Friends didn't "tip"....bit tight?

[tvsavec]

Me and three friends went to a little family run Greek restaurant.
The bill came to around £80 for four of us.
At the end of the meal
Friend 1 put £2 on the table and I also put £2
Friend 3 said "is that for a tip"
We said yeah.....she shouts for the waiter and hands him the £4 and says thanks
They didn't bother to put a couple of pound in each

Aibu to think it's a bit tight?

I might live in another country now, stalkypants, but all my years of waitressing were in the UK, and non tippers were thankfully few and far between. I would be embarrassed not to tip in a restaurant unless the service was poor, and if I eat out with non tippers, I won't be doing it a second time. I don't want to be tarred with the same brush as them, or cover for their meanness.

No, I just make sure that they see the tip left on the table, so they don’t have it stolen before they pick it up 😂

Its not a point scoring exercise with my dad at all.

@chiweenie you really need to keep up with your own porkie pies.

Firstly it was “I have lived in the US before”, for it to turn out you SO live in the US now.

It was also £7£-12 an hour you earned with tips in the year 2000 (as if) and now it’s £8-£13 in 1999.

And your whining about not getting a student loan or grant or whatever because you lived abroad - how come my Italian and Us Uni friends got on fine at exactly the same time?

Also total horsehair about tips paying for your degree AND your rent and bills. If you were a stripper maybe I could believe it, ut a waitress - pull the other one.

as for your comment on the US is the size of Europe - so what. Quality over quantity. Typical pro-US drivel, out of touch and it’s the rest of the world. Embarrassing.

To be blunt - why should I give a shit?

I agree - I’m agog at the state some people think it’s acceptable to leave a table in.

Having worked in restaurants myself, if the service was good I always tip. I believe tipping is up to the individual but I'd rather not go out with people who don't tip and definitely not people who figure out the penny what each of us had (unless there is a big discrepancy, like someone just had a starter when everyone else had three courses).

And a lot of restaurants make you 'tip out' meaning 10% to the runners, 10% to the kitchen and 10% to the bar meaning that kitchen staff will often get tips

Wow. You seem nice.

Surely no one pays the service charge and then pays a tip as well on top! Isn’t the service charge more or less common everywhere in the UK?

I am, thank you. But when I go out to eat I am very polite to waiters and waitresses, so I do expect a good service, but I don’t overthink how I can make them happy and what matters to them. I go out to eat for the satisfaction of me and whoever I’m with. Why on Earth would I ponder too much on what a waiter thinks of me?

I think the service charge was introduced because of people not tipping. Tips have always been understood by most people to be an important part of waiting staff's pay.

When I worked at Loch Fyne in the early 2000s there was no automatic service charge but sometimes we would put one on for tables of six or more. That was because, as I mentioned above, when you have large tables where people pay separately, there's a greater risk of people not tipping and hiding their stinginess behind others, or even some CFs pocketing the tip that other people have already paid and using it to reduce their own share of the bill.

The thread is about tipping.

Yes, well done.

But my “Why should I give a shit” comment was in response to whoever said “Waiting staff don’t care of you return on a regular basis they care more if you tip”. I don’t really care what’s important to waiting staff or their opinions on how often I frequent a restaurant. That was my point.

Your comment was:

“your repeat custom is not as valuable to the waiting staff as an actual tip,”

And my point is - so what? I don’t care what’s valuable to waiting staff. That’s not why I eat out.

Yes, and I was responding to someone who suggested that their repeat custom was as valuable to the waiting staff as a tip, which is arrant nonsense.

I would very much appreciate it if all the waiting staff on this thread - who are not happy with 'non-tippers' as a class - would give the same of their establishment.

That way I can avoid it. I will not take up an oh-so-valuable table and you can carry on prostituting yourselves and upselling to your heart's content in order to garner more tips.

That way, we're both losing nothing. I will not miss your predatory scanning and asessments (which are risible and inaccurate) and you will not be disappointed by not receiving a tip for your ineffective, grudging 'service'. I'll carry on giving my custom (and significant appreciation) where I don't have to suffer the mediocre waiting staff who keep making excuses for their lacking skills, on this thread.

Ready when you are... which places to avoid please?

*name of their establishment

I also agree with this. Why would anybody leave a mess? There is the usual table clutter but that's cleared away as part of the role.

People go to restaurants to eat and socialise. They pay for what they consume and that is what is owed. I can't imagine why waiting staff think that their fawning behaviour is warranted or appreciated. It makes me uncomfortable. I don't make a mess, am not loud or difficult, I'm polite to everybody just the same. Seeing somebody toadying around a customer is nauseating, it's obvious and generally badly done. All for a 'tip'. Ugh.

Honestly, if money is such an issue, find better places to work. That said, the better places are perhaps a bit more particular.

Most restaurants use zero hour contracts so they can cancel/send staff home during quiet periods or not rota them in - so footfall through the door does matter because it can be the difference between an 8 hour shift, getting sent home after an hour or not being on the rota at all.

Even the youngest in our team have worked that out and understand that regardless of tipping, the more customers through the door, the more shifts they get and less chance of being sent home or cancelled. Probably because they're younger and therefore on a lower nmw, so as an aside, tips do improve their earnings a bit more than someone my age.

And to be honest, at least the places I've worked anyway, the reputation of the place (online, word of mouth etc) is far more of an incentive to give good service than the possibility of a tip, because a place is only as good as it's staff, so I do like the good reviews, the nice comments because it reflects well on me, because I'm part of that.
Certain posters here have made all waiting staff out to be either scheming manipulators who will only treat you with decency if you're going to flash cash at them, or unskilled serfs who haven't a brain cell between them with their hands permanently out.
Some of us actually do take a bit of pride in what we do, we like to make people happy and ensure they have a good time when they come to us for a leisure experience. We're also just normal people earning a living, and where there's a tip, then it's gratefully received, otherwise we just get on with what we do, earn a wage and live our lives.

@Maverickess agree with all of this! I find I enjoy building a rapport with customers, taking pride in my work and my workplace having a reputation for great customer service much more than any tips that come my way.

Tips are a nice little bonus when you do get them but it's part and parcel of the job that some people don't tip, which is totally fine and expected.

I think the service charge was introduced because of people not tipping. Tips have always been understood by most people to be an important part of waiting staff's pay

i think it’s more likely so restaurants have control of tips, either so they can dish them out fairly, adhere to HMRC rules of tax/NI, or in worst case take a % before staff get it. I have worked in places where the service charge is not passed on to staff, or is distributed by seniority, so maitre d’ and head chef get a bigger share, junior wait staff barely anything.

i also wonder if it can be used to monitor staff performance, if you aren’t collecting enough tips, pressure applied, so even if staff are better off with cash, they refuse.

service charge is discretionary anyway, so people who don’t want to tip will ask for it to be removed. Fairly sure in a lot of places you are asked by the card machine yes/no and what %, so you don’t even have to ask.

if I’m somewhere that automatically applies service charge, I will ask the wait staff whether they’d prefer cash or it added to the card.

and yes, completely agree with pp who says they avoid places where it’s clear staff are behaving with one eye on tips, upselling etc.

Tips have always been understood by most people to be an important part of waiting staff's pay

Who are these “most people”? We are not in the US here. Tips have nothing to do with waiting staff’s pay at all, certainly not an important part. “Most people” understand this.

Most people tip.

I agree that many people do tip.

i disagree that in the UK tipping is expected and/or forms an important part of a pay packet.

the pay packet itself is important. Tips are a nice extra.

i would never differentiate between customers that may or may not tip. If a non tipper returns I would take that as a compliment, not be annoyed that they are wasting my time. My time is already paid for by the establishment.

if I want more money I renegotiate my contract or get a different job. Tips aren’t a reliable income.

I like how in Germany a tip is called ‘trinkgeld’ which means ‘drinking money’. I think the idea is that you can treat yourself to a well earned drink after work. Not to supplement your income and keep the afloat. i.e. your employer should be paying you properly.

Most people tip.
in your circle.
There, I've corrected it for you.
As with so many hundreds of things discussed on MN,
people (quite as you would expect)
comment from what they see in the restaurant they go in to, and from the people they socialise with.
But, as society, on the whole, hangs out with other "people like them"
not that many people mix socially with other people who are different from them.
Of course waiters and bar staff serve people who are not their friends, but again, they tend to only serve in the one place.
I've just been out for a bite to eat somewhere local to me, that I go to often.
I can honestly say I have only ever once seen anyone leave a tip.
3 years ago, I did leave quite a large tip to share between the staff
(it wouldn't be large if I had left a bit each time I went in, but, adding up, IYSWIM) and they were completely thrown - didn't want to accept it, seemed quite overwhelmed. I genuinely have only once seen a couple of old ladies - who were sorting out between them who had paid for each of their lunches - say well we'll leave that for the girls...and it was silver, not even £1.
So no, "most people" don't tip.
If I judge it only on that one place, nobody tips. However, I accept that we all have different experiences.