What to do when one member or a group does not want to tip?

[Heritagehog]

Title should say one member OF a group, sorry!

So I have a family member who, on principle, does not agree with tipping in restaurants. She particularly objects to the 10% ‘discretionary’ gratuity being added onto the bill presumptively. She will not bat an eyelid asking waiting staff to remove the gratuity from the bill, no matter how well served we have been.

Now, no doubt there will be people here who agree with her that it is unnecessary in the UK and rather cheeky. I’m aware there is a debate to be had. Personally, however, my stance is that I would much rather just suck it up and pay the gratuity (unless there was actually a problem of some sort) for the sake of being gracious and not offending the staff (rightly or wrongly).

In a few months’ time, we will be going on a family celebration. It is a ruby wedding anniversary and 10 of us will be going somewhere quite fancy (well, fancy for us). The sort of place that has both an a la carte menu and a set menu, and two courses will probably come to £50 each, with drinks on top. I fully expect the service to be excellent.

I have googled the menu and they do add the 10% gratuity.

With such a large group, it’s pretty much a given that we will just split the bill equally between us all.

I will cringe myself inside out and die of embarrassment if she asks for the gratuity to be removed before we split the bill (and she 100% would do this).

How do I handle this? Should I approach the restaurant staff beforehand to quietly pay the gratuity upfront and ask that they remove it from the bill? Would that be strange?

Has anyone else had a situation like this before?

I’m not really interested in being right or fair in this scenario, my main objective is to have a happy evening where nobody is annoyed, embarrassed or offended.

Yes, I do tip delivery drivers.

The answer is of course that no one expects to live on five hours a week. When my daughter was taken on, and they were in need of people, they said, "It's says five hours, but that's just what we have to say. We'll want you more than that..."

And, indeed, at that time at the height of the season last summer, they were asking her to do thirty or more hours, and she did. Not just her, a few of them.

When the demand dropped off, rather than let a couple go and keep one on sensible hours, they just reduced everyone's hours - and essentially waited to see who'd quit first.

This is not an ethical way to run a business. And I speak as one who founded and built a business that employed many people for two decades.

More to the point, the contract between employer and employee is uneven.

If the employer said, 'We want you to do five hours a week, and we'll guarantee it, and that's all we want," and the employee signed up to that, then all would be well.

But they don't. They say, 'We want you to do between five and thirty-five hours a week, but we're not going to tell you how many till the Sunday before, and we're not going to tell you which days because it'll be different each week or how many hours on those days, or even which shift - because we're making it up as we go along. And if you say you can't do any of the hours we want you to do, we're going to accuse you of being inflexible. And if we change our mind on the day and send you home, that's tough."

That's not a fair contract between two parties. And it has nothing to do with tipping. It's just exploitative.

Tipping is one way that I can make life easier for the exploited people that I happen to encounter.

Surely your adult daughter would have known that her hours aren’t guaranteed even if they said you’d be working more than five? She would have known she’ll only be paid five hours holiday pay too? So that’s on her the fact she took the job.

Be that as it may, there is still no reason a tip should ever be a percentage of the cost. It's the same effort to bring the cheapest options as the most expensive ones.

How do you feel it should be calculated?

A fiver per person is more than enough. Even £2-3, multiply that by the average number of people being served per hour, and that's a generous hourly wage.

Sure, young people learn as they go along, and she has moved jobs.

That's not my point.

What I'm saying is that this practice is unfair. It was unfair when zero-hour contracts were permitted, and it's still unfair even though it's now zero-plus-five.

And, for me, tipping is a way of mitigating that unfairness.

Regardless of the size of the bill, or the number of people?

I said £5 per person, so the number of people is the only relevant factor. Size of bulk shouldn't matter at all. As I wrote previously, it makes no difference whether the server brings the cheapest or most expensive option.

But she was what 20? So not exactly that young is it.

Not everyone working in hospitality is going to be on a five hour contract though, so seems as though you’re wasting a lot of money going around assuming. I take it you tip every other profession that is deemed as lower paid, taxi drivers, hairdressers? You’re going to go broke soon!

Of course I do. Don't you?

Ah, okay.

So for a cup of tea and a ham sandwich in a greasy spoon - costing about £4.50 - you'd leave a fiver tip.

I think that's wonderful.

A fiver would be the upper limit. A single time serving the table as in your £4.50 example would be maximum 50p-£1.

Gotcha.

It's a percentage up to the point your generosity runs out.

No it's about tipping what makes sense. For a £4.50 meal you can give a fiver and tell them to keep the change. It doesn't make sense that just because you ordered an expensive wine instead of a coke, the server deserves an extra tenner in tips.

Just let her remove the gratuity charge, and then everyone else can leave as much of a tip as they want, in cash, on the table.

It's only a big deal if you make it one.

On the other hand, forcing or pressurising her into paying a charge she is clearly intent on not paying WILL cause a scene. So don't do that.

You do your thing and let her do hers. It's fine.

This is the perfect solution. Nice and discreet. Don't do any of the passive aggressive suggestions other people have made, which will be sure to make things awkward.

So do you also tip everybody who ever serves you in a shop, unless they're the owner? The bin men every time they empty your bins? Car park attendants? Supermarket trolley collectors? Roadsweepers? Every cleaner you see in a building that you're using - hospital, office, supermarket etc.?

Ironically, if they remember this and comply, that’s good service that arguably should be rewarded by the sister 😂

more realistically, it’s a gamble that the restaurant will remember to do this on the day and pass the message through various members of fluctuating staff

I bet that, even if somebody opened a new restaurant with prominent signs saying "The price on the menu is the price you pay - we pay our staff a good, secure wage and include all service in the menu prices, which means that there is no need whatsoever to tip"... you would still get loads of customers clamouring to tip - because they have it so ingrained in their heads that you must do so without ever actually thinking about why you do it.

As I said, if mechanisms and custom cater for it, I do.

But I don't feel that being unable to tip all lowpaid workers leads to the conclusion that one shouldn't tip any lowpaid workers.

Do you tip absolutely no one at all?

To me, a percentage makes sense. Each to their own.

@SuburbanSprawl - your beef is with the one bad employer that your dd used to work for.
Setting aside this has nothing to do with the thread, which is about tipping and about restaurants billing groups for more money than the price of the food and drink as listed.

Your dd could easily have gone looking for other work when she realised (after accepting a 5 hr week contract) she wanted more and it wasn't guaranteed (as was stated it wasn't when she took it). My dc have all been students and worked their way through different jobs, including waiting and working in bars. None of them would sit at home twiddling their thumbs on the off chance one of their employers would call them in. They'd pick up shifts in other places during the times of year they wanted more work. But only being contracted to 5 hours, it meant they didn't have to work anymore than that during times they didn't want to. That's the beauty of zero hours contracts, they work both ways.

A bad employer is a bad employer, that doesn't mean zero hours as a concept (or offering a 5 hour contract) is a bad concept - they work for so many different people.

No I do realise the tip goes to the staff. Why can't the restaurant apply them to the staff?

Why should they be paid tax free? And they are actuslly not tax free in the UK?

https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates

Overview
If you get tips at work they do not count towards the National Minimum Wage. You still have to pay Income Tax on tips and may have to pay National Insurance.

Yes, because restaurants are doing so well at the moment that they can afford to be picky about which customers they take. Seriously, just because it takes longer doesn’t mean that venues aren’t grateful for the custom, but equally they are entitled add a little extra on for the extra costs incurred. As long as the service charge is clearly communicated to the group, the group have the option of booing at the restaurant or not.

Absolutely, that’s definitely an issue.