[madeofpalk]

> less than 15% requires the server to be noticably rude or inattentive.

As an Australian, in a country that doesn't have a culture of tipping, I find it very amusing that you would tip a server who was noticably rude.

Edit: For context as well, tipping is on the rise up in Australia, but only at classier/fancier/modern/hipster places, and the extent of a tip would be to round up to nearest $10 (or note, if paying cash)

[bunderbunder]

Tipping in the USA goes something beyond just being culture. We've even got it ingrained into our laws. Minimum wage for servers is barely nominal, and much less than what anyone else in the restaurant is making. It's expected that customer tips will form the bulk of their earnings. So if you believe that people deserve to be paid a living wage for their time even when they're not at their best, the status quo places the onus to make sure that happens on you.

[madeofpalk]

The circular reasoning is what gets me - they get less than minimal wage because they earn tips because they get a poor wage because they earn tips because...

[rhino369]

Tipping predates minimum wage law in America. When they were written the laws just took into account the fact that some people get paid in tips.

Americans got the tipping culture from Europe before it faded away in Europe.

[mikecb]

It's a ratchet.

[rahimnathwani]

> the status quo places the onus to make sure that happens on you.

The onus is on the employer, not on the employer's customer. Implementation varies by state: http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm

Some states have a higher minimum cash wage (before tips) than the $2.13 mandated by federal law. e.g. in California this is $9 per hour.

In many places, the employer (restaurant) is responsible for topping up the employees' wages if wage+tip doesn't reach the state's normal minimum wage.

[vertex-four]

Of course, there's no real protection against being fired for failing to make enough tips... and for those who make over minimum wage on tips right now, not tipping them amounts to them making less money.

[sukilot]

Do you work for minimum wage? But you expect waiters to smile for it.

[darkarmani]

> We've even got it ingrained into our laws. Minimum wage for servers is barely nominal, and much less than what anyone else in the restaurant is making.

That's only if the tips don't make up the difference to get to minimum wage.

[jacalata]

That's the "ingrained in law" he was talking about. The law assumes tipping, else it wouldn't make sense to have that exception at all.

[darkarmani]

Ok, i agree and don't agree at the same time. The law does make accordance for tipping, but it doesn't assume tipping or it wouldn't require at least the "real" minimum wage.

[zkhalique]

Anyone remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fJCjet2e3U

[joshmn]

Think about it: if we weren't tipping our wait staff, service would be awful, yet, if we paid our wait staff a livable wage, the prices at restaurants would increase ten-fold.

[SilasX]

Restaurant meals aren't 10x more in no-tip countries.

[deciplex]

This line of reasoning needs to come up a lot more, across a wide range of topics from universal health care to cab service and everything in between.

The US is unique in a few ways because it has oceans on either side of it, and is otherwise isolated. In most other respects, what works anywhere else should be expected to work there. If other nations can make restaurants work without forcing employees to take less than a pauper's wage from the owners, and thus depend on cultural norms and customer's generosity to live, then so can America. If other nations can get all their citizens health care, then so can America. If other nations can have elections without spending many billions of dollars, then so can America. And so on.

And if Americans for some reason can't make these things work, it is about time for its people to start looking for the fault within themselves, their government, and their society, rather than discarding the ideas as unworkable, because the rest of the civilized world has already proven them out.

[joshmn]

I might have been exaggerating, but my point is that labor is the most costly thing to restaurants.

I've worked in restaurants and I've waited tables at a very high-level. There are your entry-level Applebee's servers who have no experience, are in the "survival career" category, or have no aspiration to do anything but work at Applebee's. They should earn 3-4x minimum wage, or about $24k a year.

Then you have your more respectable chain: Ruby Tuesday's. 4-6x or about $40k a year.

Something in the middle: Longhorn Steakhouse, 5-7x.

Above that you start talking about restaurant professionals, where they expect to see at least $80k a year. Prices are now 14x, but your server? They're damn good at their job. Never seen a professional in action before? Go to your city's equivalent to Manny's Steakhouse[0].

[0] http://www.mannyssteakhouse.com/

[sukilot]

Making up a stream of arbitary numbers doesn't explain anything to anyone.

[walterbell]

Less middlemen between farm and plate?

[UrMomReadsHN]

>I find it very amusing that you would tip a server who was noticably rude.

Yes, it is an absurd system. Basically, employers offload the responsibility of paying their employees on customers. So a tip is not a tip, it is an expected surcharge. Sure you can not tip, but its incredibly socially unacceptable. Furthermore, most people leave the same tip no matter what. Even if you had an exceptionally good or bad server, many places pool tips anyways.

When I was about 15 my friends and I accidentally forgot to leave a tip for the waitress. It was truly an accident. She followed us outside and to our car asking us for her tip. We got her to go back inside and then ran away because we weren't going to give her money after that...

[bobbles]

Yeah and a cabbie not giving full change is seen as 'tipping himself' rather than.. you know.. stealing?

[infinotize]

It is stealing but it gets lumped into the "things that happen in NYC that screw you over" category where you lose patience over in taking more seriously past getting your own money back.

[acjohnson55]

I've never experience that, but then if I'm paying cash, I ask for the specific amount of change I want back.

[meowface]

Waiters in the US make an average of $4.63 and median of $4.00 per hour [1] from their employer in wages. They make the rest of their income in tips. If you don't tip, you're potentially taking a not insignificant chunk out of their pay for the day.

In the US, it takes fairly extreme circumstances to not tip (by most people's standards at least; some people just never tip, but they're a tiny group), like if the service was extremely bad or the waiter was insulting or hostile.

Employers are legally required to chip in if the employee doesn't make minimum wage for a pay period, so it's not completely insane, but it's still a rather weird system.

[1] http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Waiter%2FWaitress/Ho...

[madeofpalk]

Yeah I mean I understand all of that, I just think it's crazy. As a consumer. Vox said it well with "consumers should not be responsible for paying the incomes of a restaurant owner's employees".

I find it hilarious how much intelligent and smart people rationalise the US tipping culture. It's always justified as you need to tip because the staff are paid low because they make it up in tips. It's circular reasoning.

[johngalt]

Why do you go to a restaurant rather than buying food from a grocery store and eating at home? The service aspect is what you pay for when going out to eat vs just buying food.

Tipping is about connecting the buyers and sellers of services directly. How does sending the money through a manager/owner result in better or more cost effective services?

[rjbwork]

Honestly, I go to a restaurant so I don't have to cook. If I could get top steakhouse quality (or indian, or italian, etc.) food from a counter where there's no one between me and the cook, I would, but I can't, so I don't, and I'm forced to tip someone I don't even want involved with my food in the first place.

[johngalt]

There are places where you order from a counter and tipping is not expected. You aren't going to find 'steakhouse quality' because people who want $50 steak from a counter is small.

[madeofpalk]

What I said elsewhere in the thread:

IMHO, one of the employers responsibility is to pay their staff. I don't think that's really arbitrary, it's commonly accepted across the world.

If you're in the service industry, it's your job to be nice. That's what their employer (hopefully) pays them for.

If I have a good or bad experience, I exercise my discretion by choosing whether to go there again. If the employer notices a trend downwards in customers, it's their responsibility to assess what that is - hopefully their in touch enough with their business to identify if it's because of their employees service and 'apply pressure' if need be.

I guess ultimately it comes down to culture. I (and the large majority of the non-US world) isn't accustom to paying 10%+ extra for bad or rude service and it would be very hard for us to understand why that happens.

[k-mcgrady]

>> "The service aspect is what you pay for"

Nope. I pay so someone else cooks my food and I have a nice selection. In fact anytime I've eaten at a restaurant in the US I hated the service. They just won't leave you alone because they want to be your friend so you will tip them. I don't need you to check how I'm doing every 10 minutes.

[jmccree]

Tipping is the original crowd funding.

[waterlesscloud]

Consumers pay 100% of the incomes of a restaurant's employees.

[madeofpalk]

Well not directly.

Why, as a consumer, am I making a decision on how much the staff will earn that day. That's the employer's responsibility. Why doesn't the restaurant owner set the price of what they sell accordingly to cover all costs (incl. wages)?

In Australia, the price I see on the menu is the price I'm charged and the price I pay. That includes wages!

[mod]

>> some people just never tip, but they're a tiny group

In my experience, they're not tiny. I'm a young male who owned and worked in my own bar in a poor area of the bible belt, so there's those caveats--but I averaged about 8% in tips over 2.5 years.

My niece, on the other hand, averages over 20%.

My service was in all likelihood better than hers--at the time, we had fewer customers and therefore I was literally able to do more. Further, I'm well-liked by my customer base, and by my own measure I was an excellent bartender.

Anyway, I had a very large amount of customers who did not tip. I'd say > 30%.

[lotharbot]

> "I averaged about 8% in tips over 2.5 years. My niece, on the other hand, averages over 20%."

Can you clarify the circumstances here, namely:

- does she work in your bar? If not, how similar is the place she works (same city? Same type of neighborhood? Same type of services?)

- did you work the same hours / days / crowd demographic? (There may be a difference in tipping expectations on Wednesday mid-afternoon when people are getting a single drink after work, vs Friday night when they're getting multiple drinks and food and trying to impress their date.)

- were there significant changes in the surrounding area, such as a factory opening or closing, that changed customer demographics?

- are there other wait staff you can compare to that would show a pattern? For example, are women in your establishment generally better tipped than men?

[mod]

Sorry it was unclear.

Yes, same bar.

Over time our clientele has changed (we intentionally changed it, mostly via pricing and what we carried, like nixxing 'Best Ice'), however that has just led to increased sales, rather than an increased percentage for her.

My nephew also works in the bar now, and he is tipped well, though not as well as my niece. I would venture a guess that the old crowd tipped women better than men, and the new crowd tips based mostly on service.

Either way, I got the short end of that stick.

[otoburb]

>>My niece, on the other hand, averages over 20%.

Were you able to figure out why?

[mod]

I just posted more about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844833

But no, just speculation.

[acjohnson55]

I speculate that people are less likely to tip barstaff than waitstaff, but I don't have any sources to back that up.

[mod]

In the anecdata of my family & friends who have done both, they have come to expect a higher percentage on bar tabs (~20%) than on restaurant tabs (~15%).

There's a ton of factors to consider, of course. Some people get angry when drunk, some get loose with their money, some try to impress. Some people are surprised by large bar tabs and feel cheated. And all the normal factors, like that certain groups are notoriously tight with their money.

[madeofpalk]

> Employers are legally required to chip in if the employee doesn't make minimum wage for a pay period,

My own (very uninformed) assumption is that employers would be reluctant to make up the difference and employees would hesitate following this up in fear of getting in their employers 'bad books'

[jonesdc]

At first I thought your comment may have been flawed but you clearly recognized that the restaurant owner must cover the pay difference.

How is the average/median less than the federally mandated minimum wage law? Could the waiters themselves be under reporting tips?

[meowface]

The average isn't counting tips. Sorry if my post was misleading in that regard.

It's very possible a waiter could be making $4.00 in wage per hour but average out to something like $18/hour when you account for tips, and I think this is pretty common in mid-tier restaurants and up. (My numbers may be way off for that; I've never worked in a service industry.)

Waiters serving establishments in wealthier areas can potentially make a lot of money from tips.

[tzs]

If you do not tip, they have no way of knowing if the lack of tip is because you never tip, or because you were displeased with the service. A small tip resolves this ambiguity.

[lotharbot]

It's somewhat common to leave a two-cent tip to signify you were displeased with the service.

[mikeash]

A low tip can send a stronger message than no tip. If I was really upset with a waiter for some reason, a one-cent tip would convey my displeasure much better than leaving nothing at all. Not that I've had occasion to do this.

[infinotize]

See also above poster who feels 20% is not a high tip! To be fair most tipped workers do not make enough without tips and are allowed to be paid well under the minimum wage if they work in a tipping industry, so by not tipping at all you are really screwing them over.