Thanksgoating - Day Twenty Six. Tip your waiter
17Today I’m thankful for the hospitality industry.
In my youth, I found the restaurant industry. And I loved it. Weird, long hours. But I was really good at it. I was the General Manager of a restaurant that did a million dollars in revenue annually just after my 22nd birthday. I hired a staff of 40. I cross-bid vendors to get the best deals and did a lot of math because food cost was king. And that’s a very small margin. It was a lot of work but it was rewarding. Maybe a little stressful too. I lasted a little more than five years before changing to an IT career.
One of my favorite memories was dealing with an irate customer who came in without reservations and was told it would be a bit of a wait. After 10 minutes she was screaming to talk to a manager. I happened to be at the hostess station at the time (and I had a bit of a baby face and looked like I was in 10th grade). I told her, “Sorry, I’m new. I don’t remember the managers name, but I think it’s on the front door. “ She stormed out through the vestibule and looked at the front door and came back in and demanded to speak to… me. That was a fun conversation. Sadly, they did not get a table that evening.
I’ve washed dishes, bussed tables, waited tables making food table side, ran the wheel, ran the grill, managed several restaurants… sometimes a few at a time. I’ve hired people and fired people. Dealt with flooded kitchens, borrowed things from nearby restaurants when things went sideways, managed electrical blackouts in the middle of service… it’s a new adventure every day in that line of work and it’s a unique community. It’s also a lot of hard work. There are a great people busting their butts that you will never see when you stop in somewhere for a quick meal. Have some patience and tip well. If $4 or $5 isn’t going to make or break your day, add it to the tip. It will certainly make theirs.
When you go out for a meal, see the people, not the staff. You know what I think… everyone has a story
This was opening night in 1993. I’m the baby on the left
T-Minus 4 and counting.
- 5 comments, 6 replies
- Comment
Tipping should be done away with. Charge more, pay employees, stop judging everyone. Expecting tips for take out is wrong.
That said, I do tip well and am always respectful and friendly to wait staff. It’s the industry standards and restaurant owners that I have a beef with.
Edit: whoever that was before, get ready… Another attempt to use all the words, up next!
@callow I can see your point, but I understand the system, at least the way it was for most of my life. As far as I know, waiters are still paid $2.13 an hour. They interact with us, fulfill special requests, refill drinks, bring our food - although I’ve been some places where the waiter covers half the restaurant and they have food runners and that is hectic. But I get tipping there. I get tipping your bartender, too. It may not be perfect but it is the system I’ve grown up with.
But it seems like tipping has exploded recently. More places put a tip line on the receipt and either ask for a tip or just hand it to you and ask you to “just sign that please” - with a tip line even if you paid online.
Counter service places where the person takes your order and calls your name want tips. They are paid an actual wage, if I’m not mistaken. And their only interaction may be taking your order. Other than that you sit at a table in their establishment, how is this different from takeout? Is it really?
Counter service but they give you a number and someone brings out the food to that number (like McAllister’s) - is that different? The staff bus the tables, too, but not for $2 an hour.
Crumbl cookies, where the cookies are $4+ each and half the time they don’t even take your order, you do it yourself on an ipad on the counter, specifically calls out a tip. They also charge a service fee, watch that.
Takeout - depending on the establishment, maybe a waiter did something for your order like prepared the salad, or at least hopefully checked the expo ticket to make sure the right stuff is in the bag. At some restaurants now there is a specific takeout staff and maybe even a takeout area. Do you tip there?
Pizza takeout - last time I ordered online from Papa John’s (a terrible mistake, btw), the website defaulted to 18% tip on the undiscounted total before any deals were applied, and there wasn’t a no tip option, you had to work to select Custom and enter 0 if you wanted to not leave a tip.
Food trucks. The most recent one I went to I happen to know that a husband and wife own the restaurant and food truck, and they are working the truck. They set the price and get all the profit for my $10 eggrolls - do they need more?
I still tip in many of the above instances, but sometimes it can leave a bad taste in my mouth. And anytime the tip is completed before the transaction is done (online ordering, counter service, etc) it be can almost feel like a mini-extortion. A tip should be freely given for good service in lots of places, but having it handled up front seems like a potential gateway to getting service. The web is full of stories showing piles of untipped doordash orders sitting at McDonald’s that no one will pick up. I don’t do Doordash, so I didn’t include it above, but it’s also a valid question of the tipping economy.
Tips are great as a “hey, you helped provide us a great meal and hour of socializing, thanks for taking care of us” thing. They’re fine as a “here’s a little something, thanks for our regular Chinese order and asking about our kid while we waited for it to come up” thing. They’re weird as a “show some love to the seven teenagers back there gossiping and making a massive assembly line of cookies for $14 an hour that didn’t acknowledge you except to hand you a box” ploy. And they’re super gross as a “if you don’t put something extra in my hand you’re not getting what you ordered” Doordash ploy. And that’s not taking into account the number of places where tips might not even get into the hands of the people you think they are for.
In different situations a tip can be different things. Is it a gratuity in exchange for a nice experience? Is it helping pay a wage to someone for acknowledging you and hopefully at least being polite and getting you what you asked for? Is it just a grab for “free” money? Is it a guilt trip?
The system is broken. But what are the real ground rules for these other types of places besides full service restaurants and bars, and how can the system be made better?
@callow @djslack Can we add state government to the mix? 16 states (+1 commonwealth) has the tipped wages at $2.13/hr.; 11 more states are under $4/hr.
Only 6 states (+3 territories) require full wages for food service workers, exclusive of any tip – Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
@callow @djslack @narfcake
And now some non-food businesses use the counter payment systems that prompt you to tip. It really HAS gotten out of hand!
Apologies @capnjb for turning your great story and fabulous photo into a bitch fest!
I have never worked in the service industry. As a teenager I was hired by a fast food place and a factory on the same day. I took the factory job and worked with various types of sewing machines for the next four decades.
@callow I’ll jump in and apologize for bitching too. I really meant to ask a question, I promise.
@callow Hah! If this is the worst it’s been this month, I’ll call that a resounding success! Open discussion is the best kind of discussion when people are civil
I’m a big proponent of TIPS, but I go back to the original meaning/intent…“To Insure Proper Service”. I really dislike being expected to leave extra money when I don’t feel it’s earned. That said, when I receive exceptional service, I will tip an exceptional amount… Typically I don’t go over 30% but have in rare occasions.
As a door dash driver on occasion, I’ll say that a non tipped McDonald’s order is a pretty shitty experience for us. Usually the person lives close enough to walk, sure they might not be able to, but a lot of times it seems like it’s just convenience. The pay is based on things like distance, and is never enough to cover the actual time and wear on your vehicle as well as gas and fees. They make us wait in the drive thru line wasting time and gas . It’s really not worth it to take most fast food orders because of this.
@mhm This seems to be the common aspect with all of the vehicle-based gig-economy services – but as long as folks don’t do the math for all the added wear, the companies can still get away with paying less.
We tip very generously, but tips shouldn’t be included in the bill.
It’s very rare we reduce the tip unless the service was unusually poor. There’s also been only 3 or 4 times I’ve ever left virtually no tip when the service was extremely bad.
This one dude at Olive Garden 10+ yrs ago I think… First it took over 15 minutes to take our order. That was OK. After another 30 min we called him over. He forgot to turn our order in and lost it. Hmmm… We re-ordered (wondering if we should leave). The food did arrive after a while but he disappeared before we could get drink refills. I considered taking me glass to the kitchen for water or something. We finished, no waiter. We waited (is that why he’s called a waiter?). He was gone. We really wanted to pay & go but nope. at least 15 minutes later, I saw him way over near the entry so I waved him down. He meandered over and we asked nicely for the bill. He said ‘OK’ and was gone. 10 minutes later he reappeared with the bill! YAY. However, while he decided to clear some of the food away he held the plates over my head and food started dripping on my head. I asked him to please stop dropping food on my head.
We scrounged cash together for the bill. No way he was going anywhere with a credit card. lol
My wife was pissed by then. (me too). 2c tip.
Never returned to any Olive Garden (their food is too salty & average anyway)
We had almost as bad of an experience at an Appleby’s, the first & last time we went to one of those.