Rethinking tipping culture

[jjahorn]

They believe earnestly that if they work extra hard, they'll make more than their colleagues that don't and they appreciate and take advantage of that opportunity.

This point is the problem I have. I f it is expected to pay 20% tip - even when the service is unacceptable - and basically everyone does pay 20% - where is the insentive to work hard. The tip will be there anyways, even if they do a bad job, because it is expected of the patron.

Other considerations - cash from day one, not having to claim (all of) it on taxes seem quite ligitimate, but working harder to get better tips, I'm sceptical.

[Mjx]

The two separate sides of this debate are never going to be able to see the other's point of view.

I've been on both sides: I've waited tables in the US (as a US citizen), and found myself discussing/arguing the amount of a tip/topping culture with various Europeans (as a US and Italian citizen, like some sort of nano-UN).

On the one hand, if you've eaten out at a US restaurant where the tip is not included, and wait-staff has been at least friendly and made a real effort, a 20% tip is the fair way to go. If they've been rude/neglected you, it can come down to 15% or less, depending on how atrocious they were (this is pretty rare, in my experience).

If the food was lousy, or the waiter, despite his/her best intentions was not exactly competent/coordinated, I would not tip less, unless their incompetence resulted in actual damage (they didn't prepare the food, and dammit, they tried).

On the other hand, I almost never eat out at US restaurants anymore. Being waited on by people who are being paid a ridiculously tiny sum makes me horrendously uncomfortable, even though I know I'll be tipping 20% unless the waiter is unambigously rude/ignores me entirely/or assaults me.

Working for tips is a form of gambling, like any other activity that relies on the kindness of strangers.

I also know someone is going to disagree violently about with this conclusion, but please consider this: any activity that relies on the goodwill of others is a form of gambling (I'm not saying this is fair, I'm saying this is the case).

If you're a gambler, it's fine, you recognize and accept the risks.

If you can't accept the risks, you're not a gambler, and another job is a far better bet.

There's nothing wrong with not being a gambler; I'm not one, and in fact soon requested the lower-prestige but more predictable posisition of bus-kid/dishwasher.

I'm uncomfortable with the whole tipping paradigm, and being involved in it makes me feel (please bear with me, I did say 'feel', I realize it's subjective) like I'm supporting something incredibly exploitive, so I can definitely see why those coming from cultures where wait staff is paid a standard wage, and the entire cost of dining out is evident up-front are troubled by a tipping culture.

In the US, you look at the menu, and realize that with tax (not inlcuded in the list prices in the US) and tip, the meal may cost 33% more than the menu price. That feels dishonest, tricky, if you're accustomed to the menu price being a clear guideline to what you're going to pay: it's not the cost, as such, but the awareness of unknown quantities appearing at the end of the meal that is the problem.

If legislation banning 'waiter's wages' was passed, and restaurants threfore added 20% to their prices across the board, I cannot imagine that people would eat out less; any sane restaurant management would point out 'Hey! No tip! What you see is what you get!'

Even the tax argument, having to pay taxes on the greater income owing to the 20% higher prices does not hold up: In the EU, where income taxes tend to run far higher (in some countries, starting at around 26% on the equivalent of roughly USD18,000.00), restaurants manage to stay in business. Besides, the increased annual profits on which they'd be paying taxes would be modified by their paying wait staff at least minimum wage.

And I don't find that paying a regular wage affects wait staff service: I've dined out in many countries where you don't tip, and haven't found service quality any different than it is in the US. Restaurants with lousy service aren't patronized, and have trouble staying in business.

Bottom line: Until US wait staff is paid standard wages, they deserve to be properly tipped.

If you're from a country that looks askance on tipping culture, just consider it in light of something that reflects the local economy (maybe a bit like the barrage of offers from sex workers in bars in Kiev or Bankgok, even if your wife or girlfriend is with you, in the sense that it's just the way things are, now), something a bit uncomfortable that you talk about, even when you get home. Under-tipping won't be what changes things (the vast majority of diners in most US restaurants are not from outside the US), it just creates bad feeling, and guarantees that your waiter was underpaid for the hour they took care of you.

[annabelle]

It has been many years since I waited tables, so caveat emptor: taxes were paid on 8% of the gross sales of the waiter, regardless of tip. Many of us here have commented that we tip 20%. I will submit that the actual number that a server may receive averages closer to 15%, which added up over the course of many weeks will result in a deficit to what others may perceive the server is taking home. 5% is quite a difference.

Persons who are from other countries and even other states, may not be aware that the different states have different tax structures. For instance, in my state there is a tax on food that is sold at the grocery store. In other states that is not the case. There are also different costs figured into the overhead of the restaurant itself; state, city, county and sometimes federal taxes for operating licenses, signage, wholesale versus retail food costs, et cetera. This is perhaps reflective of why a meal sold in Manhattan at a Midtown bistro costs many times more than the same meal that is sold at a bistro in wine country in California.

All that said, some tourists not only blanch at the thought of paying so much money for a meal, but are doubly feeling "screwed" about tipping out to their server. Really, the target of their umbrage should not be the waitstaff, it should be our burdensome tax structure that makes the operation of a stand alone business so daunting that a plate of pasta may cost $30 and up. The servers are not to be blamed for choosing to work at such a place (jobs are hard to come by these days) nor are the owners who are trying to keep their doors open and the lights on. Running an eating establishment has always been a crap-shoot at best, and as I said before, most servers do not wait tables in order to become independently wealthy and they understand that their tips depend on their goodwill toward the patrons of the restaurant. These patrons deserve a pleasant stay at the establishment, however, that doesn't give one carte blanche to act like a right jerk. Jerk or not, the server must remain pleasant to the patron or risk losing his job. Dealing with a hungry public, especially one with increasingly poor manners, is a test by fire and the servers who last deserve every dime they make.

[Mjx]

. . . .

1 -Working for tips is a form of gambling, like any other activity that relies on the kindness of strangers.

This is the assertion upon which the entire post rests. Is it true? Does it even have an ounce of merit? Of course not. First, gambling deals with games of chance, where overall outcomes are not known for the individual players, and where something monetary is offered up in the game. Now, if a waiter waited one table per night for his entire pay, one could assume that he was engaged in a game of chance, though he did not offer up anything monetary to lose, which is important. But this is not how waiting tables works, and numerous studies have shown that the average tip in the US is around 15-18%, so unless you don't believe in reversion to the mean, or you are dealing with a waiter who waits one table a month, you are not dealing with gambling. On top of that, we have long recognized a difference in this country between games in which you can win money and gambling. For proof see the proliferation of game shows in non-gambling states over the years. Now, if we were to assume the one table one month waiter, which is of course ridiculous on its face, then the act would be akin to a game show, and explicitly not gambling.

Second, in order to believe that tips are truly dependent on the generosity of strangers, we must also believe that each individual is acting free of any social pressures and that norms are in no way determinant. I am not sure that even the most rugged of individualists believes this. No, norms almost entirely determine tipping behavior which is why the mean is so consistent and the standard deviation so low.

In order to make a point mjx has attempted to assert two falsities, that any activity that relies on the generosity of strangers is gambling, and that tipping relies on the generosity of strangers. She continues to assert the former, in the form of a universal declaration, but gives no back up. It is silly on its face, and therefore needs no additional argument,

2 -and restaurants threfore added 20% to their prices across the board, I cannot imagine that people would eat out less; any sane restaurant management would point out 'Hey! No tip! What you see is what you get!'

We really don't need you to imagine. The price elasticity of demand for restaurant meals is somewhere north of two, and the average tip is 16 or so percent untaxed. So if you added 20% to a meal and taxed it, you would be be adding something more like 6-7% to every restaurant meal and therefore you would have a not at all insignificant decline in restaurant attendance. So you are wrong here, or you are being dishonest and shading your argument.

Going back to the first point, however, you tacitly acknowledge that there is no real change in the cost of a meal, which acknowledges the standardized tip based on social norms which takes the waiter's pay out of the realm of gambling (your false definition included) and into the realm of standardized pay.

So let's acknowledge the truth in this post:

I'm uncomfortable with the whole tipping paradigm

Michaela is uncomfortable with cultural differences between countries and wants to label them as gambling, exploitative, unfair, bad, barbarian, backwards etc. There is a long history of this provincial absolutism in our shared history, but most of us try to work to rid ourselves of it rather than to embrace it and use it to make us comfortable in seeing others as less than. Even if you despise tipping, and want it gone, the poverty of the above post should be quite plain.

'Michaela is uncomfortable with cultural differences between countries'...? I was born in NYC, and spent a good chunk of my life there, so US culture is not what I can call 'another culture'. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

My guess is that you've never waited tables in the US.

I have.

Social pressure to tip properly? Please. I've had people leave me religious tracts as tips.

I'm sure there are places where waiting tables is a great job, but in many others, it sucks, and the place I worked sure did. The iffiness of tipping on top of this made it remarkably awful. And it is my experience of waiting tables, of working in this environment, not 'provincial absolutism', which underpins my feelings that the basic tipping construct can easily become exploitive.

My main points were not the ones you identified as such, but that A) it is difficult for the two sides of this debate to understand one another, and B) that regardless of whether or not you believe tipping culture to be acceptable, you should tip your server in the US (i.e. the things I made a point of emphasizing at the beginning and end of my post).

You don't like 'gambling'?

Fair enough, let's call it 'a gamble'. And it is: there's often no guarantee that you'll earn a cent on any given night. Again, I'm basing this conclusion on having actually worked for tips.

In the first place, a tip is 'something monetary' (except when it's a religious tract, or a slightly battered 'Jesus Saves' sticker). In the second place, if norms were enough ensure consistently adequate tipping, this entire topic wouldn't even be taking place, since virtually all tips would be at least acceptable, and there wouldn't really be anything to debate.

I can't see that my admitted discomfort with the tipping paradigm is any sort of character indictment; I think everyone should be paid a living wage, which hardly seems culturally insensitive or 'seeing others as less than'.

[Mjx]

So other than a few veiled bigoted swipes at religious Christians and the commonplace that it is hard to agree, basically what you have said is that there are no absolute guarantees and some people are unhappy. These two realities are common to any system anywhere, and don't differentiate tipping culture at all.

The important point I made was that as things stand now in the US, people should tip waitstaff, since not tipping won't have any effect on changing tipping culture, and the one who is harmed is the person who took care of them.

Mentioning having received religious material in lieu of a monetary tip on a number of occasions is not, and certainly was not intended as a swipe at any religion.

[ScoopKW]

They believe earnestly that if they work extra hard, they'll make more than their colleagues that don't and they appreciate and take advantage of that opportunity.

This point is the problem I have. I f it is expected to pay 20% tip - even when the service is unacceptable - and basically everyone does pay 20% - where is the insentive to work hard. The tip will be there anyways, even if they do a bad job, because it is expected of the patron.

Other considerations - cash from day one, not having to claim (all of) it on taxes seem quite ligitimate, but working harder to get better tips, I'm sceptical.

Servers who cannot handle this work don't last long in the industry. And they don't make a profession out of it.

And if you read the whole thread you will discover that 20% is not paid by "basically everyone." Some people aren't going to leave a penny no matter what the service is like. Some people are still living in the year 1958, and tip 10% no matter what. MOST people Tip somewhere between 10%-30%, with 20% being the average and that number changes based on the quality of service. So yes, there is incentive.

The front of house staff where I work have made this their profession. And they make considerably more than I do in the back of the house. Every evening, they will have tables that tip well, some that tip poorly and some not tip at all. It's just part of the job.

As for the reason for the tipping culture, one need look no further than the National Restaurant Association, which has spent millions of dollars fighting against minimum wage laws. Tips exist because people know that their server cannot live without them. The year is 2013 -- why are we paying so many workers $2.13 per hour? That's as archaic as separate drinking fountains for different ethnic groups.

I am dumbfounded by the visitors to the US who cannot wrap their heads around the fact that the person bringing their food makes $2.13 per hour. That's what they make. They haven't had a raise in 30 years. The reason for the escalating tip amounts is that inflation keeps marching on, but their income is stuck in the 20th century. These visitors act like our tip culture is tantamount to robbery. They complain to anyone who will listen, and take out their frustration with the system on the person who is making $2.13 per hour. If they don't like the way things work here, they shouldn't visit. They can write a letter to the head of the National Restaurant Association explaining that America will have to do without their tourist dollars this year because they've decided to take the moral high ground against countries that don't pay their workers fairly.

But that isn't going to happen. They're going to come here, eat in our restaurants and not tip (or begrudgingly undertip, complaining the entire time).

[Mjx]

I don't believe the mention of religious tracts was a swipe, either. I have received these tracts in the past, as well. They are not handed out as a cover for one's penury, but rather because the persons leaving the tracts believe they are leading you to the Lord. Don't like it? Ask to have Wednesday evenings off at the diner or suck it up and enjoy the exercise of our first amendment right, which includes your right to disagree with the practice.

No one is forcing any of the people who do restaurant work to do so. If it is not financially rewarding enough, then it is best to tough it out in order to have an income while learning a trade that is more remunerative.

But I had no problem with the religious tracts as such, my problem was that they were usually left instead of a financial tip, and neither my landlord nor supermarkets accepted those as currency. I just couldn't see why someone who spent eleven bucks on dinner couldn't manage even a dollar as a tip.

When I first went off to university, the town where I ended up was tiny, and the restaurant was pretty much the only place I was considered old enough to work. So, absolutely, no force was involved in my getting a job there, but my options at the beginning were few; as soon as more reliable ones showed up, I went after them.

. . . .I am dumbfounded by the visitors to the US who cannot wrap their heads around the fact that the person bringing their food makes $2.13 per hour. That's what they make. They haven't had a raise in 30 years. The reason for the escalating tip amounts is that inflation keeps marching on, but their income is stuck in the 20th century. . . .

I think – based on the many discussions I've had about this with people from various EU countries – that what is difficult to wrap one's head around is the fact that wait-staff nationwide hasn't done anything to change the status quo. This might because of the ease with which you can be replaced, although I'm not at all certain; still, for every place where waiters make great tips, there's some little diner where the tips are meagre, or even often absent.

[annabelle]

I was speaking generally, Michaela. I didn't mean to make you feel singled out. Sorry about that.

I didn't like it when I got those tracts when I was in college, either. It was doubly infuriating since the same people who handed out the tracts also ordered lots of messy fountain desserts for their equally messy children.

[Mjx]

I was speaking generally, Michaela. I didn't mean to make you feel singled out. Sorry about that.

I didn't like it when I got those tracts when I was in college, either. It was doubly infuriating since the same people who handed out the tracts also ordered lots of messy fountain desserts for their equally messy children.

No no, that's fine, was just a bit concerned that I wasn't clear about the issue not being about the tracts!

So you too had to deal with parents who apparently handed their children over to be raised by wolves?! I thought that was some sort of recent phenomenon that was the result of the 'never crush your children by saying NO' school of child-rearing

[annabelle]

Heh. I waited on those messy kids when I was a high school senior in 1976. You know, back in the Bronze Age. Not only were the children sloppy, they were smart-alecks. I was raised by very stern Germans and this was just not done.

Messy wasn't limited strictly to kids, of course (in case I inadvertently insult someone with a free-range child). There were several brothers who were in their late 20s - early 30s who routinely used an entire bottle of ketchup each time they dined with us.

Waiting tables and working retail builds character. ; )

[ScoopKW]

I don't believe the mention of religious tracts was a swipe, either. I have received these tracts in the past, as well. They are not handed out as a cover for one's penury, but rather because the persons leaving the tracts believe they are leading you to the Lord. Don't like it? Ask to have Wednesday evenings off at the diner or suck it up and enjoy the exercise of our first amendment right, which includes your right to disagree with the practice.

No one is forcing any of the people who do restaurant work to do so. If it is not financially rewarding enough, then it is best to tough it out in order to have an income while learning a trade that is more remunerative.

But I had no problem with the religious tracts as such, my problem was that they were usually left instead of a financial tip, and neither my landlord nor supermarkets accepted those as currency. I just couldn't see why someone who spent eleven bucks on dinner couldn't manage even a dollar as a tip.

When I first went off to university, the town where I ended up was tiny, and the restaurant was pretty much the only place I was considered old enough to work. So, absolutely, no force was involved in my getting a job there, but my options at the beginning were few; as soon as more reliable ones showed up, I went after them.

>. . . .I am dumbfounded by the visitors to the US who cannot wrap their heads around the fact that the person bringing their food makes $2.13 per hour. That's what they make. They haven't had a raise in 30 years. The reason for the escalating tip amounts is that inflation keeps marching on, but their income is stuck in the 20th century. . . .

I think – based on the many discussions I've had about this with people from various EU countries – that what is difficult to wrap one's head around is the fact that wait-staff nationwide hasn't done anything to change the status quo.

You're assuming that Americans live in a functional democracy with representatives who care about their constituents. Our government isn't even dysfunctional anymore. It's broken. There. I've said it. The United States government is broken. Servers are NEVER going to see their minimum wage increased when the lobbying group for the big chain restaurants is shoveling money at our legislators to keep the minimum wage at $2.13 per hour for tipped employees.

What exactly are the servers of America going to do to change their situation? Nothing. They are powerless. Nothing will be done for them because there is no money in it. Big corporate restaurant chains are quite happy to let their patrons pay the server's wages. This deferral makes them even more than the 20% in tips -- they don't have to pay as much Social Security, and health care taxes that way.

So again, why is it so hard for people from the EU and UK to wrap their head around the fact that servers make $2.13 per hour and would literally starve if it weren't for tips. Why do we need a morality lecture every time we return to this point? That's how it is. The server is powerless to change that. I am powerless to change that. And I don't have a spare billion dollars to throw at Congress to get it changed. Frankly, I don't think one billion would cover the bill. There is a lot of money to be made keeping American workers down.

[annabelle]

Scoop, we live in a representative Republic, not a democracy. I will grant you that our representatives don't care about much other than getting re-elected. However, I don't believe they are any different than elected officials in any other country with free and fair election based leadership or in our case, the lack thereof.

Apathy, whether it be toward one's wages or the increasingly intrusive regulation in our daily lives, is by far the biggest problem facing our people today. Only one third of the populace that is eligible to vote bothers to do so. If one can't be bothered to vote for the persons who make law, it is not surprising that these same people may be mighty ill-informed about taxes and wages or much else beyond what they are doing this coming weekend.

[Mjx]

. . . .

So again, why is it so hard for people from the EU and UK to wrap their head around the fact that servers make $2.13 per hour and would literally starve if it weren't for tips. Why do we need a morality lecture every time we return to this point? That's how it is. The server is powerless to change that. I am powerless to change that. And I don't have a spare billion dollars to throw at Congress to get it changed. Frankly, I don't think one billion would cover the bill. There is a lot of money to be made keeping American workers down.

It's a fair question, and all I can come up with is that the neccesity of tipping is so far removed from the situation in the EU and UK that it is literally not comprehensible. It isn't about morality.

I don't even know how to explain this, but the best way I can think of trying to, is describing something compltely unrelated:

I was visiting a friend on a farm, and we'd spent the mroning doing farm-related things that involved dirt, butchering some chickens, dung shovelling, and finally, splitting wood. During the last activity, the splitter spat out a piece of bark that settled not-very-coveniently in my eye. I took off my glasses, cupped my hand over my eye, being careful to not let it actually touch my eye, and did some intensive and ineffective blinking. My friend came over, and asked to take a look. I let her take a look. Thenshe reached for my face, put her finger in my eye, and tried to remove the bark.

I was literally so unable to process the idea that someone would put a dirt/dung/chicken-bodily-fluid-covered finger into a living eye that my brain rejected the possiblity, and failed to function. I didn't even close my eyes. I simply could not grasp that such a thing could be. Faced with the apparently impossible, my capacity to reason broke down utterly. This can't be happening, it isn't happening. I'm still not able to grasp how this happened, simpy because it makes aboslutely no sense to me

The frames of reference on either side of the Atlantic are so different, comprehension is apparently impossble. I know that the wage situation is what it is, and that not tipping only hurts waitstaff and fails utterly as a statement, but the last part especially I've found impossible to communicate.

[ScoopKW]

I am simply at a loss.

From the tone of your post, you are looking at us in America as a city dweller looks at a farmer, covered in "dirt/dung/chicken-bodily-fluid." To put it as bluntly as I am capable, your tone is condescending.

You and several other EU, UK and Canadian members have asked for a simple, honest and direct answer to why you need to tip your servers in America when you don't have to do so at home. You have been given that answer time and again by Americans who work in the trenches of the restaurant business. I consider my post, #139 to be the definitive answer. That's why we tip 20% -- because we know our server makes $2.13 an hour (with limited exceptions in some progressive cities). And most of us have enough empathy for our fellow man to say, "Nobody can live on $2.13 an hour. It isn't possible. Let's bump this up to something reasonable."

There's your answer. And yet you still can't wrap your heads around it. Comprehension is not "apparently impossible." Communicating it isn't impossible either. I have done so quite effectively. You are simply making excuses -- you do not like our reality so you substitute your own. Personally, I would like a reality where everyone makes a living wage and nobody has to worry about getting sick. But that isn't how it works in America. We play the game of life with the cards we are dealt. And the reality is that servers make $2.13 an hour almost everywhere in this country, and most people are scared of falling ill. Welcome to my reality. It has been this way my entire life. And I doubt it will change anytime soon. And sadly, it is also reality here that almost nobody cares about this.

[Mjx]

I am simply at a loss.

From the tone of your post, you are looking at us in America as a city dweller looks at a farmer, covered in "dirt/dung/chicken-bodily-fluid." To put it as bluntly as I am capable, your tone is condescending.

You and several other EU, UK and Canadian members have asked for a simple, honest and direct answer to why you need to tip your servers in America when you don't have to do so at home. You have been given that answer time and again by Americans who work in the trenches of the restaurant business. I consider my post, #139 to be the definitive answer. That's why we tip 20% -- because we know our server makes $2.13 an hour (with limited exceptions in some progressive cities). And most of us have enough empathy for our fellow man to say, "Nobody can live on $2.13 an hour. It isn't possible. Let's bump this up to something reasonable."

There's your answer. And yet you still can't wrap your heads around it. Comprehension is not "apparently impossible." Communicating it isn't impossible either. I have done so quite effectively. You are simply making excuses -- you do not like our reality so you substitute your own. Personally, I would like a reality where everyone makes a living wage and nobody has to worry about getting sick. But that isn't how it works in America. We play the game of life with the cards we are dealt. And the reality is that servers make $2.13 an hour almost everywhere in this country, and most people are scared of falling ill. Welcome to my reality. It has been this way my entire life. And I doubt it will change anytime soon. And sadly, it is also reality here that almost nobody cares about this.

What?! That wasn't at all what I was trying to say at all!

How could that be the takeaway?! How is this condescending?! Your reading of this strikes me as a the most wilful and dishonest misinterpretation you were able to frame.

I was trying to explain that because I was taught specifically to not put fingers in people's eyes, the fact that someone might do so was so impossible to to me it, could not compute.

I give an example of something incompehensible causing brain freeze, and you read it as a metaphor for something about international relations?!

It's as though the hyphenated term leaped out at you, and you saw nothing else, read no further, read nothing else that I've written.

It was the only example that came to mind. I feel like I'm supposed to apologize for the fact that it did not occur in an elegant, urban setting.

Fine: I apologize. I'm sorry, because I had no intention of offending you or anybody else. I'm sorry it came off the way it did. But I don't understand how it happened (even if you wanted it to be a metaphor, the farm is in the EU, and the American in this incident got the dirty finger in the eye so..?).

All I was saying was that the two frames of reference regarding wages are different enough on this point that they don't make sense to each other, they don't compute.

I know the system doesn't work, and that tipping is crucial.

I know this because I'm American and I worked at a restaurant for tips, I found it appalling.

Why are you not getting that I understand this perfectly well? I spent a winter working at a restaurant, a winter with no electricity, and living on instant mash made with hot water from the tap. It was terrifying.

Why are you not getting that, because I know perfectly well what the underpinnings of the system are, I routinely tip 20% unless the server stabs me, or something?!

That I think paying wait-staff a living wage would be a great idea?

That I spend a fair amount of time trying to convince people from the EU to tip, regardless of whether they approve?

I've already said that the system feels exploitive, took some heat for that, in fact.

Did you decide that by 'exploitive' I meant 'exploitive of the people tipping'..? Is that it?

Because that's not what I mean: I mean 'exploitive of people being tipped', and I didn't specify, because to me, it seems self-evident.

In the EU, I am frustrated by my inability to explain the fact that the system of paying sub-minimum wages really exists, and is apparently currently too monolithic to change.

I tried to explain the reason I think I have been unable to successfully explain this.

But I have no trouble understanding it at all.

[ScoopKW]

You have said in previous threads about American tip culture that you are loathe to visit the USA because of the way tips work here. I'm going completely from memory here, because we're talking about older threads and my Google-Fu isn't up to scratch today. But we've had this debate many times. And it's always the same thing from visitors. "Why don't the servers just rise up and demand better." As if that's an option.

Frankly, I think the way foreigners regard our tip culture is unfair. There's no other way to put it. "We don't have to pay so much where we live, so we shouldn't have to pay it in your country either." There are many, many cultural idiosyncrasies that I also annoying when I visit other countries. But I suck it up and deal with it because I refuse to be the stereotypical ugly American. All I'm asking is for a little quid pro quo.

[Mjx]

You have said in previous threads about American tip culture that you are loathe to visit the USA because of the way tips work here. I'm going completely from memory here, because we're talking about older threads and my Google-Fu isn't up to scratch today. But we've had this debate many times. And it's always the same thing from visitors. "Why don't the servers just rise up and demand better." As if that's an option.

Frankly, I think the way foreigners regard our tip culture is unfair. There's no other way to put it. "We don't have to pay so much where we live, so we shouldn't have to pay it in your country either." There are many, many cultural idiosyncrasies that I also annoying when I visit other countries. But I suck it up and deal with it because I refuse to be the stereotypical ugly American. All I'm asking is for a little quid pro quo.

You have it partly right. As I said, I'm American, virtually my entire family still lives in the US, so I don't loathe visiting (I can't really call myself a visitor, either), but I don't like dining out in the US.

I don't like dining out in the US, because it is one of the few situations where I actually feel like an 'ugly American' on whose whim someone's hourly wage hangs (and now understand why my grandafather made a practice of tipping before the meal).

When I waited tables in the US, I probably experienced the most miserable version of that job. Plus, until then, I had no idea that there were real jobs that paid less then minimum wage.

When I dine out, I know that I'm being served by people who are being paid less than minimum wage, and they're counting on tips to make a decent living.

I know that their being tipped enough to make a living rests solely on the decisions of the diners, and since my own experience of this job was not great, I feel bad for the times they may have been/may be stiffed.

Because of what I know, I virtually always tip 20%, and if I'm dining with people who are not accustomed to tipping, I do whatever possible to ensure that they tip; if I have doubts about my having succeeded, I just slip around and tip the waiter myself, and explain that I'm not sure the party I'm with quite gets the tipping idea.

When I dine at a restaurant where waiters rely on tips, I can't escape the feeling that I'm somehow endorsing and supporting this system (this is the part that makes me uncomfortable to the extent of no longer being able to enjoy dining out in the US).

Not tipping only hurts wait-staff, and has zero impact on changing the system, and has never been something I've even considered.

I don't think I ever said 'Why don't the servers just rise up and demand better'; I admit to not having looked back at everything I've written, but know that's not an effective option.

[PSmith]

Your comparison of VAT to tipping is very naive. VAT is analogous to sales tax and thus trying to compare it to tipping is false. I don't much like VAT either, nor do I like sales taxes, but neither has anything to do with paying a person a decent wage for doing a decent job.

Additionally in the UK, the prices on the menu include VAT. The price is quoted gross - it is down to the individual to decide if they feel the service has been good and requires a tip. It is not a requirement.

I have eaten in four of the five continents and have not felt the service in the US has outshone anywhere else. In fact some of the best service I have experienced has been in Asia where tipping is not part of the culture.

One issue we have now appearing in some establishments in the UK is "service charge" - which can be included or added to the final bill. Many diners don't realise that this doesn't replace a tip, but often goes to the overhead costs. I hope that this doesn't catch on. Maybe that is another thread........

[mkayahara]

You and several other EU, UK and Canadian members have asked for a simple, honest and direct answer to why you need to tip your servers in America when you don't have to do so at home.

I'm going to point out again here, for the record, that tipping is just as standard in Canada as it is in the US The restaurant industry in Canada is structured much more like in the US than the EU. In Canadian restaurants, 15% is considered a standard tip; until a couple of years ago, the tax was 15% (apart from alcohol), and people would just double that to determine the tip. Individual ignorant Canadians may choose not to tip (whether at home or abroad), just as individual ignorant Americans may choose not to do so, but that doesn't mean that Canadians "don't have to do so at home."

[ScoopKW]

You don't have to go back too far:

"what is difficult to wrap one's head around is the fact that wait-staff nationwide hasn't done anything to change the status quo."

What, exactly, can America's wait staff do? Rise up with pitchforks and torches? Hold a general strike? To suggest that they can do anything at all is to greatly overestimate a citizen's power in the United States.

[Mjx]

You don't have to go back too far:

"what is difficult to wrap one's head around is the fact that wait-staff nationwide hasn't done anything to change the status quo."

What, exactly, can America's wait staff do? Rise up with pitchforks and torches? Hold a general strike? To suggest that they can do anything at all is to greatly overestimate a citizen's power in the United States.

Some context for that would have been nice, since my point was that if your're coming from the EU, then absence of any sort of organized action by US wait-staff is puzzling.

I'll add the caveat that this applies to those who are coming from the EU, and have no clue as to what it's like to work a low-paid job in the US.

I personally have no problem wrapping my head around this, since I know how that kind of thing plays out in the US, and you're right, it isn't an option, which I said in a previous post.

By the way, last time we all had this jolly chat about this topic, you mentioned a German guidebook that advised visitors to not even bother tipping, since it couldn't be enforced.

What was the title of that, and when was it published?

It's pretty disturbing to know such a book is around, but I'm still curious about it.

[ScoopKW]

It was a German guide to the Florida Keys. It was specific to the Keys. The only other place mentioned was Miami, and only the airport. Can't remember the title though, sorry. This was 25 years ago.

[Edward J]

What, exactly, can America's wait staff do? Rise up with pitchforks and torches? Hold a general strike? To suggest that they can do anything at all is to greatly overestimate a citizen's power in the United States.

Hey, if old man Heshey can get a bill passed that states that milk chocoalte must contain a minimum of 10" coca conten, "sweet" chocolate a minimum of 10%, and semi and bittersweet a miimum of 35% cocoa content, then the hospitality industry should be able to get one leeetle bill passed.

All you need is to make it illegal for anyone other than the Gov't to garnishee from paychecks. Joe Schmo gets his paycheck with out any deductions other than taxes.

This basically would put the Hospt. Unions in the postition of standing infront of the staff lunch room ratttling an empty coffee can asking for Union dues. It is no secret that the Hosp. Unions have non nothing--nada, niente, diddly-squat for it's employees. It would then be time to get "bargaining" done.

Yes, I know virtually no restaurant is unionized. Many hotels are though, but the bulk of Hospt. Union dues comes from hospitals, "institutions", corporate catering chains, and large food production plants. It is a lot of money, and money talks.

[ScoopKW]

The restaurant owners all shovel money at our government making sure none of that happens.

Do you have any suggestions that would actually work in the USA?

[fvandrog]

ScoopKW, on 15 Apr 2013 - 20:07, said:

I am dumbfounded by the visitors to the US who cannot wrap their heads around the fact that the person bringing their food makes $2.13 per hour.

Personally, I am dumbfounded that those bringing me my food agree to work for $2.13 per hour. That's an issue between them and their boss, not something an outsider should be involved in.

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These visitors act like our tip culture is tantamount to robbery.

It would only be robbery if one would be forced to to tip.

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They complain to anyone who will listen, and take out their frustration with the system on the person who is making $2.13 per hour.

Personally, I have never forced somebody to work for $2.13 an hour -- if asked for advice I would strongly recommend against it.

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If they don't like the way things work here, they shouldn't visit.

Tough luck for you, as long as legally allowed I will visit. Unless there's laws that make it obligatory to tip a certain percentage, I will tip whatever I want to tip.Generally that is 10% for adequate service and 15% for good service. The one time that we ordered (and paid for) a bottle of wine that disappeared with the waiter after she filled two glasses I didn't tip at all

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They can write a letter to the head of the National Restaurant Association explaining that America will have to do without their tourist dollars this year because they've decided to take the moral high ground against countries that don't pay their workers fairly.

Personally, I'd recommend waiting staff to write the National Restaurant Association in order to amend problems -- leaving that to foreign tourists is likely not very efficient.

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But that isn't going to happen. They're going to come here, eat in our restaurants and not tip (or begrudgingly undertip, complaining the entire time).

Indeed. Freedom of speech is even a right for foreigners visiting the US, and as long as tipping isn't obligatory there's freedom in the amounts there as well.