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Home > Can You Stand Another Tipping Entry?

Can You Stand Another Tipping Entry?

August 16th, 2007 at 05:52 am

We will be going out for Mexican food for lunch tomorrow. It'll probably be about $40 plus an $8 tip. One thing about this restaurant is the service is never, ever bad, its always above and beyond, so I always plan the tip in ahead of time. I've stopped going to places that have bad service consistently, so pretty much of the time I've got the amount of the tip planned out ahead of time.

I know I am anti-tip, or rather anti-expected tip a lot of the time, but I do tip well. I came out of the service industry, I know both sides of it. To me a tip is a gift. And well earned. Many things go into it, including the friendliness of the waitstaff, the number of times she (or he) comes back to the table (too many is just as bad as not enough), how busy the restaurant is and how many tables I see her serving (if she's covering the whole floor, she gets a lot more leeway in my book!), if the order is right, etc. But friendliness and order right is my biggest thing.

The attitude I am seeing lately tells me too many people have forgotten this. It's like the kid who gets $20 from grandma in their birthday card every year and if one year grandma only sends a card and the kid calls up and says where is my money? They've come to expect it, forgetting it is a gift. I guess that is my thing with tipping. It should never be taken for granted. But I live in a state where restaurants must pay minimum wage before tips and if I didn't I think my views would be different on that score.

I saw a tip container on Baskin Robbins counter today. I was walking by on the way to the store and I always look at all the little shops as I go. I'm sorry, this one just got to me. It is your job to scoop ice cream and put it on a cone or in a bowl. How the heck does that qualify as a tippable service? That's the whole job.

Okay, I know they now have some pretty fancy ice cream coffee drink thingies, which I don't order when I do go in, but I'm sorry, those are not that hard to run, anymore than an espresso machine is. I've run a high quality restaurant espresso machine. It's not rocket science though places like *$ would like to make you think it is. I'd love to tell one of those baristas to try running a restaurant kitchen through a $5000 lunch rush, with only 3 other employees in the kitchen and then they could whine to me about how hard it is to steam milk and squirt chocolate and dump flavoring in a shot glass and mix the drink just so. I mean come on. Only I can't do that in a *$ because I don't drink coffee.

Maybe they should just change the word. Change it from tip to gift or server bonus or something. I'd be much happier giving a good waitress a bonus or gift then an expected tip, that's for certain.

6 Responses to “Can You Stand Another Tipping Entry?”

  1. dtjunkie Says:
    1187263781

    Thank you! I think you articulated what I meant to get across in my post a lot better.

  2. Ima saver Says:
    1187266357

    Our state only pays $2.15 an hour. They deserve to be tipped.

  3. Nic Says:
    1187268819

    Utah servers are paid $2.15 as a starting wage. This just plain SUCKS! As a result, most are VERY good at what they do. Re:Baskin Robbins tip container--Many of the servers are also running back and forth for the indecisive morons who want to try a taste of everything and spend a buck (if even) on a very small container of ice cream. Of course. They're too full after all of the FREE tasting.

  4. wyozozo Says:
    1187279340

    Our state only pays $2.15 an hour. They deserve to be tipped.
    No, they don't. They don't DESERVE anything other than $2.15 an hour. (Which is outrageous) Tipping is a gratuitity [Definition: money given in appreciation: a small gift, usually of money, given to somebody such as a waiter as thanks for service given].

    I too have worked in the service industry. I never expected a tip but was thrilled when I got one. I knew I was being rewarded for good service. Just as I now reward for good service. Or not as the case my be. And I've even been know to warn them that they are blowing their tip!

    I think the problem with tip jars is that a majority of employess are starting to believe they DESERVE a tip. Self-entitlement is running rampant and this is just another of example of it.

  5. Kikee Says:
    1187284835

    " " "Our state only pays $2.15 an hour. They deserve to be tipped."

    """ No, they don't. """


    I agree. Minimum wage here just recently was raised to $7.15/hour. I'd be VERY interested to see how many waitpersons would rather be paid a flat $7.15+ an hour over the current 2.65 plus tips an hour. I am going to guess that the MAJORITY would rather take their chance(s) on tips. 15+ years ago, my youngest sibling worked as a waitperson. They only worked Friday and Saturday night (from 11 PM until 7 AM - the restuarnat was open 24/7) and on average earned $75-100 a night. Call me crazy but that is NOT peak restaurant hours and the place served no booze and was not a fancy place. Sure, they got gipped a few times, but.... that is the exception, not the rule! I CURRENTLY make about double that a day, BUT, I am taxed on all of my earnings, not only the amount I choose to declare. @@

    Tipping = non-taxed income (not all of it, but most of it)

    Granted, you couldn't pay me to deal with the public the way waitpeople have to. I personally, believe it or not, have no problem with tipping, I just don't feel sorry for anyone who gets them!


  6. fern Says:
    1187293402

    I suspect that some employers have instituted a tip jar so as to somehow justify paying their employees abysjmally (pardon spelling) low wages.

    The Baskin Robbins tip jar reminds me of the whale watch we did up in Maine. Now, the normal price is $50 for adults, not CHEAP. When we disembarked, they had a gal holding a tip jar whom you had to walk past. Like what exactly did they do to earn a tip beyond whatever they are getting paid?

    Tipping should be limited to service-oriented jobs where the definition of 'service' is variable. The staff on the whale watch boat did no special service that i could see beyond their normal routine of running the boat.

    Another thing they did which I HATED was that while we stood in the hot sun, about 100 people in a line for the boat, as we passed along thru the roped area, they 'required' everyone to pose for a photo, which they later charged $20 to sell to you once you got off the ship! Making everyone pose for that dumb picture really slowed things down and made it uncomfortable for all to wait.

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