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Nope not at all. We are 100% mad at the asshole who didn’t leave a tip

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I usually give around 5-10€ tip here in Germany and don't get why people in the US are mad when you don't give 10-20% tip. I have to work for my money too so either accept that people dont get you that much money for free or fuck off and get a better job.

You tip well. That’s just what you should do. I’ve never been so disappointed that I tip less, but when I’m very happy, my server knows

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Then get a new job

If everyone did that no one would serve you fat asses your food

If your mad at them your an entitled person. No one is obligated to tip you and honestly your responses paint you as an asshole who doesn’t deserve a tip. I’ve worked as a waiter, cashier and delivery person you have no one to blame except your boss and yourself.

Nah, not at all. It’s the entire system. And I don’t believe you worked as a waiter for long and have the view to be mad at your boss lol it’s the entire system

Did you know the minimum wage for servers is 2.13 an hour? That is why they count on tips. The system Sucks

If you are willing to work for 2.18 an hour you support the system.

Sometimes in small rural areas server jobs are all there is. So judge mental.

And then employers would need to rethink...

Well once we get all servers in the entire country to go on strike so we can change the system we can then get everyone together and fix the healthcare sysyem

And im saying this as someone who worked as a waiter for two long. I blamed the customers but the real problem was that shitty jobs. Cant put the responsibility of your financial future on some random diner.

I judge as I see fit. If you don't have the drive to get out of a system that pays you that less, that is your problem not mine.

Lmao this dude solving poverty. Just get the drive to get out of the system. Gotta go tell everyone!!!

You’d make more money panhandling

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I could make more money sucking dick doesn’t mean I’m going to. Who would want to be a lazy panhandler?

It's what you make out of yourself. When I got out of prison I had nothing and busted my ass up to where I am today so yea, tell me more about what poverty means.

Maybe they are using the waiter job to get out of poverty you fucking twat.

Well keep telling you that.

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Nope, we're mad at the d-wad that ran us ragged, asked for 8 free refills of soda, modded every item they ordered, and camped at the table for 2 hours and had the audacity to leave a dollar tip.

Everyone knows US restaurants work on tips, if you can't afford to or don't believe in tipping stay home and cook for yourself.

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You’ve worked as a waiter, and your saying that we shouldn’t expect tips? That people aren’t obligated to tip? When your a waiter, or bartender and your hourly wage is so low, you don’t even get a check 90% of the time..I’m sorry, yes we do expect tips. We also expect people to tip if they are going to sit down at a table and be waited on. This is just decency really. The drive through, or Carry out is always available for these hillbillies as well. I’d be embarrassed if I wrote this comment.

I agree. He couldnt handle being a waiter. No way

FALSE!!!

I’ve been waiting tables and tending bar since 2004. I made peace with the low wages a long time ago. I eat and pay my bills on tips.

When you don’t tip, YES WE ARE MAD AT YOU, not our jobs.

You know the tipped federal minimum wage is 2.13 an hour but you think it's the server's fault why again?

If you're willing to go out to eat then you support the system. So please explain how the server is the one in the wrong

Nobody said that the server is the problem alone but as long as people are willing to work for that ridiculous amount of salery the system won't change. A restaurant / bar lives with its staff, if they'd all refuse to work for that money, what do you think is going to happen?

Than get your ass up if you think you deserve more and get a better job instead of just "making peace" with your wages.

This comment +1

I think you completely misunderstood me, amigo. I make close to $600 a week or more in tips, but the wages I’m paid by my employer are about $3/hr. And before you get into it, yes, tips are considered wages, so maybe I should have been more specific about the low hourly pay rate.

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What do you want? You want to get paid a fair wage for the labor you provide or do you want to rely on tips only?

They’d restaff with people willing to work for low wages + tips.

AND THIS IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM! people are willing to work for that ridiculous amount of money in the first place.

Dear internet person, as a longtime professional in the industry, my mind is torn about this.

Firstly, the only real correlation with higher tips is higher sales. The more sales I have, particularly the more tables/customers I serve, the more tips I earn. So, I literally make more the harder I work.

Secondly, an hourly wage for the way I do my job would sap my willpower and absolutely destroy my sense of working as hard as possible. I would make just as much hourly on $800 in sales as $1600, so why would I ever care about doing twice as much work?

Thirdly, I know that as a tipped worker, I’m an outlier in terms of earnings. Tipped workers encounter poverty at three times the rate of non-tipped workers. In nearly two decades in the industry, I can’t tell you how many past and even current coworkers struggle so hard to keep their kids fed, their bills paid, and a roof over their heads. Many of them have lived hand to mouth, using their shift’s earnings to buy essentials on the way home and then repeat the pattern the next day. I’ve seen a lot of people over the years have a run of bad luck and jump ship for another restaurant or job because they have to operate on a short-term budget.

Fourthly, I spent a long time calibrating and calculating my budget to accommodate the fact that I never know exactly what I’m making week to week. However, I do know how much money I need to put in the bank every month to keep myself afloat, and since I’ve been budgeting like that for a long time, I’m well ahead of living month to month.

So, I’m doing perfectly fine busting my ass and making good money doing it, but a lot of people don’t do as well through no fault of their own. Tipping is one of the most fickle, unfair, underhanded, unpredictable, ageist, sexist, racist methods of compensating people for their work.

It’s a complicated question with complex answers, but I make more money under the current tipping model than any restaurant owner would actually pay anyone.

Edit: Typos and grammar.

Yes, because North America is a society that tips people for services, especially in the food and beverage industries. In order for anything to actually change, tipping would have to be outlawed, and restaurant and bar owners would have to be legally forced to provide their staff with a living wage. The average waiter/waitress, bartender can’t change our entire system on their own. And your notion of a staff just refusing to put up with the system is ridiculous. Those people would be replaced and the system wouldn’t change. I actually enjoyed my time bartending, I worked weekends and made more money than I needed if I had a regular 9-5 all week. There are pros and cons to tipping. Sometimes I think we should get rid of it and sometimes I don’t. But thinking any regular server is going to sacrifice themselves in protest to our system is a bit silly.

According to the IRS, only two things define something as a tip: it is voluntarily given, and it is the sole property of the recipient. So, technically no one has to tip if they don’t want to. But we learn who you are pretty quick.

keep telling urself that if it makesu u feel better for leaving a shity tip

As a long time server myself, you should never be looking at your situation on a table to table basis. Your viewpoint should never be so tiny. The smallest useful increment to examine is your weekly take home. If you’re living and dying on every single table, you’re gonna have a bad time.

False. The tipped minimum wage exists as a wage deduction allowance that restaurants are able to take out of their tipped workers’ wages. The federal maximum deduction under these rules is $5.12. The federal minimum wage is $7.25, and this is how we arrive at the $2.13/hr hourly rate for tipped workers. Employers are required to pay at least federal minimum wage, but as long as they can show in their records that your tips are making up for that $5.12/hr deduction, all they have to pay you is $2.13/hr.

The last time the federal minimum wage for tipped workers was changed was 1991. As early as 2011, I was working with people who were born into the system. They’re not buying into or supporting anything. It’s been foisted onto them by the people who made the rules: their parents’ generation.

ETA: Tips don’t exist to make up for the low hourly wages. The wage deduction (or tip credit as it’s also called) exists because tipping is so commonplace. A lot of people don’t understand that very fine point.

This all boils down to wether you enjoy the job itself or just the money it gets you. Because if you’re just thinking of money you should be working on getting a better higher paying job where you dont need to have a potential tip dangled in front of you to care if you do your job good or not.

I fucking love my job. Part of the reason I love it is the money is good, but not the whole reason.

The person I replied to made a specific point about money, which is why I addressed it that way.

And I don’t give a shit about individual tips/customers. I operate on more of a month-long scale. If one person wants to be an asshole about their tip, I don’t really give a shit in the grand scheme of things past being momentarily frustrated. Still love the job, though.

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Im debating whether to write this, but i made this post because i got a 60 dollar massage and when it was over i gave the masseuse an 8 dollar tip and she looked at it and her face just got mad and she stopped being nice. And all i could think was “you picked this work not me”. I enjoy your service i was kind and appreciative of your time, i even paid more than what the price was, but you still get mad. Im just personally happy i dont do service work anymore because its very hard to be satisfied. Now if a tip was mandatory included as a service charge i wouldn’t care. Thats the price of the work. 60 for the massage and a 20 percent charge for the masseuse. That makes sense, its included in the price and if you feel really good you can give them more.

Oh i usually tip too much when im drunk anyways. Ill get a shot and tip like 5 or more just to see the bartender be happy. But i always wake up the next day with a headache and no money 😆😆

Touché!

And I’ll amend my statement to address regulars. Those are individual customers and individual tips that I think any server is justified in worrying about. They come in more often than other customers, and I’ve seen servers literally survive slow periods just because they have faithful regulars, myself included.

I’m skinny and someone would be available. There’s new people being born and working there way up everyday.

No matter, in a few years all of this will be irrelevant because a robot will be doing it.

They're mad at the customer alright.

That's the hallmark of an American institution, it makes people blame each other.

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Heard

I back this up!

You know what you signed up for

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This person clearly doesn’t tip well, lol.

Wow. I’m losing so much faith in society reading these comments. Y’all need to listen to the Armchair Expert podcast episode about tipping in order to understand why the system works the way it does.

I honestly believe everyone should have to work a job in the service industry and rely on tips as a rite of passage. Maybe then people would be more empathetic and tip better. I once dumped a guy because I saw that he only left a 10% tip (whereas I left a 20%) and when I called him out on it he sounded like a clueless spoiled brat. So I left the server 30% instead and never talked to the man child again. Tipping poorly is the BIGGEST TURNOFF.

You didn’t really look this up did you? Wow. Yes. Obviously it’s voluntary, which is why I said “we expect” not it’s a law! We are all (well most of us) aware of this fact. I’m actually speechless. I nothing else to say.

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First, I think we can all agree. We are glad as well that you don’t work in the service industry. I have a feeling our table would be waiting a very long time for our food, then finally receiving it only to realize it’s cold. I’m not sure if you know this, but in certain circumstances a tip can me mandatory I guess you can say. It’s called gratuity..and it’s added to the bill. As servers,we often struggle with this decision. When you make the choice to add gratuity, you can usually only ask for 15% instead of the standard 20% people tip. When your a good server and your customers appreciate you, I’ve even gotten 30, 40, 50 percent. Usually you get an idea if the table is occupied with…(I’ll say, fugal customers) opposed to generous ones. In your case, I’d immediately put you with the “fugal’s” and at least get the 15% out of you. Ugh. Unreal. What’s so much worse though, is you having this sort of..entitled, pompous attitude, even trying to justify your embarrassing $8 tip when it’s SO apparent just how ignorant you are, and frankly Cheap AF. Not a good look. At all.

Only America has this problem. Non issue where I live. We gotta start paying people a livable wage, no matter the job.

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What an entitled bullshit thing to say. You are the exact person all servers hate I’m sure.

Because people need to fucking eat. Not everyone has the luxury to wait for that perfect paying job. Get your head out of your ass.

How is my decision going out to eat responsible for your decision taking a underpaid job?

Huh? No one said you were responsible? I said people take the job because they need to eat as in PAY THEIR BILLS. Then I said get your head out of your ass which I still stand by

I’ve been researching this stuff for about a decade, and I’ve worked in the food service industry since 2004.

Restaurants should just start paying their servers a livable wage so we don’t have to do it for them.

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And

It is not judgemental whatsoever it’s a fact and it’s reality 🤦‍♂️ choose to work for $2.18 an hour and you’re supporting the stupid ass system that’s designed to exploit you… it makes no difference if it’s your only choice.

Not very fast making $2.18 an hour. The definition of poverty.

Man get out of here with that bullshit there’s so many jobs right now it’s even fucking funny and nobody to work them , literally more jobs than there are people.

Nah they are mad at you 🤣 I mean I get the whole not wanting to pay extra on a meal you just got but like here’s the thing they get paid like crap so when you go out expect to be tipping 15-20% on that meal. If you can’t afford that or don’t want to do that please go to a fast food restaurant so you don’t have to be the dick that doesn’t tip! It’s just like moving over to the left lane when someone’s trying to pull out on your right (or vice versa) it’s common courtesy, just like tipping, anything less it’s on you how people react 🤣 but I promise it’s surely you and not the job (the job to though 🤣) And before anyone says anything I work in a group home with children so my point of view is not as the server or waitress it’s as a customer, and yes we also think those of you that don’t tip (and tip well) are tools.

To all the twats saying restaurants should just pay a livable wage to their employees, I would just like to point out- The US federal minimum wage is only $7.25 and well below livable standards to begin with.

To think somehow restaurants would go above and beyond to support their employees when they've been getting away with giving them the barest amount is unthinkable. And if they were forced to do so, they would just pass the cost on to the customer by considerably raising the cost of menu items.

The entire federal system would have to be overhauled to ensure all hourly rates at 40 hours a week could support each individual worker to a well defined and comfortable standard of living. And it ain't gonna happen in CorpoAmerica.

So either tip your server or know you will be enjoying a nice spit sandwich once you get pegged as the stingy bitch who doesn't tip at your favorite place to haunt, you absolute ghouls.

That would be nice, but America is a long way off from raising their standard of living. How would they be devicive and pit the classes against each other if there weren't clear obvious losers at the bottom to demonize?

As someone who worked a dish job in high school last year ima just say waiters and waitresses are some of the laziest people I’ve ever met. They were just like this comment section claiming that they worked so so hard and deserved a bottom line of 30%. Every single day I’d be picking up for them after closing and they’d leave at 10:00 to go drink while I’d usually stay till 12. They knew I had school to but no they’d leave me to bring the silverware and cups up (their job) which would add about 1 hour onto my shift. Finally ended up in the kitchen and when this continued 3 dishwashers walked out at once. The worst part was the fact I was having to do it by myself until I got moved up and not a single dishwasher would be willing to cover dish alone. After the 3 people walked out the servers started helping out the new dishwashers (because of the manager) and there was never a shift later than 10:30 for the dishwashers.

I've tipped less 4 times now and the only reason I remember is sharing the stories on reddit lol. 1st the server sat on her phone in the back of the empty resturant and ignored us..had to go get her to order and someone else brought the food then we had to go get her to pay. 2nd the waitress went in back and told the entire kitchen staff we were using racial slurs and they piled out looking for a fight and cussing us. The one using the slurs was on the other side of the little dividing wall and left as the drama started and before they could be pointed out 3rd the server gave us our appetizers, disappeared for a half hour then came back and dropped a bill. We had dishes on the table so she claimed we had ate, lied about us to the manager and we a large ordeal. 4th. This one was recent. Server liked to talk ....a lot. Which is great we love talking... until she started giving details about her vaginal ultrasound in front of the kids...

Sounds like you have crappy management too if they’re not making the servers help..

True.

Until that happens though, either tip or stay out of the restaurant.

tips do provide a fair wage for the vast majority of servers.

Getting rid of tipping and raising the waiter's hourly-pay to compensate is for the benefit of the customers, most servers are happy with the tips they get.

Isn't the employer responsible for paying a fair wage to his employees and not the customer?

It's even worse than you say. The minimum wage of $7.25 does NOT affect anyone that gets tips, like a server in a restaurant. The Federal minimum for those people is $2.13/hour.

And no, it's not going to change in CorpoAmerica

Tipping has been a staple in the service industry in the US for centuries. It's now become a social norm to tip for service. Whether or not we agree doesn't negate the fact that venues have put the responsibility for wages in the hands of customers and by patronizing said establishment, you're entering into that agreement. TL:DR - If you can't afford to tip you can't afford to go out. Stay home/

Sounds justified to say the least!

Indeed, I should have specified that restaurants give lower than the most bare amount for all others who are not in the food service industry

Don't even listen to this guy, just some criminal who has no idea what it's like to actually work I this world

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You can tell who's American looking at the comments 🤦‍♂️

It shouldn't be the responsibility of the general public who are also making a barely liveable wage to pay your wage.

It's the fault of corporations that your wage is shit, not some poor bloke who's grafting 12 hrs a day in a factory to barely make ends meet who just wants to treat his family to a nice meal a couple times a year.

Tips should be for exceptional service rather than for covering the shortcomings of shitty businesses when you're just providing bog standard service.

Wow wtf are you even talking about, it's not like the masseuse was making 2.13 an hour, it's a different situation. $8 is very close to 15% as it is i'm not sure why you thought this was a server or something.

No one works for that little.