More on Tipping, or Moron Tipping

Filed in archive Finance on March 14, 2007

Back in September, I wrote a post titled Tipping Has Gotten Completely Out of Control. I got some comments basically saying that not tipping is hurting the livelihood of the waiter/waitress and that, in short, I'm a cheap bastard. This latest comment from David Danzis, a career waiter, has the most anger:

This is absurd! Tips are how a waiter makes their money. All franchise restaurants pay MUCH LESS than minumum wage($2.13 to be exact). So punishing your server for anyone elses mistakes (i.e., hostess, bartender, cooks) is just being an A**HOLE. Most servers don't even get a paycheck, because after you claim lousy tips from cheapskates like you, the scamming government takes that measly $2.13/ hr for every tax known to man. Servers can barely get health benefits, it's IMPOSSIBLE to get a personal/ car loan, and forget about getting a house, unless you plan on paying cash for it. While some people wait tables for extra cash, some of us do this FOR A LIVING! So next time the host upsets you, the food is not up to par, or you had to wait more than 2 minutes for your beer, don't punish the waiter/ waitress for good service. It's people like you that make our jobs miserable, because no matter what we do, YOU feel like we are responsible for your entire experience, and that couldn't be further from the truth.

I'm coming back to this topic because it seems to bring much heated emotion but not necessarily a lot of logic.

First off, I never said that I don't tip or that I shortchange the wait staff. What I said was it is hard to keep up with the "standard" tipping amount, not just for restaurants but for other services, too, and that it is difficult to always know which services are the ones where a tip is expected.

In my previous post and ensuing conversation with commenters, I also said that tipping wait staff a standard amount regardless of service encourages restaurants to understaff (my original post came about after a meal in which our waitress had too many tables), because there is no down side to doing so, other than the fact that the poor service might stop certain customers from ever returning (which obviously happens). I should point out that I've never stiffed a waiter or waitress because of this, only that it makes me mad to tip for lousy service when a restaurant is understaffed.

But here's the point I really want to make: how did the restaurant industry get the sweetheart deal of paying employees $2.13/hour and leaving the rest of their income to the whims of the customers? Sure, it's good for the restaurants in that they're paying almost nothing for staff during slow periods, but it stinks for the server. It's not like the server is a salesperson who goes out beating the bushes to find clientele and then gets a commission. No, they just sit there and wait for customers, with absolutely no control over whether the customers show up and whether they get more than $2.13 per hour.

And then waiters like the one who chastised me above think it's the customers' fault if they don't get tipped well enough, even though the restaurant is giving them $2 an hour with no benefits to speak of. We as patrons are going along with the game, but some of us grumble about the way it's played and then have to hear that we're the cheapskates from people who are getting paid $2 per hour from their employer.

I can't think of another industry that works like this. Do bank tellers get $2/hour and hope that I'll tell them to take a little something for themselves out of my deposit? Are construction workers getting $2 and then being told to hope for a little extra from the people who buy the houses they build or the highways they drive on? And then do they get screwed if no one buys the house or everyone decides to take an alternate route?

Service workers that rely so heavily on tips should not take their anger at their situation out on their customers; they should take it out on the government and the owners who set up a situation where the minimum wage applies to everyone else but you.