No Tips After Dinner For Gays!

I hate going to cafes in eastern Europe sometimes because the server will like, vanish for 45 minutes at a time and it's just like ... hey I was going to order a bottle of wine and like, I dunno, maybe pay for my *** ... but okay I'll just sit here.

sounds like the the problem lies in the American IRS system, which indeed is horrid, outdated and slow in my experience.

sometimes it's because I want to eat at Chilli's and my friends want Applebee's so I get my food and meet them there.

Other times, it's cause I don't feel like being in a restaurant by myself, so I'd rather just eat it at home.


While I think the whole "tipping" as a culture thing is ***, again, I still tip good service. I just refuse to tip shitty waiters/waitresses. Having a bad day? Well, don't take it out on the person who you're trying to get money from

Ok so when there is less people on the floor...and the place is packed...don't complain about waiting.

Edit: But when you walk into a restaurant how do you even know how much they make? They could all be making 10hr as far as you know.
Also I wouldn't say the owners rely on tips from costumers to keep their wait staff there.....the min wage for tip jobs is (insert your states tip wage here) and its there for a reason. Owners could be nice if you deserve it and give you a raise but there is no law that says "THEY HAVE TO GIVE YOU A RAISE" Every sever knows what the min wage is. They could take it or leave it just like you can take a 50k/yr job or a 100k/yr job.

Waitafricking minuet. IT IS MANDATORY.

Under St. Ronald the President the republicans decided to go after the "fatcat waitresses" and made tips a part of their declared income. No matter if they got them or not.

If you don't tip 7% you are scraging your waitperson. If you tip 8% they break even. Today 20% is the new 15%.

It's actually a newer system. Previously, waiters and bartenders just had to report their tips daily or weekly. Since sales weren't reported to the IRS they could report $0 and were essentially taking home untaxed income.

The reporting of sales was supposed to give the IRS a more accurate reported income from hospitality industry employees. It has pro's and con's, it helps mgmt identify bad employees, but doesn't reflect areas where customers just don't know how to tip.

Unfortunately, habit is a nasty problem to break. Businesses cling to "standard operating procedure" like a heroin addict to the needle and separating the two is equally difficult.

The problem at present is... well, I have a friend who works in a family-style restaurant in between a university and a hospital. She works the morning shift, something like 6am to 1pm. She pulls down about $20 an hour, which is exactly why she still works there and, more to the point, why she works that shift. If she had an afternoon or evening shift, she might be making $12 an hour or less. I guess people tip better while still sleepy but before getting annoyed by work/school/whatever.

First off, don't buy it when a server says they live or die on their tips. It's true, but they make it sound like they're living on barely minimum wage by milking the fact that they get a nominal hourly wage because they want customers to pad as much as possible. Beyond that, though, the big reason why my friend has the morning shift is because she's one of the better waitresses at her store. Getting the good shift is a sideways sort of promotion. If you wanted to completely change the US system to eliminate compulsory tipping, you'd have a hard time finding an employer willing to pay $20/hour for someone who says, "Good morning!" while filling coffee cups and serving pancakes. Put that job up on craigslist, though, and you'd have several hundred responses in an hour. Pay your best server $12/hour, which is more than a lot of entry-level and degree'd administrators get in this city, and she'll probably leave.

There's no easy way to fix the broken system. I'll bet easy money that the whole tip sham probably reduces the amount of tax that an employer has to pay. And there's no such thing as a server who accurately reports their tips to the IRS. So on top of the basic problem of breaking a long tradition, there's good old American greed that would interfere. And, of course, you'd have to increase the cost to customers by probably 20%, which is enough to give GMs a heart attack as many people are still in lousy economic states and aren't eating out the way they did in 2007.

And, I really hate to say it, but as much as the entitled jerks demanding tips piss people off, I don't run into servers like that very much. For the most part, unless I've gotten a server who was hired within the past 3 months, they know how the job works and the fact that they're basically going home without pay if they don't provide service tends to motivate. The problem for customers arises with the new folks who haven't wised up or moved on yet. It really shouldn't be a difficult job, but waiting tables is remarkably taxing, even for the ones bringing in ridiculous cash.

Although, come to think of it, my friend is also mooching on another friend's couch in lieu of getting her own place and otherwise has no real sense of thrift. I notice that altogether too often of people who are getting paid too well for a job that is too easy. Draw your own conclusions, I s'pose.

Which question? There's a lot of ***in that set of quotations

In China (no tip culture), most places expect you to wave/call the server over anytime you want service. Sometimes you have to get up and go find someone. x__x So embarrassing. What's worse is when the kitchen is unreasonably slow and you have to be on them about it constantly until they finally care enough to fill your order. And god help you if the staff doesn't speak good Mandarin.

The little places that probably cook everything with oil they scooped out of the gutter (yes, this is a thing) have better service because there's literally nowhere the servers can disappear. XD

Tip is reward for exceptional service. Full stop.

Whatever arithmetic a business wants to use in order to pay workers is up to the business owner. Some add surprise service charges, some 'suggest' (read: guilt trip you) gratuity, some just fold the gratuity cost right in, some use armies of illegals to make ends meet and some simply raise the prices and make the place look fancier to offset costs. Did I mention legions of illegals? Yeah.

Generally most people tip because they sympathize with the poor sap that happens to be serving them but it's not mandatory. I tend to go into a place knowing whatever I buy is +5 but again, that's my choice.

Service jobs suck. Retail sucks. Wages are generally ***and not getting better. That goes without saying. Dancing because some *** put 10 cents (been there) in the tip jar *** sucks but it doesn't change that tip is meant to be a way to reward someone for doing more than they were hired to do.

No, no it's not.

When someone does you a service, and does a good job doing it, I feel you should tip them. It encourages workers to work harder (or atleast smarter) and makes the customer happy in the process.

Hell, last night my friend and I went to Outback and ran up a $90 bill. Our server was very helpful, polite, and timely with everything we ordered so we made her night by dropping a $40 tip. I can only hope that helps encourage her to keep doing a great job at what she does.

You tip "to insure proper service" not out of guilt. I don't think half the people in this thread actually know what the job duties of a server.

This is why many servers have this crap mentality: "they aren't going to tip so I rather give exceptional service to those who will tip properly."

People who think tipping is optional are going to continue to receive mediocre service, while those who understand how to tip properly receive exceptional service.

On paper, it would seem the person who makes 3, BUT, again, that's on paper. I've had my share of waiters/waitresses that don't work hard (and on the other hand I've seen some awesome service as well).


You're confusing me with someone else. I didn't say I was paying them for something they weren't hired to do.

I said if they do a good job at it, then I'll tip; and if they do a bad job, then too bad, they get nothing. I have no sympathy for ***service.

How do you even know who tips well unless they are a repeat costumer or your a bartender who hands them a bill after each drink?

It's more of a "You did a great job and I think you deserve a little extra"

You stereotype your customers. I tipped the hostess extra to make sure I got "certain" types of customers.

Thats funny because there are people I know who look rich as hell but tip ***and people who dress casual and tip super well.

You must work in a super high-end area if you have to tip your hostess just to get the good tables because I never heard of that before.

Because only conservatives or anyone who believe in any religion (except Muslim) can only be ***. At least, that is what a certain group of people believe.

Edit: Backreading, I just got home from work.

I tip everyone I do business with. Just not with more money.

And how is this the fault of the consumer? Paying ***wages and expecting tips/gratuity to make up the difference is squarely on the business owner/s. Tip was meant to be a (personal) bonus and now it has become this pseudo-tax on the consumer designed to shovel the burden onto customers rather than the business. What was voluntary is now mandatory.

And that's fine. It's called add a service charge to your bill instead of the passive-aggressive 'suggested' gratuity. There are also other ways of getting money from consumers. Most people will tip regardless because ***, you'd have to be a real *** not to at least give 2 or 3 bucks to your wait staff. Or the staff sucked and deserve nothing. That's up to the consumer.

Kissing someones *** is taking an order and bringing food/beverages?

Really though, it's maybe 2 or three times a year where I get service bad enough not to tip.

Again, while I don't like the whole tipping system, I do play along nicely with it.

The only exception is the time my service was so bad, I had to give her a negative tip. She accused us of spreading cheese in the menus the last time we came (We did nothing of the sort @.@) and told us if it happened again, she'd get us banned from the restaurant.

So, with that said, negative tip. When my friends walked away, I grabbed their tips, then proceeded to pay my own bill with it. *** that lady

I don't wait tables anymore, I did it for extra cash in college. Stereotyping your customers based on attire, how they speak, what they order, etc... didn't always work you're absolutely right but it did most of the time.

When you work in sales(whatever industry) you have to able to be able to read your customers to some degree.

lol, what the *** is negative tip? You knock over the salt shaker and cause a mess?

Actually, that is not true.

Tips are usually counted from the credit-card receipts and, if you actually have honest waitstaff, managers and bookkeepers, the cash receipts also.

IRS "requires" you to report any tips as part of your compensation, but only credit/debit card receipts are actually recorded. If you have a system in place to record cash receipts accurately, that will get recorded too, but that still requires the waitstaff to be honest about their tips. And lets face it, do you think they are going to voluntary report income to IRS just so they can get taxed on/less refundable credits/less overall deductions?