Should tipping be banned?

[Happy Ent]

Honest question: How does a waiter pay taxes?

[Shryke]

Is there any proven connection between tipping and service on an aggregate level?

Like, is service worse in places where people don't tip and gratuity is simply added into the price of the food (or service)?

I mean, everyone talking about how tips improve service seems to just take it as a given and provide no proof.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

Is there any proven connection between tipping and service on an aggregate level?

Like, is service worse in places where people don't tip and gratuity is simply added into the price of the food (or service)?

I mean, everyone talking about how tips improve service seems to just take it as a given and provide no proof.

I would always go the extra mile for my regulars who treated me with kindness and generosity. Most places I've worked in would add gratuity for parties of six or more only. Has data ever been collected on such a thing?

[Happy Ent]

They'll report their tips after each shift, and then taxes are withheld based on the total of their wages + tips. So you might end up getting a $20 or $30 paycheck on pay day.

But I don’t understand the incentive structure here. There is no record of the actual size of the tip (right? it’s still mostly cash?), so what is the motivation to report the correct amount?

[Shryke]

I would always go the extra mile for my regulars who treated me with kindness and generosity. Most places I've worked in would add gratuity for parties of six or more only. Has data ever been collected on such a thing?

I swore I remember that it was and I was right. Apparently alot of it. I was wondering if anyone knew more about it then the general sense I'm getting from googling away.

But most of what I'm seeing says there is some correlation between tip size and service provided but that said effect is very small and mostly drowned out by other effects. Will keep looking.

[Hound Dog]

Tipping is a little ridiculous. Workers should simply be paid a fair wage... why should patrons have to pay the wages of a restaurant's employee instead of the owners? It's ludicrous. They're already being ripped off by overpriced drinks and dinners.

Tipping story:

My friends and I were at a bar/restaurant watching a hockey game a few years back and after paying the bill, everyone left but myself and one friend, as we wanted to finish our drinks. The waitress came up to the two of us in a huff to say that our tip was ridiculous and completely uncustomary. We'd just ordered pitchers of beer all night, and she'd taken her time bringing them. My friend muttered an apology, but then the waitress still didn't leave, standing there beside our table with her arms angrily folded. I was drunk enough to just shrug it off and ignore her, but my friend was nice enough to reach into his wallet and pull out a twenty and ask for only $8 in change. She changed the bill and then slammed the $8 in change on the table before she stormed off without a thank you.

Tipping. So it goes.

[Phaing]

I look forward to seeing how far down you plan to go in digging your own grave, calling Ayn Rand a visionary around here. And calling solo a know nothing sheeple.

Grave?

Is that a death threat?

I feel threatened, and offended, I demand the Mod-squad take action!

Oh... wait, I'm not a Leftist, I can fight my own battles.... nevermind!

you're saying that i'm lying. ergo: scurrilous and irrelevant.

You said

be advised that shrill "communist party bosses" invective doesn't touch me, as i am critical of parallel state and party organizations, as well as of single party states and vanguardism.

Shrill being your own addition to another poster's commentary, addeed for no apparent reason than to make him seeM over the top.

I was saying, with my Like, Bill O'Rielly is really an independant? comment was a tongue-in-cheek way of suggesting that your view of your own ideoligical balance may be just as flawed as Old Bill's view of himself.

Lawyers and Communists have no sense of humor when it comes to themsevles.

that's very specifically fascist doctrine. the attempt to conflate far right and far left doctrine is intellectually dishonest. it is similarly intellectually dishonest to suggest that my distinction between cappy and commie managers is based on master race doctrine when the post said nothing of the sort.

This wasn't about Doctrine.

This was about similar methods, and what comes of sying that Communist Bureocrats are not like Capitalist Executives. I repeat; A superior from of life that does not succumb to any form of temptation, ever become corrupt or abuse power?

History says otherwise... unless it's written by Commies.

Herrenvolk being a reference to the mystical superiority of the Govt Class, who by reason of the Office they hold are assumed to be better than other people... a view increasingly pushed by the Left these days.

As I keep finding myself repeating these days; It is the means that justify the ends, NOT the other way around.

You don't instal some sort of Aristocracy, you don't replace public servants with Govt masters, and then trash everything while claiming to be making the world a better place... somewhere down the line.

Not if you want to break the cycle that human hisory has been chained to since day one.

a familiarity with leftist history writing would furthermore demonstrate the ongoing process of internal critique.

More like a refinement of Revisionist history, more of the same old story.

responsive to nothing. an oddity, though, to deploy crony capitalism and then denigrate someone else's complaints about it.

No, its not. Crony-Capitalism is a function of the process of decay, and additionally moves us closer to the Socialist ideal by putting the CEOs of the means of production in Bed with the Govt masters.

And that's still not good enough for the radicals... like anything ever can be.

not what i wrote at all. (i'm noticing some repeated difficulties with your inability to glean the sense of writings here. is it a pattern of mendacity or simply incomprehension?) but since you have used the same eroticized rhetoric: what in marxist writings suggests a relation of sexual violence between communist party and proletariat? have you any evidence to substantiate the metaphor?

This might be news to Lawers, or maybe this is just a lawyer clinging to his fake ignorance as a means to persuade the lower end of the Jury, but those are metaphors.

I think that the bulk of the audience knows what it means when you say that people are being screwed over.

the least valuable comment in the post. the names are spelled correctly.

Well, when dealing with this crowd, I wanted to make sure people didn't think I was cutting you off in mid-sentance. Had enough of a wall of text to deal with as it was.

oh, if that's the case you could always lay out what you considered to be her predictions and we can discuss them. otherwise, this is mere bluster.

Hey, you are the one saying she didn't know jack, so here we go;

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you … you may know that your society is doomed.

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

Ayn Rand

I can pull whole pages from her books... in fact, I think I should start a thread on her. Seems relevant and worth the time.

if you have the data, feel free to present it, and we can discuss it. otherwise, bluster.

but, to take the comparison of the US and soviet union from 1917 to 1989: do you really regard that as a meaningful comparison? really? during that time, the soviet union was destroyed twice by invasion, and had not previously undergone the level of industrialization that the US had achieved, and was situated in manifestly different geographies. this is the limit of the critique? please tell me you have more than this.

1- The USSR didn't exist until they got Russia OUT of the 1st Wolrd War. Fulfilling the wishes of their German backers, they abandoned their allies and went about their own war to establish dominance over what was essentially a Colonial Empire.

2- The US supplied a vast amount of material, sending in a matter of months more stuff than the Germans started the war with. This included things like telephone wire, Locomotives, raw materials and machine tools. At the end of the war, the USSR also looted Eastern Europe and Manchuria.

This argument of your is specious, if Communism was a superior system, not only would they have done better, but it might even still be around.

Oh yeah... there's North Korea.... how about that?

Are you trying to get me to repeat all that stuff from the threads on North & South Korea, just so you can accuse me of sounding like a broken record?

And, for another example, the East Germans were so far behind the West Germans that the gap still exists!

http://www.uni-ulm.d...arch/wd2010.pdf

It takes generations to heal the damage done by Communism.

this is the equivalent of i know you are but what am i? good job!

Hey, you'r the one that started in with that particular form of sexual innuendo. ;)

Good for the Goose, but not the Gander, eh?

I’m sure Trotsky didn’t tip, either.

He'd have Felix Dzhernsky (sic) do it for him.

With lead.

[Sixshells]

Only the fear of being audited I suppose. Your tips by credit card are automatically reported, so you're responsible for reporting your cash tips each night. You have to report enough of your tips to at least come up to minimum wage, otherwise you're in trouble with the manager. Most of the servers I worked with, at several different restaurants and bars, usually figured out a believable hourly reporting structure that was usually less than what they actually made.

So, for example, a closer on a Friday/Saturday night would have about a 9 hour shift, and could typically expect to pull in between $150-$175. Minimum wage for waitstaff is $2.13/hr, and the closer could figure a good rule of thumb for reporting would be $13/hr. So, $13/hr on a 9 hour shift would come out to $117, less the $2.13/hr wages, so the closer would report around $100 in tips. In reality, they'd be making more in the range of $18-$20/hr.

So as long as they keep it believeable and recieve a fair amount of tips in cash, there's nothing really to prevent them to commit tax fraud, in essence.

I'm confused. Your post suggests you agree with me but your tone says otherwise...

Sorry, I didn't know how to read your post.

[MercenaryChef]

most servers and bartenders get tipped primarily via credit card these days.

much harder to commit fraud.

and any good establishment knows what their people should be making. if they are reporting too little it means one of two things...they are either shitty or they are cheating the system.

when these fraudulent servers get caught by the irs (and they do, i have seen it more than once) often times the tip declaration of the whole bar or restaurant gets looked at by the irs. so, a good owner would head off such things.

[Shryke]

Yeah, the IRS is not stupid. They have reams of information on what the numbers should look like.

And no one wants the IRS coming down on them.

[James Arryn]

Speaking as a former bar tender and manager, pooled tips isn't all bad. Does away with some of the competitiveness that can actually be counter-productive, and CAN foster more of a team atmosphere. It can both add to and subtract from the politics of the situation. People more likely to do grunt work help for others when they get a moment rather than flirting and floating, for example.

I wouldn't have introduced it, but inherited it in one place, kept it in place, and it worked fine.

(am not addressing auto-tipping, but rather everyone pooling their tips and dividing equally, assuming correspondent cash-out.)

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

I swore I remember that it was and I was right. Apparently alot of it. I was wondering if anyone knew more about it then the general sense I'm getting from googling away.

But most of what I'm seeing says there is some correlation between tip size and service provided but that said effect is very small and mostly drowned out by other effects. Will keep looking.

I'm curious about what you turn up with.

[Jaime L]

Tipping is a little ridiculous. Workers should simply be paid a fair wage... why should patrons have to pay the wages of a restaurant's employee instead of the owners? It's ludicrous. They're already being ripped off by overpriced drinks and dinners.

Well, the whole point is that your food is actually cheaper as only a fraction of employee costs are factored into the prices. The margin for restaurant owners in this country is razor thin as is and most new restaurants fail within a year as a result. A case can be made there's some gouging going on with the price of drinks, but at most restaurants you're getting a pretty damn good deal on food.

As for on whether our tipping culture is good or bad, I go back and forth, but ultimately tend to come down to the criticisms in this thread being overblown. Anecdotally, I would guess more servers make more money through tips than they would if they were paid some "fair" wage that's only a little over minimum wage. There isn't some great windfall out there in other comparable jobs in the service industry.

Also let's face facts: there ain't a job out there whose salary isn't indirectly paid for by customers. Waiting is one of the few jobs that cuts out the middle man for better and for worse. I get the complaints about tips being obligatory, but look at this way: your food is 15% cheaper than it would be otherwise. You gonna pocket the difference at the expense of some poor waiter? 15% is the minimum short of historically bad service, but it also gives you the opportunity to reward out of this world service in a way you can't in other industries.

[MisterOJ]

When did 15 percent become the standard? Me and at least a couple others in this thread remember it being 10 percent.

And why did the standard go up?

Anyone have a clue?

[MercenaryChef]

When did 15 percent become the standard? Me and at least a couple others in this thread remember it being 10 percent.

And why did the standard go up?

Anyone have a clue?

in 1993 the restaurant version of the illuminati got together and decided it would be so. we decided we would put more of the onus on our business upon the consumer. and most of you fell for it.

also we charge far more than the worth of our goods and you pay for them. we roll the price of our wages, our utilities, our rent, our taxes and the food itself all within the price of the meal. it is one of the most amazing conspiracies ever.

[mcb]

Well, the whole point is that your food is actually cheaper as only a fraction of employee costs are factored into the prices. The margin for restaurant owners in this country is razor thin as is and most new restaurants fail within a year as a result. A case can be made there's some gouging going on with the price of drinks, but at most restaurants you're getting a pretty damn good deal on food.

As for on whether our tipping culture is good or bad, I go back and forth, but ultimately tend to come down to the criticisms in this thread being overblown. Anecdotally, I would guess more servers make more money through tips than they would if they were paid some "fair" wage that's only a little over minimum wage. There isn't some great windfall out there in other comparable jobs in the service industry.

The same argument again: thanks to tips, the food is cheaper on the customer's side, and somehow in these few precious seconds between a customer taking bills out of his wallet, and a waiter accepting it, it became more money for the serving staff. That's some killer math here.

[Arbor Gold]

also we charge far more than the worth of our goods and you pay for them. we roll the price of our wages, our utilities, our rent, our taxes and the food itself all within the price of the meal. it is one of the most amazing conspiracies ever.

About a year ago I was reading the yelp reviews for a two Michelin star restaurant near my house. Most of the reviews were glowing, but a few that made me laugh pointed out the fact that half the ingredients were scavenged or picked from the garden out back and the meal cost $250 a plate. Amazing conspiracy, indeed. :P

[Jaime L]

The same argument again: thanks to tips, the food is cheaper on the customer's side, and somehow in these few precious seconds between a customer taking bills out of his wallet, and a waiter accepting it, it became more money for the serving staff. That's some killer math here.

I'm saying the surplus is going to the waiter, not the owner.

[MercenaryChef]

About a year ago I was reading the yelp reviews for a two Michelin star restaurant near my house. Most of the reviews were glowing, but a few that made me laugh pointed out the fact that half the ingredients were scavenged or picked from the garden out back and the meal cost $250 a plate. Amazing conspiracy, indeed. :P

when eating at the highest end restaurants you are doing so for the perfection of the meal and the memorable experience. if you are looking for a great deal you can go ahead and go get fucked.

*i mean as a general rule to go and get fucked. this is not an actual personal suggestion to go and get fucked, arbor gold.

[Shryke]

I'm saying the surplus is going to the waiter, not the owner.

And if you force the owner to pay them more, the owner charges more to cover the cost and the net result is zero change. (I guess maybe there would be some minimal transaction costs)