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.
Seriously servers, quit begging for money. it is the business’s job to provide for you not the customers. You don’t see macy’s sales rep get tipped 15% because of good service. they get paid commission by their employers for doing a good job, not the customers. it is your EMPLOYERS FAULT,
i am a business major in college and this whole tipping system is flawed. i work at women shoes store in the mall which requires me to interact with hundreds of customers a day. I have to walk a min 300 feet per pair of shoes they ask for and some customers ask for at least 15. DO I GET TIPPED? no i don’t and i don’t complain cause i took the job. I signed up for this job that pays min wage and if i didn’t like the pay i could quit and find another.
Servers need to realize that its their choice for taking the job and its their employers that provide for them not the customers. Customers are drawn in by prices and service, if the customers didn’t like the price or service they wouldn’t eat or shop there. If customers knew that they were required to pay a 15% fee on the price of food on the menu then that would weed out your cheapskates, but the business owners are smart. They don’t care about servers well-being, they are out there to make money and thats why they are paying you what you get. because you are willing to work for the wage.
Tell me why should i pay more than what the menu and receipt says? The price of the food on the menu includes all the services provided by the business. YES that includes the server’s services. If not then give me a second receipt or include it into the price of the food. it doesn’t make sense to call tipping optional then demand it.
do you tip the home depot workers that helped you put concrete bags on the cart? no right? because the price of the concrete bags includes all the services of that is provided by the business and the business set those prices. just like store warranties and return policies. you pay more for those policies if you did not know.
why don’t you tip a Macy’s salesmen 15%, and when you don’t your answer is going to be “cause its the macy’s job to provide the service?” hypocrites
In reply to tony
I’m a business major too (undergrad and grad) and I believe that the tipping system is also flawed. Honestly, if the service is decent enough, I tip 15% – 20%; however, if the service is excellent, I tip more. The reason why I tip is because I feel obligated to make up for the minimal wage the servers received. It’s a guilty feeling, which I hate. This is why I don’t eat out often. I don’t want to feel guilty; I just want to enjoy my meal. Honestly, I wish tipping was optional so this way I don’t feel burden.
In reply to Iris
The guilty feeling is a big turn off for me as well. But in all other industries, the workers unionized and got the minimum wages act. The reason this hasn’t happened with waiters is because they want this system to continue. They earn far more in tips than they would earn with the minimum wage!
In reply to tony
I take back my last comment, THIS is the smartest poster on this forum.
Just tossing this into the mix… this is an excerpt from Santosh Desai a perceptive and thinky writer:
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Citycitybangbang/entry/used-to-being-served
“…in India, if born in the right class, we consider it our right to be served, not merely with efficiency but with unquestioning obsequiousness. As consumers of service, we do not merely consume the service provided, we consume the air of servility with which it is provided….”
“…Fortunately, this is likely to change dramatically on a few years time. What this will mean for those used to cheap and quiet service is another matter altogether….”
thanks,
Jai
In reply to Jai_C
Read this yesterday. But I feel it has nothing to do with waiters in India who get paid a decent wage and don’t need to survive on tips.
The following comment contains…* moderate hypocrisy *….
I generally agree with you on the main point of this post, and the sense of entitlement seen in some of the pro-waiter comments is appalling. One of them even referred to the customer’s tip (yet to be given) as their money, their rightful due. You’d expect him to call the cops next and charge you with stealing his tip :-) that in his mind he’s already given himself.
While the situation in the US restaurants is beyond my ken, Santosh Desai opened a new front in my thinking with his arguments here. Do we expect to decide to tip so frugally as we normally do (from a US perspective) partly because of some of this stuff that SD alludes to: that the servers are an underclass and it is their station to serve?
IOW what is the decent wage that you speak of. In many cases even upto middling restaurants, the waiter rooms with 4 or more others in a 10×12 shed leaky roof and all. Truth is this is a step up for most of them from their previous situations back in their home-village. Many servers do run away from the smaller restaurants- they just dont turn up one day. It is then surmised that they got a better situation somewhere.
*Hypocrisy disclosure: I mostly go to cheap / middling restaurants. I do tip moderately, maybe better than average at these places, because I have seen the waiter’s quarters and have some idea of their situations. But I dont think those tips allow me to slide entirely.
thx,
Jai
PS: BTW this is just PoV flipping mostly. dont guys do this as frequently as I thought?
Tipping is a social norm in the U.S. A waiter cannot change that fact…a restaurant can’t change it…at this point because it’s so entrenched in our culture, it would be almost impossible to change. You understand this, you go out to eat, and you don’t tip — you’re an asshole. There’s nothing the poor waiter can do about it, because the tip isn’t manditory, and there’s no changing the system. Why are you punishing that person because you dislike the whole system? You should just boycott service restaurants. Instead you choose to take it out on people who get paid based on tips instead of wages, as if they can help that you don’t like that system of payment. You really are the worst kind of person in the world–heartless. Awful.
In reply to Lindsey
Lots of bad practices were social norms in their day. Workers never got a minimum wage and used to be overworked. Now because of unions, employers were forced to change their practices.
I suspect that waiters don’t do the same because they like to get tips. It allows them to earn far more than what they actually deserve given the job they do. If waiters really were the victim here, you can be sure they would have gotten together and organized a union to get better wages.
In reply to bhagwad
Actually, unions want nothing to do with the restaurant industry. The turn over rate is way too high.
@bhagwad
I completely agree with your points about the Unions. I remember one time when I went to Dave & Busters with a friend of mine and we had just enough to pay for our food, we had to split the bill because I had a debit card and he had money. So we split it and he left $2 and I mistakenly wrote $33. I crossed it out and then processed to write $3. We then left. About one or two weeks after that, I take my girlfriend to the same restaurant, it was around an hour before closing and it was the only place open in our area. The place isn’t even crowded and yet we waited for nearly 15 minutes for our waiter. And when we do get our waiter, well guess who it is, the same guy from yesterday, and he was not pleased with his tip from last time.
Now, he may seem in the right, maybe justified, but he’s not and I’ll tell you why. He is a terrible waiter. He had some of the worst memorization skills I’ve ever seen for a waiter. From the first time I ordered from him, me and my friend ordered three dishes. An appetizer and two entree(plus drinks) and he came back and forth nearly four times to ask us what we ordered.
He had the gull, the nerve, THE COJONES to tell me that I did him wrong for last time and that I should do right this time, basically blackmailing me with a calm voice. And guess what, the service was EVEN WORSE this time around. Again, we ordered three things, the same types of things and he came over around 6 to 7 times to ask what we had ordered. The icing on this cake was that the food was HORRIBLE. I ordered rockfish and it was salty and greasy, fries where it seemed as if they had been sitting out for hours(I’d like to add that I believe he pretended that those fries were hot as he brought them out because as soon as he did sit them down, I tried one) and my girlfriend’s entree(which I can’t remember) wasn’t as stellar as well. She understood why(even though it wasn’t the reason) we didn’t give him a good tip. He’s extremely lucky that he and his other employees were behind us because I would’ve left him without a goddamned thing that time around and I’m never paying for another meal there ever again.
In reply to Dossier
Yup – waiter arrogance is really pissing off…
Goodness me, there are alot of extreme attitudes from both sides of the fence posted here.
OK, I’m from across the pond and things are run a little differently here.
I am a waitress and receive the minimum wage (unlike someone commenting earlier that in the UK we get paid more) This is standard for every restaurant up and down the country.
The etiquette on tipping here is this:
10% is considered a good tip.
If you cannot or don’t believe in tipping that amount but you had good service a thank you and any loose change is acceptable.
Not tipping generally denotes you received poor service.
Waiters NEVER EVER discuss, berate or comment on tips given from a customer except to say a heartfelt thank you and see you soon – this applies to the non tippers along with an apology!
Waiters are proffesional and if a known non tipper comes in he will be treated with the same respect as everyone else. A waiter’s tips are reviewed as a perk of the job, a job that must be done to the best of your ability regardless!
I firmly believe some customers come purely to get fed but most come for the overall experience, both, of course are fine and a good waiter will be able to acknowledge this and adapt their service stlye according to the customers needs. (Alot of the time I am a babysitter, child entertainer, tour guide, direction giver and translator as I speak 3 languages)
This comes naturally to some and they are the good waiters along with a good memory and the ability to cope under short term pressure.
I opened a restaurant in America 10 years ago and I can sympathise with the customer, I HATED being fawned over by a waiter and it was pretty obvious it wasn’t genuine, I have seen waiters chase customers down the street demanding more money it was ugly and crass!
I do my job as I enjoy interacting with varied people from different walks of life and enjoy seeing others gain pleasure from my hard work. The money I get is an extra reward, one that I do not take for granted or factor into my wage.
I do disagree with comments based around shop workers not getting tips but giving good service, they get tipped in the form of bonus’s and targets, unseen by the customer granted but the way they are speaking to you and the products they offer you is all geared around them achieving an extra sale from you and hitting their targets so, indirectly you are tipping them!
The expectations here are so different to to USA thank goodeness! There is no pressure on the customer to give a tip and a waiter would be sacked on the spot for berating a customer for not doing so! Maybe the first blogger should come over to Scotland to get food in peace and quiet and not give a tip! Always welcome here!
In reply to Tessie
Thanks for that informative comment Tessie. Nice to see how things work over in the UK :)
In reply to bhagwad
Why don’t you go live there, cocksucker?
In reply to Tessie
Tessie, I’ve been wanting to visit the UK for almost 5 years now. Please, take me with you. lol
Lol, Anytime guys! I’m part French,Swiss and English but got adopted by the Scotts 7 years ago, it’s a beautiful place with folk so proud of their heritage that they just want to show it off to anyone who wants to know and I guess it’s infectious as I love showing folk around Edinburgh (where I stay) and the Highlands which is truely beautiful. Tip or no tip all folk here are proud to offer hospitality to our neighbours no matter who they are or where they come from! x
Just had to post about my recent experiences at US restaurants.
* 15% “tip” is built into the check for a party of 5. clearly mentioned.
* But they often expect another tip on top of that. (huh?!!!)
* got some bad service at one particular restaurant: the waitress talked back when we found some of the plates and cups to be dirty and asked for them to be changed. She was snappy for the rest of our time there and made sure we didnt enjoy our experience. Funnily enough, she almost looked like she expected a tip at the end of the meal. and we did give a minimal tip.
In slight disagreement with an otherwise great comment by Tessie, I’d like to point out that when a salesperson at a shop earns a commission, its being paid by his/her employer. Maybe it is passed back to the customers but that’s very indirect. The business could very well be absorbing it in their profits.
Maybe tips in the US are a way to get off-the-books untaxed money to people who are very probably at the low end of the pay scale (though I’d think they would be eligible to be not taxed at all here in India. I dont know how taxes work in US). If they pay tax this is a kind of social contract that says “we think its unfair you have to pay taxes on this wage. here’s something the taxman doesnt need to know about”.
If they dont have to pay tax i’m out of reasons why this is put up with.
thanks,
Jai
In reply to Jai_C
They are taxed at a rate as if they’ve received that tip whether or not they actually have. If they make more in tips they are supposed to declare it but whether or not they do is another matter entirely up to the individual since the tip is their source of income.
In reply to Jai_C
Go back to your own country, you fucking piece of sub-human filth.
In reply to Jai_C
Where I work the servers are required to input their tips at the end of the night and have it approved by a manager so no one can avoid taxes.
I don’t understand how those who post here that are “for” tipping seem to think that waiters and waitresses are somehow enslaved into their jobs. If they work this “crap job” that they hate so much for such a risky monetary return rate, with no substantial minimum wage from their employers, why are they doing the job? They take serving positions because they are seen as potential for good money… POTENTIAL. Do not complain or blame the “cheap customer” because they refuse to be a part in maintaining a suitable lifestyle for you because your employer refuses to pay you higher wages. When I go to a restaurant and pay the check, I am paying for what the restaurant has provided me and is billing me for. What that restaurant chose to provide me in the cost of their dishes was a place to sit, the ambiance of the place, silverware, dishes, and SOMEONE to transmit my order to the kitchen and maintain my beverage levels. For someone who CHOSE to assume this role in a restaurant, no, I do not pay extra for them do to their job as expected of every other working citizen. I am sorry servers do not have the backbone to challenge their employers, or find every excuse as to how they are in the only job available to them.
I say this because I AM a waiter. I have waited for the same restaurant for 3 years, paying my way through school. The ONLY reason I accepted my job was because, as it should be, where I work every waiter is given an hourly rate and if tips do not suffice and equate to your hourly wage, the restaurant adjusts what they’re paying you hourly to meet your tips and total into the hourly wage set for you. This is what I DESERVE as a worker. Other servers, you accepted your job because the stereotype is that you’d receive excellent money as a server. This fell through and you decided to blame everyone and force a social norm rather than discover your self-worth and search for other employment.. or challenge your employer. I understand my role in the restaurant. I understand I am being paid to be the face of the restaurant and represent it well and make sure my customers’ experiences are excellent, as expected in any other position. If they tip, excellent. If not, my manager will pay me the wage I agreed upon when I started working. Get over yourselves. Get used to the risk, or find another job. Stop complaining because waiting tables isn’t the cash flow you were duped into thinking it would be.
In reply to Michael
Endgame post, right here.
In reply to Michael
Wow – that was one of the most lucid and thorough posts I could have imagined! You have the last word :)
In reply to Michael
Michael,
Spot on mate! You clearly understand the picture and your comments should be the guide for this post. Please see my comments:
Michael (same name)
August 19, 2011 at 4:14 am
In reply to Michael
Actually, I don’t have a problem with people not tipping me; I am a professional and treat every patron with respect regardless of his or her attitude. The bar I work at has a great flow of traffic, so if one person does not tip me, chances are the next person will. I also firmly believe that tips should be based on how good my service is; if I detract from your overall experience at my place of work, then I completely understand if you choose not to tip me. I work where I do because I love being able to make a living by interacting with people and helping to facilitate a good time with your friends, family, and/ or coworkers. My objection comes where patrons decide to tip me not on the merit of my work, but instead based on the incorrect assumption that I am begging for money, or that I believe I deserve a 20% tip for doing a bad job of helping to make your experience positive. I love my job, and a tip to me is a pat on the back for a job well done, not something I deserve regardless of my performance. I am, after all, providing a service; the tip allows for variability in your monetary compensation for that service.
P.S. I hate to be rude, but I have never experienced that kind of adjustment in any service job I have worked. If a server/ employee does not make minimum wage with his or her hourly+tips, the general consensus is that he or she is a bad employee and should not continue in that position. Every business I have been privy to (which, trust me, is a pretty substantial amount) will not deal with compensating for low tips, therefore I am a little confused that such a practice would ever happen.
Can I just say that you probably have never served tables before in your life? I don’t think you understand why people tip. We are waiting on you hand and foot so a tip is nice to get. We deal with extremely rude people, like yourself, most of us with a smile on our face. Some of us, like myself, are trying to save up for college. But if you want to be an inconsiderate jerk who won’t tip a great server then you shouldn’t be eating at a place where you tip. It’s mostly about your character. If you can’t spare a couple extra bucks, then you are just selfish. I can see not tipping a rude server, or a server who didn’t do a great job. Sure that’s fine. But a good server should get something. You also need to understand that some things we can not control. Like if we are out of something or if your burger is raw in the middle where we can’t tell right away. Things like that we cannot stop from happening and you as a customer should not be angry with us who are doing our best to please you.
Like I said earlier. Tipping is polite, it does not by any means have to be a huge tip, but if you are a decent person you will actually spring to leave your server an extra couple of bucks. Simple as that. Don’t be a jerk. Get a job serving tables and you will then understand why tips are nice.
In reply to Waitress
How convenient for a waiter that not leaving a tip is “impolite!” The rest of us have tough jobs too. We get paid a salary which waiters choose not to have.
In reply to bhagwad
a tip is just as valid of a form of pay as a bonus or commission and is only different in that it is paid directly from the guest and not the employer. It is no more a bribe than it is a bribe for employers to give bonuses for sales that are made or work that is done. It is a mistake on your part to think you are some kind of expert or something on this subject when you have obviously never been a server or a manager in a restaurant. I promise you that if you had ever worked as a server, bartender, or even owner or manager at a restaurant you would see things differently.
I don’t understand why you think someone has to get a college education in order to get paid for work that they do. Are you going to stop paying the trash collector or the fireman if he doesn’t get a college education. I guess all of us sub humans who didn’t attend college should be slaves to someone like you.
In reply to Waitress
How about actually saving up for “college” by cutting down expenses and not expecting free money?
In reply to D00dbro
DOOdbro: your reading comprehension skills are not very good and If you went to college it didn’t seem to bring you much enlightenment. The question I asked was do you think it is a requirement to go to college in order to get paid for the work that one does? If your trash collector or local fireman doesn’t have a college diploma are they supposed to work for free and be slaves to the people who do have college diplomas ? Free money is sitting home and getting a check for nothing not going to work at a restaurant and busting your ass to serve food to selfish freeloaders like yourself.