Tipping - Good Idea or Bad Idea

MementoMori · February 14, 2011, 9:43pm

[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:

[quote]MementoMori wrote:
Look all I’m saying with the matter of tipping out is this. A server makes 8 dollars an hour. They tip out based on what is sold and who they serve.So if you don’t tip they still have to give money to their support staff.

Someone who does not tip on a 50 dollar meal creates the following

is taking 1 hour hour away from a table that could hypothetically tip. (-7.5 dollars)
are asking for a service that requires a reward for the management, bus boy, bouncer and cook -20% tip out of sales (-10 dollars)

So if you go and spend an hour and don’t tip on a 50 dollar meal you have cost that server 17.5 dollars for that hour in lost tips and mandatory tip out, BUT they still get their wage(8 dollars)! Effectively that hour made that server -9.50. They paid to serve you!

This is the reality of their job. [/quote]

I’m only on page two of this shitty thread and I’ve already seen you make some of the most asinine posts I’ve ever seen on T-Nation in the course. This one has to take the cake. I’m sure some other person that doesn’t suck at math and logic as bad as you has pointed this out in the course of the next 15 pages of this train wreck, but jesus christ.

You are telling me that 100% of a 20% tip goes to management, busy boys, cooks, and bouncers? That is the only possible way you can come up with a -$10 figure in this instance. That is absolutely comical.

LOL!!!
[/quote]

Damn right you didn’t read the rest of the pages since every argument you brought up was adressed ad nauseum. I’ll give you a quick run through though. We’ll start from the top.

Good Table= 1 hour work on 50 dollars. 7.50 cents tip.
Bad Table= 1 hour no tip. 7.50 gone in OPPORTUNITY COST.
Good Table- Tipped out part of tips to support staff
Bad Table= Tipped out support staff out of own pocket because no tips were given. -whatever fucking amount you want.

So those two factors right now cost the server at least 10 dollars over what they would have made at another table in the exact same amount of time. Given the fact that that is one hour of pay in Canada and 3 in the United States that is a big deal!!

MementoMori · February 14, 2011, 9:38pm

[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:

[quote]MementoMori wrote:

3 dollars man! 1 buck each. Bathroom guy just ignore him if you really don’t want to tip him. 2 bucks…

Cover is also a hectic job. [/quote]

How do you justify not tipping the bathroom guy but mandating a dollar be given to a bartender for handing you a water from the fridge???

[/quote]

I tip both and have worked both. You go to a bartender and demand a service you go to a bathroom and decide whether you want the attendant’s service or not. I already answer this braaaah.

MementoMori · February 14, 2011, 9:45pm

[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:

[quote]MementoMori wrote:

My meaning is that regardless of how it happens: the average servers wage is around 25-30 dollars an hour. Just because there is some place that makes way less and there is unemployment doesn’t mean that server doesn’t deserve their money.

That logical applies no more to a server who just so happens to reserve tips than it does to you.

As for my making of buck. On a saturday night I make maybe 38 per hour. But I put in alot of work while the bar is closed to make that possible so the average is closer to 25.

What a person makes though is irrelevant to how much they helped you. I tip because my bartender/server/barber did me a long personal service, one for which their salary does NOT reward them.
[/quote]

This is so stupid I don’t even know where to begin…you really think the average server in america makes 30 fucking dollars an hour?? LMFAO…you live in a fucking fantasy land…I don’t know the stats (but that makes two of us) but there is no way in hell the average server makes anywhere close to that…that is just funny

You keep arguing that these professions are not being REWARDED with their base salary…NO SHIT!!! that is exactly what October Girl has been saying from the get go but you are too dumb to realize it…do you not understand what LIVING WAGE means? Or can you just not comprehend what she is saying when she says she wouldn’t mind them making it??? holy fuck man…[/quote]

I’ve worked in 3 restaurants and 4 night clubs. I know how much we make. I’m not a server I’m a barback and I average almost 30 dollars an hour. This has been discussed over and over. Keep reading, you’ll get there.

I’m well aware what her base point is. My base point is I’m not King Shit and neither are you. I know what a server makes and think it’s not enough. Rather than bitching about it online though, I tip. Big fucking deal.

MementoMori · February 14, 2011, 9:57pm

One last thing. Most arguments here are devolving to “the owner is innappropriately rewarding the staff so why should I have to foot the bill.”

Sure fine argument. If you don’t go to the restaurant you punish the owner.
If you go, and don’t tip, the owner gets just as much money and the 18 year old paying for university gets fucked. Thank god some of you have such high moral fortitude.

VTBalla34 · February 14, 2011, 10:07pm

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
I’m not Scottish (as indicated by the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA tag below my avatar) but if you don’t think British folks have more world travel experience than Americans, I don’t know what to tell you[/quote]

Coming from an island that is smaller than many US states (including Michigan) and bordering the multi-nationed European continent it stands to reason that Britons would have traveled out of country more on average than many U.S. citizens.

My point is you are implicitly trying to demean Americans for not getting out more when a basic understanding of rudimentary geography should solve the mystery as to why the average US citizen doesn’t have a colorfully stamped passport.

Distinctions. They’re always important in a discussion.[/quote]

Ok, I was only replying in terms of Britons because you for some reason pulled Scotland out of thin air…still not sure where you really wanted to drive on that tangent, but regardless…it is farrrrr off topic…how about you insert “X COUNTRY” for “SCOTLAND” and still argue that point…

That must explain why I never see any Australians in my travels to Europe…ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wait a minute, that ALWAYS happens…lol…they must have gotten teleported here against their will…amazing how I seem to run into more people from a country with 8% the population of the USA who are half a world away, than I do Americans…weird how that works…but you know, I don’t have even a rudimentary understanding of geography, so everything I say is certainly indistinct…

I find your willingness to go on such a wild tangent of who travels the most amusing, since it doesn’t relate at all to the topic. Whereas my point that Americans don’t get out much certainly did, as evidenced by the posters on this thread that think somehow the restaurant industry is not sustainable if companies actually pay their employees…

The fact is that the restaurant industry is alive and well in all these scary SOCIALIST countries where, you know, employees are compensated by their employers and not by the generosity of strangers…

hrmmm compensated by generosity of strangers…almost sounds like a handout…ut oh…

VTBalla34 · February 14, 2011, 10:11pm

[quote]MementoMori wrote:
One last thing. Most arguments here are devolving to “the owner is innappropriately rewarding the staff so why should I have to foot the bill.”

Sure fine argument. If you don’t go to the restaurant you punish the owner.
If you go, and don’t tip, the owner gets just as much money and the 18 year old paying for university gets fucked. Thank god some of you have such high moral fortitude.[/quote]

I think all people want to say here is that it is a shitty situation, and should change…

I am quite a generous tipper myself…I start out at 20% and move it up or down from there…mostly up…there are rare occasions when I will stiff a server, but they are few and far between and the server had to have been evident in not making any effort whatsoever…

Hell, I even tip 5-10% on most of my meals and drinks in Europe…

The fact of the matter is that good tippers are carrying the weight while shitty tippers are sliding by…almost like welfare…whereas if the process was standardized across the board by including the workers wages in the price of the food, it would all even itself out…

Big_Banana · February 14, 2011, 10:23pm

[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
I’m not Scottish (as indicated by the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA tag below my avatar) but if you don’t think British folks have more world travel experience than Americans, I don’t know what to tell you[/quote]

Coming from an island that is smaller than many US states (including Michigan) and bordering the multi-nationed European continent it stands to reason that Britons would have traveled out of country more on average than many U.S. citizens.

My point is you are implicitly trying to demean Americans for not getting out more when a basic understanding of rudimentary geography should solve the mystery as to why the average US citizen doesn’t have a colorfully stamped passport.

Distinctions. They’re always important in a discussion.[/quote]

Ok, I was only replying in terms of Britons because you for some reason pulled Scotland out of thin air…still not sure where you really wanted to drive on that tangent, but regardless…it is farrrrr off topic…how about you insert “X COUNTRY” for “SCOTLAND” and still argue that point…

That must explain why I never see any Australians in my travels to Europe…ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wait a minute, that ALWAYS happens…lol…they must have gotten teleported here against their will…amazing how I seem to run into more people from a country with 8% the population of the USA who are half a world away, than I do Americans…weird how that works…but you know, I don’t have even a rudimentary understanding of geography, so everything I say is certainly indistinct…
[/quote]

One of the reasons Americans don’t travel so much is because there is so much to see and do in America without the hassles of international travel.

I always laugh when a colleague is going to NY for a week and he thinks he can just hop a train to LA for a few days. No idea as to the scale of the States.

Gambit_Lost · February 14, 2011, 10:25pm

Eh, I’d use the same excuse that most of us Americans use. For a Brit “going abroad” means taking a few hour drive to London and getting on a train to Paris or maybe a couple hour flight. If you take that same number of hours traveled, most Americans would fit the bill, just they’re traveling from Wisconsin to Illinois or Ohio. When I’ve been “further abroad” than Europe, I generally meet more Americans than Brits. Although I suspect that has to do with our greater numbers. Lots of Brit travelers, but lots of Americans too. I wouldn’t know the stats, but I suspect that “controlling” for miles traveled, Americans move around just as much. Most of my family has “never been abroad” but will tell you all about their trips to Canada.

VTBalla34 · February 14, 2011, 10:31pm

[quote]MementoMori wrote:

[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:

[quote]MementoMori wrote:

My meaning is that regardless of how it happens: the average servers wage is around 25-30 dollars an hour. Just because there is some place that makes way less and there is unemployment doesn’t mean that server doesn’t deserve their money.

That logical applies no more to a server who just so happens to reserve tips than it does to you.

As for my making of buck. On a saturday night I make maybe 38 per hour. But I put in alot of work while the bar is closed to make that possible so the average is closer to 25.

What a person makes though is irrelevant to how much they helped you. I tip because my bartender/server/barber did me a long personal service, one for which their salary does NOT reward them.
[/quote]

This is so stupid I don’t even know where to begin…you really think the average server in america makes 30 fucking dollars an hour?? LMFAO…you live in a fucking fantasy land…I don’t know the stats (but that makes two of us) but there is no way in hell the average server makes anywhere close to that…that is just funny

You keep arguing that these professions are not being REWARDED with their base salary…NO SHIT!!! that is exactly what October Girl has been saying from the get go but you are too dumb to realize it…do you not understand what LIVING WAGE means? Or can you just not comprehend what she is saying when she says she wouldn’t mind them making it??? holy fuck man…[/quote]

I’ve worked in 3 restaurants and 4 night clubs. I know how much we make. I’m not a server I’m a barback and I average almost 30 dollars an hour. This has been discussed over and over. Keep reading, you’ll get there.

I’m well aware what her base point is. My base point is I’m not King Shit and neither are you. I know what a server makes and think it’s not enough. Rather than bitching about it online though, I tip. Big fucking deal. [/quote]

Your sample size is inadequate…I conducted my own double blind placebo study…errr…did a bit of quick research on the internet at a trusted salary site and came up with the following info for food servers ($21,202):

And for bartenders ($17,121):

I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that barbacks do not make more than their bartending counterparts…

I remember in my food serving days I would work about 25-30 hour weeks, on average ($13/hr food serving, $11/hr bartender)…unless the average bartender in America is only working about 11 hours a week, that $30/hr figure is looking pretty generous…

I think $11-$13/hr sounds about adequate compensation given the education and skill level required…there are fantastic servers out there, but lets not kid ourselves here…

I once had a professor that told us that if you were gonna be good at one thing, be good at math…math is how you can tell when they’re lying to you…

Big_Banana · February 14, 2011, 10:33pm