I don’t know why, but dumb ideas always seem to start in California and spread elsewhere. The latest is a demand that San Francisco restaurant patrons pay a mandatory 25% tip:
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/99.7 Now) – It’s a question many of us ask when we go out to a restaurant. “How much should I tip?” Whether your service is good or bad, San Francisco Restaurant workers want to implement a 25% standard tip onto your bill for you. Is this fair?
Many in the food industry say “…yes, it’s about time.” However, many “foodies” are not as happy with the idea. According to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, for the most part, people, on average tip between 15% – 20% and the restaurant worker actually has to claim 15% of that to the IRS.
Opinions that sway against the increase said that “…the whole purpose of a tip is to reward service.” They feel the new tip increase should be earned and if more is needed, then they must step up their service so that the increase justifies a larger tip amount.
Actually, there is a growing movement within the food industry towards mandatory tip sharing by employees. Coupled with mandatory tipping, this would mean that there would be no incentive for waiters persons to try in any special way to please their customers, the result being that customers will start cutting restaurant meals out of their budgets, and more and more restaurants will simply go out of business.
I think it’s tough to graft the entitlement idea onto something that is entirely optional, which restaurant eating is. No one has to eat out, and tips are in theory supposed to be earned.
Furthermore, I consider myself a generous tipper, but 25% seems a bit steep.
Comments
15 responses to “Tipping as an entitlement”
Dumb ideas, prop 13.
Dumb ideas, actor politicians.
Scenario 1:
Waiters: “We want more from you in tips!”
Guest: “Why don’t you just ask for a raise from the restaurant?”
Waiters: “Because they won’t give it to us and they said they’d fire us if we asked again!”
Guest: “So, why do you need more money?”
Waiters: “Because!”
Guest: “Okay, then, why don’t you go find a job that pays more?”
Waiters: “????”
Scenario 2:
Guest: “Gosh, your prices went up.”
Restaurant owner: “We’re paying our waiters more–we want to award the best performers.”
Guest: “That’s cool. Do you have a table in Mel’s section–we think he’s your best waiter.”
Germany/Austria had included tips at most restaurants, and probably still does.
mit or ohne Bedienung.
Some countries frown on tipping in restaurants, (Australia, Finland), their point is they pay their waiters a decent hourly wage.
Result, poor service, high prices, empty restaurants.
(A mandatory tip and tip sharing is just 25% higher price for poor service.)
I rarely eat out, but when I do it’s at a locally-owned restaurants where I try to be on a first-name basis with the servers and (especially) the bartender. I tip well, and they know this. In return I get great service and excellent drinks. Would this be the case if tipping was mandatory?
It would be interesting to chart the college majors of those advocating for mandatory tips. Methinks one would find lots of the lefty squishy majors in that crowd.
I have heard people here in Berkeley argue over what politically correct and desexized word should replace the words ‘waiter’ and ‘waitress.’ The 2 leading contenders are ‘waitperson’ and ‘waitron’. I go for ‘waitron’. The word ‘waitperson’ makes me think of a person standing at a bus stop waiting for a bus to come.
Waitron makes me think of a sexless robot. I use waiter or waitress as appropriate.
“Server” is the politically correct name.
I used to wait tables and I was very good, I figured I’d failed if you had to ask me a question, I was the one who was supposed to be asking questions.
I was tipped very well generally (Until I moved to the Lovely Utica, NY metropolitan region) and I never added a tip even though many places suggest/allow you to when there’s a big party.
I routinely got 25% or more, but making it mandatory is stupid.
I tip very well, unless I get bad service and then I tip like crap.
I would just not eat out in San Fran, where it’s probably expensive to eat anyway as the cost of owning a restaurant has be high (rent, food, energy unionized illegal aliens washing dishes, etc.).
Mandatory tips are a bad idea. Even if they were implemented–25 per cent is a little highbin my opinion. I think 20 per cent for good service is adequate. You can either have mandatory tips at a modest rate (12-15 per cent) or no mandatory tips with the chance of getting a big tip. Not both.
Eric, can’t you just hear Edsel Ford Fong yelling at you …you no leave tip, you SOB, you leave, NOW, you bastard…
http://classicalvalues.com/2010/02/the_pol_pot_of/
One of your finest posts.
Veeshir,
I would just not eat out in San Fran, where it’s probably expensive to eat anyway…
You’d miss all the fun. There are a number of cheap Chinese restaurants, and a few Italian. An Italian joint named the U.S. Resaturant on Columbus used to have great cheap food. You found your own seat at long tables with benches and old wooden chairs, and usually ate across from strangers who after a bottle of wine became friends. The house wine was homemade “Dago Red” so you added a little water and a sugar cube to each glass. The restaurant got its name at the beginning of WW2 when the Italian/American owners wanted to show their patriotism and equal dislike for Mussolini, and put a printed sign in the window reading: U.S. RESTAURANT, in bold letters.
Thanks for this. I know our economy isn’t as much of a meritocracy as we would wish it to be, but that doesn’t mean we need people to be actively undermining the meritocratic parts that do exist! Sigh. Ah well, sooner or later they’ll learn you can’t repeal the old laws of S & D.
Wait staff have been making themselves unhappy for years with their inflated understanding of their deserts in tipping.
To begin with, any tip is optional on the customer’s part. The waiter knows this when he takes the job.
Custom, however, has dictated that stiffing the waiter for any but wretched or insubordinate service will ensure indifferent service in the future; the customer also knows the waiter receives sub-minimum wage in return for the opportunity to compete for tips.
That being said, 15% has always been an adequate tip for adequate service, and the waiter should have no complaints or negative attitude toward customers who tip at this level. Only exceptional service deserves 20%. The best waiter in the world rarely merits 25%. Those who work in very expensive restaurants cannot expect these levels: they cannot seriously contend their services are that much more valuable simply because the ingredients and kitchen staff are pricey.
In the last fifteen years, wait staff decided that 20% was the minimum tip they would accept with good grace, no matter the quality of their service. Their unmerited dissatisfaction–so often on display to the customers– hurts their employers’ business, and so hurts their own pocketbook. This attitude puts their work in the category of bad service, and such should be lucky to receive a 10% tip.
Wishing government to dictate a 25% tip for worthless service is greedy and tyrannical. The great majority of waiters aren’t even worth 15%. The drop in business subsequent to such a law would be well-deserved by the waiters. It’s a pity they would drag down the owners and kitchen staff with them.
It’s the 25% that’s galling. And it just stinks of union. It’s that little extra they want to squeeze out of everyone else so that they can have what they think is their “due.” Thus, Detroit. Because most businesses live on the margins, adding 5% to the cost of every transaction is just outrageous. And making it mandatory?!