tipping

Oh no Jenny! The only reason I ever used to shill drinks is it was the easiest way to double your tip in a jiff (and it was pretty lol in Mormon country as it was way easier to get someone to buy a strawberry lemonade than a beer).

dance major = somehow knows to do handsprings/prove bendiness whenever the male gaze 'pon dem.

that actually describes the male dance majors I know much more accurately than the female dance majors I know

And the most flagrant examples of both sexes generally go to Sarah Lawrence.

Abbot, I know!!! At the redneck bar where I worked, the only way I was able to make anything even vaguely resembling a living was by dumping lots of Bud Light down their gullets. Plus then in the semi-find dining setting, the bottles of wine and cocktails are the real money makers.

I took a totally unscientific poll after that dinner, and most people I knew (incl. some long-timer servers) had never heard of such a practice. Conclusion: dude is wicked cheap (which is a sad conclusion because dude was a six-figure big law associate).

I think the idea that these iron laws of tipping exist is pretty silly.

I mean it comes down to: this person is getting you stuff and you want to say thanks. 15%ish is the socially accepted guideline, but I mean, if I order a $30 steak instead of a $5 salad and all the waiter has to do is bring me the plate, I don't think the waiter really deserves 6x the tip. so I tend to overtip in case #2 and undertip in case #1.

Ugh I just keep thinking of that episode of Friends where Rachel's dad (?) took her and Ross out to dinner and paid for all the huge meal, booze etc but was leaving a stingy tip, so Ross tried to sneak some cash down to bump up the tip and Rachel's dad was all "OH YOU THINK I'M A CHEAPSKATE, PAY FOR THE WHOLE THING YOURSELF IF YOU'RE SO AMAZING"

When a family member visited us in the US it was like that at every meal, without the accusations of cheapskating but it was kind of implied. At least he had the excuse he wasn't from here.

a 20 percent tip on a 5 dollar salad alone is one dollar

tipping scales linearly, sorry iatee but you are a disgusting savage when it comes to tipping ;_;

also that is not "all the waiter has to do"

I was kind of embarrassed to go out for a meal w/some friends & they all were busting out their little cell phone tip calculators so they could come up w/exactly $0.78 as the 20% tip. And asking the server for change (coins from dollars!) so they cld leave that exact amount for him. Which would not have been so bad if he hadn't had to come up w/8 individual checks, and if we hadn't all been sitting there for *three hours.* I left him over 1000% tip (still not that much) bcz I felt so bad about my friends leaving him a little pile of pocket change.

I mean over 100%

my range of tipping is like 0-30 tbh

iatee you know that waiters are paid less than minimum wage and have to make it up through tips, right?

one thing I am ruthless on is getting short-changed; if that happens, I don't tip, period

(in this age of credit/debit cards, that rarely happens, tho)

my waiter friends make more money than my non-waiter friends who are in crappy jobs, so I don't have much pity over that

but yes, I do know that max

i hope all yr waiters go pee in yr salad

OTOH have you ever had servers give you back more? Say they owe you $10.38, and they give you back $11. A pretty clear ploy for a bigger tip but also a nice gesture of potentially reciprocal generosity. This happened to my friend & she was so confused she just left the extra $0.62 as a tip & nothing else. I covered for her once again. I think I need to quit going to restaurants w/this girl.

I tip 20% on the total and only vary if the service is horrible (in which case I may not tip - but only if it's really egregious) or just bad (15%) and that's very, very rare. I hardly even think about tipping, it's just automatic.

She is a simple girl who is used to eating at Chipotle.

my waiter friends make more money than my non-waiter friends who are in crappy jobs, so I don't have much pity over that

― iatee, Monday, March 1, 2010 2:27 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

are you only eating at restaurants where your watier friends are working, and only getting served by your waiter friends?

huh?

nobody I know works at fancy restaurants

and I don't eat at any

im just saying--your waiter friends salaries arent necessarily indicative of waiter salaries in general. and if your non-waiter friends are getting paid less than your waiter friends, it doesnt make it ok to pay waiters less--it makes it wrong that your non-waiter friends arent getting paid enough

When my sister does a shift she can make $200 in tips easily, at a sports bar full of regulars.

I dunno why I'm coming off as some anti-tip person...I tip over 20% a good % of the time. but I'm not gonna pretend like waiters have it worse than most people in crappy jobs. what people 'deserve' to be paid for anything is a neverending economic argument.

in college i worked at one of these Mississippi casinos just south of Memphis and made ridiculous money. like less than $200 in tips was a bad night. There's a good chance I'll never make that kind of money again from my "straight" job. also i had crazy good health insurance and still made around $6.50/ hour (this was like '99 - '00).

maybe should have stayed put after graduation, come to think of it

were you a waiter or a dealer?

I feel like I'd be too stressed out to be a casino employee, knowing that my every move was being watched at all times.

AND GAS WAS $1.12 I TELL YOU WHAT

Damn, maybe I should move to Tunica. But I'd probably spend my paycheck in the poker rooms.

i was a bartender. well i barbacked for the first 8-10 months, and it was still pretty sweet $$$

x-post yeah i watched a lot of my bartender brethren drop their night's earnings on the craps table after work. "hey, there's always more tomorrow" (I'm cheap and gambling makes me nervous, so i came out alright)

my range of tipping is like 0-30 tbh

― iatee, Monday, March 1, 2010 2:25 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
iatee you know that waiters are paid less than minimum wage and have to make it up through tips, right?

― max, Monday, March 1, 2010 2:25 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'm pretty sure max, that iatee is talking about tipping 0% when service is atrocious or something like that.

better to drop it on a craps table than with a meth or coke dealer (like many a bartender I worked with)

^^ oh yeah some of that, too. there were a lot of sad stories tbh.

When I was young, someone sent a letter to Dear Abby (I'm pretty sure it was Abby, not Ann Landers, whose near-identical column also appeared in my local newspaper) complaining that person X always hung the roll of toilet paper with the loose end hanging off the back, not the front.

This one letter ignited more letters of response, over a longer period of time, than any subject ever raised in her column. It was a raging controversy that lasted for months. Proponents of front-hanging and back-hanging harangued one another ceaselessly, exhibiting a passion for this subject far in excess of anything one could have imagined.

Reading this thread reminded me of the Great Toilet Paper Controversy, for some reason.

There must be something appealing about tipping as a micro-drama - the way money, class, ethics, principles congeal into something that everyone has a take on. There are now over 1,000 comments for that NY Times blog linked to upthread...

mission accomplished for one dickhead blogger, sadly

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/hey-waiter-just-how-much-extra-do-you-really-expect/?hp&apage=43#comment-627205

^^^^^ <3 people who've just taken Macro 101

Hahaha, it comes w/a reading list.

Of course, for really bad service, it's preferable to leave a miniscule tip (like $0.05 or so) rather than nothing at all, so the server won't miss the point and assume you merely forgot.

"who figures he can pay you the minimum wage of $4.65 for servers"

still $2.35 in these parts iirc

$2.13/hour is the federal minimum wage for tipped employees. It is higher in some states, but if the employee's tips do not result in the employee earning the regular minimum wage for that state, the employer is supposed to make up the difference and bring the employee up to minimum wage.

oops yeah i think i meant $2.13

which hasn't changed since min wage for non-tipped employees was still sitting at $4.25. or before?

This is potentially interesting: http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm

Yeah, the fed min wage for tipped employees has not changed in a long ass time.