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Gosh I wish America would adopt a more European model with regards to tipping. This $4/hr "tipped wage" nonsense is just to hand off the cost of employment to the customers.
Some wait staff goes overboard making sure that you have a good experience at their restaurant. Others are looking at their watch and aren't attentive. I don't think dividing the tips gives the slackers any incentive to do anything more....
They pay at least the federal minimum wage. No idea why they try to say they get less, about $3.5/hour? and so they depend on tips. They are still paid $7.25/hour if they receive no tips.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe waitstaff jobs do not pay minimum wage (in the majority of places...some restaurants are beginning to do it) and are expected to make up the difference (up to 7.25) with the tips.
I think they should just pay a good hourly wage (at least minimum wage, but preferably a little more...that's hard work!) and let the tips fall where they may.
Someone I know whose daughter is a waitress told me that if the tip is handed directly to the waitress they don't have to report it....I don't know if she meant to the restaurant, for pooling, or to the IRS....but I'm pretty certain the government would want their share of the tip even if it was cash handed directly to the waitress. *sigh*
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe waitstaff jobs do not pay minimum wage (in the majority of places...some restaurants are beginning to do it) and are expected to make up the difference (up to 7.25) with the tips.
I think they should just pay a good hourly wage (at least minimum wage, but preferably a little more...that's hard work!) and let the tips fall where they may.
Someone I know whose daughter is a waitress told me that if the tip is handed directly to the waitress they don't have to report it....I don't know if she meant to the restaurant, for pooling, or to the IRS....but I'm pretty certain the government would want their share of the tip even if it was cash handed directly to the waitress. *sigh*
Several places have tried this, and in most.. it failed.
Are their reasonings the real, correct reasonings behind why it failed? I don't know for sure.. I do think there's validity to the notion that customers feel that they should be able to affect a server in some way for either exceptionally good or poor service.
The use of credit cards to pay for meals and tip was a game changer and put the onus on the employer to pay payroll taxes and withhold employee's share of payroll taxes.
The more one travels outside the US, the more one comes to appreciate the differences in how wait and support staff are compensated.
Outside major tourist cities, most wait staff are not tipped. The cost of employee wage is a factor of the price of the meal. There is no incentive to serve beyond the standard acceptable to the employer.
Interestingly, tipping originated in Europe hundreds of years ago, when wealthy aristocrats used the tip to publicly demonstrate their wealth and superiority to the service class.
That was my thinking. 20+ years ago when I did this during college, a % of people still paid in cash. We were taxed as if our taxable compensation was based upon the $2.09/hr salary + 8% of pre-tax sale amount. I would think credit card payment would force the process to be more legitimized.
As a former server, I can relate. My bussers, bartenders and hostesses were tipped out by me at the end of the shift. I told them, "help me turn tables while delivering excellent service and we will make more together." This is a voluntary arrangement and it worked well.
What did not work well was the jealous kitchen staff demanding we tip them out or else our food would take longer. If you don't want to deal with the public, then you go into the kitchen. I even offered on several occasions to take a cook out front and train him on how to earn excellent tips, but none ever took me up on this. We got compensated extra by the guest because we dealt with them, not the dishwashers and cooks.
Is it fair that a great commissioned sales person can earn more than the boss? I say sure, they are taking all the risk and the boss is on a salary that they get regardless of production. The same could be said for those who work for a low or sub minimum wage out front on the chance the guest will tip them vs hanging out in the back and getting a set wage regardless on how much work they do.
In the modern world of corporate restaurants with food expediters and other positions, I could see how the tip out from each waiter might need to be amended. But we used to have definitive percentages we needed to share. Bus boy received 15% from each waiter in their section. The barback received 15-20% of the bartender's tips. The other positions were paid a better hourly wage (hostess/cooks) or were on salary (dining room manager/head chef/sous chef).
Some wait staff goes overboard making sure that you have a good experience at their restaurant. Others are looking at their watch and aren't attentive. I don't think dividing the tips gives the slackers any incentive to do anything more....
You are absolutely right. Tipping provides an incentive. If there is no incentive to do better, fewer will do so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wolf39us
An appropriate video for this thread
Stupid video. I suck at math...but I don't have a hard time figuring out a tip amount, it's not as difficult as the dweeb in the video tries to make it out to be.
My wife used to be a waitress, her mother still *is* a waitress...at 75 years old. She makes good tips, because she is good at her job. The tip system weeds out those who don't/won't perform.
Once upon a time, I worked at a [full service] car wash. There were us guys who took the cars from the customers, vacuumed them out and then ran them thru the wash while the customers lounged inside. At the other end where the cars came out, girls in bikinis toweled the cars dry. We were paid below minimum wage because supposedly we got tips- only the girls got tips, we didn't, and there was no sharing/pooling.
I made just enough money to pay my rent and utilities, there was *nothing* left for food. Sometimes the vacuums would suck up loose change from the floors of the cars, under the seats, etc. At the end of the day I would open the vacuum collection bins and root through the dirt to see what (if anything) might be there- mostly pennies, sometimes nickles and dimes, occasionally a quarter or two. Whatever amount I collected was what what I had to eat on that night, stopping at the grocery store on my walk home (a couple of miles, there was no public trans and I wouldn't have been able to afford the fare even if there was) If I was lucky, there might be enough that I could save a little bit for the weekend.
Thanksgiving day, the car wash was closed. I had just enough money to go down to a restaurant and buy a cup of coffee and leave a tip for the waitress (if I could not have left a tip, I would not have got the coffee). I figured that, if nothing else, I could sit there and enjoy the smell of the turkey dinners everyone else was eating. Somehow, the owner of the restaurant must have figured out that I couldn't afford to buy any food, and his dishwasher had apparently either quit or didn't show up. He offered to give me a meal if I washed dishes for him...so I did (no, I didn't get any tips from the waitresses). He liked my work and we came to an agreement that I would wash dishes every night after I got done at the car wash, in exchange for a meal. Ah, things were looking up and I could count on having at least one meal a day.
Then things got even better- he decided to remodel the bar area, so after the restaurant closed at 10pm I would help him with that and he would give me a little extra cash that I saved up until I had enough money to buy a ticket for a three-day bus trip to the east coast (from Texas). I figured that the job opportunities would be better around Boston. (They were.)
It never occurred to me to complain about what I was making, or whine about a 'living wage'. I didn't like my 'circumstances', so I changed them. I have never figured that anybody 'owed' me a living, or some particular standard of living.
You are absolutely right. Tipping provides an incentive. If there is no incentive to do better, fewer will do so.
Stupid video. I suck at math...but I don't have a hard time figuring out a tip amount, it's not as difficult as the dweeb in the video tries to make it out to be.
Something tells me you didn't get very far in the video, just a hunch.
Something tells me you didn't get very far in the video, just a hunch.
You'd be wrong, I watched the whole thing. I just don't agree with it.
What's more, I went and took another look at Joe's Crab Shack, who tried to institute a 'no tip' policy with much fanfare here and in the press, and it turned out to be a massive failure in...if I recall the numbers correctly...14 of 18 markets. The workers didn't like it, and the customers didn't like it.
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