“Tips are accepted not expected” not always the case. In certain restaurants management will automatically generate a 18% gratuity when there are larger parties being served. In a recent article on the 1010 wins.com website ( “tip dispute leads to arrests at soprano’s“ )the reporter tells of a story where people actually got arrested because they refused to pay the mandatory 18% tip. At some point consumers should have the right to draw the line when it comes to tipping. Michael Lewis says “ our natural and admirable reluctance to enter into the spirit of the thing causes the thing to lose whatever value it had in the first place”(23). Tip amounts should not be mandated by the size of the party. A gratuity should remain based upon the quality of the service that was provided.
As a recent employee in the restaurant industry, first as a hostess and later as a waitress, I have had the opportunity to experience the system of tipping not just from a customer’s point of view.
This article highlight the issue of wage encountered by the people working in fast-food. In fact, the amount of money that can be received in an hour by waiters, waitress, bartenders or busboys pegged only 29,38 % of the minimum wage. Some protests to raise their salaries has been done but it didn’t change the situation. The tipped minimum wage law has fail due to random or meager tips. When Bill Moyers spoke with Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, he expresses his discontent about the topic.
I imagine that there are five fundamental intentions in tipping. A few people tip to flaunt. A few people tip to help the server, to supplement their pay and make them upbeat. A few people tip to get future administration. And afterward other individuals tip to stay away from dissatisfaction: You don't need the server to consider seriously you. What's more, a few people tip out of a feeling of
The customer typically decides how much tipped workers will receive since customer take on the role of the manager while the tipped worker is the employee. The amount of the tip is contingent upon the quality of
Waiters usually get more of their income through tips (Brickley, Smith & Zimmerman pg., 378). Since many restaurants require a minimum of 15 percent tip for parties or more, why the practice of tipping has emerged as a major method of compensating the wait staff, and why customers typically decide on the amount of tip, and why restaurants require tips from larger parties (Brickley, Smith & Zimmerman pg., 378).
The desire to tip your server has become the expectation for compensating wait staff to enhance their performance to provide excellent service to make up the difference between low wages and the high wage earned through tipping. The major problem I have with restaurants that pay their support staff lower wage base on higher tipping is that there is not a reflection in the price of food. These restaurants spends less money on salaries while lowering their overall fixed costs. Allowing customer to dictate the tip amount is unfair to the wait staff as they have not control over the amount of tip. Though this encourages wait staff to perform at their fullest potential when serving larger groups for a bigger tip. An organizational structure comprises
They expect me to be patient, clear with orders, not demanding, and aware of what is going on. I must know what food they just told me was done and where to take it, but first I need to pay attention to hear when my name is called. There is usually more tension between the kitchen and waiters than there is with any other workers. The roles are so different. The kitchen staff usually looks at servers as just wanting to get a good tip, and that we do not care the extremities the kitchen has to go to for us. It is important that servers respect the kitchen staff; they are in charge of the food we will be serving. “Servers, as mediators, need their food when their customers demand it: sometimes this is before the food is ready; at other times after. If servers demand food too early, cooks are stressed; but if they don’t pick up the food on time, the food is poor and the cook seems incompetent.” (Fine 105). This is the most true on Friday and Saturday nights. Everything seems to be more chaotic on these nights, since most people decide to go out. This is good because it brings in more business for the restaurant, but then there are always more unhappy customers on these nights as well. Overall, positive interaction with the kitchen staff can make amazing things happen.
Also, when a waiter has all this cash in their pocket after work and home is twenty minutes away, it is very convenient to not have to go all the way home to change completely before going out for the evening.Working at a restaurant is also a very laid-back occupation. Not very many jobs enables an employee to interact with so many different people.
As a server, it is their responsibility to give the customers the best experience possible, while giving an adequate amount of effort for the desired tip. Depending on the the type of restaurant, serving can be
Tipping is an expected behavior from individuals after a meal in a restaurant. However, not every individual will leave a tip or will leave a tip that is smaller than what is expected. This is one thing that restaurants want to change. Behaviors on tipping vary across cultures, it is a voluntary choice in the United States but a service charge is almost always included in a bill in Europe (Hessler, 1999). Restaurants have tried changing the tipping behavior of customers in many ways. One method that has been implemented is including gratuity guidelines on the bill. These guidelines provide the customer “a variety of tips – usually 15, 18 and 20 percent – calculated from the bill” and imply to “tip within the given range” (Hessler, 1999). There
It seems that Americans have made tipping second nature for many situations, while a look at another country, such as Japan, shows that it is not an everyday custom, and may even be rightfully refused by employees. Tipping is said to originate in 18th-century England. This is an interesting point as Americans, originally being British citizens, have taken much of their customs and traditions from England. So, as the story goes, an English tavern left a box on one of the counters, “To Insure Promptness” engraved on it (Source B). Apparently the ‘tip’ or money incentive would ensure better service. Even further back to the 17th century, overnight private house guests would be provoked to leave money with servants of the home who tended to them, as it was an extra service to the worker. However, guests did not give this payment simply as acknowledgement of excellent service.
Anyone who has decent customer service can work at that basics, but the challenge is challenging for the ones who serve with an exquisite taste of delivering the customer wants at everyday shift. I was at the a diner the other day until recently a young fellow was determined to gain a tip. I thought it would take a while for my order to be prepared, surprisingly my presence of my order had arrived and despite what the food tasted, the main situation is how the fellow employee listened to me. His use of working etiquette shows that he cared and had good communication. I tipped him a five dollar bill personally I had respect for the young fellow the other day. I see how tipping is quite a barrier for the employees to earn. An author who was a former waitress at a decent restaurant Jamie Simmerman writes Tipping Guide for Good and Bad Services, exemplifies “...round the bill up to the nearest $10, and leave 20%. This is easy to calculate, and
If I were the owner of the restaurant, to impose service charge from the customer does not include only a cost of serving foods and drinks to customers but also include other services, for example, cooking, venue, atmosphere of the restaurant, and others materials. Obviously, it contains many factors which the owner said that just only a price of food is not enough for
price and the extra 68 cents goes to the bottom line Up-selling. In the hospitality industry, more emphasis is placed on training employees to become better sales people. The waiter, hostess, and bar-at tender become extensions of their sales and marketing team. Now up-selling has become the industry standard, as side dishes, appetizers, desserts and drinks all help in building a higher average cheque per customer. Your server is trained to ask if you want to add mushrooms or prawns to your steak dinner, or to try a specialty coffee with your dessert. Some restaurants expect their servers to suggest bottled water or Perrier when you ask for water, and offer a bottle of wine instead of the two glasses you asked for. The best servers take every opportunity to up-sell you on an item. I had to say, “No thanks”, at least a half dozen times during our last restaurant experience so as to be able to go back home with some money