Have you ever waited tables? I’m guessing no. When I was waiting tables I checked every tip and knew to the % what each tip was. Every waiter I worked with did that, and bragged about their %. They absolutely know when they’re being “stiffed” and they know why, unless they don’t care about their job in which case they deserve to be stiffed, and probably won’t be waiting tables for very long.
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In order to effectively “demand” those things, stop eating at places that don’t provide them. Right now, restaurants demand that customers not require those things, and you’re meeting their demand.
When you waited tables, were there times when the kitchen screwed up an order or the bar was backed up, and getting food/drinks to your table took way longer than it should, and the food was wrong… and you didn’t bother apologizing and took your exhaustion and frustration out on your table instead? And if that ever happened, and you got stiffed on the tip, did you think “gee, I bet it’s because I was a jerk to my table”? I’m not being snarky, or accusing you of such, I’m saying that that’s behavior I see all the time from waiters, and I wonder if they correlate their own crappy service with a low tip, or if they just assume the table were cheapskates.
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As a waiter, I knew what to do to try to make up for kitchen mistakes, but ultimately the customer only has the waiter to interact with, so they’re the one that takes the hit.
If a waiter is thinking about their job - whether they are doing things right, and how they can improve, then they know what problem led to a poor tip. And the advantage of the tip system is the feedback is pretty quick; you don’t have to spend a month waiting tables to know if you’re doing it right - every night we would calculate the average tip (I think it appeared on the cc statement) and everyone would know how they did, including he management. If someone isn’t thinking about their job, then of course they’re just going to think people are cheapskates. But as I said, those people don’t stay waiters for very long.
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I’m only tipping a waiter who’s making $15 an hour base pay if they give me free stuff,
or a handjob or something
Ideally a waiter earning a little less than twice minimum wage has to do something spectacular and become a good friend before I’d tip them. Which isn’t hard. See my last comment (#53)
I believe he’s referring to this:
But that won’t go into full effect for several years and probably won’t apply to tipped workers such as restaurant servers.
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Except tipping is the most arbitrary way in the world to truly assess performance.
Joe did better than Sally tonight? Why? Maybe Sally only had tables of 12 and all her bills had the tip calculated at serving time.
If you want feedback on your employees skills from your customers, there’s an easy way to get it: ask. Looking at completely arbitrary monetary incentives that require you and the customer to be on the exact same page as to what qualifies as a “good tip” (Maybe I regularly only tip 5% but you did an especially good job tonight so here’s 10%. WTF? Why’d that cheapskate only tip me 10%? What did I do wrong?) is almost the worst form of feedback I can imagine.
I mean, small electric shocks administered from a button on the table would be worse, but not much.
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Asking people is one of the least reliable methods of getting feedback.
Yeah, I’m aware of it as a Seattleite myself. In fact I would have voted in favor of the $15/hr minimum if I lived in the city proper and it was on my ballot.
While we were planning for a trip to Italy, the common wisdom was “no tipping.”
Hah. HAH!
There turned out to be service charges in some places, and “bread and tables” fees in others.
And good luck getting free tap water.
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What happens when you just include service charges instead of tips:
In much of Europe 10% tip is normal, even generous.
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My experience is that at a ‘good’ non-premade and rewarm resteraunt the only way to compete on the razor margin is to, just like the factory premake operation, hire minimum wage migrants who can outsource the low wages back to central or southern Mexico where they become a family supporting wage.
The illegals staying illegal is a Republican(too often also Democrat) scam to keep the US full of no-tax return filing no-social security receiving abusable people who force overall wages down by importing workers who don’t actually have to survive with a family off the often cheated wages they receive, it is Machiavellian for business but like H1-B visas it collapses living wages for people who actually have to both survive AND earn enough to do that in the same economy.
It screws the migrant as it provides an inferior pay scale and almost universally unethical work experience for the same labor but it really screws the local earner as they cant survive on the same as a seasonal worker who can sock away a year’s living wage for a family in a few months.
In general *am for open borders but first the internal inequity needs to be solved before the open flow of workers is used to leverage all labor into abject slavery and poverty for the benefit of the 1%.
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Tipping has little to no correlation with good service:
http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/managing_tips.pdf
http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1660&context=thesesdissertations
Tipping is generally racist:
Tipping is largely sexist:
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Because they have the audacity to actually pay their waitstaff a living wage before tips. I’m shocked they have restaurants at all. 
I also remember reading somewhere that tipping encourages sexual harassment. I guess I’ll take this opportunity to chime in about paying servers more, even if that means higher prices.
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My parents recently went on a Germany/Italy package tour. They were told ‘no tipping’ by their tour operator, but on the first night in Germany, the entire group was prevented from leaving the restaurant while the manager came out and screamed at them for not leaving a tip. He wouldn’t let them go until they coughed it up.
Itd just another way for low margin businesses to reclassify a major portion of the labor force as being minimum wage ineligible - passing the savings on to ownership.
Don’t expect lower prices, better service or better meals.
I worked at a high-end Italian restaurant so perhaps I can explain at least that to you. The place was only open in the evenings for four to five and a half hours. I once calculated the man-hours that it took simply to do this and I was startled (even tho I worked there). 5 cooks (2 prep, 2 line, 1 dessert), waitstaff and host, most working around 7-8 hours a day average. Everything was made from scratch, pasta also. The ingredients were top-notch, such as fresh (not frozen) shrimp and fish. Hell, I even made the sausage at times (you’ve probably no earthly idea just how long a pig’s intestine is…). Sure, the place was pricey, but I finally figured that the customers were actually getting a very good deal.
You want a fucking itemized list, go to McDonalds instead…
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Ah but the paper you cite suports (even advocates for) the idea that customers do give higher tips when they are happier, and when they view their server as an individual. It also says that quality of service does increase tips by a nontrivial amount. So how fast the food is served, whether the server screws up the order, can’t recite the specials or can’t recommend a wine are not as important as being friendly and personable. But both are still part of being a “good waiter” in my opinion.
As for the unfairness of tipping, I can’t disagree with that. I’m not an advocate for tipping in the way that it’s done in the US, but I do support tipping as a way of encouraging good service. My explanation of how I tip was just to show how I act within the system we have here. And maybe if more people put more thought in to it, it would have more effect.
