Wow this is an interesting topic, one I've been having recently with friends of mine. lol
In terms of human behavior modification I agree with dadudemon if I'm following him correctly. People are different, and different people with respond more or less strongly to different things.
As for the topic of tipping itself. I've worked service jobs for minimum wage that people don't deem tip worthy.
So call me bitter but I feel I shouldn't have to automatically tip just because someone is a waiter or waitress.
Although I have no qualms with people that do tip. If you want to tip someone because you feel they did a good job or they made your day better go for it. I'll do that sometimes. It is supposed to be a gesture of goodwill.
The problem I have with tipping is that is become something that is expected. So much so that the government in the US taxes tips.
The way it works is that most restaurants can pay their people less than minimum wage because the government assumes that the servers will make at least 15%, I think, from every meal in tips. Servers must claim a 15% tip on all meals according to the government regardless of whether they actually got tipped less or more than that for tax purposes.
So if you give a server less than a 15% tip the difference comes out of their already less than minimum wage pay.
So now I pay 15% as long as the person is average cause if you tip less all you are doing is hurting the server cause you've got principles.
I hate it. I hate how the government and society has taken something that is supposed to be a good hearted gesture to someone and turned into something used for greed and condemnation.
The government uses it to get more money, restaurant owners use it to pay their staff less, and this has caused tipping to be so ingrained that if you don't tip up to societies standards people think less of you or use it to justify how much better they are.
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Last edited by Newjak on Sep 18th, 2012 at 01:14 PM
My cousin used to work at this high-class restaurant. They paid their waiters $10-$15 an hour. That's the solution to your problem: pay them a decent amount by the hour and leave the option open for customers to tip if they get great service.
Personally, I think we should do away with income taxes, altogether.
Maybe you're just an *sshole to store clerks (because they're not delivering you food), but in my experience, that's completely untrue. And I don't like the idea of being blackmailed to give a worker extra money for doing their job in the first place.
__________________ I did not hit her, it's not true. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did naawwt.
Last edited by Lord Lucien on Sep 18th, 2012 at 01:44 PM
We got along decently (but not great) without income taxes for almost 150 years.
A lot of people do not like the idea of more excise taxes because it will hit major corporations harder...or something. Basically, it puts more of a burden on people and organizations that spend money so it would encourage the wealthy to not spend or something. I don't know the economics of more excise taxes but Texas (I believe) has a system like that and there is a maximum allowable for sales tax of 8.5% (I could be outdated but that's how it was when I was an accountant for an energy company).
$15+ trillion and rising? Yeah, income taxes aren't shoring the gap.
In Sweden you're not allowed to have the wage rely on tipping. The tipping is a bonus and not considered part of the wage.
I usually pay the standard 10% give or take to even out the sum. Though, when I was younger taking out my date — now ex — I tipped 40% to impress her. Now it's one of those things I occasionally recall and feel stupid about.
If Astner tips than those of you who don't really need to re-evaulate your lives.
You're less humane than Astner. Think about that.
- - - -
Anyway, while I totally agree that feeling compelled to tip no matter what is ridiculous, this notion of "I don't tip because I shouldn't have to pay someone extra just for doing their jobs" is retarded. The point of a tip isn't to pay someone just for doing their job, the point is to reward someone for going above and beyond what their job requires of them.
The job of a waiter, literally, is to take your order, provide opportunities for you to request additional food and drink, voice any complaints or special requests you might have, and clean up after you. That's it.
A waiter's job isn't to pretend that they're happy to see you, or to make you feel important or special. That isn't what Denny's is paying their waiters for, and if you go up to a Denny's manager and complain that your waiter didn't smile and make small talk and be extra attentive to you while serving your food, Denny's isn't going to give a shit.
So, when you're seated in a restaurant and it's overcrowded and your waiter is totally overwhelmed because he/she has way more tables to manage than what's possibly fair, and the people at the table across from you are being total assholes to the guy, and the bratty kid behind you spilled his chocolate milk all over the table and it needs to be cleaned up, and there's two other tables who are simultaneously calling the waiter to order desert, and the guy still manages to walk up to you with a calm and collected composure, actually engage you and make it seem like you aren't just one talking head out of dozens he's seen today, and remember your order totally and goes out of his way to periodically check up on you- at the end of that meal when you tip the guy, you aren't "paying him extra for doing his job", you're saying "wow thanks for going out of your way to make me feel special. You didn't need to do that, you wouldn't have been fired for not doing it, but you did it anyway so here's a little extra cash for you".
You cheap phucks.
__________________
So rich and white it's like I'm runnin gainst a cheeeeesecaaaaake
That's usually all I ever get, and all I ever want of them. I don't want them to give me phony smiles, trite chit chat, and forced pleasantries. And every time they do, I think less of them for stooping to such insincere banality. And the ones who manage to stay composed under duress are the ones who are doing their job. Which is what they're paid for. If they're not doing that and instead they're pissing customers off, and their boss still keeps them on the roster, that's the boss' problem, not my wallet's.
__________________ I did not hit her, it's not true. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did naawwt.
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Sep 18th, 2012 10:36 AM
