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In economics one is paid for their worth, the harder it is to do a job the lower the population available to do such work and the higher the pay. Burger flippers get minimum wages and Doctors get paid a premium.
It doesn't take a whole lot of training to be a waiter, there's a menu to learn, some hygiene principles, and a typical set of company rules, and certainly it's stressful but so is being a CNA which requires 16 weeks of training and pays right around 13 an hour (and they have serious responsibilities).
Ok on to my point: in some places waiters get min wage, in others they get less, but no matter what they are required by law to make minimum wage in the end.
In a low cost resturant like Chilis, a bill for two can come out to 30 dollars without drinks, dinner takes 30-60 minutes and requires 8 visits to the table (drinks/apps, food order, food delivery, drink refill, check, check pickup, check drop off, completed check pick up). The waiter isn't glued to my table, so I assume they have 2 other tables minimum. If everyone tips 10% and is there 60 minutes that's $9 an hour, take out 20% for bus boys and that puts the hourly at 7.20 plus the 3ish tip min wage for a total of 10.20 an hour for a low census, with low tips and low bills. 10.20 an hour is a decent wage, and it only goes up from there, so why is the tipping amount encouraged to be 20% and rising, that just seems insane.
I'm sure some of you waited tables, and please chime in if I missed something, but please try to keep it based on economics and not personal feelings.
well you also have about an hour of set up then another hour of clean up where you're making $2/hr without any tables or tips. and the percentage given for tip out is not a percentage of your tips, it is a percentage of your sales. so whether you get 20% tips or 10% tips your tip out is the same. not every day is a busy weekend shift. most servers have to work weeknights as well and sometimes those can be slow with only a few tables for the entire evening. but anyway i don't think $10-$12/hr is outrageous for that work. waiting tables is difficult...people are so annoying about their food and it is not easy dealing with them. most people can't handle that sort of job. i know i can't. it feels kinda degrading getting barked at by overweight *******s to get refill after refill of ranch and free rolls.
regardless, you should tip based on the service you recieved and whatever the tipping etiquette is rather than your personal feelings about how much the server may or may not be making.
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When eating out I usually double the tax and use that as the tip, which works out to about a 16.5% tip, usually more because I round up. If the service was very good, I tip 20%. I very rarely tip more than 20%. I don't like that tipping is now kind of expected to start off at 20%; it didn't used to be that way. It used to be 20% for exceptional service.
All jobs have a value in pay and the more the job entails things we can do ourselves the less the pay.
The harder it is to do ourselves or the more we don't want to do this the higher the pay.
The origonal idea of tipping was really a form of charity.
It took a job that comanded very low pay and basically left it to the person having the service performed to give a few sheckels away for a job well done and increase the pay above what the markets said that job is worth.
1. I want excellent service
2. I want people to know my favorite drink, my typical order
3. I don't want spit in my food, I do not want the kitchen staff playing "cheeseburger hockey" with my dinner
4. I treat a tip like a reward, you svck at being a waiter, my tip will reflect it.
I easily can be considered an over-tipper but then again I get seated quickly and usually have drinks brought to my table before ordering! If you want cheap food, low wage workers making your food just save a lot and go to McDonalds!
You're paying for the conscience of eating out and tipping for what the value of the experience/atmosphere is worth to you. Food service has a large portion of emotional labor involved.
1. I want excellent service
2. I want people to know my favorite drink, my typical order 3. I don't want spit in my food, I do not want the kitchen staff playing "cheeseburger hockey" with my dinner
4. I treat a tip like a reward, you svck at being a waiter, my tip will reflect it.
I easily can be considered an over-tipper but then again I get seated quickly and usually have drinks brought to my table before ordering! If you want cheap food, low wage workers making your food just save a lot and go to McDonalds!
Kitchen staff work hand in hand with the wait staff, like family. The waiter says you are a d*ck and they will treat your food accordingly.
I am known to tip excessively and also known to not tip at all. You give be great service, I will reward that with a great tip. You give me garbage service (without cause), I will gladly leave and save my tip for somebody who better deserves it.
The server doesn't keep that entire tip. First of all, they are taxed on a portion of the check whether the party tips or not. In a large tourist area like I live in, we have a lot of cheap people from the US who figure the server will never see them again, as well as a lot of tourists from places where tipping isn't common or done, so it's not unusual for 10-20% of parties to not tip at all or leave $1 and some change on a $50 tab--they are still taxed as if they received a tip of 10% or so. (I can't recall the exact percentage.) In other words they LOST money waiting on that table.
Next, they have to "tip-out" other restaurant staff. The hostess, bus boy, kitchen runner, bartender, and sometimes even the cooks get anything from 5-20% of their tips based on their checks. So remember the people who didn't tip? The server still has to tip-out as if they had received a tip on that check. At most places like Chili's, Red Lobster, Cheesecake Factory, etc., the server can end up giving about half of their tips away to other employees, more if they got stiffed on a couple large checks.
Bottom line, they aren't making nearly as much as you think they are.
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