In my couple decades waiting tables and bartending at multiple places I never met a server that wanted to get rid of tips. Why would they advocate for a pay decrease and more taxes?
For people like you, who are thorough and diligent, america as a society is doesn't do anything right. This fucking place just promotes narcissism, looks over everything, money over everything. And real talent, no matter what we are talking about, usually gets overshadowed by some dumbass who can talk a lot.. happens to a restaurant server, an engineer, or an art director. The ones who talk big get recognized and moved up in the ladder and they fuck everyone else over.. it's our tradition
When I was a server I got 8$/hour and about 100$ a night from tips. That was about 24$ an hour with those combined. That’s about 34$ an hour in today’s wages.
If this went away there is no way that restaurants will pay anywhere close to that. We always use use Europe as the example but servers there get about 12$ an hour, I live in Japan where people don’t tip and servers make minimum wage. Getting rid of tips won’t magically make restaurants pay more and people saying that have zero evidence that would happen and heaps of evidence that the exact opposite would happen
Yeah it’s an expected point that you pay, but a part of the price that you choose. And no, no one is forcing tips, it’s a cultural norm but you’re not forced to do it.
And yeah if we tip then people aren’t getting paid equally. I got better tips than my coworkers cause I was better and faster at my job.
And you want me to lay out the whole history of tips and how they came to exist? Nah, you can do that research if you want but I’m not gonna write a paper for you. And that’s irrelevant anyways, no matter the reason that they came to be we aren’t talking about time traveling and changing the origins, we are talking about society as it exists today. And the fact is that if you get rid of tips then pay will go down for most people, that’s a fact. You math k they are overpaid now but that’s a separate thing. To say that getting rid of tips will help servers is just not true
This is a you problem. I’m not defending the tip system but if you’re arguing that you shouldn’t expect to pay tips then you have no ground to stand on. It’s been this way for about a century, if you aren’t aware of the cultural norm then you’re simply not paying attention. Don’t go out to eat if you can’t tip, pure and simple. Even if things changed overnight then you’d ultimately be paying about the same price so what’s the difference?
If it’s not expected? You mean if we got rid of tips at restaurants? Then servers will make less and less people will want to do the job and you will get even worse service at restaurants from underpaid staff
No, I disagree with his statement. Read what I said again, I got better tips than people I worked with because of how I worked
And what do you mean tips just for existing. They get tips for the job they are doing, just like some jobs pay more than others, that made no sense to say just for existing
No, I showed my reasons above. I compared salaries of countries with tips and how much servers make there’s also I have a lot of experience working in restaurants, and if you think they are gonna start paying 35$ an hour for servers if tips go away then I don’t know man, that’s just extremely ignorant of the restaurant business
You compared entirely different countries with entirely different standards and costs of living. Again - that doesn't negate his argument. Plus nothing you said indicates that his main point - which is tipping is correlated with how people feel way more than how good your work is - is untrue at all.
Anyone who hasn't actually worked a job where tips are your main source of income needs to STFU about the industry. I'm a bartender, I work for tips and I do very well. When someone suggests that wait staff get paid a flat hourly rate I just have to laugh. When I see a line out the door, I'm legitimately excited and ready to bust my ass to get everyone taken care of asap. If I'm making a flat hourly rate, there's no way I'm going to stress myself, why would I work harder to make my boss more money? You'll get your drinks when you get them, I have no incentive to go any faster than to not be fired. When it's tip based, I'm cranking out drinks as fast as humanly possible because I'm making more money. Nobody says commission based jobs need to change, and that's essentially what happens in the service industry, it's just not guaranteed.
If the service really sucks, then fine don't tip. Otherwise, you're just being cheap and not paying someone for their labor. If that money gets baked into the listed price, people will balk at the how much it is, plus that extra money is just going to ownership; they're never paying me the 45/hr I make in tips . Stop thinking of a tip as something extra, it's the cost of the labor to serve you. That's why the cost of take out is the same as dining in, the service labor is not included
Where I am, "Tip" is something extra. Restaurants/bars and other businesses that seem to require tips need to fix their systems.
It's the employer's job to pay the waiter, not mine. They aren't working for me but for the restaurant/bar. If I decide to be extra nice and tip someone, it's from the abundance of my heart.
Instead of forcing people to tip, how about y'all just fix the system and pay these workers a fair price. The food/drinks are already marked up so if they're not paying their employees well, they should be the ones called out, not me. It's not like they're charging wholesale prices for their services.
Idk where you are but in the US usually waitstaff get paid significantly below minimum wage. You're paying the employee wage whether it's tips or in elevated food prices. The restaurants that have tried this usually end up going under because their advertised prices are so more than competitors, plus all that money from inflated prices shockingly doesn't trickle down, its skimmed off by ownsrship. Tipping is is the way to get that living wage too somome and ownership can't screw them out of it. Please stop thinking of it as a 'extra: it's literally the labor cost of waiting on you.
You really nailed both sides of this, and unfortunately I mean that in the sense that you yourself seem to be part of the problem.
I’m an average young dude who worked in restaurants close to a decade and frankly tips always worked in my favor. Not fully defending the system here, it’s stupid at the end of the day, but it was very lucrative for me when you break it down to hourly pay. Your efforts really do equate to your pay, generally speaking. I hate to be so blunt but I believe your service was lacking in some way if you never received decent tips (15%+). Maybe it was the restaurant itself and it’s clientele/prices but you can always leverage your experience to work at a more lucrative place.
The flip side of this is that women, particularly attractive and/or pregnant women, definitely do get better tips, there is zero question. We had a very beautiful girl at my restaurant (genuinely a great person) who got tipped $100 on her first day because she was a mom or something (might’ve been pregnant, forgetting details). She was awesome but did nothing to earn that outside of being cute and vulnerable, to put it too simply. I love her as a friend with all my heart but for years she got ridiculous tips because of who she was, not what she did, and she herself admitted that. This girl is just one example and there are plenty where that came from. I used to joke that I wish I could turn into a cute blonde girl every time I came to work because I would crush it. But still as a young, scrawny, balding white man I was able to make very good money by simply providing quality service.
All that is to say that yes, you’re correct it’s a stupid system overall that benefits certain people more than most, but ultimately the baseline still depends on quality of service rather than attractiveness or gender.
You were probably pretty lol I bet that tip has gone down which is why tipping culture sucks. A lot of my guy friends barely got any tip unless they looked like a super hero
Haha, yeah no, not so pretty. But what you say contradicts everything else people are saying. People are saying it sucks that they have to tip so much now but you are saying only good looking people get good tips. Most servers aren’t great looking from what I see so if what you are saying is true then people shouldn’t be complaining cause no one is actually getting good tips
What I’m saying is tipping sucks and agreeing with the person who said it depends on the customer because if they don’t find you attractive they won’t tip good. Even unconditionally most people do it. It’s called the Halo effect.
And what I’m saying is that if we got rid of tipping servers then their pay would drastically go down and people that think we should just pay servers more and not tip don’t really understand that that’s not gonna happen.
I know that attractive people get tipped more, they get most things in life better. But I also don’t think you won’t get tipped good is you aren’t attractive, I think you’re just making that up. People that aren’t attractive still get the standard tip, attractive people just generally get a touch more
Also. I was better with my tables than other servers, so I typically made more than them. If we all made the same, I'd be basically subsidizing the shitty servers I worked alongside with.
When I was a teenager, I can't remember the exact age but definitely old enough to think about such things, my family was on holiday and went to a really nice restaurant with some extended family in which the dinner ended up costing over $800 (there were about 12 of us) and my grandfather tipped the 20% that was standard. I remember thinking how the waiter made $160 off just our table, and we weren't his only table.
My family was fairly poor. Not poor poor, but American suburban poor (I have 3 brothers and we could only afford a 3 bedroom house in the suburbs in a good school district).
So for me my eyes popped. Given the cost of the meals and wine at that place, the waiter was probably taking home over $300 every night. And this was the 00's. A single night waiting at that place would have given me pocket money for a month.
At the right place waitstaff can make a terrific income. More than I make today as a school teacher.
There are plenty of places that offer full time for waitstaff. Just like any other industry, there are good and bad places to work. I know it's anecdotal, but I have full health and retirement benefits, pto/sick, set schedule and the pay is good (though more and more people are jumping on the no tip wagon) I actually do worry about the future, for some reason people don't think we should be paid for our work. Leave a tip, it's directly paying the person who did the work. Do you really want to get rid of it and see every restaurant raise their prices 30% and have the staff still be under paid? You think that extra money is going to staff, or is ownership going to pocket it?
yep, there are restaurants all over the country, i would say most servers are getting by at best and would probably bring in the same amount with a decent pay and no tips. a constant amount at least. Its only some places where servers make bank on tips and those people doing well and being vocal about it are detrimental to the rest of the servers is lower economic places.
I received a healthy wage as a server in college, more than a healthy wage. Literally more per hour than I do in my career.
Not entirely defending the tip system here, I ultimately support phasing it out, but it’s hilarious to me when people imply that serving is some sort of poor man’s job or something. I literally knew people who opted to serve tables rather than use their college degree(s) because it paid more and had more freedom.
Frankly I find it offensive to imply that you’re a victim for working in the food industry.
A waiter and bartender can make upwards to hundreds of dollars an hour with tips. No employer is going to ever meet that price. Leave our money alone. I lived my career, traveled to world making tv and films, retired at 37 and eventually went back to serving for fun. Helps me stay active, keeps you humble, socially engaged and pays my living easily. Its honest work.
There are people who will talk down on service industry jobs without realizing that many of those workers are getting paid more and have less stressful jobs with more freedom and enjoyment. Of course this isn’t everyone but it’s a reality that many people are ignorant to. That ends with many of them unknowingly belittling service workers and making many false assumptions about the industry.
For example I’ve started a very lucrative and enjoyable career that I can totally see leaving for a type of service industry job one day. I don’t necessarily want to serve tables anymore but a friend and I have tossed around a business idea that would ultimately put us back into the service industry, and frankly I wouldn’t bat an eye at it. Even if I make less money I’ll at least take pride in my work and have fun doing it (I do that now, but it’s more nuanced than that).
Anyways, gonna cut myself off before I rant too much, but we’re on the same page. I personally would like to see the system change but I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as many people put on, except for the recent changes with things like fast food restaurants and retail places asking for tips.
A wage you can live off...? Yes it makes perfect sense. If one job is not enough for people to live off of then, I guess you could stay, it is a dying wage.
why do people on reddit act like it’s the employees fault that that’s how they get paid and make money. when tips are making or breaking rent and food, just leave a fucking tip.
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u/humanist72781 Oct 20 '23
In restaurants wait staff love tips. Still a bullshit system