Couldn't agree more! ^ ^

From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
Main Entry: tip, Function: noun: a gift or a sum of money tendered for a service performed or anticipated: see GRATUITY

Main Entry: gra·tu·ity, Function: noun: something given voluntarily or beyond obligation usually for some service

Otherwise it's called wages/salary/rip-off!

As a confused foreigner myself, may I ask a question? I understand that tipping in not in your culture a way to reward great service, but a way to provide a decent wage for the waiters.

However, what's the rationale linking the pay of the waiter with the bill the client have to pay? I mean, the amount of time spent by a waiter to serve a three course meal composed of cheap courses and a three course meal featuring caviar, lobsters and truffle is exactly the same. The time spent to poor a crappy wine in my glass, or a Petrus 1947 is exactly the same. Why ordering expensive food and wines should result in giving a better pay to the waiter? I am in no way limiting his ability to wait at other tables by ordering an extravagant meal, so it's really a bonus.

Well, as a response: the customer is supposed to receive a higher caliber of service in a fine (read, expensive) restaurant, hence the justification for 15% on the higher tab.

In terms of wine, you are not expected to tip 15% on expensive (>$100) wine. You should instead substitute a flat surcharge on bottles of wine. (I use $5 as a guide).

Actually the alternate definition that applies in this case:

Government mimimun wage laws and government tax reporting regulations all confirm that tipping a waiter is the basis of most of his compensation. Failing to tip a waiter (or other tipped position) is literally expecting the worker to serve you for free. IRS regulation impute tipped income to the waiter. The waiter may be literally paying (through taxes) to serve you.

We can certainly debate if the present system is fair or is the best way to handle it. There is no debating that the tip IS the wages/salary for the waiter.

I travel a lot for the last few years (last year 220+ nights in hotel) and tend to tip:
* waiters
* bellboy if they carry my bags (but I do not use bellboy for only carry-on)
* maid (on average about $1 a night but sometimes $5 on a 4 night stay)
* hairdressers
* taxi - I tend to round it up but usually get reimbursed for it
For hotel conceirge and front desk staff, I tend to do Belgium chocolates at Xmas or when I leave if they had been good to me.

I am now in a place where tipping is not expected normally but still tips occassionally when the service has been very good even though it is not the norm.

But I resent being required to tip and those people who still expect a 15+% tip even when the service has been lousy. I had a friend in the UK that actually called the manager at a restaurant in London to the table and got him to remove the service charge from the bill since the service has been terrible.

Just my 2 cents :D

If you recall the surprising comments, please post here. I have heard some whining from regular-pay employees when they are not given a gratuity by the customer -- unbelievable!

Is this true? In California waiters make $6.75 an hour?

In that case I see no reason to tip at a restaurant at all. Non-tip dependent wage and no smoking section (part of the restaurant service IMHO) ==> no tip.

Usually I eat at In 'N Out Burger. :)

Most of you people are hilarious. Are you serious? I would love to see you all exist on $3.00 (or even $6.00) an hour. Republicans.

I'd love to see all these people making $6.00 an hour react to the amount of money I spent educating myself...

Tip Jars May Be Coming to Wal-Mart
 

I believe I heard somewhere that Wal-Mart may be putting tip jars next to its check-out lanes. That would help the public who may be concerned about compensation being inadequate.

"I'd love to see all these people making $6.00 an hour react to the amount of money I spent educating myself..."

And what does that have to do with the issue? Or are you that self-centered?

This is something of a pet peeve, right up there with companies trying to collect charitable contributions from customers rather than giving them themselves.

The jobs in question should be paid on salary. If you get to a situation where tips get significant, it WILL be noticed by the company, which will cut salaries, tell employees to live more off the tips, and then not pass on any of the savings to customers. Just ask skycaps.

Not only that, but as soon as one company starts doing it, others will say they have to follow suit "to be competitive."

Of course, what goes around comes around. People have to have money if they're going to buy your product. That's a big part of the reason the U.S. economy hasn't done so well in the past 5 years, and if you pull out the psychological support from home-price appreciation, it could get far worse.

In research for the other tipping thread, I came across this BBS entry:

"California does not permit tip credit, so your compensation must equal at least your local minimum wage. In San Francisco Minimum wage just went up to about $9 with c.o.l.a."

If accurate, this means that in San Francisco, the base pay for waiters and bartenders is not a sub-minimum-wage, but is nearly 10 dollars/ hour. Can any current SF resident confirm this?

If true, this would remove the normal and customary reason to tip waiters and bartenders in San Francisco. It would be interesting to know how many people have adjusted their behavior accordingly.

.....

min wage in SF
 

is now 8.73 per hour...and I have no doubt it has affected people's tip behavior....but look at our COL and you will understand that isn't as much as it sounds...

plus you pay taxes on EXPECTED tips - if you declare less than 15% tips on your tax return you will be charged for under reporting income.

This is drifting a little off-topic, but I believe that the New York Times ran an article this past weekend about supermart discount store employees who do not get paid health insurance and so they work a limited week in order that they remain below the poverty level and thus qualify for taxpayer-financed health care, i.e., Medicare. I don't know how many employees such a situation represents however.

If I saw a tip jar at a place like that, I'd turn right around and walk out (in much the same way as I do not purchase products made in China, when discernible).

What's wrong with "Made in China?"

It's likely a product that was made by a grossly underpaid and possibly underage person working for a totalitarian government.

plus you pay taxes on EXPECTED tips - if you declare less than 15% tips on your tax return you will be charged for under reporting income.[/QUOTE]

From the IRS: "If you are a large food or beverage establishment (more than 10 employees on a typical day and food or beverages consumed on the premises), you are required to allocate tips if the total tips reported to you are less than 8% of gross sales."

Servers must report tips of 8% (or more) of gross sales, or their employer will come under the scrutiny of the IRS. In recent years the IRS has been trying to hit restaurants with more FICA and Medicare taxes which the restaurant (and worker) must pay on tip income. Many servers are not happy that they must now report almost 1/2 of their income. A friend that's a waitress says to always leaves the tip in cash, even if paying the bill with a credit card.

Exactly. What alot of people do not realize is that servers are not always paid minimum wage. I know some who are only paid $2.00/hr legally. They also have to pay taxes on at least 8% of their total sales so their paychecks are often $0.

What bugs me more then the tip jars, which I just ignore is the extra line on room service tickets. They are already charging an 18 percent service charge but you look like a jerk not adding more. I now make it a habit to ask if their is a service charge included so I don't end up looking like a cheapskate.

I have, at one time in my illustrious college career, been a waitress (for Red Lobster and for Tony Roma's).

We were paid $2.01/hour (min. wage at the time in Florida). We had to declare at least 8% tips on all food bills (including alcohol, but not taxes). Frequently our wages for two weeks came to less than $10, but we ended up with about $200-$300 in tips. We didn't have to tip out busboys or bartenders (which some servers do), so it wasn't too bad.

As for California, remember that they have a very high cost of living. My dad lives in SF, and makes about $110K a year -- if he lived in Gainesville, FL (where I live) that would be the equivalent of $45K. Decent, but certainly not great for about-to-retire salary. $6 an hour, even $9 an hour, won't go far in that area.

In Scandinavia (bringing this back to travel), I've been told it is rude to tip, as that brings the possibility of the wait staff wages being reduced to below a living wage.

I agree that it is silly for the customers to pay the waiters wage. However, when I WAS a waitress, I enjoyed the fact that, for once, I was getting paid for what I did. If I was kind and helpful, my tips reflected that. If I was surly and sour, they reflected that as well. In few areas do you get such a perfect match between attitude and pay.

The system is broken... do we trash it and start again? Or let it slide farther into the hole?

Tipping Jars should be ban! Just ignore them. If you really want to give out your loose change, just look for the jars that accept money for charity.

Tons of these stupid jars on the counter-tops at our local fast food joints. What the heck??

"No. I pay them for the work they're doing. The only people who should get tips are restaurant waiters and your hairdresser."

Actually, I get my hair cut at a salon that explicitly requests that you do *not* tip them. Makes me far more comfortable really. I pay a reasonable price to begin with and get a professional job done.

I treat it all as karma.... i've been blessed with supportive family and enough intellect to have a comfortable lifestyle. Though i don't open my wallet for every tip jar I see, begrudging an extra buck or some change here and there seems petty and i'm happy to share my good fortune with those who are working to take me places, make me comfortable, or otherwise serve me.

As for waitstaff, having waited tables and bartended my way through my own six-figure education, including working nights the first two years to augment my lowly initial professional compensation, i know that i personally worked very hard to make sure that people had a great time and experience when seated at my tables or bar. That said, I knew damn well that the cash i was able to earn at those service jobs beat nearly any other option i'd have had at that point... by working my way into top scale places I was making more, $30+/hour, working 3 nights a week than i was at my day job. To me, THAT was disgusting. My last summer waiting tables I upped it to 5 nights a week and saved up over 10 grand to pay off the balance of my student loans before switching professional jobs.

one other thought regarding the percentage based on sales (that is, a waiter getting 15-20% for selling higher priced items, etc.).... in some ways you have to think of it as a commission. The waiter is effectively a sales person for the restaurant and so it's similar to compensation for a typical sales role, only the customer is paying it (somewhat discretionarily). If it was added in advance and you didn't see it, they would likely still be compensated on this type of commission basis. My favorite trick was selling $40 lobsters; the restaurant would only stock 3 per night but i would often be able to sell all three to a table of businessmen on expense accounts having a pissing contest by telling them about the special "but there are only three left so you have to let me know right away if you want them and I'll run back and save them" - when i spotted the right table this ploy would work close to half the time. Ka ching, there goes my per head for the night (this was a place with average main courses in the low 20s).

Probably getting a little OT here, but if you really think about it, compensation is based tyically on just a couple of variables: you can be compensated for your time (no one wants this b/c it's finite), your knowledge/skill, taking the right risk, or perhaps your uniqueness/rareness (though this is somewhat a subset of knowledge/skill). I pay our head of sales 25% commission on the gross revenue he brings in. This is somewhat a compensation on skill/knowledge, but honestly he is replaceable so I see it more as a risk play... he's risking earning nothing. That said he will pull in a half million this year but i don't begrudge him a penny because he signed up and took the risk and made it happen. He is not curing diseases, contributing to world peace, or really any other macro societal contribution other than making the world go around. Nor am I. My value as a human does not increase because i have acquired the right knowledge or taken the right risks to be well compensated for what I do, so I find it difficult to make a value judgment about someone else 'deserving' a tip or not. I suppose this is where i circle back to karma and my general sense of feeling good by being able to share, in a very small way, my good fortune with those i come into contact with.

Thankfully this is one U.S. custom...
 

..that isnt spreading to the rest of the world.