"I don't tip because society says I gotta. I tip when somebody deserves a tip. When somebody really puts forth an effort, they deserve a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, that shit's for the birds. As far as I'm concerned, they're just doin' their job.... The words 'too busy' shouldn't be in a waitress's vocabulary."
-- Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), from the opening scene of "Reservoir Dogs" (1992)
Sunday night I had dinner with some friends at an Italian joint called Mi Piace in Pasadena, where we encountered Bad Waitress. (Yes, you may use that as the name of your next band or movie if you like.) You've probably met her yourself: She knows nothing about the food -- what's in it, how it's prepared -- or the drinks (like what the bar scotch is), or what constitutes a martini (olives are the default; a lemon twist makes the drink into something else that is not a "martini," and should be a special request). OK, that last one is really the bartender's fault, but she was so clueless I didn't even bother to say anything. I just drank the thing, and it was fine.
But, you see, that's what passive-aggressive workers do to customers: They attempt to make us feel guilty for expecting the minimally acceptable service we're supposedly paying for when we spend money in a public establishment. As is the habit these days, Bad Waitress made herself scarce for most of the evening, and was nowhere to be found when it was time -- and long past time -- to pay the bill. Perhaps because we were a party of eight (we'd made reservations), she figured she didn't have to do anything because, as the fine print on the menu explained, her tip was automatically added to the check. But Bad Waitress didn't deserve a gratuity -- even though one was required. I guess we just have to chalk that up to the cost of eating in this mildly upscale joint. (I have an idea: How about if they put taxes and tip amounts alongside the prices of each dish on the menu, so you can see your total price for that particular item? Kind of like the tax and shipping calculators used on shopping sites like Pricegrabber.com?)
Anyway, that's what got me to thinking about Mr. Pink...
I have many friends who have worked in the food service industry (and still do), and yet I agree with Mr. Pink that a tip should be given as an expression of appreciation for a job well done -- and nothing else. Bad service is epidemic, and perhaps bad tippers are, too. Maybe there's a correlation there, though I couldn't say which is the chicken (free range) and which is the egg (cage-free, scrambled). And I don't understand why we deem some workers worthy of tips (taxi drivers, doormen, pizza deliverers, baristas, barbers, hotel/motel housekeepers) and others unworthy (cooks, garage mechanics, movie concessions and ticket sellers, dental hygienists, customer service people at Home Depot...). I know I tend to leave a higher percentage tip at little mom-and-pop places and dives (my preferred haunts) than in overpriced trendy places (which I nearly always avoid) where I know the wait staff is raking in hundreds or thousands a night in tips anyway.
But the last time I checked, eating out is not a charitable activity -- at least not for people who work for a living. Mr. Pink is right. We shouldn't tip because we feel social (or economic) pressure to do so. Now, I feel bad that people are working for low wages, even in some pretty fancy joints. And those people should not be underpaid. What really makes me feel bad, though, is knowing that by tipping I am supporting a system of coerced noblesse oblige that allows businesses to underpay their workers and deprive them of benefits. Customers are expected to pick up their moral and financial slack in the name of de-facto charity -- a system I find corrupt and insulting to both workers and patrons.
This is not unlike the significant numbers of Wal-Mart workers who are so grossly underpaid that they have to go on public assistance of some kind (food stamps, etc.) to make ends meet -- so that taxpayers are subsidizing the largest retailer in the world, allowing them to continue to shaft their own workers while we as a society keep giving them money to keep getting away with it. We think the money is going directly to the workers who need it to buy food and pay the rent, but in reality it's underwriting the company's costs of doing business at the expense of their employees. And that's wrong. Any for-profit company that needs to rely on public charity to stay in business shouldn't be in business. Somebody else will come along who can compete in the real free marketplace.
In the immortal words of Mr. Pink: "When I worked for minimum wage, I wasn't lucky enough to have a job that society deemed tipworthy.... [Working at McDonald's is hard, too] but you don't feel the need to tip them. They're servin' ya food, you should tip 'em. But no, society says tip these guys over here, but not those guys over there. That's bullshit...."
12 Comments
I usually avoid the tipping debate, since arguments tend to be more impassioned and labyrinthine than anything this side of the Iraq War. However, and despite my sympathy for front-of-the-house staff in general (and anyone insane or desperate enough to want or have to work in the restaurant industry), I must point out the utterly harebrained, risible fact that waiters usually make more money than line cooks. How is it that the scraping-by Ecuadorian grill dude with three kids or the up-to-his-arse-in-debt culinary school-trained kid with a future of whoring out his celery-chopping-for-fourteen-hours-straight skills to unhinged, despotical Frenchmen (for no money) earn less than some feckless, fustian knave of a wannabe actor with a fake smile and ridiculous blonde highlights? That being said, Mr. Pink's full of shit -- waiters do so much more than the whatever-you-call-them McDonald's cash register people. Also: we musn't forget that the night's tips are routinely pooled and split among all FOH staff, including waiters, hosts, bussers, barbacks, sommeliers, etc. So if you screw one person, you screw them all.
This would be fine, except most waiters and waitresses are paid less than minimum wage -- around here, something on the order of $2.50 an hour. They are expected to make it to minimum wage and beyond by gratuity. So it's not that waiters are making the same $5.75 an hour as the guy at McDonald's.. they're actually making less. Even at the really, really nice joints.
It's a crap system, but taking it out on the waitstaff isn't the way to go... unless the waiter/waitress in question sucks, of course. The old-style way to indicate your displeasure is to leave a single penny face-down. This way, the waiter/waitress knows that you put actual thought into your "tip", rather than just being a cheapskate who left none whatsoever. The penny leaves no questions on what you thought of their performance.
I don't know around when this whole tipping idea started, but my (European) view on it is that now it's simply a way for the restaurant to make the food sound cheaper than it actually is. In Europe, you pay for the whole package, and if you really like something, you might tip. In the US, you tip, and if you really like something, you tip more.
Amen, Jim. Being in a band, playing in bars around town I have known a lot of wait staff and bartenders and they should be tipped for what they do, and they know it. Any waiter or bartender knows that the better of a job they do, the more likely they're going to get a tip and the more likely that tip will be more than generous. Sometimes you run into someone who's having a bad day and wants to complain that people either under, or didn't at all, tip them. However, they all know that you get what you deserve. Granted you're going to have some customers who don't tip (or only give you a quarter or some horseshit like that), but you will also get customers who tip more than the general percentage, and everything relatively evens itself out in the end. The good bartenders I've known can make sometimes thousands of dollars in tips a night, and it's something they take a lot of pride in. Wait staff is no different. They all know in their hearts that if they do the best job they will get the money they deserve, and some of them can make a good career out of it.
Amen, brother! My sister (a former waitress) has long called me Mrs. Pink.
While I understand that most waitstaff make less than minimum, when you count tips, many of them make well above minimum wage. But it's a capricious system that's outdated and unfair to both customers and servers. It makes accurate taxation difficult. If restaurants just charged the price of the meal and service then everything would be above board and employees and diners would know what to expect going in. Because of my sister and other friends (many of whom have said they wouldn't wait tables for what they would probably be paid if the tipping system wasn't in place), I do tip, but I do so very reluctantly.
Having worked in the food and tangentally related industries for many years (work at Borders? Expect to work the coffee bar, literature grad student!) I tip, and tip well. What makes me angry is the charging of income tax on tips. The govermnent and businesses are talking out of both sides of their mouths here--"the tip is an extra, but you have to pool them with everyone in the restaurant, all of whom are making less than minimum wage because the rules say that the tip can be part of your salary so we can demand taxes on it." In what way is this an "extra"? I feel like I'm taking part in some weird kind of institutionalized slavery every time I go out to eat.
Here's what I think (with a grin on my face).
If you don't want to tip...stay home and eat. Your wife/husband/children are the only people you should require to wait hand and foot on you for nothing.
A backwards system? Please, it's a backwards country, on a backwards planet. One shouldn't expect the restaurant industry to be any less backwards or unfair. When I go to sit in a restaurant I'm not expected to be waited on like a king by someone, which means if they do, they deserve far more than 10% or 15%. If you make reservations with 8 or more people and they require a tip it's usually because that's a lot more work for everyone and that you're going to stay a lot longer and eat up time in which 4 smaller groups could be there. Does that mean the waitress should be perfect for you? Maybe, but maybe not.
I think as Americans we are spoiled or expect to be spoiled. That if we're going to be waited on, we better be waited on right - the way we want to be, that mistakes are not in order and when they are we become so passive aggressive that we don't speak up and say "our drink is not right". Certainly it makes the experience more enjoyable for us when someone is taking the time to work for us, not just for the company, but for us. Specifically for us. They aren't just ringing us up, they are our employees for the time being. And like all bosses, if the service is bad or they screw up we have the right to tell them something isn't right. We can talk to the other bosses and like all great Americans get something for free. It's a matter of someone saying something and not being "nice" and sitting back and accepting the bad service. There's honestly nothing wrong with being upset and having something done about it. A lot of people just let it slide or they become so irate about a bad drink or mixed up order that they scream and scream like babies without a pacifier. When most people would be surprised that a very distracted waitress might not even realize how poor a job she/he is doing because there are about 10 other tables with 8 person reservations and 3 grumpy managers they have to contend with. Just bring it up.
I'm at Cannes right now, and here the service actually is included on the prices listed on the menu, as it is in much of Europe. So that idea isn't entirely yours, Jim. A waitress here did, however, bring a friend his change back, then take it all back as a tip before he could reclaim some of it.
If service is bad enough that I consider it insulting, my usual course of action is to leave a penny. (I've only done this two or three times.) That way, it is clear that I'm not just some jerk who forgot, but a jerk trying to make a point.
As the parent of a couple of servers, I have to agree with Phillip. True, it's a crappy system that allows employers to underpay their wait-staff, while relying on the kindness of strangers to make up the difference. And I know—refusing to participate seems like a kind of counter-cultural, up-the-system kind of thing, but it won’t do a thing except hurt an individual who may just be having a bad day. Or more to the point, tired of kow-towing to diners who think their $10 steak entitles them to be treated like the Queen of Sheba.
Really, why do otherwise reasonable people get all hierarchical when confronted by a waitperson? It’s like we think we’re paying for a personal slave, not a slab of meat. I’ve noticed this in myself quite often, can’t seem to help it . . . maybe there’s a little martinet, a little lord, in each of us, just waiting to get out. I’m a lot better now, though—-having family in the biz will do that to you.
I'm with you, Jennifer. I don't know anyplace that divides the tips among the whole crew (kind of defeats the whole purpose of tips, doesn't it?), but I know it happens. What really bugs me is that tips are taxed as individual income -- but NOT as revenue for the business. So, as I said before, that's just another way that companies weasel around paying their fair share of taxes. If tips are supposed to be considered wages, then the company should be taxed as if they were wages, too.
Rick: I do know what you mean. The only thing worse than a bad server (who behaves like the customer is an imposition) is a bad customer (who behaves like the Queen of Sheba).
Jim,
That's awful about the businesses not being taxed. Seems just as criminal as Mr. Pink's choice of career.
Following the last comments: even if the restaurant counted tips as revenue, the tips would be be paid out to the staff, and so would count as a cost as well. Profits would remain the same. Restaurants are taxed on profits, not revenues.
JE: But payroll taxes are not based on profit. Businesses still have to pay their share of FICA taxes (Social Security and Medicare), and unemployment taxes based on their employees' wages.
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