should we ban tipping?

$9 edamame should be banned.

eager for some action on a Friday eh 乒乓

it's been a slow week for me

Salary with benefits provided that the salary is commensurate with what the servers were making when they were tipped. Otherwise restaurants won't pay servers a living wage. Restaurants would probably have to increase prices but as long as don't increase them by more than 20%, it should work out okay (except for people who habitually stiff servers, but they can stay home to eat).

should there be more tipping or less tipping

keep tipping, i love capitalism servers can often make more in tips than they ever could on salary and don't have to claim it as income.

They already banned cow-tipping and fly-tipping, where will it end? Soon you won't even be able to tip your hat in appreciation. It's like 1984.

lets ban tipping

i like your style

Ban tipping. Pay servers. Servers: pay your taxes. Ban tipping threads.

ban you

tipping shld def be banned in america so that poor english tourists don't get that "you're gonna stiff me for a tip aren't you limey" vibe as soon as they open their gobs

The point-of-tipping tipping point.

The tip-as-fixed-percentage (whether 20% or whatever) concept is pretty flawed. A waitress server bringing me a $5 hamburger does basically the same amount of work as a different server bringing somebody else a $20 sirloin, why should my server only receive 1/4 as large a tip as the other? Suppose I eat at a place with spectacularly low prices: Any tips given are then commensurately smaller - even though such a low-priced place presumably already pays them a comparatively lower salary, making those servers even more dependent on tips to earn a living.

Is an automatic 20% gratuity/20% across-the-board salary increase advantageous to the servers? Who can say? Given a choice, some folks would tip a lot less (or not at all); other folks (like me), considerably more. (If I dined at the Gilded Truffle or some other place with three-figure bills, 20% would be ample. But the cost of a Sunday Scramble Special at Carl's Cafe or wherever is so negligable, I think it's almost incumbent to pass the savings on to the server, give 'em a few bucks extra. IMO.)

As for non-waitstaff professions, fuck tipping a doorman. I can open the door myself. Sorry if you're underpaid; find a better job.

(I have never encountered an irl doorman.)

people who hail taxis for you when there is already a line of taxis waiting

keep tipping, i love capitalism servers can often make more in tips than they ever could on salary and don't have to claim it as income.

― Public Brooding Closet (cryptosicko), Friday, June 14, 2013 10:02 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Isn't this less true now that fewer people use cash or tip with it?

they do exist and are mostly just a drain on society's resources xp

people who hail taxis for you when there is already a line of taxis waiting

― iatee, Friday, June 14, 2013 5:27 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh man, seriously.

I don't know if the "they don't have to report tips as income" argument means it's not a requirement or that they can get away with not doing it but:

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc761.html

you've have to pay a(n urban) bartender a v large salary to make up for the amount of tips he or she would lose on a busy night. bartenders used to making $200-500 (or more!) in a night would quit their jobs and we'd all have to drink at home.

or someone would show up and say "yes I will fill up cups for $100 a night"

tbf someone will do most jobs for less than the people currently doing it will

hate to break it to you iatee, but bartendering is actually a skilled profession and in many establishments amounts to much more than 'filling cups.'

bartending interns xp

it's a skilled profession but not a highly skilled profession...I think the $ ultimately comes down to the fact that there's a pretty big barrier to entry and also people in general just don't think about $ when it comes to booze, they'll pay whatever

it's a skilled profession but not a highly skilled profession

only someone who has never had a good bartender would say this

also people in general just don't think about $ when it comes to booze, they'll pay whatever

haha you really dont spend any time in bars do you

also people in general just don't think about $ when it comes to booze, they'll pay whatever

are you out of your mind? i'm much more comfortable adding a dollar to a $5 beer than i would be paying $8 for the same beer w/o tip. especially considering the extra dough is not going to the bartender but to the owner of the business. if the bartender is only making $100 per night or w/e, then that's even more disgusting.

seerrrriouusssly. happy hour is a popular concept for a reason.

haha not that much yeah but even outside bars (restaurants, stadiums, etc) people accept way higher markup on alcohol than on other stuff

xp

they accept it in certain situations (like a stadium cuz hey, they got the edge -- if you want to see the game live you HAVE to be at the stadium. if you don't want to see the game live, you can go to the cheap bar and drink cheap beer.) but OVERALL I WOULD SAY people pay very close attention to what they're spending on booze. have you ever heard people complain about spending $8 on a budweiser to see the mets? of course you have, cuz people do it, but they're not happy about it.

right and people aren't thrilled about $14 mixed drinks in manhattan either but they still do it, I'm not saying people are happy about it I'm saying people are held captive by the alcohol god and suck up outrageous prices

i think you're loony.

I haven't been in Manhattan proper in like 5-6 years but $14 was about the price of mixed drinks then; I'd be surprised if they weren't more expensive now.

"people in manhattan" might not be the best focus group for how the general population perceives and reacts to the cost of things

wine has the highest markup on a menu across the country!

Be srs bartender is not a highly skilled job turn off yr cocktail dvd

tbh, i can't believe your argument has become "no tips and if they're not happy fine we'll just pay someone less to do the same job." cuz, you know, we should all in general be in favor of living wages etc?

I think in the other thread I argued that everyone should be tipped

I don't think bartenders shouldn't make lots of money I just think that most of the reason you can make so much money as a bartender isn't due to it being a highly skilled trade w/ few people capable of doing it

What are these places where bartenders make quid-ag living wages of $500/night in tips? Is it just cocktail bars for bankers or lots of places? If it's the former then presumably the bar can charge eyewatering prices anyway.

my sister bartended in a fairly small town in rhode island and would make enough to cover her rent pretty much anytime there was a red sox or patriots game on tv. in large cities a busy bartender making $1 per drink -- the basic math sez $$$$$

likewise a waiter at a high end restaurant can make lots of money in tips, if you're constantly serving tables with three-figure bills.

*rubs hands* my plan is working

thread needs mordy

there's a homeless guy in my neighborhood who has cornered the market on opening the door at the post office for you as you enter in the hopes that you'll tip him (i occasionally do.) he's also cornered the market on closing the door if it happens to be open as you're approaching.

What are these places where bartenders make quid-ag living wages of $500/night in tips?

i think $500/night is uncommon outside of places with bottle service/venues. fine dining places you tend not to make that high an average because the tip outs a lot higher and you have a lot fewer tables. but $500 is definitely not unheard of it at even p cheap sports bar type places for busy playoff games, parties &c.

during football season i could make almost $500 during a sunday day shift, and a beer at my bar cost $2.

we're up all night to tip well

to get tipsy?

Before the recession, my sister, at her waitressing job at a BUSY suburban Twin Cities sports bar, used to regularly bring home $3-500/night (while tipping her busperson about 10 per cent of that). This from a section with 10 tables or so, where parties of 4 would spend $100 on food and drinks and tip $20-25. Some diners (everyone from people who'd lived in the area for 50 years to Vikings players/coaches) would be there three or four hours and rack up higher bills, while some would just stop in for a burger and a handful of pull tabs on the way home. But she made ridiculous money there and at the bartender's quarterly private parties.

bartenders at fancy cocktail bars typically make less than those at high volume bars

What would be the impact of upping all prices by $1 and raising wages commensurately? Some staff would do better, some would do worse, but on average it wouldn't make a difference. Would people be less likely to buy drinks?

and dropping tipping commensurately u mean

I don't think the "we" this poll will reflect would be a big enough "we" to accomplish the ban.

the only way I could see that changing alcohol consumption is if you think Americans actually prefer seeing lower price tags on things despite that not reflecting the end price (see: sales tax) xp

I get that people like the idea of controlling how much their bartender gets paid but I wonder whether it would affect behaviour if tipping disappeared and bartenders received the same (increased) pay no matter what.

I'm not sure it's as much of a controlling relationship as it is w/ waiters

Isn't there the idea of basically buying better service by giving a big tip at the beginning of the night? I've spent like three weeks total in the US so I'm talking through my hat here but.

ya whereas w/ waiters you just sit there with your wallet and get to judge them, they don't have much room for error

maybe waiters should be tipped multiple times throughout the meal to balance the power dynamic

this will be easier when we're all using bitcoins I think

maybe like with every item give a couple bucks, like with drinks.

"Can I tip you in bitcoins?"
"No"
"Ok, no tip then. You brought this on yourself."

i like tipping because i like rewarding hard-working ppl and i hate tipping because i am terrible at calculating percentages

yeah eventually when the world has touchscreens everywhere it'll be like a NYC taxi and you'll just press whatever % tip for the waiter and nobody will ever have to do math ever again

bellhops can wear iPads I guess

Why tip bellhops though? Unless they're brodie obv.

do you not tip bellhops in the uk?

brodie

not sure really - any time someone offers to carry my bags I glare at them

I think bellhops played an important role when our luggage technology was crappy but now they are just a tip-leech on society like the door openers at the taxi line

door openers wtf?

not sure really - any time someone offers to carry my bags I glare at them

― high inerja (seandalai), Saturday, June 15, 2013 12:58 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't order room service.

that I can do

i mean, you may regret it. bellboys fraterizing with line cooks, ynk.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

no tipping is actually more capitalistic cause if we all were cold hearted and selfish nobody would give out money when they didn't have to

in my tip everyone economy there wouldn't even have to be price signals everyone would just give everyone else money out of love and kindness

http://1minionsopinion.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/tipping-is-unamerican.jpg

people who hail taxis for you when there is already a line of taxis waiting

― iatee, Friday, June 14, 2013 5:27 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol at this being a thing

it's less 'service industry' and more like the kids who ask for "fiver to watch your car, mister [glares]" if you park it in a deprived inner city area

(aka British tipping)

a dude in a security outfit and hat tried to charge me and my friends 20 baht apiece for parking our bikes in front of this store while we went out the other night. i laughed, i'd have given him 20 baht if he asked for anything else but it was just the principle of the thing

"I want five shillings."

"Admitting that you may possibly want that sum, why the dickens should I give it to you?"

"For protection."

"What!"

"Protection."

"What from?"

"Just protection."

"You don't get any five shillings out of me."

"Oh, all right."

He sat silent for a space.

"Things happen to guys that don't kick in their protection money," he said dreamily.