This blog article deals a lot with my gripe about the restaurant industry and “tipping”. I don’t find anything wrong at all with tipping for good service and I’ve worked at a restaurant or two in earlier years so I know how important tips are in getting by.
The whole system of tipping is suppose to ensure that you get good service. It’s suppose to be a win-win-win situation for the owners of the restaurant, the wait staff, and the patrons of the establishment. The owners cut costs in salary to the wait staff, the wait staff technically have no limit to the amount they can earn, and the patrons of the establishment get good service.
In a restaurant I use to work at, waiters were paid $2.15 and depended on tips for the most part to earn a living. So I definitely understood how important a role tips played in their income. They also tipped out a percentage of their total sales to the busboys and bartenders so if someone left them no tip whatsoever, they actually lose money.
If waiters for the most part depend on tips for their income, why isn’t there great service everywhere you go? Why is it I encounter shitty service more often than I encounter great service? The problem is a lot of wait staff in my restaurant use to think they were entitled to a 15% tip regardless of service and then more if they provided good service. This line of thinking totally defeats the concept of tipping.
When I go to restaurants and the service is horrible, I will tip accordingly. Also I’ll try to pay cash as I’ve heard of servers that have the balls to change the tip amount on credit card receipts because you most likely won’t catch it.
What are your thoughts on tipping for service?