5 reasons why I won’t tip you if you’re a waiter

Daggers drawn,its an all out fight now.Though I see us being heavily out numbered..
No.1 is actually a point to kill waiters ,esp the ones in TGIF..I didnot order an extra dose of sugar,so kindly zip up that artificial smile already please.!!

Excellent Post Dude.. American culture Sucks… The points mentioned here are worth to put in any international Newspaper/ Article.

In my line of work (masked crimefighter), I am continually harassed, harangued and harmed. I have been taunted, attacked, and tainted with the spurious invectives of my enemies.

As such, I have come to have much more respect for the police, my brothers in blue. They put themselves on the line daily.

Of course, this hasn’t really stopped my from being fighting the man. But, at least it has brought me a new understanding.

Here’s an experiment for you. Get a part time job as a waiter a couple nights a week. Write about that experience. See if it changes you.

I heard an Native American saying once (well, on the internet I read it):

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their moccasins. And if you still feel like criticizing them, you’ll be a mile away and still have their moccasins.

Keep ranting, anyway.

Cheers.

@Annonymous
Hey lets refrain from generalisations, shall we? Every culture has its ups and downs. There’s much that the rest of the world can learn from the American culture.

Wow, you are a worthless piece of shit. Just because in your country tipping is optional doesn’t mean it is here. People like you should live off of hamburger helper and be struck with lightning every 3 to 4 hours. We live off those tips, if you can afford to eat out, you can afford to tip 15% or more, anything less just qualifies you as a worthless cheap bastard that hopefully will crash in a car accident on the way home from the restaurant. If you had any idea how hard it is to wait on 3 tables full of assholes like yourself, you would reciprocate with a nice tip. Until you experience that fact, please stop sharing your blasphemy with the idiots who overwhelm the internet. It only hurts the hard working server. Don’t worry though, many of us are paying our way through law school with your “10%” tip, and karmas a bitch.

I guess your view is limited to you, your food, and your money. You don’t even stop to consider the effort people put in to make your dining experience at their restaurant a pleasure. Or maybe you don’t even care at all if you have a pleasant dining experience.

I do tip people as a way to show my appreciation for the work that the waiter, the busboy, and the cook (whom I never see) had put in to make me enjoy my meal. It’s a difficult job given the number of customers to please at certain busy hours of the day. And I thank my God that I’m fortunate enough not to be doing their job. But it’ll also be a big shame on my part if I should ignore all the time and effort they gave just to please me.

@panaderos: I also used to believe my tip was being shared with the other staff. Many, many restaurants don’t tip out the kitchen staff, however. In these parts, at least not the ones I’m familiar with.

Everyone seems to be talking about how difficult it is to be a server and how much effort goes into making a customer’s dining experience pleasurable.

Really? Difficult when compared to which other job? Difficult on what level? Physical? Intellectual? Emotional??? I’m willing to change my opinion if someone can really convince me that serving is one of the toughest jobs conceivable. And thus, deserves special compensation as a token of appreciation.

Get real. Its a tough world. Working is a pain. Jobs are tiring. For everyone.

And if I dont think I am getting paid enough for my services, I ask my employer for a hike. Or I quit and find another job.

Why isnt that an option at all in this profession?? Why not bully the employers for reasonable wages?

And if I really want to show my appreciation to someone for making my dining experience pleasurable, I’d like to tip the cook. For the good food. Coz isnt that what we go to restaurants for? Isnt that what really decides how the experience has been.. and whether the restaurant will be visited again or not?

All I desire from the server is that he/she is courteous and gets my order right. Thats about it.

Cooking a good meal – now that’s a skill. One that I can show my appreciation for.

Taking my order and carrying the dishes from the kitchen to my table – well, I dont know.. how much SKILL does that really take?

Certainly not more than what it takes to be cooking the meal, right?

So why all these tantrums?

@anupa:

You leave so much material. It’s good I’m not waiting tables tonight, taking dishes to and fro, or I wouldn’t have time to go tit for tat on blogs.

Tantrums? Best not to throw stones, no? Lest we come off with some shattered windows, ourselves. This is one of the many benefits of us cave dwellers – all of our windows have been shattered long ago.

I would argue that people go to restaurants for myriad reasons, only one of which is the delicious food. We go to spend time with friends, relax, avoid cooking ourselves, convenience and yes, the food. Read reviews on Yelp and you’ll see a multitude of references to the prices (happy hour), the service (efficient, prompt, rude, attentive, slow), the ambiance, the drinks, the wine list…I could go on.

The ‘dining experience’ is the whole event.

Nothing makes or breaks the meal like good service. The waitperson is your key to making it better. The NYTimes had a great blog post last month about the 100 things you should never do when waiting on people. It helped me see it was more than, “1) Write down order, 2) Take order to kitchen, 3) take plates to table.”

Like it or not, tips are part of the wait staff’s salary. That’s how the employers see it and they have managed to get this inscribed into law. In many states, a waitperson’s hourly wage is well below the minimum wage since part of their wage is made up in tips. In some states, this is not the case. But in all, they must report their tips as taxable income. (You may cry foul because you may feel that some underreport, but that is not the point here.)

The real point is that tipping is part of the economic system in place. It is how these people earn their living. Good service? 15% Excellent service? A little more. The ability to work hard and earn a little more is capitalism at its simplest form.

Remember their salary is the hourly wage + tips. That’s how it is calculated. That’s what they signed up for. That’s how they figure their own budget for paying their baby sitter, car payment, rent, gas, electricity, phone, food and (apparently) law school tuition.

If you decide to unilaterally remove part of their salary (tips) because you disagree with the economic system, you are, in effect, taking away somebody’s wage – giving them an unplanned pay cut that they had no control over (they gave you good service and you did not honor the social contract).

My father taught me that of all the things you can do to a person, insult them, ridicule them, ignore them, never mess with their money.

@the plasticgraduate
I understand where you’re coming from. Which is why I do tip in this country. It is a system that I disagree with, but it is a social system nonetheless. And I understand that people derive their livelihoods from tips and so, I do the whole ‘when in Rome’ thing.

What I am against is the whole attitude of blaming the customer who doesnt tip (enough) while not a single attack is directed towards the system itself.

There are forums over forums dedicated to bitching about people who dont tip. Yet I havent come across even one that says with equal enthusiasm – “lets demand higher hourly wages for servers.”

There has to be something to this. Why are servers ok with a system that leaves them at the mercy of the customers if there is such a risk involved? Why dont they demand minimum wages, at least?

I dont understand this.

i like the post for its curt, rude, frankness..

I, for one, tip. but tht’s in India where I and most of us, don’t treat the 10% rule as sacrosanct.. we tip when the service is good, and at rare occasions, have not paid a penny when the service was poor… when i was a student (not earning to tip generously) a waiter gave such a nasty look when the tip was not enough, after tht belittling gesture i was scared into not being stingy.. now i am a little more thick-skinned and less in awe of restaurants, etiquette and such crap and so follow my mind.

I came here from IHM and like your blog.. will read up again

Hm. Isn’t a “tip” appreciation for a job “well done, better than normal” and not for “job completed?” I don’t get 15% extra pay from my boss when I turn in my TPS reports on time. Why’s a kid ferrying food so special?

The way things often are, you tip 15% regardless of service and more if its good. Right. What if it’s a job done shittily?

Why don’t you ask your employer to pay you a decent wage? When we go to a store, we don’t tip the clerk for showing is the wares, then why should we tip you? Your anger is misplaced…@Jason

To everyone that thinks waiters should just ask for more hourly wage, please realize it just won’t happen.

I’ve worked for seven years in restaurants. I’ve seen managers and owners shave hours off employees’ checks, steal tips from the pool, refuse to pay any overtime, and refuse breaks to employees working long shifts. At two restaurants, employees went to the labor board (this is supposed to be anonymous) to file complaints. Guess the outcome? They got fired.

The fact is that restaurant owners are powerful, and servers are not. If I asked any restaurant owner I ever worked for to pay me more per hour, I would have been laughed at. And then there would be a “Help Wanted” post on Craigslist the next day. The owner of the restaurant I currently work in is a personal friend of several local and state politicians. Nobody that isn’t a server cares about servers’ wages. And if you think you do, then go join a movement for change on this issue, but I bet you won’t.

Tips are our wages. You should calculate that in when eating out. It is the system, and it’s spiteful to take money from a server’s pocket simply because you don’t agree with something they have no control over.

I understand the differences in your culture in comparison to American culture. However, it is generally acceptable in America that if you receive average/good service in a restaurant, the tip out is about 15%. More if the service was above and beyond. From what you said, you prefer average service (take order, run order, deliver check, bye bye). However, if you consistently show up at the same establishment and become a “regular” so to speak, and only tip less than 10%, you can expect that when you walk through those doors, the serving staff are probably trying to pawn you off on whoever else they can, such as a newbie just out of training because they know you’re going to nearly stiff them. Not to mention, you probably won’t even receive “average” service and may find yourself waiting for a long time for your drink, food, etc… because the server is probably more focused on making sure they their customers who aren’t cheapskates are getting the best service possible. You are last on the priority list. Why should a server sabotage their money by spending less time on their good tipping customers to take care of a cheapskate whose going to probably leave them little to nothing?
When you go to McDonald’s, you are expecting to just get food served at the counter, eat, and go with no interaction whatsoever with a waitstaff, so therefore you obviously don’t need to tip. Employees are paid minimum wage there. Same goes at any fast food joint. However, when you go to a restaurant, it is expected that the customer service is better, the ambiance is better, food is better, etc… You’re “taken care of” so to speak. The servers get paid less than $4/hour depending on the area because the tip is part of their expected income. Keep in mind, out of what you tip (or fail to tip), we also have to tip out bartenders (whether you drank or not, its part of the tip-out), hostesses and hosts, and sometimes the chefs as well. So if you leave $1.00 MAYBE .40 or .50 goes to the server. That is certainly not going to pay the bills, student loans, or feed the kids.
Don’t expect even average service if you’re known for being a cheapskate. If you can’t afford to tip or are too self-righteous to think that you should tip, then don’t go out to eat somewhere that you’ll have a server. Your excuses are all cop-outs. I’d never spit in a customers food or do anything like that to sabotage what their putting into their bodies because their cheapskates, but don’t expect exceptional service beyond the absolute minimum when I have customers at the table next to you who take care of me when I take care of them.
If you don’t like the American customs, you know where to go.

Alright, now I understand that different countries have different customs and all the like. However, as someone said earlier, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” If you don’t like having to tip a waiter, then don’t eat out. Go home and actually cook for yourself. Waiters are here to provide a service to you and if you don’t make it worth their while, why should they bother to do anything for you? From what I understand, over the pond in jolly old England waitstaff are paid a decent amount. Do you know what that means? Servers won’t give a shit if their service is good or bad, either way they’re getting paid. Here in America, if a server is decent (keep in mind, there are plenty that aren’t) they’ll work for that tip. And those of you who believe serving is a mindless job, then you’ve obviously never served at a restaurant before.

Also, for those saying that the kitchen staff should be commended for their work, why not be penalized for their misdoings as well? Who do customers get mad at if their steak wasn’t cooked correctly? The cook? Pfft, as if. It’s the servers that get the brunt of it. Sorry I don’t have x-ray vision to tell if your steak is medium instead of medium-rare, I assumed the cook put it on the grill for the allotted time.

Also, if you’re recognized as being a crappy tipper, what makes you think you’ll get decent service? If a server knows they’re not getting anything worthwhile from you, then why should they bother? As for you doing us the “favor” of allowing us to serve you and feed you for a meal, then shouldn’t you scratch our backs as well? No? Then I sure hope I never have you in my section or else I’ll be ignoring your sorry ass. Oh wait, that’s right, you’re the world’s gift to us servers. We should be worshiping the ground you walk on just because you came to our restaurant.

Not so much.

@Waitress

Waitress :
To everyone that thinks waiters should just ask for more hourly wage, please realize it just won’t happen.

Playing devil’s advocate here:

Just like black people will never see freedom because the white man is too powerful? Or maybe also like the fact that unions won’t ever be formed? Think about it..

As for saying it’s “spiteful to take money from a server’s pocket.” Taking money out of a server’s pocket, but isn’t it originally the customers money that they worked for? It could be thought that it’s not technically the server’s. Maybe the rest of worlds jobs aren’t easy either and they don’t all get fair salaries. Some customers may just want to enjoy a stress free night out and not having to pay a huge tip, but at the same time not having to pack a brown bag lunch from home and then heading out and finding a table somewhere.

What about McDonald’s servers? Are they not friendly who take your order and serve you food all the same? I may agree it’s not always as nice of a meal and doesn’t require as much service, but still the bill isn’t going to run $50 for a dinner for two at 15-20%. It will probably be closer to $10 at 15-20% not as much work means not as big of a tip, but still serving food. They however don’t get tipped.

Once again I am just playing devil’s advocate. I always tip generously.

But think about it.

Elias :
From what I understand, over the pond in jolly old England waitstaff are paid a decent amount. Do you know what that means? Servers won’t give a shit if their service is good or bad, either way they’re getting paid.

Elias :
And those of you who believe serving is a mindless job, then you’ve obviously never served at a restaurant before.

How can you say that right after the first quote?! It seems very contradictory that you say that someone has obviously never done something before when right before you assumed service in England is terrible. They do a fantastic job!

But yes, tipping originated from European countries to be brought here. However they don’t do that over there anymore. It’s now common to have a service charge automatically added on to the bill which will go to the waiting staff as well as cooks.

You don’t know what it’s like until you’re a server. At my work, Indians ALWAYS walk in right when we are closing, and demand a thousand things, all the while with a look that tells me they’re looking down on me because I’m a waitress. I’m human too, hello? I always smile at them and give them my best service anyways, hoping for a miracle, but 99% of the time I’m lucky to even get a dollar out of them, while I get at least $6 for a 30 dollar bill out of everyone else. Same goes for other Asians however they tip $3-4 instead of $1. I make less than minimum wage whenever I get tipped bad. And until you’re in my shoes, you don’t understand how it is; that it’s not easy to quit and get another job when you need a job for school, food, bills, just to live basically. What am i gonna do with $3 an hour wage and $1 tip from my tables?! You’re ignorant for writing this without even knowing what it is like, go be a waiter for a few days and you’ll know. In the meantime, know that whenever you walk into a restaurant, servers are probably cussing at you behind your back, discussing your lack of etiquette, and you are probably going to get less than the minimum service you desire, because frankly, you don’t deserved to be served at all. Go eat fast food please.

Why don’t you go work in a restaurant for a week, earning $2.13 per hour, and see how you feel when you don’t get a tip from a cheap arrogant customer such as yourself. If you can’t afford to tip (whether financially or morally), then go fucking eat at McDonalds. If you don’t want to interact with a server, then go fucking eat at McDonalds. Better yet…make your own food and stay out of restaurants entirely.