<p>Let’s recap: Cobrat has decreed that we must tip 20% because the IRS got a wake up call and now servers can’t cheat on their taxes like they used to. Got it.</p>
<p>Lerkin, the restaurant owner ONLY has to make up the tips to make up to minimum wage in the state. That is it.</p>
<p>My son’s hourly wage is $3.00 an hour. He makes the rest in tips.</p>
<p>Thumper, </p>
<p>Yes, only to minimum wages. My point was that minimum wages are guaranteed, this point gets lost sometimes and people think that some waiters don’t make even minimum hourly rate. </p>
<p>However if someone only makes a minimum hourly rate it means they are either not good at what they do or the place they work at is not good. Most waiters make above minimum hourly rate.</p>
<p>And trust me, I get it. It is hard work. It is sometimes unthankful job. They have to deal with unreasonable customers, demanding managers and egotistical chefs. But, with tips it pays enough to be desirable employment for young adults. </p>
<p>My oldest son kept track of tips and wages for a 3 month period (mostly on a bet from his father) and he averaged alittle over $17 an hour at a chain BBQ restaurant. Not bad for a college kid.</p>
<p>*However if someone only makes a minimum hourly rate it means they are either not good at what they do or the place they work at is not good. *
Or people in their area are cheap. 
In Califormia, minimum wage is $8 an hr. ( In Missouri its $7.35)
So these workers only deserve $16,000 a year?
How do you live on that?</p>
<p>EK - They don’t. Full-time professional servers make a very nice living with tips in the hundreds on a slow night. Part-time students and whatnot in chain restaurants and the like are also making plenty more than minimum wage. If not, they need a new job.</p>
<p>And CA is unusual in that they actually do receive the minimum wage on top of tips. It’s server heaven. </p>
<p>Sorry. I have been on both ends of this and I agree with the OP that this practice is very bad as currently construed. </p>
<p>Tipping should be for good service. Wages that are set artificially by the government cause problems. Not the thread for that…</p>
<p>If you are willing to work for only tips that is great. If you are willing to work for $10 an hour plus tips that is great. As long as you can find places to pay that, so be it.</p>
<p>I tip entirely based upon the quality of the service. By defaulting to some absurd number like 20% (it used to be 10%, but despite inflation already driving up the numbers, someone 20% gets bandied about…). I will ardently avoid restaurants that ‘force’ a tip amount. </p>
<p>Often times, I tip based on the number of people at the table or the number of times the server bothered to come by the table. Other times a large tip comes with more difficult orders (when other members of our party had kids who acted up, we often paid more because of the pain we put the waitstaff through).</p>
<p>There have been times when I even specifically called the bus/water boy over to tip him separately because the waiter was awful and the water was always filled. The waiters are supposed to tip the bus help but ironically, many of them are worse, in my experience than the patrons about whom they complain. The waiters who complained the most were also the ones who forgot to smile or messed up orders. </p>
<p>The only exceptions I make are when I am traveling for work as I don’t want to force my tipping strategy on my employer’s name.</p>
<p>For what is is worth, I have tipped many times 100% as I was someplace cheap and the service was great. It is not about being cheap, it is about the purpose of the tip. Tip is payment for service rendered. </p>
<p>My first full-time job paid less than 10K per year working for a major financial institution. How do you live on that? You don’t waste your money. You don’t spoil yourself and you work your tail off to earn more…or you leave California. For most people who wait tables, it is a temporary job while in college or until they get their break…or while unemployed from a real job. For those who are professional waitstaff (I knew many when I lived in Vegas) they make so much more money than normal people, you have no idea. Part-time pizza guys and valet parking guys make over $40K. Valet parking is one of the more highly sought jobs by the HS grad in Vegas.</p>
<p>In the words of Momma Gump “cheapskates are as cheapsskates do”. Bless your discipline for only tipping 15% and keeping the world a better place.</p>
<p>Ek,</p>
<p>People are paid what market can bear, the concept that is evidently lost on many on this board. I cannot imagine you marching into your boss office demanding higher wages because you feel you deserve more. </p>
<p>But that is besides the point. In reality no decent waiter makes minimum wage. If they are good at what they do, they work at the place they can make decent living. So, please stop accusing people of being cheepstake if they don’t agree with a 20% standard being pushed on them or dare to question the logic behind tipping system. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And while there’s nothing wrong with being frugal or even a cheapskate, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about doing it. </p>
<p>Right way: Cut back on going to restaurants or indulgences for oneself. </p>
<p>Wrong way: Trying to shortchange waiters/tresses by giving tips denoting mediocre/worse service because one felt entitled to dine out without giving them their due for good service when it is rendered or worse, leave religious tracts designed to resemble cash*. </p>
<ul>
<li>This happened to some college classmates who waited tables during the summer. A reason why they dreaded being assigned shifts on sundays when large church groups would come out and dine. Now that’s not just being exceedingly cheap, that’s just wrong and ironically…unChristian.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>cobrat - are you saying church goers don’t tip well? </p>
<p>Interestingly this week I had lunch at Olive Garden. On their receipt , for those challenged in math, they calculated what 10%, 15% and 20% of my checks total would be. So I wondered how many people would leave $1.02 (10%) versus the $2.04 (20%). And would it be exactly that amount to the penny! </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It was what my college classmates who waited tables experienced firsthand. And in their case, they received zilch except those religious tracts despite the fact those groups took up the largest tables, ordered a large menu, and sat for a few hours. </p>
<p>I also had some firsthand experience as a guest visitor of a relative’s church when our party went out to post-service lunch. Seemed the rest of the group had a past history with that restaurant of ordering very little food, giving very little/no tips, and sitting around for a few hours as the owner and waiters refused to seat us unless our group agreed to order a minimum dollar amount per person. THAT was embarrassing. </p>
<p>It also seems to be such a common experience with other waiter/tress friends who had the same/similar experiences and moreso, waiter/tress online support groups that it’s become a stereotype in some quarters of the waiter/tress community. </p>
<p>I wonder what was the real driver was for why this group was cheap.</p>
<p>Was it because they were church-going? Or was it because they were mostly elderly people on a fixed income?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It turned out it was because they were very cheap. They grudgingly agreed to pay the minimum dollar amount…which was so nominal that it was pathetic how they were grousing and carrying on about how unreasonable the restaurant was being. </p>
<p>And it wasn’t because they had constrained economic circumstances…especially considering the menu entrees at that restaurant were very reasonable and our group consisted of 20-40 something upper-middle class professionals. </p>
<p>It wasn’t as if our group lacked for money…especially considering the price for the average-most expensive entrees there. </p>
<p>It would be as if I brought some friends to dine al fresca* at a hot dog stand and haggled bitterly with the stand owner to leave off the bun from the hot dogs in an attempt to get a 2/3s discount on a bunch of 1-1.50 hot dogs. </p>
<ul>
<li>Producers Reference</li>
</ul>
<p>
</p>
<p>Alright, then go have that conversation with the employers who are SCREWING OVER their staff. It is THEIR job to pay their employees, not mine. </p>
<p>I remember the first time I went out to eat with a few friends sans parents. I was about ten or eleven at the time. We went to a diner for lunch, and dutifully calculated our tip at fifteen percent to the nearest penny - and were so proud of ourselves for coming up with exact change! We had learned how to calculate tip in school, and thought that you were supposed to pay <em>exactly</em> fifteen percent, no matter what. That poor waitress.</p>
<p>More seriously, while I think everyone here agrees that you shouldn’t eat out if you can’t afford the bill plus a tip, I agree with Lerkin and Pizzagirl that the notion that 20 % is now the minimum acceptable amount is arbitrary. As my anecdote suggests, I learned to tip 15 %, and I’m a lot younger than most of the people posting here. I generally tip closer to 18, and certainly recognize by now that at least a little bit of rounding up is appropriate, but tipping someone 15 % doesn’t, as far as I’m concerned, make you a total cheapskate who shouldn’t be eating out. </p>
<p>And cobrat, would it ever be possible for you to disagree with someone on a point of etiquette or ethics without automatically making sweeping value judgments about that person’s character? Someone can tip less than you, and still not be an awful miser with an entitlement mentality and no compassion for his fellow man - even if you still think he is wrong about the tip.</p>
<p>I tip 20% because I’m glad I’m the one eating and not the one serving. And because it may be your kid who’s doing the serving.</p>
<p>I am only on page 8 so forgive me. I absolutely admire those waitstaff who work their way up to high end establishments, and make their tips on a percentage of a pretty steep bill. Most who have served me are impressive. I am intrigued and impressed that they are doing it at 40 or 50 years old, and see it as a career. On the other hand, going to dinner in San Francisco includes some fees that aren’t included elsewhere. Still; I go. I don’t live there, so that I can afford to eat there. But Napa is closer and pretty damn good…and the rules are different. </p>
<p>Finally; just spent the weekend in Utah. None of the final bills showed the items, like apps, entrees, drinks and taxes, the latter which I don’t usually tip at the same rate . I might tip at a percentage around 20 percent before tax and “fees”…SF has “fees”, and closer to 10 for drinks. What’s up with that? </p>
<p>
Well, then why not tip 25%? I could advocate for a 25% standard using the same arguments that have been made here to support a 20% standard–the servers need the money; if you can’t afford it, you should eat at cheaper restaurants; anything less is the mark of a cheapskate, etc., etc. There is no logic to be brought to bear on the subject of tipping because the whole system is ridiculous.</p>