along with tons of other restaurants, does not pay its servers extra money if we don't make at least minimum wage, 50$ is seriously what I went home with those days. And being a server is very hard work. I've served up to 8 tables at one time. I got another table and literally could not take it, so I had to give it to someone else. We run around like crazy on our feet all day, we work 50-70 hours a week, and we work 10-14 hours shifts. (So we literally work all day every day. That's why I always talk about how I've sold my soul to my restaurant.) By the time we go home, we have aching feet and backs, because of all the running around, bending, and squatting we constantly do. We also carry extremely heavy trays, we sweat so badly that we learn to get used to the discomfort all day, we spill gross things all over us, we get wet all the time, and we get nasty stuff all over our hands. We clean up after children, get on our hands and knees on the floor, are at our customers' beckon calls, etc. And don't even get me started on the injuries we incur. A few days ago, I got second degree burns all over my stomach from one of the ovens in the kitchen. It was so scortching hot that it made my skin bubble, and it still hurts a week later. It's a huge spot too - probably the size of a whole lemon. I also have a scar from when the bartender dropped a beer bottle, and some glass shards bounced off the floor and into my thumb. And I've gotten deep cuts with very sharp knives while cutting lemons a few times. Now, some people tip 20%, which is today's expectation. Some people even go above and beyond. The other day, I went to Taco Mac and tipped my server almost 100%. But almost no one tips that well, since most people don't know how it is to be a server. Most people tip around 10-15%. Lots of people only tip 5-10%, and there are some people who never tip at all. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes the money is really good. I just worked 5 and a half hours tonight and went home with 71$, which is an average of just over 13$ an hour. But not every night is like tonight. In fact, this is the best I've ever done in one night since I started waiting tables. See, when you work at one of the cheapest restaurants in the city, you might make 1 or 2$ per table, which isn't anywhere near worth the work. And a lot of the time, that's 20%! So we can't really complain... But it's just a waste of a table! And not to mention the horrible attitudes some people have toward their servers. Lots of people act like their server is their slave. I've had so many people snap at me, simply because they were having a heated conversation with their spouse at the dinner table. I've had customers treat me like a tiny speck of dirt.
So why am I talking about all this? It's not simply to complain about my job, I assure you. For the most part, I like my job. Most of the people there are really cool. I've made a lot of friends working there, and I've met some truly amazing customers. I've had some really amazing tippers and some days where I've made bank waiting tables. I've had some customers make my day, offer me jobs, and offer me some other great opportunities. Not every day is bad. Here lately most days have yielded little money, but that happens around this time every year. So I guess I've gotten a little sick of it lately. But here's the thing. I was reading this article that talked about why tipping is a really bad form of payment for servers, bartenders, and delivery people. And it's true. So using that article, my personal experience as a server, some friends' experience as bartenders, and some friends' experience as pizza delivery guys, I've put together several reasons why restaurants should just raise their prices and pay their workers, rather than put their workers' wages in the hands of cheap customers.
1. First off, servers make different wages. I don't make as much as other servers, and other servers don't make as much as I do. For instance, there are lots of other restaurants whose servers make way more than the servers at my restaurant do, even though we work the same job. And it's because other restaurants serve more expensive food. And even in the same restaurant, each server makes a different wage working the same job. There are servers at my job that go home with 50$ more each day than I do. And there are people who go home with that much less than I do each day. It just depends on the tables you get, whether or not you get parties, whether or not you get sat with tables of people who are good tippers, whether or not you get sat with tables that rack up high tabs, and whether or not you have a good section. Also, sometimes hosts and hostesses pick their favorite people that they work with and sit them with parties. And some hosts/hostesses are bad at their jobs, so they lose track of who they have given tables to, so they end up giving one server 3 tables in a row, while another server goes an hour without getting a new table. Both servers are screwed, because the first server is overwhelmed and doesn't do a good job on his/her tables because of it, and the other server doesn't even get a chance to make any money! It also depends on how expensive the restaurant is. If the tab is low, your tip is low. And cheap people eat at cheap restaurants. If they cheap out on the food they eat, then they cheap out on the tip. And if you think the customers can be bad, imagine what happens when you have a bunch of servers all competing for the best tables that will yield the most money. That's essentially what we are doing. Some servers will do anything to make ends meet. When there is no host/hostess, the servers seat themselves, which means someone has to go to the door and remember which server is next in rotation. This is how servers do what we call "sharking tables." This means they steal tables. They skip some servers and repeatedly seat themselves. Or they pick and choose which tables they want. They get a table with only one person, so they say "Hey, I don't want that table. You take it." So I'm thinking, "Ok, cool, I get an extra table. I'm still next in rotation, so I get the next table. She just gave me one of her tables out of the kindness of her heart." NO!!! She's planning on taking the next table that comes in. So essentially, she's making you take her table of one, so that she can take your table of 8 that's about to walk in the door. So much of this kind of crap goes on in restaurants. You think that's bad? Wait until the manager decides you're not one of her "favorites." She can't fire you, because you're a good server and a hard worker, but she can definitely give you crappy shifts. She can put you on the schedule for every Monday, when there's almost no business. She can refrain from putting you on the schedule on the weekends when it's busy. She can only put you on day shifts, which aren't as busy as night shifts. Of course, I would recommend you get another job if this is happening to you. But getting a job is difficult these days, and it's tiring jumping from unstable job to unstable job.
2. It's bad for restaurants, and it's unfair. Can you imagine why? Some servers, not to name names, give out free stuff when they're not supposed to, thus raising their tips. We honest servers do the right thing but come up short on our tips. That is certainly not fair, and restaurants lose money that way. Tipping servers encourages insane competition and dishonesty.
3. If you're not convinced by what I've already said, then this should certainly convince you. Tipping is discriminatory against servers. I know someone who used to be a server and is smoking hot. She told me that sometimes she used to make 300-400$ a night as a server, and she had several male customers come in and give her 100-200$ tips each time they came, and they asked her for sex in return. She always accepted the tip, of course, but she never went home with the guys, yet they kept coming in and giving her amazing tips in hopes of getting in her pants someday. That is not fair. We not so attractive servers don't even have a chance there. We don't have opportunities like that, and no one should earn money just because they were born beautiful. This is not a hooking business. We are to be paid based on service, not looks. Also, by being a server, I've noticed that people don't like to have male servers. When some people get male servers, they request females instead. If you ask me, that is insanely discriminatory and bold. But see, if the table isn't bold enough to say what they feel and ask for a female server, they will take the male server but not tip him very well. At my restaurant, the male servers almost never go home with as much money as the females do, which is ridiculous and makes no sense.
4. The money is unstable. Every day, you don't know how much you'll make. You might make great money (for what it is) from May-June. Then July-August, you might not even make ends meet. You never know if you'll make rent on a certain day.
5. There's no way to properly file our taxes. At lots of restaurants, servers don't even claim their cash tips. And at the end of the year, it's actually really difficult to remember just how much money we've made in cash tips, so we can't file our taxes properly. So the government gets screwed over in the process of this tipping mess!
6. Upward mobility as a server is basically just a dream, because you legally can not be paid anymore than $2.13/hr as a server. And your tips are unchanging. If you've worked at a restaurant for 10 years, your customers don't know that. They aren't going to tip you an extra $5 per table, just because you have been working there longer than everyone else.
7. Servers get blamed for everything. If the cooks make the food wrong, the servers get blamed for it, and their tips suffer. If spouses go out to dinner and have an argument, or if a family thinks the music is too loud, or if it's too hot or too cold in the restaurant, then the customers aren't happy. If the manager won't take something off the bill that they think should've been taken off the bill, the server suffers. If the manager or someone else who works at the restaurant is rude to my customer, my tip is on the line. And if customers are not happy and not in a good mood, then they are less likely to tip well. Customers who are happy usually tip well. So servers get blamed (and suffer for) anything that could possibly go wrong in a restaurant.
8. Going back to the discrimination thing. Tipping is discriminatory against customers as well. Think about it. Servers know which customers will tip and which ones won't. Usually servers dismiss rednecks, hispanics, foreign people, blacks, poorly dressed people, extremely uppity-appearing people, men, businessmen (We call these guys "Suits," because they wear $300 suits but leave 10% tips,) senior citizens, Christians, gay women who don't feel like they're being hit on by their female server, and teenagers as bad tippers from the start, so lots of servers are not going to be as attentive to those tables. Also, restaurants usually have lots of recurring customers, and we always remember if they tip well or not. If your server knows you won't tip them, no matter how hard they work for you, why in the world would they work really hard on your table? You've already upset them and made them feel worthless, just because they know they aren't about to get paid for their time. I have always been one to try to give good service to everyone, no matter how what, because people will surprise you, and honestly, people deserve good service when they go out to eat. However, if I don't have enough time to be attentive to all of my tables, I have been known to pay more attention to the table of adults, rather than the table of teenagers, admittedly. But that's only when I'm crazy busy with 8 tables at once and don't have much of a choice! But the point is, servers do it. Some more than others. That's not fair to the customers.
9. If servers tip out hosts/hostesses, bussers, bartenders, etc. by percentage, then if the servers that tip them out do not make much money, then neither do they, and they had nothing to do with the small tips the servers received. Literally their wage for a particular day is based on someone else's work, rather than their own. That's unbelievably unfair.
10. All this tipping crap has caused a whole bunch of multi-million dollar lawsuits. You can read about that here: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/abolish_tipping_it_s_bad_for_servers_customers_and_restaurants.html.
11. Tipping is relative. And that's not fair to servers, bartenders, or delivery people. Lots of people think 20% is only for perfect servers, and that most servers deserve 15%, even though 20% is what good servers expect (and deserve, if you ask me.) Some people think a 5-10% tip is perfectly acceptable for service that was ok but not the best. If you ask me, tipping less than 15% EVER is completely unacceptable. No matter how bad the service was, your server provided you with a service, nonetheless, and he/she deserves to be paid for that service. Lots of people don't even realize they're supposed to tip delivery guys, nor do they know how much to tip them. Foreign people don't know the tipping norms of the country they're in. Teenagers certainly don't know how much to tip or the importance of tipping properly, nor do they care. They haven't learned the value of a dollar yet or how hard it is to be an adult and make your own living and pay your own bills. Lots of people simply don't know how to tip and/or are bad at math. Lots of people are cheap and not generous at all. Lots of people are poor and should really stay home and cook but insist on going out to eat and leaving crappy tips to make up for the money they just spent on food. Sometimes people know how to tip but don't care. You're supposed to be a good server and do a good job in order to get a good tip, but even if you're a great server, you don't always get paid as such. So even if the whole reason we use tipping as a form of payment is so as to ensure good service for customers, the system is flawed.
12. The promise of a good tip is supposed to give servers incentive to give good service. If you need incentive like that to do a good job at your work, then you shouldn't be working there. Why do I need incentive to be a good server? Cashiers don't need that incentive! They're paid hourly. Yet most cashiers I've had have done the job for me. And a lot of them are even friendly. It's like that for every other job out there!!! The threat of losing your job should be incentive enough for you to do a good job at your work! I would try to be the best server I could be, with or without the incentive of tipping as my form of payment. (And for the record, there are some servers, as well as people in any profession, who don't care. They don't care if you tip them poorly. They are still going to treat you badly. That doesn't happen often, but it happens.)
13. Servers do all kinds of work before the restaurant opens and after the restaurant closes, and they don't get paid for it, because they're not serving tables, so they're not being tipped! At my restaurant, we have all kinds of kitchen duties, side work, sweeping to do, and other cleaning to do. We do all this before we open and after we close. And after a certain time at night, we have to be our own bussers too. And we have all kinds of times when we don't have any customers for 2 hours straight. So what are we doing? Working around the restaurant. Helping our fellow servers who might have a table. Cleaning. Whatever we think might need to be done. And during all this time, all we're making is 2.13$ an hour. But we won't see that on our paychecks, because when we get our paychecks, it will read a big, fat $0.
So I don't even understand where we got this horrible idea of tipping from. Maybe it really is to ensure good service for customers. But if that's true, then shouldn't we use that form of payment for everyone else, including cashiers, baristas, and other people working customer service jobs? Heck! Why don't we just tip everyone as their payment? Lawyers. Doctors. Policemen. Firemen. And like I said, tipping might be a good form of payment in theory, but in reality, it's just a whole big mess of crap. You're supposed to receive good tips if you work hard and are good to your customers. That, to me, is the whole point of tipping as the form of payment. But that does not at all determine the amount of money you make off a table. There are lots of people out there who are cheap and don't tip or tip very little, because they don't care or aren't very generous. Some people have been doing badly on money lately, so they leave bad tips. Some people are in a bad mood or get into an argument with their spouse and end up upset at dinner, and like I said before, unhappy customers leave unhappy tips. Some people don't tip when one tiny thing goes wrong, even when everything else is right. Servers are being graded for every move they make. They're being judged constantly. Some people don't tip based on things the server has no control over. Some people tip really well, no matter how bad the service was, because they've been in their servers' shoes. (That would be me.) If restaurants just raised their prices on food, then their workers would be properly paid for what they truly are worth. And their incentive to be good workers should be and would be exactly what it is for every other job out there - the threat of losing the job and the bribe of upward mobility within the company (and outside of the company, like in terms of boosting resumes and gaining experience.) I'm pretty sure my servers would give me good service, even if they didn't rely on me to make a decent wage - just like all other customer service workers. So let's get rid of this bull and start really paying our workers! We're America, for crying out loud. It's time we start acting like it. But no, I'll tell you why we don't do this. It's BECAUSE we're America! We're a country that runs on capitalism. As I've said before in my note "Dodger Logic #10: Is Capitalism Working?," there are all kinds of horrible things that come from capitalism, and this is one of them. We want to make our prices seem as low as possible, so as to draw people in. We want to trick them into thinking they're spending less money than they actually are. People often don't factor into a meal how much they have to tip until the end of the meal. Then it hits them like a blow to the face. "Oh, crap! I forgot about the tip!" That's also why we mark prices as $9.99, instead of what it really is - $10. It's ridiculous. So there's no way anyone will ever change this system, because they won't want to have to advertise a meal as $20, when the actual meal only costs 15$. How ridiculous is that? It doesn't even cost that much more to tip 20% for a meal that is only $15! (Or to go ahead and add the 20% tip for the server onto the meal price on the menu.) But no capitalist would be willing to do this, nonetheless.
Now don't get me wrong. Serving can be decent money. You might say "If your job sucks so badly, why don't you get a different job?" Because this is the best I can get while I'm in college. I don't have a degree, so I can get a legitimate job until I do. And serving is usually better than a cashier job, or something similar. Usually I make more than minimum wage, even if it's not much more. And serving is a lot better than standing around at a register, doing practically nothing all day with aching feet from standing in one spot for 5-10 hours. Also, cashier jobs, in comparison, come with fewer hours usually. The one good thing about serving is you can usually have as many hours a week as you want vs. cashier jobs that usually only hire people for part-time work. My shifts as a cashier (before I became a server) were usually like 4-6 hours, whereas I can work 10-14 hours days as a server. Yes, that's a lot of hours of work, but it's that much more money I'm making, so it beats a 4-hour shift making $7.25/hr. And even if I did want to get out of serving and get a different job, it's hard to find work these days! Sometimes the job you have is your only option at the time. Sometimes you put out applications and try and try and TRY, but no one is hiring. So you focus on your studies, so that you can get out of this business as soon as possible. Trust me, no one is in this business because they WANT to be.
So just in case tipping as a form of payment doesn't go away, you should know that you should tip your server 20% for good service. You should never tip less than 15%, even if the service is the worst you've ever had. 15% is for awful service but service, nonetheless. If you want to give more than 20% for insanely amazing service, go for it. Your server will appreciate it more than you know. And if you need to learn how to calculate tips or do the math, just take the first number of your tab and double it. If your tab is 20.00$, your tip should be 4$. If your tab is 25.00$, don't forget about the 5 there. Don't tip 4$. Instead, your tip should be 5$. And for the love of God, if your tab is 29$, don't tip 4$! Your tab is almost 30$, so tip 6$. If you want to be precise, just multiply your tab by 0.20 (20%.) Also, just so you know, the courtesy is to tip off the entire tab (not just the tab before tax,) AND to tip off the tab as it was before you used any coupons. So if your tab was 40.00$, and then it was cut down to 30.00$ after you applied a coupon, you should still tip your server 8$. He/she did, afterall, bring you 40.00$ worth of heavy food. Also, honestly, a 1, 2, or 3$ tip is not enough to make off a table. Even if 2$ is 20%, try to be a little more generous than that and leave AT LEAST 5$, no matter what, because you did, afterall, take up an entire one of your server's tables. And if you took up his/her time for an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, etc., please tip him/her for that time. If I take up a server's table for an hour, I usually tip him/her 5$ for decent service, no matter how low the tab was - even if I only ordered a coffee. I tip even more if I think my server was really great and friendly. Remember, a bad tip can ruin a server's day. It not only makes you realize you're poor and aren't making any money that day, but it hurts your self-esteem. If someone doesn't even think you're time and effort is worth anything, then how are we supposed to feel about ourselves? Sometimes it's more about the gesture than the money. I just ask that, if we can't change the system, everyone just be more mindful of tipping. But I also ask everyone to push for a change in the system too.
Ok, let me be clear. I don't really think it's ok to tip cows. I actually think that's awful, but I needed a cute name for this note, and that's all I could think of. Anyway, so in light of the past few months that I've been a server, I've finally been given the chance to see things from a server's point of view. It's really hard work, management can be brutal to us, we do all kinds of morning and night time work that we don't get paid for at all, and we have long stretches of 2 or 3 hours at a time with no tables to serve. (So we work several hours each day that we don't get paid for at all.) We only get paid 2.13$ an hour, but for most of our paychecks, every penny of that goes toward paying taxes. By the time most of my paychecks have gotten to me, they've been 0$, no joke. The highest paycheck I've gotten has been 40$ for 2 weeks (about 100 hours.) In a lot of restaurants, the servers have to tip out the hosts/hostesses, bussers, food runners, barbacks, etc. At lots of restaurants, if you make 10% or less on a table, you actually lose money on the table you just served, because you have to give all of that money or even more to the host/hostess. As for my restaurant, I'm lucky, because I only have to tip out the bartender. Sometimes by the time we tip out the bartender, we have made less than minimum wage for the day. Lots of days, even when we don't tip her out, we make less than minimum wage. The other week, 2 days in a row, I worked 10 hours and went home with a measly 50$. And since my restaurant, along with tons of other restaurants, does not pay its servers extra money if we don't make at least minimum wage, 50$ is seriously what I went home with those days. And being a server is very hard work. I've served up to 8 tables at one time. I got another table and literally could not take it, so I had to give it to someone else. We run around like crazy on our feet all day, we work 50-70 hours a week, and we work 10-14 hours shifts. (So we literally work all day every day. That's why I always talk about how I've sold my soul to my restaurant.) By the time we go home, we have aching feet and backs, because of all the running around, bending, and squatting we constantly do. We also carry extremely heavy trays, we sweat so badly that we learn to get used to the discomfort all day, we spill gross things all over us, we get wet all the time, and we get nasty stuff all over our hands. We clean up after children, get on our hands and knees on the floor, are at our customers' beckon calls, etc. And don't even get me started on the injuries we incur. A few days ago, I got second degree burns all over my stomach from one of the ovens in the kitchen. It was so scortching hot that it made my skin bubble, and it still hurts a week later. It's a huge spot too - probably the size of a whole lemon. I also have a scar from when the bartender dropped a beer bottle, and some glass shards bounced off the floor and into my thumb. And I've gotten deep cuts with very sharp knives while cutting lemons a few times. Now, some people tip 20%, which is today's expectation. Some people even go above and beyond. The other day, I went to Taco Mac and tipped my server almost 100%. But almost no one tips that well, since most people don't know how it is to be a server. Most people tip around 10-15%. Lots of people only tip 5-10%, and there are some people who never tip at all. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes the money is really good. I just worked 5 and a half hours tonight and went home with 71$, which is an average of just over 13$ an hour. But not every night is like tonight. In fact, this is the best I've ever done in one night since I started waiting tables. See, when you work at one of the cheapest restaurants in the city, you might make 1 or 2$ per table, which isn't anywhere near worth the work. And a lot of the time, that's 20%! So we can't really complain... But it's just a waste of a table! And not to mention the horrible attitudes some people have toward their servers. Lots of people act like their server is their slave. I've had so many people snap at me, simply because they were having a heated conversation with their spouse at the dinner table. I've had customers treat me like a tiny speck of dirt.
So why am I talking about all this? It's not simply to complain about my job, I assure you. For the most part, I like my job. Most of the people there are really cool. I've made a lot of friends working there, and I've met some truly amazing customers. I've had some really amazing tippers and some days where I've made bank waiting tables. I've had some customers make my day, offer me jobs, and offer me some other great opportunities. Not every day is bad. Here lately most days have yielded little money, but that happens around this time every year. So I guess I've gotten a little sick of it lately. But here's the thing. I was reading this article that talked about why tipping is a really bad form of payment for servers, bartenders, and delivery people. And it's true. So using that article, my personal experience as a server, some friends' experience as bartenders, and some friends' experience as pizza delivery guys, I've put together several reasons why restaurants should just raise their prices and pay their workers, rather than put their workers' wages in the hands of cheap customers.
1. First off, servers make different wages. I don't make as much as other servers, and other servers don't make as much as I do. For instance, there are lots of other restaurants whose servers make way more than the servers at my restaurant do, even though we work the same job. And it's because other restaurants serve more expensive food. And even in the same restaurant, each server makes a different wage working the same job. There are servers at my job that go home with 50$ more each day than I do. And there are people who go home with that much less than I do each day. It just depends on the tables you get, whether or not you get parties, whether or not you get sat with tables of people who are good tippers, whether or not you get sat with tables that rack up high tabs, and whether or not you have a good section. Also, sometimes hosts and hostesses pick their favorite people that they work with and sit them with parties. And some hosts/hostesses are bad at their jobs, so they lose track of who they have given tables to, so they end up giving one server 3 tables in a row, while another server goes an hour without getting a new table. Both servers are screwed, because the first server is overwhelmed and doesn't do a good job on his/her tables because of it, and the other server doesn't even get a chance to make any money! It also depends on how expensive the restaurant is. If the tab is low, your tip is low. And cheap people eat at cheap restaurants. If they cheap out on the food they eat, then they cheap out on the tip. And if you think the customers can be bad, imagine what happens when you have a bunch of servers all competing for the best tables that will yield the most money. That's essentially what we are doing. Some servers will do anything to make ends meet. When there is no host/hostess, the servers seat themselves, which means someone has to go to the door and remember which server is next in rotation. This is how servers do what we call "sharking tables." This means they steal tables. They skip some servers and repeatedly seat themselves. Or they pick and choose which tables they want. They get a table with only one person, so they say "Hey, I don't want that table. You take it." So I'm thinking, "Ok, cool, I get an extra table. I'm still next in rotation, so I get the next table. She just gave me one of her tables out of the kindness of her heart." NO!!! She's planning on taking the next table that comes in. So essentially, she's making you take her table of one, so that she can take your table of 8 that's about to walk in the door. So much of this kind of crap goes on in restaurants. You think that's bad? Wait until the manager decides you're not one of her "favorites." She can't fire you, because you're a good server and a hard worker, but she can definitely give you crappy shifts. She can put you on the schedule for every Monday, when there's almost no business. She can refrain from putting you on the schedule on the weekends when it's busy. She can only put you on day shifts, which aren't as busy as night shifts. Of course, I would recommend you get another job if this is happening to you. But getting a job is difficult these days, and it's tiring jumping from unstable job to unstable job.
2. It's bad for restaurants, and it's unfair. Can you imagine why? Some servers, not to name names, give out free stuff when they're not supposed to, thus raising their tips. We honest servers do the right thing but come up short on our tips. That is certainly not fair, and restaurants lose money that way. Tipping servers encourages insane competition and dishonesty.
3. If you're not convinced by what I've already said, then this should certainly convince you. Tipping is discriminatory against servers. I know someone who used to be a server and is smoking hot. She told me that sometimes she used to make 300-400$ a night as a server, and she had several male customers come in and give her 100-200$ tips each time they came, and they asked her for sex in return. She always accepted the tip, of course, but she never went home with the guys, yet they kept coming in and giving her amazing tips in hopes of getting in her pants someday. That is not fair. We not so attractive servers don't even have a chance there. We don't have opportunities like that, and no one should earn money just because they were born beautiful. This is not a hooking business. We are to be paid based on service, not looks. Also, by being a server, I've noticed that people don't like to have male servers. When some people get male servers, they request females instead. If you ask me, that is insanely discriminatory and bold. But see, if the table isn't bold enough to say what they feel and ask for a female server, they will take the male server but not tip him very well. At my restaurant, the male servers almost never go home with as much money as the females do, which is ridiculous and makes no sense.
4. The money is unstable. Every day, you don't know how much you'll make. You might make great money (for what it is) from May-June. Then July-August, you might not even make ends meet. You never know if you'll make rent on a certain day.
5. There's no way to properly file our taxes. At lots of restaurants, servers don't even claim their cash tips. And at the end of the year, it's actually really difficult to remember just how much money we've made in cash tips, so we can't file our taxes properly. So the government gets screwed over in the process of this tipping mess!
6. Upward mobility as a server is basically just a dream, because you legally can not be paid anymore than $2.13/hr as a server. And your tips are unchanging. If you've worked at a restaurant for 10 years, your customers don't know that. They aren't going to tip you an extra $5 per table, just because you have been working there longer than everyone else.
7. Servers get blamed for everything. If the cooks make the food wrong, the servers get blamed for it, and their tips suffer. If spouses go out to dinner and have an argument, or if a family thinks the music is too loud, or if it's too hot or too cold in the restaurant, then the customers aren't happy. If the manager won't take something off the bill that they think should've been taken off the bill, the server suffers. If the manager or someone else who works at the restaurant is rude to my customer, my tip is on the line. And if customers are not happy and not in a good mood, then they are less likely to tip well. Customers who are happy usually tip well. So servers get blamed (and suffer for) anything that could possibly go wrong in a restaurant.
8. Going back to the discrimination thing. Tipping is discriminatory against customers as well. Think about it. Servers know which customers will tip and which ones won't. Usually servers dismiss rednecks, hispanics, foreign people, blacks, poorly dressed people, extremely uppity-appearing people, men, businessmen (We call these guys "Suits," because they wear $300 suits but leave 10% tips,) senior citizens, Christians, gay women who don't feel like they're being hit on by their female server, and teenagers as bad tippers from the start, so lots of servers are not going to be as attentive to those tables. Also, restaurants usually have lots of recurring customers, and we always remember if they tip well or not. If your server knows you won't tip them, no matter how hard they work for you, why in the world would they work really hard on your table? You've already upset them and made them feel worthless, just because they know they aren't about to get paid for their time. I have always been one to try to give good service to everyone, no matter how what, because people will surprise you, and honestly, people deserve good service when they go out to eat. However, if I don't have enough time to be attentive to all of my tables, I have been known to pay more attention to the table of adults, rather than the table of teenagers, admittedly. But that's only when I'm crazy busy with 8 tables at once and don't have much of a choice! But the point is, servers do it. Some more than others. That's not fair to the customers.
9. If servers tip out hosts/hostesses, bussers, bartenders, etc. by percentage, then if the servers that tip them out do not make much money, then neither do they, and they had nothing to do with the small tips the servers received. Literally their wage for a particular day is based on someone else's work, rather than their own. That's unbelievably unfair.
10. All this tipping crap has caused a whole bunch of multi-million dollar lawsuits. You can read about that here: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/abolish_tipping_it_s_bad_for_servers_customers_and_restaurants.html.
11. Tipping is relative. And that's not fair to servers, bartenders, or delivery people. Lots of people think 20% is only for perfect servers, and that most servers deserve 15%, even though 20% is what good servers expect (and deserve, if you ask me.) Some people think a 5-10% tip is perfectly acceptable for service that was ok but not the best. If you ask me, tipping less than 15% EVER is completely unacceptable. No matter how bad the service was, your server provided you with a service, nonetheless, and he/she deserves to be paid for that service. Lots of people don't even realize they're supposed to tip delivery guys, nor do they know how much to tip them. Foreign people don't know the tipping norms of the country they're in. Teenagers certainly don't know how much to tip or the importance of tipping properly, nor do they care. They haven't learned the value of a dollar yet or how hard it is to be an adult and make your own living and pay your own bills. Lots of people simply don't know how to tip and/or are bad at math. Lots of people are cheap and not generous at all. Lots of people are poor and should really stay home and cook but insist on going out to eat and leaving crappy tips to make up for the money they just spent on food. Sometimes people know how to tip but don't care. You're supposed to be a good server and do a good job in order to get a good tip, but even if you're a great server, you don't always get paid as such. So even if the whole reason we use tipping as a form of payment is so as to ensure good service for customers, the system is flawed.
12. The promise of a good tip is supposed to give servers incentive to give good service. If you need incentive like that to do a good job at your work, then you shouldn't be working there. Why do I need incentive to be a good server? Cashiers don't need that incentive! They're paid hourly. Yet most cashiers I've had have done the job for me. And a lot of them are even friendly. It's like that for every other job out there!!! The threat of losing your job should be incentive enough for you to do a good job at your work! I would try to be the best server I could be, with or without the incentive of tipping as my form of payment. (And for the record, there are some servers, as well as people in any profession, who don't care. They don't care if you tip them poorly. They are still going to treat you badly. That doesn't happen often, but it happens.)
13. Servers do all kinds of work before the restaurant opens and after the restaurant closes, and they don't get paid for it, because they're not serving tables, so they're not being tipped! At my restaurant, we have all kinds of kitchen duties, side work, sweeping to do, and other cleaning to do. We do all this before we open and after we close. And after a certain time at night, we have to be our own bussers too. And we have all kinds of times when we don't have any customers for 2 hours straight. So what are we doing? Working around the restaurant. Helping our fellow servers who might have a table. Cleaning. Whatever we think might need to be done. And during all this time, all we're making is 2.13$ an hour. But we won't see that on our paychecks, because when we get our paychecks, it will read a big, fat $0.
So I don't even understand where we got this horrible idea of tipping from. Maybe it really is to ensure good service for customers. But if that's true, then shouldn't we use that form of payment for everyone else, including cashiers, baristas, and other people working customer service jobs? Heck! Why don't we just tip everyone as their payment? Lawyers. Doctors. Policemen. Firemen. And like I said, tipping might be a good form of payment in theory, but in reality, it's just a whole big mess of crap. You're supposed to receive good tips if you work hard and are good to your customers. That, to me, is the whole point of tipping as the form of payment. But that does not at all determine the amount of money you make off a table. There are lots of people out there who are cheap and don't tip or tip very little, because they don't care or aren't very generous. Some people have been doing badly on money lately, so they leave bad tips. Some people are in a bad mood or get into an argument with their spouse and end up upset at dinner, and like I said before, unhappy customers leave unhappy tips. Some people don't tip when one tiny thing goes wrong, even when everything else is right. Servers are being graded for every move they make. They're being judged constantly. Some people don't tip based on things the server has no control over. Some people tip really well, no matter how bad the service was, because they've been in their servers' shoes. (That would be me.) If restaurants just raised their prices on food, then their workers would be properly paid for what they truly are worth. And their incentive to be good workers should be and would be exactly what it is for every other job out there - the threat of losing the job and the bribe of upward mobility within the company (and outside of the company, like in terms of boosting resumes and gaining experience.) I'm pretty sure my servers would give me good service, even if they didn't rely on me to make a decent wage - just like all other customer service workers. So let's get rid of this bull and start really paying our workers! We're America, for crying out loud. It's time we start acting like it. But no, I'll tell you why we don't do this. It's BECAUSE we're America! We're a country that runs on capitalism. As I've said before in my note "Dodger Logic #10: Is Capitalism Working?," there are all kinds of horrible things that come from capitalism, and this is one of them. We want to make our prices seem as low as possible, so as to draw people in. We want to trick them into thinking they're spending less money than they actually are. People often don't factor into a meal how much they have to tip until the end of the meal. Then it hits them like a blow to the face. "Oh, crap! I forgot about the tip!" That's also why we mark prices as $9.99, instead of what it really is - $10. It's ridiculous. So there's no way anyone will ever change this system, because they won't want to have to advertise a meal as $20, when the actual meal only costs 15$. How ridiculous is that? It doesn't even cost that much more to tip 20% for a meal that is only $15! (Or to go ahead and add the 20% tip for the server onto the meal price on the menu.) But no capitalist would be willing to do this, nonetheless.
Now don't get me wrong. Serving can be decent money. You might say "If your job sucks so badly, why don't you get a different job?" Because this is the best I can get while I'm in college. I don't have a degree, so I can get a legitimate job until I do. And serving is usually better than a cashier job, or something similar. Usually I make more than minimum wage, even if it's not much more. And serving is a lot better than standing around at a register, doing practically nothing all day with aching feet from standing in one spot for 5-10 hours. Also, cashier jobs, in comparison, come with fewer hours usually. The one good thing about serving is you can usually have as many hours a week as you want vs. cashier jobs that usually only hire people for part-time work. My shifts as a cashier (before I became a server) were usually like 4-6 hours, whereas I can work 10-14 hours days as a server. Yes, that's a lot of hours of work, but it's that much more money I'm making, so it beats a 4-hour shift making $7.25/hr. And even if I did want to get out of serving and get a different job, it's hard to find work these days! Sometimes the job you have is your only option at the time. Sometimes you put out applications and try and try and TRY, but no one is hiring. So you focus on your studies, so that you can get out of this business as soon as possible. Trust me, no one is in this business because they WANT to be.
So just in case tipping as a form of payment doesn't go away, you should know that you should tip your server 20% for good service. You should never tip less than 15%, even if the service is the worst you've ever had. 15% is for awful service but service, nonetheless. If you want to give more than 20% for insanely amazing service, go for it. Your server will appreciate it more than you know. And if you need to learn how to calculate tips or do the math, just take the first number of your tab and double it. If your tab is 20.00$, your tip should be 4$. If your tab is 25.00$, don't forget about the 5 there. Don't tip 4$. Instead, your tip should be 5$. And for the love of God, if your tab is 29$, don't tip 4$! Your tab is almost 30$, so tip 6$. If you want to be precise, just multiply your tab by 0.20 (20%.) Also, just so you know, the courtesy is to tip off the entire tab (not just the tab before tax,) AND to tip off the tab as it was before you used any coupons. So if your tab was 40.00$, and then it was cut down to 30.00$ after you applied a coupon, you should still tip your server 8$. He/she did, afterall, bring you 40.00$ worth of heavy food. Also, honestly, a 1, 2, or 3$ tip is not enough to make off a table. Even if 2$ is 20%, try to be a little more generous than that and leave AT LEAST 5$, no matter what, because you did, afterall, take up an entire one of your server's tables. And if you took up his/her time for an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, etc., please tip him/her for that time. If I take up a server's table for an hour, I usually tip him/her 5$ for decent service, no matter how low the tab was - even if I only ordered a coffee. I tip even more if I think my server was really great and friendly. Remember, a bad tip can ruin a server's day. It not only makes you realize you're poor and aren't making any money that day, but it hurts your self-esteem. If someone doesn't even think you're time and effort is worth anything, then how are we supposed to feel about ourselves? Sometimes it's more about the gesture than the money. I just ask that, if we can't change the system, everyone just be more mindful of tipping. But I also ask everyone to push for a change in the system too.
The question was "Do you think we should do away with the tipping system?" Apparently the world agrees that we should put an end to tipping.
This is good information to know. I did not know some of these, and now I'm glad that I do.
This is good too.
This is good too.
The only thing I don't agree with is "Men" and "All Male Dining Parties." Those are hit or miss, but men often tip poorly. I would also move "Blacks" all the way to the end, but I'm not sure if I would have it before or after "Teenagers." They're about the same, I think. Also, it seems to me like gay women only tip well if you are a female server and you flirt with them, so I'm not sure where I'd place "Gay Women." Anyway, 95% of this is correct.
Wooh! Check out that low annual income that servers make! A whopping $4,499 a year!
This is constant. It's supposed to be: good service = good tip, but that's not always how it goes.
This happens too often. This is degrading and downright bullying. If you do this, you're not really upset that your server doesn't have a real job, and you're not concerned with their wellbeing. You're a cheap piece of sh*t who wants to justify leaving next to nothing as a tip. (So you guys know, this person should've left a $27 tip on this tab. That would have been 20%. I'm pretty sure this server probably cried for the next 24 hours straight after receiving this.)
Yes, because that is definitely the server's fault. This is what I mean when I say servers are blamed for EVERYTHING that goes on in restaurants.
Best sign ever and so true!
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