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Is Tipping Getting Out Of Control?

AugieTN

AugieTN

Retired IBEW
VIP Member
I've seen a couple of news articles lately that ask, "Is Tipping Getting Out Of Control?"

I was ordering lunch online (pickup order) and i looked at my cart and said something is wrong. When I pulled the cart up it was auto adding a 18% pickup tip.

It just seems like a tip on a pickup order is too much.

Personally I don't like the concept of tipping in the first place.
 
Funny thing, had my Mother's birthday at a sit down restraunt, and the bill for all of us was around 200 dollars, I payed with my sister of course, to treat her for her birthday, I think tipping was around 30 bucks over all., The worst idea was for tipping was I was at like a sit down place with my siblings, and just accidently forgot to tip them even more, I do not have a caculator in my mind or anything, but my brother in law sharp as a tact, replied to me "The sum total is around eight bucks.." I accidently said "one dollar.." Could someone please help me of the tipping, or should I download a tipping app?
 
Uber , Lyft and all the food services are getting very bad, the food service adds up a tip depending on how expensive the food is that you bought ... and then they want delivery fee and a drivers tip to...... you order a burrito or hanburger and end up paying $ 25 bucks.
 
I take offense to a pre determined tip added to my bill. I pay my dining bills with cash and I tip according to service with cash. I then know that the server receives the full tip and they can report it as income if they care to. I would like to say that I always agree with the amount of tip added is appropriate for the service rendered and the server receives all of that tip but I don't.
 
And not to mention the recent "convenience" or "processing" fee that is now often seen attached to a dining bill to cover the expense of processing plastic money. Has this cost been absorbed by the retailer in the past or added into the pricing of meals? I have never been offered a discount for being a cash customer if it is the latter.
 
The problem is when employers pay a wage nobody can live on and so tips are required to survive. And as someone who isn't American but has visited and worked in the USA regularly since the 1990s that's a feature of some service industries out there that is nothing new - though the "normal" tipping rate has certainly gone up, and automatically adding it to bills is relatively new.

And of course the customer doesn't really know what they are doing when they give tips: are they making up for the underpayment of serving staff, of backroom staff as well, or are the owners skimming off also? How honest is an owner who pays wages people can't live off and relies on gratuities from customers to keep their business afloat?

I strongly prefer the sort of system you get in Switzerland, where staff are paid a proper wage and meal prices reflect that (and yes, they are higher as a result). The US system where prices on the menu are artificially reduced (even if they are not actually "low") and the customer is expected to pay extra so that the staff can live is dishonest in several respects. The UK system where staff are often paid badly and tipping is not expected but frequently abused when it happens sits somewhere in between.
 
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The reason that tipping exists is because it is meant for people in service jobs.

These services are a premium, and rven so the profit margins are incredibly low.

In order to keep prices low and to remain competitive, it is prohibitive to pay a 'living wage' to these workers.

Also, this helps to incentivise better service, because waitstaff will make beans if they fail to get good tips.

The current 'acceptible' tipping rate for excellent service is 20%.

It is not hard to get close to that, even if I am horrible at math.
My ollady has some formula that sometimes works, but I can get within 50¢ of her result in just a few seconds.

Basically I figure 25% of the bill, and then take 1/5 from the result.

Also, I will go so far as to make sure that the tip is picked up by the proper folks, because tip theft is very real.
Customers and other employees alike can steal any cash left on a table after a meal.

If you disagree with tipping, here is perspective for you:

I go to McDonald's, where $13-$15 is the hiring wage.
A Double Quarter Pounder (1/2 pound) with cheese is about $8.

If I go to the bar, I can get a 2/3 lbs. burger, unlimited fries, and a pint beer for $15.

Not only is the food serving bigger, it is BETTER, and so is the atmosphere.

I have no real problem shelling out $20 for the latter, because the people at a baror restaurant often pool their tips at the end of the night.

Don't forget that these folks are alsoforced to report these tips and pay taxes on them at the end of the year.

Your tips allow for better service and better food at a reasonable cost difference.

Keep in mind that if I also got the large fries and a large (watery pop, yuck) drink at McDonald's, the bill would crest $10.

Oh, yeah, and who is going to bet me that if I order no onions that McDonald's will screw that up?
They want $15 an hour, but charge me for bacon that never got put on the burger (This happens more often than not. I quit ordering bacon at McDonald's because they have about a 50% success rate of actually placing it on the order, and a 100% success rate of charging for it.)
Notice how McDonald's takes your money BEFORE you get your food, and real restaurants don't expect payment until after you eat?

These blumpkins making $15/hr at McDonald's deserve to be replaced by machines.
Do I sound bitter?
Good, I may very well be.
These people make more than I do per hour, and yet can't get an order right on a cash register that has pictures on it like a toy for toddlers.

Then bitch for years about wanting more money, and yet these places still can't get enough help that will actually WORK- even though they would make dollars more per hour than I do.

So, no, I dont have a problem with tipping because I have worked in restaurants and know that the profit margins do not support a payroll such as other institutions do.

The most failed endeavors are restaurants.
This is not because the food was bad, or other things that McDonald's is guilty of every day.
 
20% can easily be found by taking the bill amount, move the decimal point one place to the left (10%) and times that number by two.
$30.00 becomes $3.000 X 2 = $6.00
$15.00 becomes $1.500 X 2 = $3.00

20% is also one fifth so divide the total by five for the tip.

I leave a cash tip. If the service was nominal, I'll round down the total before figuring the tip. I tip in paper using no change so I will also round down to the next whole dollar. I round up both numbers if the service was decent. I will add to that if I felt the server went out of their way to make my dinning experience special. I never judge my service by the quality of the meal.
 
AugieTN said:
Something that I just remembered is some Restaurants auto adding a health insurance charge to your bill for the employees health insurance. Here's an example:

https://www.yahoo.com/now/restaurant-customer-says-she-charged-002322280.html
Click to expand...
It's California you know that liberal trash bin of state where common sense is banned , the rights of pedophiles must be protected at all cost and criminals needed to be treated with kid gloves because mommy and daddy didn't love them enough
 
In the United States it wasn't until late 70's or in the 1980's that tips began to be taxed . Depending upon the job you had some people pulling in up to $25-$50 k and some making as much as $100k plus a year .
Several years ago I worked surveillance for a las Vegas casino. We had to watch a cocktail server because she had been driving to work in some clunker and one day drove up in a brand new Mercedes or something fancy and someone complained and wined about it and it became an issue for people.
For the surveillance department our attitude was :rolleyes::oops::thinking:
We ended up following this beverage girl for several days. We were trying to get coverage of every single tip she collected and did she follow procedure for reporting them at the end of the shifts.
People in the beverage department got permission to review the coverage and pointed out how we had missed multiple instances of her receiving something from a patrons but we didn't get in video and we would explain that "well to get coverage of the transaction we would have to swung camera xx22 or something around aimed it straight down and not only would we had seen the transaction but gotten a lovely view of her cleavage , here are two problems that camera covers an area where we have slip and falls, etc.
We ended up doing two separate investigations on the same girl. The first one she worked an overnight shift she I think she did right around $200-$300 a night, the next investigation was on a holiday weekend and she did much better.
And yes she did everything by the book, didn't try to hide anything . We found out later on that her husband was a contractor and she had some side job. Needless to say the surveillance department went head hunting :maskeddroid::maskeddroid::maddroid:
 
Here is my personal view point on tipping. I know that a lot of people who work in the service industry rely on tips.
I generally don't go to sit down restaurants but if I do depending upon the service I will tip 15-18% a few times I have left a tip equal or greater than the bill.
There have been times I have gone out to eat and the bill has been $10-$20 and I have left zero for a tip:mad:
Why? Because of horrible service, takes forever to get your food, when you do it's luke warm or cold, you get seated thirty minutes later you get a glass of water, you order a drink (ice tea, diet soda in my case) you never get it.
Where I really don't go to sit down restaurants is the east coast in the United States. The servers are miserable bleeping a holes:mad::maddroid: you try to be polite and you get an attitude, personally the women are the worst, you walk into some restaurant on the east coast say hello to female host or waitress and she has this attitude, gives you the :maskeddroid: stare. like how dare you acknowledge my presents or my existence:maddroid:
Of course I am likeo_O:oops::goofydroid:
There is such a huge different between restaurants on the east coast, mid west and west coast.
 
Thought I would add this since it involved tipping

My first job when I turned 16 was at a restaurant. They hired me as a busboy and it was explained that I would get tips from the wait staff, so I was hired at sub minimum wage.

I never worked as a busboy, they had me washing dishes. After several months of washing dishes I asked one of the managers about it, and it was explained to me that restaurants work under totally different wage rules.

After several more months of washing dishes, I called the state labor wage/hour division. They told me the restaurant was in several states and told me to call the federal wage and hour division. I did and they had me fill out a statement.

The next thing I know is employees from the restaurant are calling me saying federal agents are in the restaurant interviewing all the employees and going through the books. One employee told me management is gunning for me, which scared the heck out of me LOL! Several days later I got a check for wages due me.
 
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