Tipping?
May 10 2007 00:06
OK, I'm struggling with the whole concept. I live in a country where its not that common, and tipping is mainly reserved for expensive restaraunts and taxi drivers. I'm pretty sure most people's first tipping experience would be from seeing it on an american TV show.
I'm sure most are familiar with that Resevoir Dogs scene and I agree a lot with that little guy - I don't get the abitrary nature of the jobs tipped, or why I gotta pay from my income and the business said workers are working for dosn't cough up more.
But there was an old wob years ago who said it was Labor Party bullshit saying that tips keep wages low and he tipped profusely.
So, where did tipping originate, what's its history? What's the thinking and ettiquete behind it? Does it take wage pressure off of the employers?
Jas
May 10 2007 00:32
#2
Cheers, I just quickly read that article.
I'm gonna take a stand and say that tipping is bollocks. It transfers some of the employers' costs onto the buyer, and its unfair in that some workers get tipped and some don't.
May 10 2007 00:48
#3
I tip 20% in genral and I'd spit in your food if I was your waiter.
May 10 2007 01:22
#4
But how would you know in advance whilst you were waiting on me that I wasn't going to tip?
May 10 2007 01:24
#5
jason wrote:
But how would you know in advance whilst you were waiting on me that I wasn't going to tip?
It only works for repeat customers for sure.
May 10 2007 01:30
#6
Quote:
I tip 20% in genral and I'd spit in your food if I was your waiter.
Wouldn't you prefer that the employer pays 20% more and that you keep the extra? Do you tip MacDonald's workers?, they get $4.00/hr here and work about 4 times as fast as a waiter.
May 10 2007 01:38
#7
jason wrote:
Quote:
I tip 20% in genral and I'd spit in your food if I was your waiter.Wouldn't you prefer that the employer pays 20% more and that you keep the extra? Do you tip MacDonald's workers?, they get $4.00/hr here and work about 4 times as fast as a waiter.
Here McDoanlds workers get at least minimum wage but wait staff at restaraunts make a bout 2bucks and some change plus tips and have special tax rules about it.
May 10 2007 01:39
#8
thugarchist wrote:
jason wrote:
Quote:
I tip 20% in genral and I'd spit in your food if I was your waiter.Wouldn't you prefer that the employer pays 20% more and that you keep the extra? Do you tip MacDonald's workers?, they get $4.00/hr here and work about 4 times as fast as a waiter.
Here McDoanlds workers get at least minimum wage but wait staff at restaraunts make a bout 2bucks and some change plus tips and have special tax rules about it.
which would suggest you should take into consideration these variables before labelling someone a cunt for not always tipping.
May 10 2007 01:43
#9
revol68 wrote:
thugarchist wrote:
jason wrote:
Quote:
I tip 20% in genral and I'd spit in your food if I was your waiter.Wouldn't you prefer that the employer pays 20% more and that you keep the extra? Do you tip MacDonald's workers?, they get $4.00/hr here and work about 4 times as fast as a waiter.
Here McDoanlds workers get at least minimum wage but wait staff at restaraunts make a bout 2bucks and some change plus tips and have special tax rules about it.
which would suggest you should take into consideration these variables before labelling someone a cunt for not always tipping.
No. Its a generally accepted practice worldwide. I've travelled fairly extensively and always tipped and will continue to do so. And non-tippers are cunts.
May 10 2007 01:52
#10
Quote:
wait staff at restaraunts make a bout 2bucks
But that's the whole point - surely they only get $2/hr because of tipping?
So if you've got limited spending money and you want to eat at a nice place for someones b'day or something, you get hit with a hefty bill, and then you gotta pay some more because wages in the industry are so low ...because you always pay some more. I don't get it. Why can't the employers pay more and we pay less. And then the wait staff's income would be more predicatable too. Basically under a tipping culture like that, the workers are getting penalised for the business having a slow night. Fuck that.
So if you're a small business person in the states it pays to open a restaurant coz you know that wage costs will be transfered to cutomers?
May 10 2007 02:06
#11
thugarchist wrote:
jason wrote:
Quote:
I tip 20% in genral and I'd spit in your food if I was your waiter.Wouldn't you prefer that the employer pays 20% more and that you keep the extra? Do you tip MacDonald's workers?, they get $4.00/hr here and work about 4 times as fast as a waiter.
Here McDoanlds workers get at least minimum wage but wait staff at restaraunts make a bout 2bucks and some change plus tips and have special tax rules about it.
the wait staff at one casino restaurant I know about make 5.65 an hour. They are taxed like they make 34.72 an hour. they write a check to the boss each month to cover their taxes and get a zeroed out check and they don't complain about money EVER.
They were thrilled with their tax rate of about 29.00 an hour.
May 10 2007 02:10
#12
jason wrote:
Quote:
wait staff at restaraunts make a bout 2bucksBut that's the whole point - surely they only get $2/hr because of tipping?
So if you've got limited spending money and you want to eat at a nice place for someones b'day or something, you get hit with a hefty bill, and then you gotta pay some more because wages in the industry are so low ...because you always pay some more. I don't get it. Why can't the employers pay more and we pay less. And then the wait staff's income would be more predicatable too. Basically under a tipping culture like that, the workers are getting penalised for the business having a slow night. Fuck that.
So if you're a small business person in the states it pays to open a restaurant coz you know that wage costs will be transfered to cutomers?
wow you don't understand restaurants or hospitality for shit.
1. Try taking away the tipping culture from most waitstaff and you will have your head cut off.
2. If you take away tipping and pass the cost back onto the boss, that meal is going to cost alot more, because they will pass on the cost of the wages to you. Like every other business.
3. 95% of restaurant go out of business in the first year. Low wages don't make the business more profitable.
As a side note, many tipped staff consider themselves professionals or entertainers. They are proud of their customer service, and think that they get better tips the better they work. They would not want to have equal pay because in their mind it encourages bad service.
May 10 2007 02:13
#13
Quote:
As a side note, many tipped staff consider themselves professionals or entertainers. They are proud of their customer service, and think that they get better tips the better they work. They would not want to have equal pay because in their mind it encourages bad service.
let's hear it for piece work!
May 10 2007 02:24
#14
sorry revol that the workers don't want what you tell them to want.
May 10 2007 02:33
#15
anarcho-bolshevik wrote:
sorry revol that the workers don't want what you tell them to want.
I was working in restaurants when you and your anarcho punk federation mates were dumpster diving from the back of them, dickhead!
In any decent restaurants i've worked in the workers have always split the tips equally amongst the waiting staff, which goes along way to undercutting intra worker conflict.
May 10 2007 02:46
#16
Quote:
2. If you take away tipping and pass the cost back onto the boss, that meal is going to cost alot more, because they will pass on the cost of the wages to you. Like every other business.
OK, its a zero sum game then - under whatever regime I'm gonna pay the same, fine. But that still means that the staff get penalised for a slow night. You get more on a saterday than on a tuesday even though you work the same amount of time. That's what happened to us when I was delivering pizzas and we signed with a union that saw a change from an hourly rate to a per delivery payment. We all made less overall but were spending the same time at work. On a week night you were left twiddling your thumbs and time dragging, but stuck at work knowing you're not getting paid for it.
May 10 2007 03:28
#17
revol68 wrote:
anarcho-bolshevik wrote:
sorry revol that the workers don't want what you tell them to want.I was working in restaurants when you and your anarcho punk federation mates were dumpster diving from the back of them, dickhead!
In any decent restaurants i've worked in the workers have always split the tips equally amongst the waiting staff, which goes along way to undercutting intra worker conflict.
Sorry asshole but at 99% of shops workers don't split tips and don't want to.
You anarcho-purists are worse than stalinists tryingt to tell workers what we want and how to really be working class.
Get a grip.
May 10 2007 07:02
#18
anarcho-bolshevik wrote:
Sorry asshole but at 99% of shops workers don't split tips and don't want to.
You anarcho-purists are worse than stalinists tryingt to tell workers what we want and how to really be working class.
Get a grip.
... in the meantime, you're telling him what workers want and how to be working class. in fact, judging by your wording, you seem to be removing him from the working class altogether: "...worse than stalinists trying to tell workers what *we* want..."
last i heard, not all workers are/believe/think the same. to pool the tips like revol mentioned is no less working class than not doing it, no matter what the majority practice is.
you a socialist of some sort, AB (judging by your nick - yup)? then seems odd you'd be going on like this. if you're a socialist, you've got ideals about how things could be and ought to be. and, if you're going by what the majority of workers do and dont want, then you might as well throw socialism down the trash bin too - wouldnt be surprised if it was even higher than 99% today that didnt want socialism. so you a Liberal yet? no? didnt think so.
as for the tipping thing - another example of crappiness of Capitalism in general, but the reality of the situation today means not tipping/tipping poorly tends to suck for the workers, so you'd best tip. i kinda doubt that anybody in this thread is gonna go out and start refusing to tip workers just because they think it has crappy roots. i hear trotsky tried to do that in new york once. heard it didnt go too well.
May 10 2007 07:35
#19
anarchobolshevik is a business union syndicalist.
May 10 2007 07:41
#20
A mate of mine works part time in a Bengali restaurant. I've asked him about tipping. He tells me that the general practice is that the tips all go to the owner, unless you give them directly to the waiter.
May 10 2007 09:04
#21
IT depends a lot on the place.
In England some places ll the tips are pooled and then split by staff (so kitchen staff etc get a share) other places individual staff keep their tips. With tips I haven't heard of owners taking tips although it seems like something that they'd try. I do know that few places pass the service charge onto staff.
Although we got a tremendous amount of shit in a restaurant for once because we tried to not pay the 'optional' servie charge and give it to the waitress. She got really pissed off for some reason. So we halved the tip. Dunno why we bothered. She tried to trick us into ordering extra side dishes too.
May 10 2007 09:09
#22
knightrose wrote:
A mate of mine works part time in a Bengali restaurant. I've asked him about tipping. He tells me that the general practice is that the tips all go to the owner, unless you give them directly to the waiter.
Tipping is bullshit because it passes the risks of business onto the worker, not the bosses. Of course bosses should pay higher wages instead, but they don't, so that being the case I always tip well.
Over here lots of places split tips over the restaurant, despite a-b claiming to know it all, otherwise kitchen staff get fuck all. One of my sister's restaurants she worked in the boss kept all tips, this seems to happen in a lot of places as well.
May 10 2007 09:24
#23
revol68 wrote:
anarcho-bolshevik wrote:
sorry revol that the workers don't want what you tell them to want.In any decent restaurants i've worked in the workers have always split the tips equally amongst the waiting staff, which goes along way to undercutting intra worker conflict.
You were a waiter, now i know where you get those charms...
We never saw anything downstairs.
May 10 2007 14:03
#24
I've never worked anywhere where we didn't split the tips, whether it's been in a restaurant, café, pub, whatever. Apart from one tearoom where my colleague would just give me all of her tips too because she thought that the money would make more difference to me than to her. I always thought that splitting tips was standard practice - does AB live in the UK, 'cause it might be different elsewhere or something.
May 10 2007 14:09
#25
I used to work in restaurants and pubs, dishwasher usually. In most places "back of the house" staff got tipped out at the end of the shift.We never ever filed the tip tax, and most wait and bar staff i've ever known cheat like hell on it.
As I understand it, the reason for the restaurant minimum wage is tips. Of course tipping keeps wages down but I'm damned if i know what can be done about short of the overthrow of capitalism.
Tip like crazy when you can afford to. Budget it in if you're planning a celebratory meal in a pricy place. I eat out a good bit in pizza joints, pubs and such like. I make it a habit to tip heavily the first few times, and afterwards as i can afford it, then i don't feel a bit quilty if i don't and nobody has ever complained to me.
If an owner is stealing tips a community responce of some sort is in order.
May 10 2007 15:23
#26
Way back when I used to work in the back of the house at one of those shit "we got crazy stuff on the walls" chain restaurants. The waiters only shared tips with the dishwashers at their own discression. It seemed to work out and almost all the waitstaff did it. The other 3 restaurants I worked at there was no tip sharing. Personally, I think tip sharing is cool but that really depends on the specifics of your workplace. Questions like, "whats the average wage in the back of the house, and the average wage of the front of the house", and "is the boss getting his hands in on the tips" should all be considered. In the broad sence however, I think the tipping concept is a creation of the greedy boss class. All that it is does is shift more of the risk of the business on the workers backs. Now, just because I think that doesn't mean that I don't tip ffs. I understand its how it works now, but I don't like it.
May 10 2007 16:30
#27
thugarchist wrote:
No. Its a generally accepted practice worldwide. I've travelled fairly extensively and always tipped and will continue to do so. And non-tippers are cunts.
It is very typical of the Americans to travel the world, and not quite realise that it isn't exactly the same as home. Lots of countries have completly different culure regarding tips. I found America one of the strangest. It seems like a 20% tip is obligatory, and part of the charge. I don't think that the rest of the world is like that. Of course, maybe by fairly widely travelled he means that he once left his own state. You never know. 
Devrim
May 10 2007 16:43
#28
Grace wrote:
I've never worked anywhere where we didn't split the tips, whether it's been in a restaurant, café, pub, whatever.
Ditto.
Thugarchist and AB are so full of shit it's not even funny. Whenever I got tipped it was more to do with the income and attitude of the customer concerned than whether i kissed their ass enough. They maybe a victim of the American-centric world view (like most Yanks it would seem). My friend who waits tables in Pittsburgh flirts her ass off with anything male and it counts for about half of her income.
May 10 2007 16:48
#29
Yeah, Americans always tip loads; it wouldn't surprise me if American tourists are somewhat taken advantage of when they're in countries that don't traditionally always tip. I know I didn't correct a bunch of Americans when they gave me a massive tip just for tea and scones.
May 10 2007 16:48
#30
The issue of the bosses stealing the tips comes up where they put a "service charge" on the bill. There is then no guarantee that it goes to the workers. It is very common in restaurants on this side of the pond for these "charges" to go on the bill.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpeh/0309001.html