It never fails to shock me how a tip is demanded in the US. People simply refuse to listen to reason when we (yes, there are others!) tell them that leaving a tip isn’t necessary. Well, I’m hoping for too much here, but if you’re a waiter, here are 5 reasons why I will try my best not to give any money to you and why the reasons for tipping are crappy.
1. You act as if you’re my best friend
Just leave me alone ok? I don’t want to bloody chit chat with you. I want food. FOOD! Get it? It’s a restaurant. I go there to eat. I go because I want either Italian food, Chinese Food or something else which I can’t get in a McDonald’s. So I come to a restaurant to fulfill my cravings for it. I will pay for what I value – food. Not you.
Christ, you offend me – kneeling down next to my table, pretending to like me and chatting as if you’re my best friend when it’s obvious that all you’re after is the tip! I’m not a bloody money bag you know. I will pay the bill which includes the cost of the food, the environment and the salaries of the people involved – nothing more.
The only way to get money out of me that I don’t have to legally pay is by prying it out of my cold dead hands…
Bottom line: I don’t want to know your name, or interact with you for any longer than I have to in order to place my order. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the equivalent of a conveyor belt that brings me my food and a computer into which I input my order. Of course, I won’t be rude. But don’t expect me to interact with you any more than I would with some stranger.
Image Credit: cafemama
2. You don’t get paid enough
And this is my problem how exactly? It’s astonishing that customers are expected to make up for your employer’s cheapness in not paying you a decent wage. Please include the full cost in everyone’s bill thank you very much. I’ll pay it because I have to and the charge is there for me to see.
What’s really funny here is that no one seems to criticize the employers! All criticism is reserved for non tipping customers instead of the owners of the restaurant for not paying a decent wage. Wtf! Could it possibly be because you guys know you can make much more by tips and under report your income to the IRS?
3. You’ll spit in my food if I don’t tip you?
And I’ll shoot your kid if you don’t give me a million dollars. Seriously, am I even hearing this right? You’re actually using the threat of blackmail to make me pay you? Well as long as you’re openly claiming to be a criminal it’s all right I guess.
Fortunately that’s why I prefer buffets. Listen apart from it being illegal, this shows your poor integrity. But if you spit in someone’s food because they didn’t give you money you didn’t earn, then you’re a loser and deserve to be a waiter for the rest of your life.
4. Bringing me my food isn’t worthy of being paid extra
Did you cook it? Did you invent it? No. You picked it up and brought it to me. While it might not be easy, there are plenty of jobs which are much worse – shop floor workers for example. And I’ve been a shop floor manager, so I know. Face it – compared to other jobs, being a waiter is unskilled. You get paid what the market will think your services are worth. You don’t deserve more for your work over and above what your employer should pay you.
5. Money doesn’t grow on trees
I expect you to be grateful and pray for me at night if I tip you 10%. Be happy I gave you anything at all. I worked for the money in my wallet and by giving you some I didn’t have to, I’m doing you a favor. Learn to remember that when people give you something they don’t need to, it’s a favor. You don’t complain that they didn’t give you more!
By the way, the same thing above applies to all professions that demand tips including those on cruise liners.
So now that you understand why I won’t give you money you don’t deserve, stop with the “oh how could you?” attitude. I can. And I will.
Update: Here’s a rebuttal of the many silly justifications for tipping that people have given in the comments section.
Congrats Bhagwad–1000 comments. I seriously think you are at celebrity status now lol.
Jendel–again, couldn’t agree more.
Amber–i’m American and I don’t like tipping.
Brittney just said that here in Cali, I don’t need to tip since wait staff make minimum. So Amber, do you not agree?
I completely agree with the OP on every aspect of his post.
I’m planning a trip to New-York, first time in the US, and I know that the thing that will bother me the most is tipping, to the point that I will probably eat out and go to the bar less than I planned to.
I was particularly shocked when I read that I am supposed to tip a bartender $1 dollar/drink for an already pricey beverage. Same goes for the taxi driver o_O.
Being half French half Portuguese, this tipping custom feels just wrong when you compare to the system here in most European countries were the price shown on the menu reflects the global cost (food/drink+service+VAT).
In all honesty your ignorant. Waiter/ess’ are NOT your maid. We don’t enjoy cleaning up after you. We don’t make $30 an hour like A LOT of other waiter/ess’ in the world. WE get taxed on our sales AND our recorded tips. So it would be by the grace of god if we make more then $100 on a 30 hr pay check. A job is a job and money DOES NOT grow on trees so we do what we have to do to survive. If you don’t want fast food then make your own damn food. If you don’t want to pay for an expensive drink buy your own damn crown and coke and make your own drinks. Think of the work and effort we really have to do to ensure that customers have a nice meal, AND good service. If you feel your service sucked and your food sucked AND you tried to tell someone and no one took the time to help you then do what you have to do, I won’t lie there are times I feel like someone doesn’t deserve a good tip. But really don’t waste our time. It’s our job it’s how we survive. If you didn’t tip us we wouldn’t work for $100 every 2 weeks and you would not be able to go eat out at a restaraunt, in all honesty take the time to think about that.
In reply to You have no idea what your talking about
Then don’t offer your services for free. Give me a bill and charge whatever you want and let me know the amount beforehand. But if you don’t give me a bill and people don’t have to legally pay, don’t complain when they refuse to give you charity.
In reply to bhagwad
The services are not offered for free. It is a custom in our country that is expected to be followed. It is not charity. You are expected to pay a tip. They don’t write you a bill for the tip because they can’t stand behind the server and make sure you are offered good service. They wouldn’t bill you if your server never filled up your drink or was rude the entire time. Therefore, you are given the option to pay the standard 15% tip, or you may choose to pay less or MORE if the server does a great job. You are not giving charity by tipping, you are choosing to be an asshole and make someone work for free if you choose to ignore this very important custom. The fact that you don’t understand that you are not billed a certain amount because the amount of the tip should depend on how much your waiter made your dining experience enjoyable shows that you are taking a stance against something that is ingrained in our society and you need to reevaluate your viewpoint. For instance, go to a restaurant and actually be a waiter for a day before you make it a personal point to be a horrible human being to every one you meet for the rest of your life.
In reply to Lindsay Tillery
I can’t be sure the restaurant will give me good food either. We still have a fixed itemized bill. People don’t need an additional incentive to do their job other than the fact that they’re getting paid a fixed amount for it.
Perhaps you should see that the custom should change instead.
Customs are meaningless when money’s involved. Then it’s all business. And just like I don’t care about Walmart cashiers, I don’t care about servers either.
In reply to bhagwad
Okay, so you’re just a dick. That’s understandable. Eat at home. Or jump off a cliff one.
In reply to Lindsay Tillery
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that you personally are serving me. In truth, it is the restaurant that is using you to deliver my food to me. I pay the restaurant. Whether they use a human like a server to bring me my food, or make it appear from the floor is not my business. I paid for my food, the environment and the delivery.
If someone gives you something using their hand, you thank them. Not the hand. I pay the restaurant. You’re the arm.
1. You act as if you’re my best friend. “Christ, you offend me – kneeling down next to my table, pretending to like me and chatting as if you’re my best friend when it’s obvious that all you’re after is the tip!
No its actually called good customer service, but judging by your response I bet your just a ray of sunshine that everyone would love to be friends with.
2. You don’t get paid enough. “It’s astonishing that customers are expected to make up for your employer’s cheapness in not paying you a decent wage.”
Actually the cheapness comes from the customers. Everyone wants something for the lowest price; just imagine how bad off America would be if it wasn’t for illegal labor or sweat shops in foreign countries.
“I will pay the bill which includes the cost of the food, the environment and the salaries of the people involved – nothing more.”
If a restaurant actually charged people the real cost of food, service and environment to enjoy the food than you would either not go out to eat, or go to the restaurant next door that is selling the same meal at a fraction of the cost. Admit it, were all a bit of a cheap bastard!
3. You’ll spit in my food if I don’t tip you?
Really…what restaurant to you go to where the waiter say’s ” Hi my name is Carl, I’ll be serving you today and you better tip me or I will spit in your food the next time your here” If you don’t want to tip than fine, but if your dumb enough to keep going back to the same place regularly and never tip…”push me down once shame on you….push me down twice shame on me.”
4. Bringing me my food isn’t worthy of being paid extra.
Tips don’t just go to waiters in a lot of places. Quite a few places have the tips get pooled together and spilt between the staff from waiters, busboys, maitre d’ bartender and sometimes the cook. I believe your appropriate response would be “It’s not my problem that they don’t get paid enough”, and so I refer you back to point number 2.
5. Money doesn’t grow on trees.”I expect you to be grateful and pray for me at night if I tip you 10%.”
10%…???. Ohhhhh…. and there is that cheapness we were talking about earlier. Your right, money doesn’t grow on trees and money should be earned. There are servers out there who should not get a tip, because they do not earn it. There are also customers who should not be taking up space in a restaurant, and would be better off just to come in to get take out, and then leave. That way they would feel justified in paying the cost of the food and nothing more. If you want a nice environment you could always go take your meal to a park bench.
In reply to bushpilot99
yet here in California, Wal Mart cashiers, target employees, Sam’s Club grocers, Ralph’s cashiers make minimum wage and are EXTREMELY helpful. THey make the same wages as wait staff–minimum wage here in Cali.
Why do I have to tip?
Totally unfair.
I’m not legally required to do so.
In reply to Common Sense
But in several other states, servers only make $2.13 per hour and then their tips are supposed to fill in the extra $5.12 per hour. I am working my way through nursing school as a server, it is hard work, it’s not easy to be a server in a busy restaurant. You have two hours around lunch to make good money and three hours around dinner. The tables are devided into sections and you can only take tables in your section. For instance, you may have four tables you can use for two hours. So if a jackass that knows they are not going to tip no matter how good of a job you do comes in and takes one of your tables up for an hour and a half and then leaves you no tip at all, that jackass has pretty much robbed you of the space and time you were alotted to make your salary as well as chose to ask you to work for them for an hour and a half KNOWING that they are going to deliberately not pay the customary (yeah, it’s not legally required, it’s just on the HONOR system) tip. I know it’s not the best system, but it’s not the server’s fault that they make $2.13 an hour, believe me, we’d change it if we could. Do you know how bad that makes a server feel when we do a good job and someone doesn’t tip at ALL? It’s like a total stranger coming up, asking you for directions, then punching you in the face. It’s you choosing to look me in the face, KNOW I only make $2.13 an hour, and then walk away and not even care that you made me sad or angry or that I’m struggling to afford my textbooks and that $5 I was expecting for doing my job correctly was what I was planning on buying dinner with. I understand you live in a state where servers make minimum wage, but very few states require that servers and bartenders be paid any minimum wage beyond $2.13 per hour.
In reply to Lindsay Tillery
well that is too bad for those other states then. I don’t leave California. This means I no longer have to tip at ANY restaurant, since I only patronize California restaurants, right?
Again, you agreed to those wages, no one forced you to work as a waitress. You could have worked at Wal Mart or heck, work for your local sanitation company and start at around $12/hour (with lots of overtime). I worked for a juice company (manufacturing level) and (started) at $17/hour as my FIRST JOB with LOTS of overtime. I had no problem paying for school that way.
In reply to Common Sense
Then who do you expect to work at the restaurants that you are too cheap to tip at?
In reply to Shut up
Let the free market sort it out. Maybe restaurants will implement conveyor belts to bring the food to customers. Who cares, as long as the food reaches me?
In reply to Common Sense
For people who are working their way through school or who need a second job, circumstances basically force them to work as a server because it’s one of the few jobs flexible enough to allow for odd schedules. Not everyone has the luck and luxury of landing a $17/hr job on their first try.
You should stay at home and make your own food. Servers in several states in the United States are paid a minimum wage that is $2.13 per hour. It never goes up with changes in standard minimum wage. This is because, in our country, tipping has evolved as a VALID form of payment for a job. The restaurant is expected to reinburse the server at the end of the day to ensure that the worker has made the standard minimume wage, but it rarely happens. You are not “giving free money” or “improving the lot of waiters”. You are paying for your food with the bill and for having someone wait on you with the tip. If you don’t want to tip, don’t go out and eat, period. Those waiters real people trying to make it in the world and they only get so many tables to make their money on for the day, so if you are going to be a jackass about it and choose to be the douchebag that makes someone wait on them like a slave by not paying them, then go the fuck home and pour your own drinks. People such as yourself do not understand the American restaurant culture and until you do understand that by choosing to go eat in an establishment with tipping as a standard practice, you need to stay out of them.
In reply to Lindsay Tillery
I don’t care about servers not making minimum wage. I’m here to eat and pay the bill. What arrangement the server has with the restaurant is none of my business. Don’t try and make it mine.
In reply to bhagwad
The only thing that makes me feel any better about this conversation is that I know that any place you go to regularly knows you when you come in the door and I know that you are treated appropriately, one way or the other.
In reply to bhagwad
The tip IS part of your bill. It’s expected that you will pay at least 15% tip (it’s actually a service charge). It’s the agreement you implicitly make by choosing to eat at a restaurant with table service. If you don’t like it, don’t eat at sit-down restaurants. There are plenty of places around where you can order at a counter and be otherwise ignored by the staff without ripping off someone.
In reply to How to Faint
Sorry, but not all expectations are meant to be fulfilled. And no – it’s not an implicit agreement. Not without a bill to back it up. The restaurant gives me a bill. I pay it. Waiters don’t give me a bill, so I don’t pay.
The “expectation” is only in the waiters head. I can’t go around giving money to everyone who “expects” it. Some random guy on the road will next be “expecting” money from me.
In reply to How to Faint
Sorry, but not all expectations are meant to be fulfilled. And no – it’s not an implicit agreement. Not without a bill to back it up. The restaurant gives me a bill. I pay it. Waiters don’t give me a bill, so I don’t pay.
The “expectation” is only in the waiters head. I can’t go around giving money to everyone who “expects” it. Some random guy on the road will next be “expecting” money from me.
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In reply to Lindsay Tillery
Lindsay, in California, servers make the same as a Wal Mart cashier–minimum wage (8.00/hour). An earlier poster, Brittney, who is “pro tipper” herself said that I don’t have to tip in California since wait staff make minimum wage here.
So what then?
I think that once a custom is established, it is entrenched and ultimately when you try to convince people on something, it is David versus Goliath. So in this case, since it is “expected” for you to tip, there is a coercive element because if you don’t people will be resentful of you. Also, I feel that the tipping rate is ultimately based on incrementalism since the percentage will keep getting bigger because the previous percentage is “not big enough”.
I sometimes just dash and run after I pay my bill when the waiter is not looking. There no tip! Besides, if I could I wish I could go into the kitchen to see how my meal is prepared so that I am not being ripped off by someone advertising something, getting something different, and then being forced to pay 50% markup on top of that! By doing that, we don’t need servers.
Bhagwad and CommonSense, god bless you and take it from me that the people who resort to racism and name calling on this thread are doing such because they are part of an entrenched culture that refuses to reform. Anytime you go against the norm this will happen.
In reply to Dan
Dan you bring up some GREAT points.
One thing I never realized (someone else brought this up) is that service is SUBJECTIVE. For example, a waitress can thoroughly believe she is doing and awesome job at servicing you, however the customer may see things differently. With that in mind, the waitress believes she deserves a fair tip, whereas the customer does not. Who decides? I mean think about it is soooo arbitrary.
Another issue I love to bring up but wait staff like to hide behind–price mark ups. How is our food being prepared? How do we know that the food isn’t marked up in terms of price?
Wait staff complain that in their respective states (texas or other states) that wait staff only make $2.13/hour to prevent the food to be marked up. But let me ask this. Here in California, all wait staff make minimum wage just like non-tipped employees. With that, the ASSUMPTION would be that California restaurant prices are considerably higher. They would be 400% higher in California than in Texas, since the wage is 4 times higher here. That means a $5.00 burger in Texas would cost $20 dolalrs in California. Is this true??? Absolutely not!!! If you go to a Denny’s in California and order a Grand Slam, it is the SAME PRICE as a Grand Slam in a Denny’s in Texas!!!!
Wait staff, please explain!!! Why is it that California food prices are the SAME as Texas, even though California wait staff make 400% more money!!!!!!
In reply to Common Sense
NEWSFLASH: Servers don’t set the prices. Ask corporate; don’t ask the people who are just taking an available job to make ends meet in an uncertain economy.
Lets also not forget that tipping is similar to subsidized cell phones from the major carriers. In that the cost will always be hidden until the end of the cycle and a little bit here won’t feel like anything until you go out to eat often and then the tips are just money down the drain if you add them all up. Similar to interest on a loan. The money on the interest is lost and that money could have been used for more productive use.
So then lets ask? What is the true cost of paying waiters the same wage as people in retail? Or just getting rid of the minimum wage all together? The markup is already ridiculous at many restaurants because other items on the menu are low profit centers.
So yes, tipping is coercive because someone else’s ideals are being forced upon everybody else. I feel that tipping should not be done but I am considered a “cheapskate” because I am not a “generous” tipper. And then the restaurant has the nerve to blame me!
Has anyone done accounting here? Good service and the like should all be part of overhead! That is the cost of doing business. Good food is what makes people come back. So does good service. Good service should not be a separate charge! Common Sense, Please continue to educate people here as you have done so well!
To anyone saying they don’t feel obliged to compensate for the low wage offered by the employers, may I ask, if wages were to be raised, who do you reckon will end up paying the difference? Do you think the employer will dig deeper into his own pocket, or will he just raise the prices of everything on the menu to ensure he can keep his staff and his regular income?
An employer is not allowed to daily vary the wage of a server depending on the proficiency level he/she demonstrated throughout that shift. You as a customer are given an opportunity to eliminate unskilled waiters (by not tipping or tipping little servers who are rude or not attentive) and encourage/support the ones who have made your visit to the establishment more pleasant by tipping them well.
If you work at an office, for example, it may be that you spend all your ‘clocked’ time dutifully glued to your desk getting on with with your load, but you also may have a colleague sitting two desks from you, who does half the work you do, and yet still earns exactly the same amount as you. For whatever reason, he/she still has her position and gets away with it, whereas if you were to lower your efficiency levels someone would most definitely notice. Now, what if a large percent of your wage would depend on how you do your work? Not standardized, so that if you and your colleague have similar qualifications you automatically earn the same, but rigorously depending on the actual amount of work and dedication you have put in on that day? That’s what tipping is.
In reply to –
I don’t care if I pay more as long as I’m presented with a bill upfront and I know how much I have to pay beforehand. That way I can shop menu prices at home and find the cheapest place.
Give me a bill and let me know how much it will be before I step in and I don’t care how high the price is. That way I won’t have to go there if it’s not within my budget.
In reply to –
ok back to my argument–texas versus california. Why are the food prices (at restaurants) the same even though California pays 400% more on an hourly basis to its wait staff then in texas?
Prices are ALREADY marked up. Please don’t give me that stuff. I worked in Food and Beverage at the manufacturing level and let me tell you, with the exception of some fish, nothing costs $10/plate. Even a good steak costs at most $6.50/plate. The prices are already marked up.
If the prices do, however, increase as a result of wages finally being normalized, then yes, I will stop going to the restaurant. The restaurant is clearly not within my budget anymore. Remember, tips are not legally obligatory for consumers to pay. Therefore, even if I have a $100 dish, I don’t have to pay a cent UNLESS the restaurant clearly has a gratuity charge (with is great actually).
In reply to Common Sense
You can’t afford to eat out now, if tipping is such a damn hardship for you. Of course the prices are marked up. It’s a business. They’re out to make a profit, but to do so they first have expenses to meet. Do you honestly think any restaurant is going to be able to do that charging $3 for a meal just because the ingredients were only $2.50? Even then, you’d be whining that it didn’t only cost $2.51.
I loathe people like you. You’re all such losers. You come into my businesses and you act as though my employees should be falling at your feet in fawning gratitude just to have been graced with your unreasonable, demanding, perpetually dissatisfied presence. You only ever order water to drink with lots of lemons (and then use 80 sugar packets making “lemonade”). You make fussy special requests. You split the cheapest thing on the menu. Your children have no manners and make huge and frequently extremely disgusting messes. You’re rude to the staff. You lick your plate clean then complain about how you the meal was “awful” in the hopes that it’ll be comped. But only a lazy manager hoping to quickly get rid of you or one without balls would ever comp you.
Your business isn’t worth it. We don’t want you as a customer and we’re very happy when you’re so fed up when the server you’ve stiffed three visits in a row has given you indifferent service that you announce that you’re never coming back. And no, we won’t comp your meal because the extra lemon he brought was “only” 2 wedges instead of 16. We won’t comp you when you eat all but two bites and then say your order wasn’t right. We won’t forget about the automatic gratuity just because your party of 12 asked for separate checks. But most of all, we won’t forget you. And you will be treated accordingly.
In reply to How to Faint
Who exactly are you talking to?
I mean…Lemons? How do lemons come into this?
I’m really very curious as to why you just don’t eat at home.
In reply to Shut up
Takes effort to cook food. I also hate washing dishes. I’m not a good cook either. Plus I contribute to the economy of the country by eating out :D
Wow, what a cheap, stingy, classless human being. YOU COME TO AMERICA FOR ALL KINDS OF FREE HAND-OUTS, & you can’t even tip your server. Go back to the nasty place you came from, you don’t deserve to live or dine here.