“Kids eat free on Sunday right?!” “Can I substitute this juice for a Bloody Mary?” “Can I taste that first?” “Oh!? I’m sorry we haven’t even looked at the menu yet. We’ll just be a bit . . . (45 minutes later) . . . ok, were ready.” “Yeah, were ready. Let me have . . . uh . . . oh where was it? Here! Wait no. Where did it go? I can’t find it. You know it has the thing with the thing on it . . .” “Can we get some more of your FREE bread!” These quotes, among a plethora of others, are common occurrences with the serving field. Sometimes even the smallest actions can show one’s personality in a big way. With hundreds of people dining out every single day it becomes easier to allocate them into many different classifications based on their personal tipping fashion; classes such as the ‘Percent Tippers’, the ‘Performance Review Tippers’, the ‘I’m a Server Too Tippers’, the ‘Non-Monetary Tippers’, the ‘Special Occasion Tippers’, and the much desired ‘Whale Tippers’.
THE PERCENT TIPPERS. The straight shooter. The safety net. The always stable, rain or shine, member of the tipping community. The Percent Tipper bases a server’s entire gratuity on a set percentage of the total cost of that particular meal. This percent varies from person to person, but is generally within a ten to twenty percent range with almost no regard for actual service quality. This allows for some stability, as far as wages earned, for a server. Even if the server forgot the salad before the meal, if the beverage ran dry or if the server is just having an ‘off’ day, they will usually not walk away empty handed. On the other hand a ticket must reach a significant dollar amount to provide a decent reward which requires a server to charge fo...
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THE WHALE TIPPER. The big kahuna. The Loch Ness monster. This Moby Dick of tippers is unpredictable in appearance, yet remains always eagerly anticipated by any and all who know its identity. It’s a rarity to have this kind of tipper, and when you do, all eyes are upon you. The unrelenting nerves crossed with the over excitement can only be calmed with the beyond handsome tip. $75 tip for providing them with a $12.99 Bacon Cheeseburger meal. $145 tip for getting a diet coke for his wife and brown sugar for his daughters French Toast breakfast. Few things compare to this moment.
All in all, beggars can’t be choosers. From the Percenters to the Whale Tippers, all tips are appreciated. Regardless of what category you fall in, every time you tip a server, you leave an impression. Everytime you dine out, you have a chance to change your category.
Throughout Eveline Adomait and Richard Maranta’s Dinner Party Economics there is continuous discussion surrounding the problems that economies face around the world and the various methods that can be used to alter the state of the current economic conditions. Changes in consumer spending patterns can become a problem for the economy as a whole, potentially resulting in over-inflation or recession. Implementing discretionary policies such as monetary policy through changing interest rates, and fiscal policy through taxation and government spending, makes it possible to fix these economic problems.
The commonly used practice of tipping has been receiving backlash, nothing new there. Do we really know what a tip truly mean? What effects it has? Brian Palmer explains to his audience that tipping has become a moral obligation rather than what it is perceived to be: gratitude. In Brain Palmer’s “Tipping is an Abomination”, he argues that while tipping has grown into a common habit for many, tipping is a bad habit because no one knows what tipping actually means. Brian Palmer begins shows his credibility with personal inputs and reliable sources, using convincing facts and statistics, all while using some emotional appeal to help his argument.
The idea of tipping has always been normal to myself, as I was a kid and still now I see my parents leaving tips for the waiter/waitress when we go out to eat. It never occurred to me until I got older that it was hard for these workers to get by as their salary depended upon their tips. Once I read Saru Jayaraman’s article on “Why Tipping is Wrong” I was unsure of what I was getting myself into. However, it brought light and told how we should be getting rid of tips and giving the workers a fair and decent salary.
Casinos are very tricky when it comes to “customer relations”. They allow their customers to forget about the world around them and concentrate on winning, when the whole time they are robbing them blind. In most cases, people walk out of casinos with empty pockets and a stomach full of booze.
One of the primary reasons to abolish tipping is because tipping has weak correlation with the quality of service provided. According to Archibugi, “personal sympathy, charm, flirtation, and attitude” can play significant role in determining the amount of the tip disbursed (61). Recent research indicates that average tip of waitresses in their 30’s with “large breast, blond hair, and slender bodies” is higher compared to other waitresses who lack these traits (Lynn 743). Thus, this leads to fact that tipping can sometime be unjust. Attractive service provider may receive high tip compared to unattractive service provider even if the latter one had catered with better service quality.
Tips are generally a small amount of money given to a person as gratitude for a service that has been provided. There are many times throughout our everyday lives in which we are put in a position to leave a gratuity. Whether it be dining at a restaurant, getting your hair cut at the salon, or having a few drinks with friends at a bar. In each case there was a service provided to you, now you have a decision to make, how much of a tip is considered acceptable and should you tip everyone that provides a service to you? There are many guidelines for consumers to follow. With modern technology there are convenient tip calculators available as features on most new cellular phones. When deciding on the tip amount the service is one of the major determining factors along with whether or not you plan on visiting the establishment again , and how the tip will play a role in your further dealings with said business. Michael Lewis explores a few interesting reasons why tipping is getting out of hand in a recent essay. I strongly agree with many points and examples he provides.
Also, servers themselves know that certain things affect tips that aren’t usually included in most research on tipping influences. For instance many servers believe that gas prices affect the amount they are tipped or how busy the restaurant is. The thought is that the higher the gas prices the smaller the tip and vise versa. All the theories similar to this are why many servers and others alike believe that tips are too inconsistent of a form of payment to be able to live of...
Although tips can often lead to servers making well over regular minimum wage per hour, overall, tips are very inconsistent and are completely dependent on restaurant customers. Not only does the customer decide how much to tip based on his/her enjoyment of the dining experience, but also servers need busy restaurants in order to make good money.
If the server does an excellent job in tending to customers by catering to their every need, the customer will leave a higher tip, as opposed to a server who completes the bare minimum. Poor servers will receive a lower tip. The tip represents the server’s skill and ability. Merit pay for teachers follows the same idea. A teacher who caters to every student’s need and completes exemplary work will receive a bonus similar to a server’s tips. The better the job a teacher does, the better bonus he or she will receive. On the other hand, if a teacher completes the bare minimum, mediocre work, he or she will receive a lower bonus or none at all. Susan Moore Johnson explains that school districts should give small incentives, comparable to tips, as small bonuses to teachers. Gary Ritter, a professor of Education Reform and Public Policy, proposes an idealistic way of rewarding these bonuses. School districts will reward core subject teachers up to $10,000 in bonuses per year, noncore subject teachers up to $6,000, and other staff, including teacher associates, up to $1,000 (Ritter). Teachers who transfer to hard-to-staff schools, teach subjects in which there are shortages, such as math, science, special education, and bilingual educaiton, and work longer days should be rewarded with these
Ehrenreich didn’t want to be a waitress any more than some waitresses, but she did it for her research. Ehrenreich once stated that, “Waitres sing is also something I’d like to avoid, because I remember it leaving me bone-tired when I was eighteen.” (13). Her first job was at Hearthside, a restaurant in Key West, Florida. She was hired as a waitress, starting at $2.43 plus tips. She worked the afternoon shift. Hearthside was being managed by a West Indian man by name of Phillip. The management wasn’t the best. They treated their employees disrespectfully. At an employee meeting, they were threatened by the management. Ehrenreich stated, “I have not been treated this way-lined up in the corridor, threatened with locker searches, peppered with carelessly aimed accusation-since junior high school” (24). When they were just standing around, the manager would give them extra work to do. According to Ehrenreich, “You start dragging out each little chore because if the manager on duty catches you in an idle moment, he will give you something far nastier to do. So I wipe, I clean, consolidate catsups bottles and recheck the cheesecake supply, even tour the tables to make sure the customer evaluation is standing perkily.” (22). They were hired at Hearthside to serve the customers. There are twenty-six tables in the whole restaurant. All the food must be placed on the food trays; small items were to be carried in a bowl, and no refills on the lemonade (1...
Clincher: As Robin Williams would say, have a good night and be sure to tip your waitresses.
The average customers in a restaurant fall under the “Stick-to-the-fifteen-percent, tippers.” They have the attitude of “I’m just here for the food.” These average customers can be heard saying, “Looks good, I just need ketchup.” and “When you get a chance, may I please have a refill?” The “Stick-to-the-fifteen- percent tippers” have a more serious, laid-back face and stay quiet. These customers are average maintenance and average tippers. The only time they leave more than a fifteen- percent tip is when they need to round to the nearest dollar. Their server is mellow and polite because he is thankful for the expected tip. A server walks away from the table cool, calm and collected with no need to complain.
Have you ever dined in an extravagant restaurant and never could figure out how much to leave as a tip and ruins your dining experience? Many people face this diplomatic on daily basis and never can fully understand how this problem can be fixed. Some, consumers say that if tipping was abolished it would cause restaurants to increase the wage of the workers. Therefore, it would expand to the menu prices that the prices would increase. Others, say that increasing the pay of workers and the menu prices would not decrease the demand of their food. Although, these discussions are constantly facing the depositions of one’s personal views. The entire tipping system should be entirely dismantled.
In America, many are not aware of the inequalities that exist in the Food Service. The food service sector has at least 125,951 companies and approximately 12 million employees with almost 7 million foreigners. This sector includes individually owned restaurants, mid-priced chains, quick service (fast food), hotels, and beverage establishments. Food service plays a major role in institutional establishments like schools, hospitals, prisons and meals on wheels. They cater to the tastes of their particular customers and are often leaders of food innovation. In the food service, we find: bartenders, wait staff, hosts, busboys, chefs, cooks, managers, and dishwashers .The food service workers perform a variety of customer service, food preparation and cleaning tasks, all that which are very important to keep a business running. More concerning , some of the major working conditions that foodservice workers face with daily is no health benefits and significantly low wages. These employees working in the food industry make it possible for millions of people to enjoy food in restaurants but are not being treated or appreciated fairly.
When entering a restaurant, I usually expect to leave full, satisfied, and wanting to come back again. I believe that many people expect the same thing. The way people react to service can be very different from person to person. Depending on the way the customers are feeling, or the way that the server is feeling can be a big factor for the way service comes across. Service is an important part of everyone’s lives because majority of the jobs that people preform are service related. Poor service is an unfortunate part of life that everyone comes across. The way that I react to the poor service I receive is important and can change in the blink of an eye. Whether I react in an outspoken way, by getting loud and voicing my opinion. Or if I react in a quiet or apologetic way, it can affect my server, and the people around me, and myself.