Moved: Tips

[Night Ω Wolfe]

Okay so my husband quoted the movie the Reservoir Dogs the other day when we went to a resteraunt... and I was curious how many of you also feel this way? Here is the quote:

"I don't tip because society says I have to. All right, if someone deserves a tip, if they really put forth an effort, I'll give them a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, it's for the birds. As far as I'm concerned, they're just doing their job."


Okay I totally see a point to this... Let's say hypothetically a sales clerk at a store really goes out of their way to help you find something you are looking for, I mean superb service, something that 99.9% of sales clerks would never put the effort out to help this much. In a case like that I would totally want to tip them since great service is so rare anywhere you go. But guess what? Tipping is against almost all store policies... you are not ALLOWED to tip them.

But... you go to a restaurant and have the crappiest waitress in the world and because they get paid so little an hour you feel guilted into giving them at least a 15-20% tip because it is dining etiquette and all that. This I find really is ridiculous... I wasn't the one who came up with the stupid idea that waitresses can be paid less than minimum wage because they receive tips, so why should I have to be the one to pay for it? Granted yes I do tip a waitress when she is really good... and they get extra points for being really nice to my daughter... but overall the majority of waitresses at the restaurants where I live are just horrible. They take forever to bring the drinks, then take forever to come back and take your order, most of the time they don't come and see how you are doing and if you need another drink or something it is impossible to find them, then they drop off the bill before you even finish eating so then you feel rushed, then to top it off they take forever to come take your money or credit card to pay the bill. It just one thing after another that all counts toward bad service. So why the heck should I pay them extra for that?

[griffman]

I agree with you to a point here wolfe. I have stiffed someone out of a tip several times... I even happened to stiff the same guy twice in a row. I think if they do an adequate job they deserve a tip at most like 10%, and if they do an outstanding job then a 15%-20% tip... I would rather give them a little, I mean adding $1 or $2 won't really kill me each time I go out (which is pretty rare). Sometimes you gotta give it to them though... even if they are just decent. You can't really tell how busy they are, I mean someone could have called in sick and they had to take a few extra tables etc.

A lot of places around me mandate a tip.. they just add it into your bill. I rarely go to these places anymore... the waiters/waitresses don't care as much about you, they know they will get the same tip regardless of how they treat you.

I have several friends that are waitresses and I get a lot of complaints from them about their jobs and how people call in sick and they end up getting screwed in tips because they had to watch over 10-20 extra tables...

[rendclaw]

A LOT of things go into figuring the tip. The attitude of the waitstaff is foremost.
Whatever happened to service with a smile?
Whatever happened to giving the customer/client more than they expect?
Whatever happened to promptness and politeness?
Something the people who work for tips should remember: If you work for tips and I am paying the bill, YOU WORK FOR ME!
There is an implied contract with tipped workers that the harder they try for you the more they will get paid!
Likewise, the less they try the less they will get paid!
I get the concept and I don't work for tips!
Sorry, this is a huge pet peeve of mine.

Let's try a story problem kids -- remember I'm an old geezer -- see if you can teel me who gets the tip.

Is this customer service? #1:

3 people having dinner before their bowling league at 4 p.m. on a Thursday. Waitstaff actually outnumbers patrons 2:1, or so. The 3 get seated and have to wait 10 minutes for their drink order to get taken. One of them is thirsty and finishes their drink before the food arrives. They put their glass at the edge of the table -- the universal signal for I'm dry, refill me! Their meals arrive quite a few minutes later and no refill, so they request one. Another fifteen minutes go by and no refill! The patron takes his glass to the drink station and refills it. At the drink station is confronted by not one, but three waitstaff. -- And no it did not get busy between the time arrived and now.
These people work for tips, or do they?

Is this customer service? #2:

A woman and her son are visiting her sister in Michigan, they live in Indiana. There is a family function the following weekend that requires the son to wear a suit. As he is quite large for his few years it is very hard to fit him. The sister suggests a nearby well known department store -- that will remain nameless, as I am not getting paid to advertise Nordstrom. The salesperson found a close suit and spoke to the tailor about the situation, so it was fast-tracked. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the credit card authorization that kept it from being shipped. The customer called on the Saturday before the Sunday event and had not received their suit. Finding that the suit was still in the store the shipping person -- noncommision/nontipped -- drove the suit the 9 hour round trip to deliver it personally.


I go out of my way to service people without being tipped or being able to accept tips. Should the people who work for tips be held to a lower standard?

Now that I have made sure no one is any longer reading this. . . Yes, both are personal examples. #1 I was on the customer. #2 I was the shipping lead.

[AREA666]

Since I am nice I will typically tip anytime I eat out, but if somebody does not do a good job at all, which is rare, then I have no problem not paying. Or if I dont have any cash on me say after I forget to add a tip onto a credit card I have no problem with not doing it. About the only people I think I tip all the time is the pizza delivery people, and I think I do that because the transaction is all done with them there. I dont base things off of how much money is spent though since I think it is silly since I can buy a 200 dollar meal all for myself and they are going to work just as hard to put that on my table as a 10 dollar one. I will say that the only time I felt I should pay on a percent was an expensive meal that I spent like 250 or something for me and a friend and the reason I thought I should was because of all the little extra things they did that impressed me like bringing a wine cart out, sweeping the crumbs up between each course, etc.

[Night Ω Wolfe]

Wow Rendclaw I have to say that I have done a number of things that are above and beyond what most people would do for a customer, but I can't say that I would EVER be willing to drive 9 hrs for one!!

I have a personal example for you though which is another thing that I don't understand about tips...

Okay so I worked for a limousine company for a little over a year, I was the secretary/reservationist but I also had to do many additional things like schedule cars for repair, drive them and drop them off at the mechanics, make small repairs in the interior of the cars (like a cup holder coming unglued) as well as wash all the glasses and stock the cars with clean glasses and drinks, getting the cars their annual inspections, etc.

And I have to say that I did a lot of small additional things for the customers. Things like picking up specially requested drinks and/or food, keeping track of who needed an extra receipt for work so they could be compensated without them having to ask every time, going to great lengths to properly arrange weddings where they would meet their needs for less money cause I was good at organizing times and such, calling up the customer if something was left in the cars and even mailing things back on my own time if the customer wasn't local, etc. etc. etc. Just yah know tons of small things that as far as I am concerned is just doing a good job but that you rarely see anyone doing anymore.

Well anyway the actual drivers got paid more than me to begin with and they got a minimum of 20% gratuity on top of it.... whereas I NEVER received a tip I don't think I was even allowed one maybe. Granted I didn't actually see the customers very often but it makes sense to me that if I am the one arranging things, setting up the cars, printing maps and directions, arranging special extras and all the driver is actually doing in most cases is nothing more than driving then I should get part of their gratuity. Maybe I am off base here but still.

Hell one time a driver of ours pulled into a very narrow entrance at a hotel which he never should have pulled the minibus into to begin with and in result absolutely DESTROYED the beautiful garden arrangement that the owner had just finished the day before, then the driver didn't even stop to tell them what happened and apologize he just kept driving. So I obviously get a very, very angry phone call from the hotel owner... which I treated very politely regardless of the amount of time he screamed at me. I then personally made arrangements with a local garden store to DELIVER a wooden barrel, potting soil and all new flowers and charged it all to the company. Now this isn't part of my job... this is something the limo owner should have handled, but since I knew him and knew that he would avoid talking to this guy for as long as he possibly could and it would be weeks before the situation was resolved I decided on my own to get the guy fixed up since it WAS our drivers fault. Again I went waaay out of my way and obviously given the situation the hotel owner did nothing more than send me a thank you note for handling the situation so well and quickly (which I really appreciate since he didn't need to) but I didn't even get a thank you from by boss let alone anything extra for taking care of it for him.

[griffman]

Just out of curiousity...

do you guys take tips even if you technically aren't allowed to, if someone gives it to you?

I use to work at a home goods store (called Tuesday Morning if you've ever heard of it). People would buy huge things... like weighing up to 100 or more lbs. I would carry them out to their cars a lot of the time, and almost everytime they would offer a tip. I would say no, I'm not supposed to take it.. but if they offered the tip more than once I'd take it, and just not tell anyone when I got back in the store. Does this make me a bad person?

[Night Ω Wolfe]

Okay first off I have never been offered a tip when we weren't allowed to take it so I am not sure what I would do in that situation. To be honest I probably would take it... but I have always worked at crappy places and I don't think I was ever treated the way I should have been or was paid as much as I should of been. I have a track record of working for the most screwed up companies/people that don't ever reward employees in any way for their hard work and screw them over at every possible turn like annual raises, vacation days, holidays, etc. So therefore if I can get any extra somewhere damned if I am not going to take it. But no I don't think you are a bad person it isn't as if you ASKED for a tip you just accepted one from someone that was genuinely grateful of your help and the whole rules about not being able to take them to begin with is stupid in my opinion. It is one thing to not expect to get tips in lots of job positions but why do you have to TURN DOWN a tip if someone offers? That is just dumb.

[beckyh]

I have frequently wondered why tipping sucks so much as well. I thought of a solution to restaurants, although I'm sure it has a number of flaws as well. In my new plan, I would make every single table have a digital display of a tip percentage that the customer plans on giving their server that can be changed with the quality of service whenever the customer chooses. So in this ideal circumstance if Waitress A sees that one table is down to a mere 5%, she rushes over to get them refills ASAP. If nothing else this would give a button for me to push when I'm exceptionally pissed at bad service so I could vent my rage through the power of my pointer finger. It would also provide an alternative way to getting a refill than that old stand by of sucking the ice out of an empty glass to make that annoying sound.

Then of course, if someone sets it up the final amount on the digital tip indicator will just be added to the bill. Tada!

[Night Ω Wolfe]

That is an awesome idea!!! #yay#

[AREA666]

Sounds like a fun idea. It would probably cost a bunch though since the displays would need to be large and all, but they could always just use like some old obsolete green screen computer monitors from the 80s to cut down on cost. I think it would also be something that would be fun to play around with if you are bored while your food is cooking. I guess you could use it to screw with the people and see how they might react to a 0 percent tip, or a negative one if it went down that low, and then if they do good still then you bump it up higher then normal.