Posted on 01/07/2010 9:51:07 AM PST by big black dog
> What leads the “few” who “do” to drop spare change in the jar?
Until last year, our coins were HUGE and heavy. Wear holes in your pockets — our fifty cent piece was as big as your silver dollar. I think it probably stemmed from that.
> And what constitutes “change”?
Usually anything 50 cents and under — particularly 10 cent pieces (and 5 cent pieces when we had them — we have long since got rid of one cent and two cent pieces, and recently got rid of five cent pieces. Ten cents is our smallest coin, then twenty, then fifty, then a dollar, then two dollars...)
> Does NZ have 1 and 2 dollar coins like Canada?
Yes, they are made from a brass alloy and are thicker and heavier than our smaller change. We call them “gold coins” and they tend to be treated more like bills than coins, if that makes any sense. People don’t like breaking gold coins into smaller change.
LOL
Incidentally,it doesn’t have to be a big tip. When I was working in restaurants, I could recognize people for whom $1.00 was a big tip, and I understood that they were doing what they could.
Generally, people in a bar tip better because a bar is an optional experience and you must have had a moderate surplus of cash to go there. It’s not like eating the $2.99 breakfast at Waffle House on your way to work. But even there, I leave a good tip.
Actually, they don’t deal with people like me because if you count the times I have eaten out in the last ten years on one hand, you would still have fingers left over.
I quit eating out because the food is lousy, the service stinks, and the atmosphere and cleanliness of most restaurants is abysmal at best.
I LOVE cooking and I grow my own food so everything is fresh, healthy, and not sprayed with insectisides. I buy prime meat from a neighbor whose livestock I can pet everyday over the fence. Learn to FEED yourself and you will learn to THINK for yourself.
“What we are up against in this country, in any attempt to invoke private responsibility, is that we have nearly destroyed private life. Our people have given up their independence in return for the cheap seductions and the shoddy merchandise of so-called “affluence.” We have delegated all our vital functions and responsibilities to salesmen and agents and bureaus and experts of all sorts. We cannot FEED or clothe ourselves, or entertain ourselves, or communicate with each other, or be charitable or neighborly or loving, or even respect ourselves, without recourse to a merchant or a corporation or a public-service organization or an agency of the government or a style-setter or an expert. Most of us cannot think of dissenting from the opinions or the actions of one organization without first forming a new organization. Individualism is going around these days in uniform, handing out the party line on individualism. Dissenters want to publish their personal opinions over a thousand signatures.” ~Wendell Berry
That reminds me of something I wonder about...so many on this thread say that tipping insures better service. One poster said the question "had long been settled..." why did I think of Algore?
Anyway...it seems to me the same argument works for third world countries like Mexico...when you bribe someone, don't you get better service?
Where's the logical line between tipping and bribing? It seems to me it's just a matter of degree.
All of them?
That is the standard tipped minimum wage, and it doe snot go up with increases to the minimum wage.
At least it was when I was a waiter a while back at Semolina’s restaurant.
Furthermore, Semolina’s required their wait staff to stay on the clock between 2 and 5 pm, when the restaurant was closed, in order to portion pasta for the dinner crew.
They were paid 2.13 an hour to do this labor while they received not a single tip, because the restaurant was closed.
(GRIN!) Excellent points!
So do I. Don't even want to be asked once. If there's a problem I'll go to the manager and chew his head off. I prefer to order at a counter at a place with a self-serve beverage bar. No use for table service, ever.
Another way around the whole thing is to just go to a buffet.
I agree -- solves numerous problems.
Mike:
The owners of the restaurant have Property Rights and among those rights is to ban you from their property.
That helps sort of. Waitri are still taxed on a percentage of the gross ticket sales. Back in the day, when they first started doing that, I believe it was 8% (don't know what it is now). Tipping on the credit card means the entire amount is reported as income. And when you tip with cash and it is (or was) 8% of the total bill to be reported as income. If you tip 15~20% then the wait made out okay.
The government assumes that people tip, so for those of you who don't tip, you're costing the waiter money. He's paying taxes on money he didn't receive because you're (not you Mom) too cheap of a bastard to tip.
You just say bingo.
I was a waitress for years and I *love* the tipping system. It rewards those who are good at their job and runs off those who aren’t.
A good waitress in a good location can do really well. But it requires hard work and a LOT of patience. It helps young people learn about pleasing the customer and teaches valuable sales skills which can come in handy down the road. It’s a great way for young people to enter the workforce.
At the very least, it increases one’s appreciation of higher education! lol! (Working with older waitresses taught me what I did NOT want to be doing in 30 years. It got me to buckle down more than anything else back in the day when I was young and stupid.)
Because they are not being paid decently in anticipation that they will be getting tips.
This is idiotic.
In the United States, which is where this restaurant is located, it is an EXPECTATION to tip. It’s part of the BUSINESS MODEL, and in fact, it gives the patron LIBERTY to decide HOW MUCH to pay for the service they receive. It doesn’t, however, give them liberty to STEAL IT, which is what not tipping is. If smaller minds have trouble getting their tiny brains around it, think of it as salary plus commission. Owner pays the salary, and you pay the commission. Not paying the commission is theft.
You get to decide the percent based on the experience, but service is NOT part of the price of a meal at a restaurant.
Were a restaurant owner to pay their wait staff ‘prevailing wages minus the tips’ their labor cost would be double or triple their competitors.
They’d be out of business in weeks, unless they had an unlimited supply of stupid cash set aside to donate to non-tipping idiots that seem to believe they live in Europe.
If you REALLY want to practice ‘liberty’, go set up a Catholic church on a street corner in Yemen. Then you’ll have my respect.
In THIS country, with our customs, calling selfishness ‘liberty’ is just a way to push around restaurant owners that are already getting pushed around by city, county, state, federal, and world government.
Go to Germany, pay triple for breakfast, and don’t tip - guilt free.
Go to Denny’s, pay $2.99 for an unbelievable amount of food, don’t tip, and you’re a thief. That simple.
See, here in this country, tipping IS freedom. You, and you alone, judge whether the service was adequate. If so, cough up. If not, lower the tip. If it was great, then make it 20% or higher.
I hate that "food tmapering" has become an acceptabl and justifiable act.
If I ever had that happen to me, folks would pay a heavy price.
>>my *job* is to bring you a drink, bring your food, bring your check and not screw up. period. like mcdonalds, but i actually carry it out to your table.<<
And to be clear, carrying it out to my table is part of the job as well.
Regarding the extra stuff, I have no problem with getting it myself if someone would tell me where it is. I’ve done it on more than one occasion, even at McCormicks in Seattle and Bellevue.
I look at it this way: I prefer self service gas stations because the service is faster.
It is hard to find a “buffet” type restaurant with good food, but that paradigm is by far my preferred method to eat out. You pay, you get your food, you get your “extra” stuff when you need it, you eat and converse with your friends WITHOUT INTERRUPTIONS, and then you leave. Maybe you pay after you eat.
For me, that is the ultimate restaurant experience. I’ve eaten a lot at Ruth’s Chris, Daniels Broiler, Most of the McCormicks and Scmicks in the Seattle area and a host of other nice places around the country. My favorite place is an Irish pub a few miles west of Parsippany NJ. And I eat at the bar. Good food, good service, and very friendly staff AND customers. And yeah, they get 20%. It still rubs me the wrong way though.
Something else I've wondered...if you get spectacularly bad service (the kind that makes you leave comments on the company web site) should you then be able to deduct from the bill?
> I carry a roll of fives around just to tip with. I give a $5 tip on a $10 haircut.
Why do you feel the need to throw your money around like that?
Have you considered that your actions may be saying something highly uncomplimentary about you? I understand your motiviations (I think) — you are generous to a fault — but some folks would definitely misinterpret your excessive tipping as something else altogether.
Just a thought.
>>...yeah. i make really good on tips.<<
My daughter in law was a waitress in Chicago. She was really good and made really good tips. Are you her, by any chance? ;)
The stuff you listed is all good reason for tipping. For me, I just need the high quality food delivered to me when it is still hot.
And if I order a side of jalapeno’s I expect to get them. I’m batting about 400 on that annoying item.
I've waited tables and tended bar before and I can honestly say that only a few types of people bugged the hell out of me. They were very rude, demanding and very cheap. There was always a discussion with the hostess when those types were put in your section.
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