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Do Objectivists Tip?

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McGroarty

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You are mssing something, yes. In the case of the book, there is shipping insurance available. If you take it, then the insurer will cover the lost book (either to the shipper or to you, it doesn't matter). If you don't, then you're very likley stuck with the costs; it would depend on the bookseller's specific policies.

I don't know what book stores YOU shop at, but they'd never get away with that kind of crap anywhere I've shopped. No book, no money. It's their responsibility to deliver the goods I pay for. Period.

That's how I see tipping. If the management is making it a problem for the waiter to serve me properly, then that's between him and the management. Bad service equals small tip. That's how it works in every other business in the world. Why do waiters deserve special treatment? Why is the delivery of food some kind of sacred cow?

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Please, I asked that question in seriousness. I respect your opinions and if you have a case to present I am listening.

I picked up a couple sarcastic type nudges here and there on this topic, but not from you. So if I gave the impression I was accusing you, I apologize for that. Personally, I don't care what a person is doing for a job, only how well they do it.

I'm also starting to see that I probably approach this topic differently from most as I have intimate knowledge of the job (any job in that business for that matter), and I really know what I am looking at and what can be expected. I also probably have more than the usual amount of sympathy for the person in this job, and what a pain it can be to deal with a lot of jackasses. Actually, the case may be in a lot of instances something not your fault, nor the waiter's, but the crazy ass bastard sitting in the booth across from you.

But, we are talking about services rendered. I too have a sliding scale based on my overall experience of the service. I just don't happen to have a penalization range for stuff I see as outside of that individual's ability to control; he will get a flat rate, and has, unfortunately missed out on anywhere from 18% to 50% tippage of my bill (actually 50% is reserved for the best waitresses with the best looks - if they have it, they use it to influence their tips, and I pay it).

If I do see it as an issue a certain individual's incompetence, I am probably as severe or worse than most here. As that is the same "jackass in spirit" that has caused me to have harder than necessary days at work due to his negligence. I even filled out a negative tip once. There was the total line, on the tip line I put

-$15.00 and subtracted it from the total.

I'd also like to rephrase what D'kian just said below. A bad waiter can make what should have been a good experience into a bad one, a good one can turn what should have been a disaster into an alright or even great experience. I pay for that.

Re: The book example. Of course you shouldn't pay for the book, that's a good and you got nothing at all. In this instance I wouldn't stop doing business with them either - unless they tried to make me pay for it. You see, in these examples, your good simply isn't there. Your service is, and the question is: to what extent? There are so many restaurants out there I usually (again assuming his performance was good) tip the guy and try to find a better experience next time.

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I don't know what book stores YOU shop at, but they'd never get away with that kind of crap anywhere I've shopped. No book, no money. It's their responsibility to deliver the goods I pay for. Period.

Powells (http://www.powells.com). It's perfect. They have new and used books, and free shipping to Mexico. I've never had more than a minor hiccough with them.

But I shop a lot online, mostly from the US. You may not know that packages sent through the postal service from America to Mexico cannot be insured; it's a bad risk. Some merchants have told me they'll ship here, but only if I assume responsibility for lost shipments. Thus far, one package failed to make it, and that one was from Canada (of course, given such terms, the merchant could easily not send me anything and get away with it).

That's how I see tipping. If the management is making it a problem for the waiter to serve me properly, then that's between him and the management. Bad service equals small tip. That's how it works in every other business in the world. Why do waiters deserve special treatment? Why is the delivery of food some kind of sacred cow?

My grandfather used to tell me never to antagonize people who handle my money or my food. Waiters will remember a lousy tipper (and a good one, too). So if a place you frequent has slow service now and then, it's still a good idea to tip well, or to stop frequenting the place.

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I don't know what book stores YOU shop at, but they'd never get away with that kind of crap anywhere I've shopped. No book, no money. It's their responsibility to deliver the goods I pay for. Period.

Nah, this isnt how it works. If insurance isnt provided and the package is destroyed/lost, then its your tough luck. This is why you never ever order anything expensive online without paying extra for shipping insurance.

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Nah, this isnt how it works. If insurance isnt provided and the package is destroyed/lost, then its your tough luck. This is why you never ever order anything expensive online without paying extra for shipping insurance.

Oh, I assure you: unless it says explicitly like in D'kian's example, they have an obligation to deliver the goods purchased. If not, they're getting sued.

Some merchants have told me they'll ship here, but only if I assume responsibility for lost shipments.
Then surely you understand this is a highly exceptional circumstance, and that I couldn't have anticipted it in making my example, and that it's a total tangent and beside the point, which is: in most businesses, no goods or services means no payment.

My grandfather used to tell me never to antagonize people who handle my money or my food. Waiters will remember a lousy tipper (and a good one, too). So if a place you frequent has slow service now and then, it's still a good idea to tip well, or to stop frequenting the place.

I do not deal on the basis of threats.

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I just don't happen to have a penalization range for stuff I see as outside of that individual's ability to control; he will get a flat rate, and has, unfortunately missed out on anywhere from 18% to 50% tippage of my bill

That is, though, a sort of penalty. I think you're doing the same thing I do, just with a higher flat rate. Even busy waiters still get at least $2 from me. (unless it's a very small meal) I also cap off tips around $6 or so, unless they've really earned it. Just because the food was expensive doesn't necessarily make it any harder to serve. Oh, and when I say "that'll be all," and I don't feel like hanging around, I expect a check quickly, or I subtract about $.30 a minute. (that's what I make an hour).

Oh, and I left a $6 tip for a $10 meal yesterday. The last time I had eaten there, it was to go, and they had overdone the buger. I warned them not to do that. But they gave me a free one this time, so that was worth a 60% tip.

But holy s***, I've never put a negative number in there. :o I hope I never have to.

Oh, and flirty girls had best be careful with me. Piss off my wife, and I can't promise much of a tip. Make sure that "nice" is just "nice." :)

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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 :thumbsup:

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

Edited by JamesDL
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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.

Edited by JamesDL
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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.

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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.

Yeah, that is how I experience it over here. Most people do tip, but it's only a small amount. Speaking of which, the restaurant I work at is rather odd, because we have a centralised payment method. It's actually a rather socialist way of doing things, but oh well :thumbsup: It is a rather small place, though, and indoors, so it may make more sense that way to have everyone doing everything, instead of having specific waiters for a group of tables.

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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.

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I don't, either. But surely you won't expect good service from a place where you've left low tips.

I would if the low tips were deserved.

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.

To be clear, I was advocating leaving a smaller tip in those circumstances, not no tip. Unless it was really, really bad service. I was arguing against leaving a regular-sized tip because they tried hard but failed to serve me in an adequate fashion.

Edited by Inspector
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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.

Well, I was hoping you would tell me why it looks irrational to you! :worry:

My opinion is that there is nothing irrational about it.

  • The patrons have a choice between 1, paying a fixed price of, say, $12 regardless of the quality of the service; and 2, paying $10 for the food and whatever they deem appropriate for the service. With #1, their dollars reward the restaurant as a whole, with the owner, the cook, and the entire waiting staff included in one non-negotiable package. With #2, they can reward the specific waiter or waitress who serves them. #2 allows them to exercise a more individualized form of justice--which, far from being irrational, is always preferable to jointly rewarding or withholding rewards from a "collective."
  • The owners have a choice between a system with a built-in, automatic link between pay and performance--and a system without it. All rational businesses strive to link pay to performance; depending on the nature of their employees' jobs, they may find it easy or difficult to find an objective way to measure the latter. Restaurants find themselves in a uniquely fortunate position regarding their waiters: If their performance is to be measured in terms of customer satisfaction (which a rational restaurant with mostly rational customers will want to do), then all they have to do is let the guests tip them!
  • The waiters face a choice between being primarily wage-earning employees on the one hand, and being more like "independent service providers" on the other. A true individualist will prefer the latter; he will welcome the opportunity to earn more through better performace; and he will enjoy working among people with similar incentives.

Now, this system of tipping will only work well to the extent that the customers evaluate the waiters rationally and tip them accordingly. But this is true of any business; Howard Roark was impeded by irrational clients no less than a good waiter is impeded by them. And the fault for this, of course, lies with those clients who are irrational, not with the system, nor with those who sustain the system.

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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.

Depsite its vaunted unity, Europe is still a big place, with many different cultures. In Hungary, good-enough service earns the waiter 10%, and exceptional service is rewarded with large tips. ;)

I used to tip similar amounts when I was in Germany too, not knowing about the difference in customs. In case you are curious, none of the waiters complained! :worry:

(BTW, most tipping guides seem to suggest 5% for German restaurants, so even there it's not like you just go without leaving anything.)

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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. :huh:

James

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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. :huh:

It's not my dream job either. :P But then, I am a software developer--there are few jobs left for me to consider a dream! :P Even so, though, I would say that waiting tables beats working in a quarry (if you get my drift... ;))!

And there are some people who like waiting. My favorite waitress at the place I frequent, for example, seems to be quite happy in her job. She's always very cheerful and jolly and full of energy--which is what makes her my favorite! ;)

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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.

I glanced through the posts after this one to see if this was specifically addressed, and I did not see anything, though I may have missed it. Anyway...

I must disagree that just because one is aware of an irrational system or context (whether it's tipping or anything else) that the proper action is to just go along with it. The proper (read moral) action is STILL to do that which supports one's values. If tipping supports one's values, THEN tipping is the proper course of action. If not, then one should not tip. But my morality does not rest on someone else's decision to do a job that may not pay what they think they deserve.

If the private property establishment requires one to tip as part of the meal, it should be obvious, and if one were to do business with that establishment, one would respect that which they require or one should not do business there. An implication, assumption or cultural expectation does not amount to an obligation on the part of an individual.

That said, I do generally tip, and generally quite generously. But there are plenty of irrational cultural expectations out there that I have no desire to fulfill.

PS: Welcom to the forum! :)

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  • 6 months later...

I am an American, and I tip. I Tip 10 - 15% for good service, 0% for average service and ... $0.01 for bad service. Why?

Tipping in an exchange of value - the quality of the service to my money. If the service is great, then they deserve more money. If its average, then they won't get a tip (because their wage is already included in the price of the meal or drink).

But, why the penny for bad service? Because it communicates to them that I despise their service so much, that I didn't forget to tip them, but to deliberately go out of my way to give them something that is next to no value. If I don't leave them a penny, they might think I just forget to tip them, or some else took their tip. But a penny reaffirms to them (or should) that i did not like their service one bit, quickly and efficiently.

(I then follow up, of course, with a letter or a talk with the manager.)

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I generally tip 15% for average-to-good service, and 20% (very rarely) for excellent service. If the service is mediocre, I tip 10%.

I have left no tip in an American restaurant once, when the waiter gave me a document with a list of "recommended tips," probably because I was fifteen or sixteen when I ate their. Instead of writing in a tip, I used the pen he gave me to write a note on the back of the document saying that he would have gotten 20% if he hadn't given me the list.

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  • 1 month later...
You may not be a cheapskate, but you are ignorant.

I'm not ignorant, I know how the system works, I just don't think it's objectivly fair for the customer.

In general, if someone is providing you a personal service (cutting your hair, bringing you your food, carrying your bags, driving a tow truck out to the middle of nowhere to winch your car out of a ditch) then you should tip them. If they are there for general service purposes (someone manning a bay at Jiffy Lube, for instance, or the front desk at a hotel) you don't tip them.

All interactions with people are "personal" regardless of the occupation.

At a restaurant, if I have the option to serve myself or be served, and I choose to be served, then an increase in the price (service fee) is warranted.

A "tip" would not be neccesary here, because the waiter gets the service fee. Poor services will be handled like in any other profession.

But when I have no choice but to have a server, then all I'm saying is that the price should automatically be added to the bill as a consistant service fee.

...should you accept a tip to seat someone sooner at a restaurant?

It's not a "tip". It's an upgrade fee. If you have the authority to change reservations and seating arrangements (e.g: the owner), then you can even ask the customer "Since you don't have a reservation for that time, it will cost $XX to seat you sooner. Do you accept, Sir?"

On the other hand, if you don't have that authority, and you accept money to "bend the rules" you are accepting a bribe. And that's a very "non-Objectionist" thing to do.

Bottom line: I'll work with the existing system as it is. But if you ask me, I'll tell you "They should increase the prices and keep it simple".

PS: I don't think you're ignorant, just a little bias. :)

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