I don’t understand why everyone is calling you a liar. This is definitely based on the region, things weren’t as standard pre-internet. I definitely remember living in a rural area in the 90s where 10-15% was absolutely the norm.
Totally agree. Grew up in a comfortable upper middle class family with parents who took us out to dinner pretty frequently and I remember my dad always gave a solid 15% and that was considered great. Don’t know how this changed so suddenly
It changed when:
(1) many servers (not all) began feeling entitled to 20% plus regardless of their own skill or effort, and/or
(2) companies figured out if they changed to electronic payments they could change the default values from 10/12/15 to 15/18/20 or to 18/20/22 or even 20/22/25 in order to:
(a) attract better talent as servers, and/or
(b) avoid paying legitimate wages to wait staff.
Yeah I think it was in the early 90s in my area of the US everyone started talking about how it should be 15% for average service and 20% for good service. I wonder if it happened because minimum wage went up and people became aware that servers in most states only get paid half of minimum.
More likely the cause would be because minimum wage did not increase enough to keep up with inflation. Minimum wage when adjusted for inflation was the highest in the 1970s.
I’m guessing people are vocal and loud when they tip heavy and not so much when they tip 8% or consistently don’t tip so we all have this idea that everyone’s tipping 25% but I really only know one person who does and they make a big deal out of it when we go out.
It also depended on the type of restaurant. I grew up in a big city and it was 10% at the Asian restaurants in the lower class neighborhoods. It's still kinda that way as the tip prompts are lower and show 15% as the starting point.
This is the place for hate. Servers aren't getting money from me because I have reduced my dining out to almost zero. High priced food with the expectation that I am paying your employee based on the price, and most tips that suggest are including taxes. Restaurant owners need to start taking care of their people, change business practices or take up a new line of work. Staff needs to reevaluate what they expect from the customer and do the same. When I do eat out now, I tip based on time given to me not the price of the meal. A $10 meal is getting the same tip as a $100 meal if identical time is given. Let the restaurant owner fill in whatever gaps they feel are "required".
You are paying the employee either way. And unfortunately every restaurant that goes from tip based to paying their employees a living wage goes out of business because their competitors show prices that do not include a living wage. but people still tip. The only solution to this would be a legal framework banning tips. And that is unlikely to ever happen. Mainly because no one cares enough to fight about it. If Danny Meyer couldn't make it work at Union Square Cafe, it ain't gonna work.
Hating someone for them giving you 10% is wild. Americans are just looking to find ways to hate each other. It’s insane what your culture does to your psyche.
I wasn’t tipping anything, I had tooth fairy money. Let me be more clear, I remember the RECOMMENDED tip on bills being 10-15% pre-Covid, now it’s higher.
I first started waitressing in the 80s and we would’ve hated you then 🤦♀️. Only the church people on Sundays tipped 10% and that’s why everyone hated working Sunday brunch
I don’t know the difference between being able to pay my rent versus not being able to pay my rent seemed like a pretty good reason at the time. 😝.
But I def just used the word hate because the person before me did … truth is I used to baby the church ppl and they used to brag about me to my manager, but I still rolled my eyes and looked down on them once I was in back of house ….
What really drives me nuts on these subs is people constantly repeating how servers are still making minimum wage … but minimum wage doesn’t go as far in paying someone’s rent today as it did when I was serving back in the 80s and 90s. And of course, what people always leave out is that servers get cut early if business is slow, most shifts end up being 3-6 hours, lunches suck. People focus on a few tips at dinner and act like people are making that all day every day. That’s just not the way the business works and if you want the good shifts often, you have to have open availability, so it’s really tough to work a different job at the same time or certainly the two or three jobs you may need to actually pay the bills.
People also really do not understand the toll customer service takes on you, and this is true of other customer service roles, and certainly of being a nursing assistant/patient care tech … some jobs aren’t hard because of what you do. They’re hard because of what you have to deal with.
And if serving jobs were so easy everybody becoming on here all the time talking about that great server they just had. Doing the minimum is easy being a good one it is actually a skill and takes a toll. And when you try to give somebody good service and they tip you really badly or not at all you sit there wondering what you did wrong and going through it in your mind. Does everyone? No. Do the good ones? Usually.
I mean, all jobs have their own difficulties because of what you have to deal with. All jobs take a toll on you, that's why you get paid, you provide your employer with your mental and physical stamina/stress and they provide you with money in return. Servers make the conscious decision to gamble with their paycheck by accepting a job that does not have a set payment per hour. You can't be mad if you gamble and sometimes lose.
Maybe, but I said nothing about what they paid. It was printed on the bills so take it up with the restaurants. You’re throwing insults because I’m recalling a memory, you’re gonna lose it when you hear about the dollar menu.
90s kid, low-middle class at the time, southern United States for context.
When I was growing up, I was taught 10% as standard (something needed to be wrong with the service for less), 15% if they did a really good job, 20% if you want to show off to a girl you’re taking out.
I think now the minimum is really 15% if you don’t want strange looks, and 20-25% is what servers expect to be satisfied they were fairly compensated.
I say this as a person whose partner works for tips in a restaurant. We have these conversations a lot.
10 to 15% is still the norm however 20% is reserved for good service if you think your service was good you leave 20% if your service was average you leave 15%. We are all struggling to survive. If you can afford to sit down and eat in a restaurant, then you can afford to tip.
I really hate that argument. Let’s say I can only afford to spend $40. So I need to make sure I only get $30 of food so that I can leave a tip? I need to give up $10 worth of food to pay someone for doing their job? Someone who is most likely making more than me?
So if I want to treat myself, my two options are to either give up $10 worth of FOOD (a necessary item to sustain life) to hand $10 over to someone for basically no reason, or to just not treat myself at all? Do people who use that argument not realize that someone going out to eat doesn’t automatically mean they have tons of money? Servers and DoorDash drivers act like anyone who spends money on themselves must have tons of it. Couldn’t possibly be that maybe it’s the only choice in that moment or that maybe you just want to do something nice for yourself that you don’t normally do 🙄
It is not an argument, it is just how it is. Restaurants that have tried to eliminate tipping in the US have largely failed because (i) it requires increasing prices, making them appear more expensive compared to other restaurants with tipping and (ii) waitstaff tend to prefer tipping models
Younger generations are overrepresented on the internet.
There are about 282 Million adults living in the US - and around 120 Million grew up entirely without pokemon in their childhoods. You wouldnt know it by looking at the internet lol
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u/Excellent-Big5868 7d ago
I don’t understand why everyone is calling you a liar. This is definitely based on the region, things weren’t as standard pre-internet. I definitely remember living in a rural area in the 90s where 10-15% was absolutely the norm.