your drop of serotoninrain...
I am a tax times two-er.I often go as high as 20% if the server goes out of the way to help and be pleasant. Our server wages here in OK are still typically around $3 an hour with the expectation of tips. It's insane.
I waited tables at college at a Country Club with a 15% gratuity rather than tips for service. While most of the time I fared the same as if I had been left cash but there was nothing to encourage me to do better.
Oh brother.
Once upon a time, in a little coastal town in Texas, Pattie was a waitress. Little Town's population swelled in the summertime with rich, obnoxious men from the big city; the Fish Slayers - mighty Hunters of the Deep, who thought smalltown girls were theirs for a tip and a motel key.
"Nay", said Pattie, "You boys keep those dollars for someone who can be bought with clever words and cheap hooch."
Wouldn't do that kind of work again for nothing short of World Peace.
Oh, I usually tip 15%, 20% if the service and the attitude is good. I don't, however, base it on the food quality. Quite unfair.
I've gotten more generous with my tips as I've gotten older, and especially after I became a freelancer myself.
First, I leave a minimum of $3, regardless of the size of the check (assuming we eat a meal, of course). I figure that even if my wife and I split an entreé, the waiter still has to go to the same amount of trouble to serve us. So, that $3 may be 30-40% of the check, depending on where we eat.
If the $3 minimum doesn't apply, I leave about 18-20%. Poor service still gets 15%; everybody can have a bad day.
Where I really choke -- to be honest -- is on special occasions where we'll spend $60 or so on a meal. Rarely do I see where a waiter works much harder for that tip than in other less expensive places. The difference (to them, anyway) is that the ritzy places have less table turnover, so I understand that they might lose some money like that. But, still, I hardly ever go over 15% when the total check is that high.
I usually tip 15%-20% depending on the service. Sometimes I'll stoop down to 10% if the service was crappy.
However, waiting tables isn't all that bad here in Oregon where a waiter will make minimum wage ($6.95 I think) plus tips! So, it's not as pitiful as back there in PA where a waiter makes a couple bucks per hour.
Either way, I've had my hand in the restaurant business a ways back and I'm not going back there anytime soon.
We generally tip 20% unless the service is poor. Even if it's acceptable, we tip 20. You never know what the circumstances are that service was less than stellar: server too busy, oversat his section, slow kitchen, boyfriend dumped her, girlfriend slept with his brother, church sucks...never know.
20%.
It's easier to figure out than 15%.
Ok. I have a bit of a philosophy on this.
I think waitstaff should be paid a proper wage. At a bare minimum--minimum wage. Why? Because I'm sick and tired of a shitty server expecting my 20 percent.
If you think about how much work an average server gives to you, it's probably, per visit, around 10 minutes. Now, if that server serves me well, I tip 20 percent, perhaps even more. However, if that server does a crappy job, I pay them what I think they earned per hour times one sixth.
They don't get my beer out in a timely manner, they're rude, or unkind to my wife, or mess up my order. That's fine with me, but they shouldn't expect me to pay them for more than the minimum wage they earned...thus I take a gracious minimum wage (about 6 bucks an hour) and divide by 6.
I leave a one dollar bill. Sometimes, less if the service is really that bad.
One other thing, I think that folks that reward crappy service are a huge part of the problem. We only propagate the myth that sub-par service is acceptable when we tip 4 bucks for a 20 dollar bill wherein the server sucked.
Brandon,
Wow. You must have had some pretty sucky service in your day. I've only been royally pissed off about the service in restaurants once or twice in my entire dining out career.
I do agree with you about the minimum for a server being minimum wage. I think a realigment is due there, and I think server's should be tipped on top of that. SImply put, most people don't realize how poorly servers are paid. In many cases (as I noted in the post) their tips are the meat of their wages (sort of like a salesman who works on partial commission).
You are absolutely right about rewarding poor service, it's not wise. And if a server insulted my wife, I'd not only leave nothing as a tip, but I'd speak to the manager and maybe even go so far as to suggest that server be fired. That's never happened, however so I haven't had to be Rambo. I just don't think I've experienced a whole heck of a lot of extemely poor service. My poor service experiences have been rare enough that I could give you the details, I remember the notable ones quite well, I won't bore you with them here.
I have dined with more poor CUSTOMERS/TIPPERS/TABLEMATES than I care to remember, however.
I'd agree completely, Jim. And, I'd say that 90 percent of the time I give a 20 percent tip. Usually, we have good service. Sometimes I tip a bit less if the service isn't quite up to par, but not so bad that I don't want to go for the jugular.
Frankly, I'd still be happy to tip 20 percent even if waitstaff earned minimum or more wage. I think they work hard for the money. But I also think that chronic bad service is propogated by inflated tippery.
Commenting by HaloScan
