<p>I always ask the waitress if they want their tip in cash.</p>
<p>Honestly, hearing some of this makes me never want to go out to eat again in my life.</p>
<p>If a waiter/waitress is lousy at their job, why should I care about whether they are making enough money? If they don’t make enough in tips to cover minimum wage, their boss can cover it. If their performance is so consistently bad that the boss decides to fire them, well, that’s life. If these people are more expendable than other workers… well, they decided to trade job security for ease of entry (no education, special skills, practice, etc. is required to perform basic food-service duties). That’s their choice, and it doesn’t mean they’re stupid or that their job is less important than mine… just that they don’t need to complain when the natural economic consequences of their actions play out.</p>
<p>What happened to caring about doing a good job? Food-service people who’d spit in your food can go die for all I care.</p>
<p>I do try and tip in cash but if I don’t have enough to leave 20% I leave it on the card.
However, I don’t always tip when getting a coffee- sometimes I just leave the change, but other times like last weekend when we were attending a street fair, we tipped $1 for two ice creams- it evens out.</p>
<p>We also usually go to the same places where we are known & we like the food/service. Our experience has been that most servers try and do a good job.</p>
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The problem with this is that you are not leaving a clear message, because too many people fail to tip even when the service is good. If you want to send a message that the service was inadequate, you need to tell somebody with words.</p>
<p>Our experience has been the same as emerald’s. I can really remember only three times in my entire life when I’d have been tempted to leave no tip at all because of poor service. We aren’t regulars anywhere, either. I expect courteous, competent service, and that’s what I get. Apparently I’ve been more fortunate than many others.</p>
<p>Hunt- I agree with you.</p>
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I usually do… if not by discussing the service with the manager, then by writing an explanatory message on the bill itself.</p>
<p>That being said, a professional should take the lack of a tip as an indication that service was unsatisfactory, unless s/he has a reason to suspect that the customer didn’t tip for another reason (not enough money, forgot, ignorant of tipping practice, a cheapskate, etc.) The problem is that so many people feel entitled to these jobs and that any problem is clearly the customer’s fault. Whatever happened to “the customer’s always right”?</p>
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It is my suspicion that there are many more horrible customers than horrible waitstaff. And when it comes to service, it is my observation that people seem to encounter the kind of service that they expect.</p>
<p>It has never made sense to me that a restaurant tip should be based on the total cost of the service.</p>
<p>We often eat at a local, family run diner. The food is great, the service friendly and efficient and the bill for 4 comes to about $45.00 - and that includes a glass of wine. This would ‘earn’ the server a maximum of $9.00 tip (20%). Down at the local tourist trap a mediocre meal with rushed and inefficient service would run about $150.00 for the of us. Yet this tip calculates out to $30.00. It takes no more effort to bring the plate to my table at the tourist trap than it does at the diner.</p>
<p>I’ve also noted that more and more of the higher priced venues will ‘helpfully’ calculate the tip amount at the bottom of the bill. DH and I recently attended a concert with a dinner option. The dinner was at best entry level cruise food Since the venue was a winery, the markups on bottles was around 300%. The servers did not keep water glasses filled, kept taking the silverware and the wine delivered to the table was a different year than the one on the menu. When we checked in for the dinner a large notice reminded us that tips were not included in the prepaid price. This same note was also on the menu. The printed bill had a highlighted portion which ‘for our convenience’ calculated a 18% and 20% tip. Luckily I had my own highlighter and calculated a 10% and 15% tip and left an appropriate amount. </p>
<p>It takes no more effort to bring a $50 plate to the table than it takes to bring a $8.00 hamburger to the booth. Now if my hairdresser spends 2 hours on a process verses a quick 30 minute trim, the price reflects the time and effort put forth and the tip will also reflect this. Same for the folks at the car wash…a mechanical wash and dry costs less and takes less time than a hand wash and wax. Here again the cost and time are related and IMHO so should be the tip. But the whole restaurant thing…just does not compute.</p>
<p>Reading this thread has been most interesting. I learn much about human nature, as curmudgeon stated.</p>
<p>I rarely encountered bad service or when I did, I tried to give the waitstaff the benefit of the doubt. One event stood out in my mind. Years ago, we dined with another family in a national park dining establishment. Like most national parks, the summer help is staffed with seasonal college kids. Our waitress is visibly inexperienced, flustered to the point that another waitperson had to take over. Let’s just say, long wait, orders wrongly taken, repeated requests for anything along with long waits in-between, you get the picture… Our friend was quite irritated and did not want to leave a tip till I said “Just think, this could be our daughters in a few years!”.</p>
<p>I would rather err on the side of compassion and if I am taken for a fool once in awhile, so be it…</p>
<p>dietz- valid point. Maybe we should leave a tip based on how long we occupied the table?</p>
<p>I agree with ccreader! I have a D that may be doing this for a living while she tries to find an acting job! This is one of the hardest jobs I have ever done and most wait staff do deserve a tip. Please consider that next time you are paying your bill.</p>
<p>I also leave tips for the hotel housekeeper on a daily basis, just in case it’s a different cleaner every day. After reading “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, I understood how hard menial work is, hundred times harder than my job sitting behind a desk, and so poorly paid. We all can become one of the “working poor” in a blink of an eye…</p>
<p>ccreader- I do the same.</p>
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<p>[Not</a> Always Right | Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes](<a href=“http://notalwaysright.com/]Not”>http://notalwaysright.com/)</p>
<p>My kids have been raised to understand that when they go out to eat with friends, they must tip appropriately. If they can’t afford the food plus tax plus 20%, they need to order lower on the menu. If they get lousy service, then they can tip lower and take home the difference. Similarly, they know to leave a tip in a hotel room (and not make a huge mess), to tip when they get a haircut, and so forth.</p>
<p>I would never penalize a waitperson for being inexperienced, or clumsy, or anything like that, as long as they are doing their best. I might penalize somebody who was obnoxious. I’ve never really had that happen, though. We’ve certainly had slow service, but that was usually because the wait staff was overextended, which wasn’t their fault, either–that’s something that you take into account in deciding whether to return.</p>
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The only difference is that I am paying them money. If the waiters would pay me what they expected for a tip to go get my own sandwich, I bet that I’d be happy to do so.</p>
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I won’t argue that expecting bad service can make it hard to recognize decent service for what it is. I usually expect good service, and am only stingy with the tip when my expectations aren’t met.</p>
<p>@dietz99: Excellent point. I think that there are a lot of potentially more interesting ways to calculate an appropriate tip, and I think that tipping based on the number of items ordered/delivered might work very nicely.</p>
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I don’t look at it quite like this. To me, you’ve been made a fool of as soon as you get bad service. That’s fine, and I know it’s not personal… I certainly don’t dislike the server for it! However, there’s a difference between disliking the server and not paying for inadequate service. Professionals wouldn’t take it personally.</p>
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I’m not saying you shouldn’t tip. I’m only saying that it’s not right to create a culture where tipping 10% is the lowest you can tip anybody, regardless of the service.</p>
<p>^ based on your last comment you sound like you tip like my 90 year old father. When we are about to leave a restaurant we are sure to leave the right amount for the server.</p>
<p>^ based on this comment, it sounds like you tip like a 19 year old girl using her daddy’s credit card to look like a cool, generous tipper. In seriousness, it’s your money to spend as you wish - if you want to reward entitled kids for substandard service, you’ve earned the privilege by working for the money.</p>
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<p>There’s something kinda amusingly symmetrical about a 22 year old sounding like a middle aged curmudgeon while accusing a middle-aged parent of sounding like a 19 year old.</p>