To think tipping is a choice and not mandatory

[Pinkdreams]

I keep seeing posts online about if you can't afford to tip don't eat out, I know this is mainly aimed at America, however it seems people think tipping is mandatory and I don't understand, I don't have an issue with tipping but expecting someone to pay an extra £10 on top of a £50 bill is abit extreme, is it just me who feels this way? I know wait staff don't make a lot in America but shouldn't that be the employers issue?

What – there’s a mandatory tip now?

For me as an ex waitress I must say, everybody got good service with a smile from me. If they were lovely regulars, I would go over and above if I could for them

I think part of the issue, though, is that 'good service with a smile' and 'going over and above' is largely oversold by many when it comes to insisting how important tips are.

Whilst it's never nice to have a server with a face like a smacked arse slapping your plate down on the table and stomping away, I don't think most diners really care about 'amazing' table service - as long as their order is taken accurately and they get the right meals brought out.

I may be being unfair, but it seems to me that a lot of American servers are going all out and putting their all into a big, performative 'experience' in order to make their serving a truly special, memorable part of the diners' meal and 'earn' a generous tip as a reward, when to the diners, it's just a mundane, boring part of getting their meals and not one that they care about being done spectacularly.

Just like when the Amazon delivery person comes to my door: I'll smile and say thank you (if they haven't already dumped and run) and exchange brief pleasantries... but I simply don't care or want them to do a song and dance routine or recite a moving soliloquy to thrill and delight me; I just want my parcel and to get on with my day.

I would regard bad service as things like

• unfriendliness
• waiting ages and ages to place order, pay bill, etc.
• not being helpful or interested in helping with any issues that arise

In a restaurant I always tip unless the service is actually notably ‘bad’.

Surely it should be cheaper for you to go get it yourself vs paying someone else to bring it to you?

I don't understand tipping at all and don't tip (don't live in America).

Waiters, hairdressers, taxi drivers, delivery drivers and whoever else people tip are paid for their job. They get a wage. Bringing food, cutting hair and so on is literally - their job. I don't get why do I have to pay extra for it on top of their wage.

I also work, no one tips me (nor should they). We don't tip supermarket workers, librarians who bring us books, nurses who take care of us, bring stuff to us and take stuff away, postmen who bring letters to our home, etc. So why hairdressers or waiters?

Especially food related tips. Waiters? They come take my order, bring me a plate, take the payment. That's all they do and that's all I want from them, I don't need some special service. I don't need recommendations, chit chat or excessive smiles. Their job is difficult/tiring? Well so are many. Retail workers are often talked about as receiving lots of abuse from public and on their feet all day. Yet no one thinks to tip them.

No tips from me. They can think me tight, don't care much.

Yeah, I totally agree. If they are pleasant, timely and get me what I wanted then they're getting a tip. If tipping were abolished and prices went up overall then maybe I wouldn't, but as it stands I feel it's only fair. I couldn't work as a waiter, I do not have the skills and appreciate those that do it well.

I have stopped tipping now (used to tip taxi drivers and in restaurants, have never tipped in hairdresser) - I find it awkward and I don't want us to turn into America so I am opting out of tipping, I just want to know how much the service/food is and pay that. I also avoid going on holiday to America (many of DH family live there so much pressure to do so) because I cannot stand the tipping culture there.

Haha I did once in a big busy restaurant and it was hard 😂 I didn’t last very long there but did bar work and bar waitressing for years and tips were always very much appreciated – not just for the money but also the appreciation it showed

I wonder when it first started that it was decided that 'service is not included'?

As it's an essential part of the restaurant experience - unless they're happy for diners to go to the kitchen to order and fetch their own meals - why was it ever considered an 'extra'?

Why not say that use of a table and chairs is not included, rental of crockery and cutlery is not included, or the meal ingredients actually being cooked is not included?!

Tipping in America is getting out of hand though. They gave me the option to tip the woman behind the till in a shop. Where does it end?

I do agree the culture is creeping over here, and I feel it should be merit based, as I don’t feel good tipping for crap service.

I was looking for an ivf clinic recently, and one of them quoted prices with the cost of the theatre and anaesthetic excluded 😂 So presumably if you wanted to save a few quid you could ask them to do it on a photocopier with a wooden spoon to bite down on

There used to be an expensive, delicious restaurant in a major UK city. Not once but twice when prebooking a table, DH and I were grandly escorted to a favoured one, then asked to move to a smaller one during our meal.

No compensation offered. TBH we were indifferent, as nothing can really make up for that.

I doubt we were the only ones because the food was truly delicious, the price point seemed right, and the place vanished shortly thereafter. In that sense you may be shooting yourself in the foot.

Perhaps I should add that we are used to excellent service from much nicer restaurants around the world, so I don’t think it was personal.

In the US, minimum wage for tipped staff is something like $2.13 per hour. The waiters are then often expected to ‘tip out’ to back room staff which tends to be based on the number of customers not the amount of the tip (I assume to prevent tip hiding).

If the diner doesn’t tip, the waiter can literally be paying to serve them.

The fact it’s coming over to the UK doesn’t surprise me but the reasons for tipping are definitely different!

I cannot stand the tipping culture there.

I agree with you; and even the phrase 'tipping culture' is a misnomer really.

Fair enough if they want to keep things that way in their own country, but let's be honest: it's a culture of deliberately obscuring true prices - especially considering that Americans seem not to agree on percentages or where/when you should tip.

Supposing the USA had a longstanding culture of transparent all-in prices, where the price you are given includes all costs of providing it to you, decent wages for the staff, desired/required profit margin etc., meaning that tipping is irrelevant and unnecessary - and it were Mexico that had a 'tipping culture' where you were always expected to add another percentage (the amount of which nobody could agree) to the stated price, often with anger or complaints if you didn't... you just know that the Americans would look down on it as a seriously shady, dodgy practice and criticise their neighbours for their cultural duplicity.

I agree wholeheartedly with PP who say that waiting table properly is a skilled profession.

This has nothing to do with attempting to befriend the diners, talking too much, etc. The best waitstaff keep the meal flowing unobtrusively if they sense that is customer preference. Ironically, they then go unappreciated.

I guess it's because service is subjective, I experience that every day and look at the comments on any thread about tipping or service and you'll see that people's expectations differ wildly.
Some here say they prefer the basic of acknowledgement, order taken, food delivered, bill delivered and they'd tip for that done politely and with a smile, others feel that going above and beyond is the reason you'd tip, personal and engaged service with a bit of a performance. . And you've also got those who think that good service is only delivered so a tip will be forthcoming and therefore dismiss it as fake.

Part of good service is reading people and tailoring the service to that customer as much as you can, because no one size fits all.

What you might think is amazing and attentive service I might think doesn't go far enough, and the next person thinks is overbearing and in your face. I have had differing opinions on my service from the same table - they've all had exactly the same service, but each person has a different expectation.

That's actually quite difficult to do, bearing in mind you've likely never met the people and have maybe a minute to size up their expectations based on a very limited interaction.

So in essence servers are 'rewarded' by being tipped when they get it 'right' and not when they get it wrong.

Cynically you might say it is about feeling powerful on the behalf of the customers - being able to control how someone interacts with them financially, and a way for business owners to cut costs and manage staff when employing people.

If the diner doesn’t tip, the waiter can literally be paying to serve them.

Which is why it's even more astonishing when serving staff always seem to be very reluctant to move to a proper wage and non-tipping system, every time it's considered.

I'm not saying that you don't need some basic skills to do the job - like most jobs - but it's hardly brain surgery, is it?

Or, to compare it with another low-paid job (without any tips) instead, working as a carer for patients with dementia, wiping bums, being threatened and assaulted by vulnerable, scared people who've lost their 'normal' human reasoning abilities. I'd choose taking orders, bringing out meals and collecting plates over being a carer any day of the week.

Or am I missing something? What special professional skills do you need to serve in a restaurant?

I worked in restaurants for many years in New York so it doesn’t bother me tipping here in the uk even though the working conditions are different .
Out there you are paid a ridiculously low wage so very dependent on the tips. You are also taxed based on your sales under the assumption that you received at least 10% of your sales figures in tips and you then tip your busboy based on these sales figures as well.
It works out okay as some people tip 20-25% so it makes up for what is usually tourists who don’t know the system, but it is particularly painful when they have a large bill. Not just because you pay tax based on how much they spent but because you pretty much worked for free if they leave you nothing.
it is a very demanding job if you work in a busy place and in my case 10-12 hour long shifts with barely any breaks. You are juggling multiple tasks all the time and need to stay calm and diplomatic. Often mediating between impatient customers and a stressed out kitchen.
it is both physically and mentally draining and not just a case of fetching food like someone suggested.
if something goes wrong it always comes down on the server even if the problem starts in the kitchen or a difficult customer.
The time it takes to amend often starts a whole avalanche of problems if you fall behind attending to your other guests or the kitchen gets a backlog of orders.

i would never have been able to do that kind of job for just minimum wage. It was stressful and exhausting but the tips more than made up for it.

I don’t think it’s necessary to tip 25% here in the UK, I just add 10% regardless of the service.
Saying that, I save all my Tesco club card points for birthday meals at pizza express and usually give a 50% tip. I remember how great it felt when I used to get a generous tip and it’s nice to be able to do the same sometimes.

Thanks - you make some very good points.

However, you could also say the same about how the food is presented on the plate; or the luxuriousness of the toilets; or the size and spacing of the tables; or the menu prices.

You're always going to get people who reckon that a business 'should' or 'shouldn't' do things the way they expect. Part of it is a simple matter of branding and the culture of the business: e.g. if you want exquisite silver service with wine, you don't choose McDonald's; but if you want a quick, reasonably low-priced, straightforward meal, you don't go to Claridge's and ask where the drive-through lane is! Some customers will always just make bad/inappropriate choices to obtain what they're actually wanting.

Equally, retail staff have to work with the entire gamut of customer attitudes and expectations. Plenty are nice and respectful; but many are horrendous and will complain about you personally because the shop has sold out of what they wanted, or blame you for not serving them when the law states that you cannot; and the whole range in between.

Same as care home staff: you might get sweet old Doris who is so grateful for a cup of tea and a little chat; or it might be Albert with dementia who threatens to punch you, tries to throw poo at you and constantly reports you for stealing all of his belongings when he doesn't know where he put them.

It's not an unusual part of a great many jobs to have to manage very differing customer/client expectations and to behave/respond accordingly.

When I do tip in the UK I minus off the cost of the alcohol, why should I pay a tip for an over priced glass of wine? I had a pub meal the other Day and one glass of wine was twice what I could have got a bottle for in Tesco.

@DalzielOrNoDalzielAndDontPascoe We all know carers are badly treated. It is inexcusable.

Why do we aim to make things worse for everyone, instead of better for the worst off?

The skills involved in waiting table well are discussed by Danny Meyer (sp?) in Setting the Table and Waiter Rant (not the full title) by Steve Dublanica. The latter is available free or for a nominal sum electronically.

I understand what you're saying but I think it's a culture that developed when we had a more defined 'class' system and part of the definition was being served - having money and status, and doing the serving - relying on pleasing those who have the money and status.
I genuinely think that's what it throws back to, especially in America where the basic rate for a hospitality job is so low that they've got to make it up in being paid directly from the customer dependant on how 'well' they perform.

I think when it comes to the food and presentation, I agree that's also subjective but then aren't kitchen staff 'cut in' on tips for that too? (They are where I work, UK) You'd be tipping less if your meal looked like it'd been thrown on to the plate from the other side of the kitchen, even if the service out front was amazing, than if you received it having been plated with care and attention. Plus good servers will not take something that looks like a dogs dinner, I won't (makes you real popular with chefs 🤣) and insist it's redone/plated.

As for the lay out and decor etc, that's also subjective but not within the servers remit, and most people understand that, the toilets can be fit for a king, but that wouldn't stop you waiting an hour for an order to be taken if service is poor.

And having worked in retail and social care, I understand the challenges they face. I actually get paid more for working in hospitality than I did in either social care or retail (same levels as such), and get tipped, which leads me to believe that society values non essential, 'fun' things more than the essential things we rely on day to day.

that's bribery not a tip - what do you do, how does that work in practice? Do you say to the hairdresser who hasn't a spare appointment I'm desperate Angela, if I give you 30% more than usual will you fit me in?

surely it only 'works for you' if you go to the same place often enough that you are known well as a generous tipper - i.e. the same restaurant at least once a month. A lot of people can't afford to eat out that often and if they can want a bit of variety - not going to the same local italian every week.

Plus you're relying on the same person answering the phone to be the person who will be waiting tables that night - if they're not why would they care whether someone else might get a good tip or not. Not to mention the fact most restaurant bookings are online now...

Otherwise how does it work, you ring up and say 'Can I book a table for 4?'
'Sorry we're fully booked.'
'Oh but I came here 2 years ago and tipped 20%'
'Um...good for you but we're still fully booked.'

Other than maybe a hairdresser who you can build a semi-personal relationship with and who might be willing to squeeze you in if possible, I can't see it would work with anything else - what are the chances that the taxi you need now will be the same driver you tipped well 2 months ago? Or that the uber eats driver will be the same as the one who delivered 3 weeks ago? Even then they can only deliver your food once it's ready, they can't rush the restaurant to get it ready faster or break the speed limit to deliver it to you quicker.