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JamesDL

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Everything posted by JamesDL

  1. I think it depends on the establishment and customers. My buddy likes the place he's at now, but has gone through a few pretty lousy places to get there.
  2. Thanks CF - This thread has gotten me to think that the tipping system is not as irrational as I thought. I didn't mean to dodge the question either... I was giving it a lot of thought but didn't want to see it lost dozens of posts back. Your points make a lot of sense, and explain why my roommate hated working at a place with collective tips. The only thing keeping the servers on their toes at that place was the overbearing owner. Needless to say, he didn't keep many servers around for very long. I think what is frustrating about the system is that it leaves you vulnerable to people who leave small or no tips on purpose, regardless of the level of service. And I don't mean when someone leaves 15, or even 10% and you think that you deserved 20... Some people will leave 5% or less when there was nothing wrong. Not only that, but you are also vulnerable to people simply forgetting. True, Roark was not impeded by irrational customers, but he was never faced with a situation where someone could "forget" to pay him, and then have no recourse. You say, "A true individualist will prefer the latter" - I hope it doesn't make me not a true individualist for prefering neither... waiting tables sucks. James
  3. Maarten - some restaurants work that way here as well. The very expensive Italian restaurant my roommate used to work at did it this way. The thinking is that the wait staff operates more as a team, with no one person being directly responsible for the service at any given table. I can't speak for how well that system worked, although I know he hated that place. He now works at another less expensive restaurant where he makes more money overall, and doesn't pool tips.
  4. Inspector - Your comparison with not recieving a book you ordered because of circumstances beyond the bookstore's control is valid. Extended to a situation in a restaurant, it would be equivalent to having service that is so slow that your food never arrives, or arrives after an unacceptable amount of time, or perhaps arrives cold and/or inedible (ie: has onions on it when you stated you are allergic to onions, etc). Here I would agree that it is proper to walk out and leave no tip if you feel the situation cannot be reconciled. In most cases the restaurant staff would be hard pressed to blame you for it, unless you deemed that 30 minutes was unacceptable after you ordered a steak well done, and walked out as your food was on its way. It is of course possible to set such limits before you agree to eat. In my experience, people would come into the restaurant and tell me they were in a rush, and ask if it would be possible to get there food out in ten minutes. Sometimes I would warn them that the kitchen was running slow, other times I would say certainly, unless they ordered certain dishes which take longer to prepare. In this case, if the food took much longer than 10 minutes I would understand them walking out on me, since we had a prior agreement. Anyway, my argument is that if you recieve the food and service, but the service is less than stellar, you should still leave a tip. In the U.S., what you leave as a tip is payment for the whole of the service, not some exceptional level of service that goes above the expected level of service. This is in contrast to how I understand tips to work in Europe. Typical service is not rewarded with a tip, because the restaurants there pay a regular wage. Only exceptional service is rewarded with a small tip. This system makes more sense to me on the face of it, and I imagine it is how our tipping culture started out. When and where tipping became customary, I hope to find out.
  5. I did a search on Amazon for "tipping" with "restaurants" (otherwise I just go results for "The Tipping Point") and came up with many articles from Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly. Also a few from other journals as well. I am going to see if I can access these journals through my University's library, and I will report my findings. Some titles that catch my interest are: "Racial differences in restaurant tipping: evidence from the field.", "The tipping point--gratuities, culture, and politics." and "The Impact of Tipping Recommendations on Tip Levels." If you put in the search yourself you will see that there are many more potentially informative articles. Maarten - Very true.
  6. So I haven't checked out this thread for a wihile... I finally finished my finals and term papers and had to take a few days off from all mental activity Anyway... I think that there is less disagreement here than it seems. I re-read the last dozen posts or so, and no one is arguing against a "minumum tip" which I originally argued is rational in the given context. People have varying ideas about what an acceptable minimum is. I think this is understandable. As a waiter, I've noticed that younger people leave bigger average tips than older people, despite the fact that they probably can less easily afford to do so. I can also say that when I recieved larger or smaller tips, I usually assumed that I got what I deserved. In the few cases where I gave fast, competent service and got no tip, which was frustrating as hell, I assumed that the patron most likely simply forgot. I know that I've forgotten to leave a tip at least once in my life. Though I cannot speak for all waiters, of course, I know that most of the frustration I felt was at the "system" and not at the patrons. Furthermore, the vast majority of interactions with patrons are pleasant ones, where both parties' mutual self interests are satisfied, while most nights were mostly good experiences. In any case, I am still trying to answer the question posed by Capitalism Forever; who is acting irrationally? If the system is indeed irrational, then at least one party must be acting against their self-interest. Often laws will make a system irrational, but there are no such laws acting here that I can think of. Restaurants are free to pay their staff more, if they so desired. Patrons are free to leave bigger, smaller, or no tips. And waiters are not forced to work for nothing or at all. The current tipping culture is the result of individuals acting on their own free will as far as I can tell. So the options are: patrons are acting irrationally, restaurants are acting irrationally, waiters are acting irrationally, or the system is not, in fact, as irrational as it looks. Any input would be greatly appreciated. I think it is a good question worth finding an answer to. James
  7. JamesDL

    Please Help Vote

    Haha... my favorite is the one by a Mr. Michael L. Mahr: "Written by an atheist, this is one of the most insidious and diabolically anti-Christian book ever written. Satan couldn't have done a better job of attacking Christian principles. Like wandering through the maze mind of a sociopath, it's one of the most repetitive, repulsive and boring books ever written If you liked Mein Kempf, you'll love Atlas Shrugged. " I'm sure that Ms. Rand would have taken "Satan couldn't have done a better job of attacking Christian principles." as a very high compliment. James
  8. Thinking of the economics of it, I believe it must have been patrons who initially began over tipping. Perhaps it became customary to impress your friends or date with a huge tip, one in excess of the actual value of the service recieved. I imagine that at this point in history, waiters also received a wage which was their primary means of compensation. As the customary tip increased to 10-15% or more, waiters were receiving a greater value than they produced, which in turn lead to an over-supply of waiters. Hence, the restaurants began to lower the wage they paid their servers, while still finding plenty of people willing to work for the reduced wage, which is a simple application of the laws of supply and demand. Eventaully, tips alone were enough to fully compensate servers, so restaurants didn't have to pay anything at all. So, going back to the beggining of this story, it was patrons who started this irrational system long ago. This really was long ago, as my dad tells me stories about when he waited tables in the 50's and that he also recieved no wage, although he ate for free. I think it's unlikely that restaurants or severs could have started it. If restaurants had lowered wages first, servers would have quit, and I don't see how servers could have started demanding tips and refusing pay. I suppose this means that it is up to rational patrons to reverse this system. However, I don't think it is worth starting a country-wide campaign to stiff your server today, so that he will be paid by his employer tomorrow. Perhaps restaurants could start making it clear that the "tip" is included into the price of every item on the menu. However, I don't think customers would take to this very well, and the restaurants that started such a move would be less competitive than restaurants that didn't. In the end, I see it as similar to the argument to switch to metric. Imperial is arbitrary and irrational. Metric is simple and elegant. But is it worth the cost of switching?
  9. Inspector: I agree, you are not obligated to leave a tip, and I believe you that you are a reasonable tipper. I have never stiffed a server because usually it is not their fault that my food took 45 minutes to come out. I would only leave no tip if I felt they were intentionally trying to ruin my night. If the service is slow and they are obviously in chaos control mode, but they remain freindly, apologetic and accomodating about it, then they deserve to be paid for their effort. Your responses ignore the main point of my argument, which is that the social custom in the U.S. has evolved to the point that tipping a minimum amount, 10 - 15%, is customary to the point of being expected. This is evidenced by the fact that nearly all restaurants pay their servers either nothing at all, or a legal minimum wage that is less that half the regular minimum wage (again, I am not advocating any minimum wage). Based on the wage alone, this is hardly fair compensation for the job that servers have. They are compensated in "tips". As I hypothesized in my previous post, the word "tip" originated as something different than what it has come to mean today. The tip is no longer a bonus reward for good service; it is how servers are paid for their labor. Of course, any decent server still goes out of his way to earn a bigger tip, which is, of course, a positive thing on several levels. However, when one leaves no tip, after recieving acceptable service, he is depriving his server of a value they rightly deserve. Most people understand that the establishment does not pay the major part of a server's wage. Are you legally obligated to leave the tip? Of course not. But you are not legally obligated to do many things that are nevertheless morally proper. Is the "system" irrational? Yes it is, and this is what leads to a lot of frustration and confusion, mostly on the part of restaurant workers. But within the context of this system, it is proper to regard 10 - 15% as simply the price you pay for the service, as opposed to seeing any amount of tip as a generosity. And as far as the price being on the menu... not at all restaurants... if you have to ask, you can't afford it. Hal: Fast food tastes nicer than most restaurant meals? Yikes, what restaurants are you eating at?
  10. My favorite jokes are "dumb"jokes. It's more about delivery... ie: What did the fish say when he swam into a wall? Dam. What do you call a fish with no eye? A fsh. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, "Does this taste funny to you?" What's new? Pi over Lambda. (Physics humor - hilarious to nerds ) Also very funny: children. Check out this link, where it says "kid's ideas about science": http://www.utc.edu/Academic/PhysicsGeology...shum3.html#misc
  11. I should add one more thing, because it gives a good insight into how much tipping is important to a waiter's total wage. Waiters make decent money overall. Don't let the 2.30 minimum wage make you think that waiters are struggling to eat. I made between $10 and $20 an hour overall, depending on how the shift was going. At least 80% of my income was tips. I don't make that much more money per hour as a lab tech (granted, also not a glamorous job ) but I have full benefits, and I am rapidly increasing my knowledge and skills here in the field I am interested in. Not true for waiting tables... Depending on the establishment and city, servers can make as much or more, provided they know what they are doing, of course. Top waiters at top restaurants in NYC make 100k or more a year, and it's almost entirely in tips. At expensive fine-dining establishments, a single table can net a server $200 or more. If that server has 3 tables, and turns them over once in a night, that's damn good money. Of course, that would be a great night, and there are plenty of slow nights to counter the good ones. Anyway, hope this insight helps in the contemplation of the issue.
  12. Hal - I agree that the system is irrational. I should have stated that clearly in my last post. But that is why I said that Objectivism might take issue with the tipping culture - "expected tipping" is an irrational and nearly functionless social custom. However, I strongly believe that when one is aware of, and must act within this irrational context, the proper action is to continue to tip. As an aside, there are some establishments that discourage their customers to tip. Most often I have seen this with food delivery companies. The pizza box might say something like "Our delivery staff is paid a reasonable wage, please do not tip the delivery person." I have also seen this at a lot of restaurants that offer prix-fix pricing. The price you see for the meal is just that - "tip" or rather, the cost of the table service, is included. As another aside, it is my hypothesis (totally unproven as yet) that our current custom evolved from a system where waiters and waitresses were paid a "normal" wage, but then "extra" tipping started to become customary for whatever reasons. So now wage + tips came to a total that made waitering service overpayed. Like anything else, the laws of supply and demand made it so that at this new price point there was a much greater supply of waiters than demand. Restaurants lowered wages because they found that they could still staff their restaurant with people who understood that a major part of their wage would come from tips, which were becoming increasingly expected as a normal part of eating out. Now the system was in place where neither the customer nor the worker has any real say about the tip. On an individual, case-by-case basis, a worker can't choose to demand a wage and refuse tips, while a customer can't refuse to tip and demand that the restaurant pay the waiter for his service. While I disagree with all minumum wage laws, I'll point out the fact that the minumum wage for tip-earning jobs is about 40% of the regular minimum wage. Here in Philly, I know that the normal minumum wage is something around $5/hr, tip-based mimum wage is about $2.30 /hr. In other words, the lawmakers recognize that tipping is such an accepted part of our culture that they take it into consideration when commanding employers what to pay their staff. One major disadvantage of our tipping custom is that it encourages discrimination on the part of the wait staff against its customers. Waitresses will fight over who gets to wait on a table of suits on an expense account. A bunch of foreigners, especially Asians and Europeans, will often get shoddy service, because it can almost be assumed that they will not leave a tip, simply because they are not familiar with the custom. One of the most refreshing experiences I had as a waiter was waiting on 3 Asian men who spoke no English whatsoever. One of them walked me around the restaurant and pointed at food at other people's table that he wanted to order. I was almost certain that they would leave no tip. I am not the kind of person who would give poor service on purpose because of that, but I simply accepted that I would probably be working for these guys for free and there was nothing I could do about it. There are some servers who, in the same situation, would almost ignore these guys. In the end, they left a very generous tip which I thought was pretty cool. So either they made a mistake, or, as I like to think, they were more savvy than they appeared. I should also note that part of the frustration in being a waiter is the huge amount of confusion on the part of customers about tipping. There are people (mostly european tourists) who think they are being generous by throwing a buck or two on the table, after paying for a $50 meal. Then there are the worst types of people who see the tip as an excuse to torture the wait staff with unreasonable demands. On a busy day, I'd much rather get a 0 tip than deal with a total bitch. I think most people see 15 - 20% as a necessary custom, and then there are people (perhaps former waiters themselves) who tip 30 - 50% unpredictably. Recieving a huge tip is nice, but the randomness of it is at best, disconcerting. At worst, it makes you want to go out the back door and scream bloody hell at the world... Anyway, sorry if my last post was a bit strongly worded. Waiting tables was often an incredibly frustrating experience for me, as it is for most servers. Looking back, the amount earned is fair for the work (if it weren't I would have quit long before I did, obviously), not to mention the advantages of having very flexible hours, but like I said, there are always many frustrating times. I strongly believe that in the context of the current system, it is important to leave at least a minimum tip. Anyway, I am still working on about 8 cups of coffee because I am preparing for an organic chemistry final scheduled for tonight. So I have to get back to work... James
  13. Greets all - This is my first post on this board - I was very excited to discover this forum tonight. I hope to read a lot more threads and post more comments soon. In the past year I have come to feel strongly about the issue of tipping, because after I graduated college I spent 6 months as a waiter while searching for a decent full-time job. Additionally, both my housemates worked various waitering jobs around the city, and one still works at a restaurant on weekends in order to pay off his student loans. I no longer wait tables, and I am currently a full-time technician at a mouse lab studying the molecular and cellular basis of learning and memory. Firstly, I am dismayed at the posts in which people claim to not leave a tip for merely OK service. Personally I will never leave less than 10% even for pretty terrible service. An exception might be for outright rude service, but I have never encountered that before. I agree with the people who correctly state that in the U.S., the price of the food and the price of the service are seperate entities. The price of the service, of course, is negotiable, though the waiter is quite limited in his ability to negotiate. There are several facts that I would like to point out, because I believe they are important to understanding the tipping paradigm. 1 - Waiters are often not paid AT ALL. Many restaurants cook the books so to speak, so that they do not have to pay their wait staff any wages whatsoever. I worked at an upscale corporate chain restaurant that actually paid $0.50 over the minumum wage, which totalled $2.83 / hr in Philly. After taxes and withholding, I took home about $40 a week from my hourly wages. 2 - There was a comment in the beggining of the thread saying that the owners of a restaurant will not know whether a waiter typically gets good or bad tips and could work for years while giving bad service. This is simply not true. Firstly, the wait staff often works as a team and has many responsibilities besides entering orders and shuttling food from the kitchen to the tables. By working in close quarters with other waiters, bartenders, the managers, and possibly the owner, everyone gets a very accurate idea of how efficient and valuable each person on the team is. Not to mention that with today's computerized systems, managers see your credit card tips as a percentage after every shift. The average % is usually around 18%. Managers will also see a lot of other stats after a waiter's shift, including break down of sales of food and alcohol, # of tables served, table turnaround time, etc. It is easy to know who is a good server and who is a bad server based on who can consistently manage a large number of tables with good turnover, and still have an average or above average tip %. 3 - In nearly every restaurant a waiter must "tip out" the rest of the wait staff. For me, this meant that after each shift I put 3% of my sales total into a pool that was subsequently divied up between the bartender(s), bussers and runners. A fine-dining establishment my roommate worked at required the waiters to tip out 8% of their sales. This is to pay the sommelier, matre di, etc. So when you stiff a waiter, or leave $0.02, you are actually costing him a few bucks out of his pocket. Sure, maybethe service was so bad that he didn't deserve a tip - but was the service that bad that he should pay for you to have eaten there? This also means that those people who think they are being a bit generous,by leaving a couple of bucks are actually just giving the guy enough to tip out the help. Often, 'average' service is the best a waiter can hope to give despite his best efforts (ie: the restaurant might be understaffed that day so you have 15 tables in 3 disparate sections, there is a line out the door and the kitchen is an hour behind schedule...). But sometimes this minimum level service requires the best a waiter has to offer. The job is tireless and thankless. To say that 'average' service does not deserve a tip is to say that the waiter does not deserve to be paid for the value he is providing. Perhaps you have a problem with the tipping "culture" in the U.S. However, the fact is that it is probably not going to change anytime soon. Understand that the "base" price of eating out is the price on the menu plus 15% If you can't afford it, stay in. If you want to make someone's night who perhaps went out of his way to try and make sure you and your date had a pleasant evening, tip 20-25% It won't go unnoticed. I'm not sure how this jives with Objectivist theory, but I consider myself a serious student of Objectivism, and the above statements on tipping are what my values have lead me to believe. Perhaps Objectivism would take issue with the tipping culture in the U.S. as being irrational. However, it's not something that it easy to change. I actually believe that tipping at a restaurant serves a social purpose, which was somewhat addressed in earlier posts. I tend to agree that by observing the amount a person tips a waiter/waitress and the way they treat that person provides one of the most useful insights into the person's character. If tipping were like any other transaction, where you negotiate the terms, then trade values, it would not serve this function. Anyway, my post seems to have rambled on... thanks for hearing me out if you read all the way through James
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