quote:I also hate going someplace with a group and when splitting the bill some people "forget" to add tax and tip to their share. Even for people who don't like the system, tipping IS a part of the system. If you don't like it, don't go out. Or open your own restaurant where the servers are paid fairly and it's printed in big letters across the menu that everything is more expensive because the tip is included.
People who do this don't get invited to go out with me anymore. Or, you know, beaten with a sock full of nickels.
Posts: 246 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Citadel--back to our minimum wage discussion--
Inflation is a good question, and entirely different than your earlier argument about employment.
If everybody got double their pay, then inflation would be a definate result. But that is now what we are talking about.
If costs for the individuals go up, while the income of the individual stays the same, that is deflation. There money buys less and less.
People are earning remarkably less in value than those who were hired a few years before, or if they have not gotten any raises in their years of service, are earning less value than when they were hired--due to inflation.
With less value available, then they can afford to buy fewer items and services. As this spread we get the problem of creeping Recession. To combat this, and to feed the children of families making minimum wage, welfare programs are initiated. This costs tax dollars which companies are forced to pay, causing them to increase prices, which more people won't be able to afford, so the cycle continues.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Known good tippers get better service. Having worked as a bartender and server for a few years, I can tell you this is absolutely true. At a bar, if there are five people who want my attention, and one of them tipped very well on the first round while the others didn't - who do you think will get my attention first? If someone didn't tip at all on the first round, they will most certainly fall far down my priority list behind other tipping customers.
The same is true for regular customers as a server. If I have a regular that tips 20-25%, that person will have a greater share of my attentions than a regular that tips 10-15%.
Knowing you will get no tip decreases quality of service. When I have served a person twice at a bar and received no tip either time, I assume there will be no tip forthcoming on any other rounds. That person drops off the radar as long as I have other customers. If I have nothing else to do, I won't break my back to serve that person either.
For example, say a customer wants a bloody mary with horseradish in it, but there is no horseradish at the bar and I'd have to walk back to the kitchen to get some. For a good tipper, I would gladly do this to make them happy (or keep them happy). For a bad tipper, the answer would most likely be "I'm sorry, we don't have horseradish behind the bar."
The same goes for table service. If I've seen a party two or three times and they've given very low tips despite good service, their requests will drop farther down my list of priorities. Getting extra ketchup for a bad tipper v. getting water for a good tipper? I know which I'm doing first.
**
For the record, I always averaged 20%+ when I worked as a server, and higher when I worked as a bartender. Success as a server often means playing to your generous customers at the expense of your cheap ones.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
This is why our system of government is flawed...we're ruled by rich people who don't see minimum wage as an issue because they've never had to rely on it.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Belle, at some restaurants, the POS system which the servers use automatically add the gratuity to the bill. For example, at the restaurant I work at, our system asks the server how many guests are being served. If it's a party of 8 or more, the system will automatically add an 18% gratuity.
And Morbo, with the whol 2.13/hr for servers. If the server's tips don't add up to the federal minimum wage, then the employer must make up the difference.
I personally love tipping. It's kind of like an investment. I go to a certain bar that I love, and I tip well. Over the course of a few weeks, servers and bartenders alike grow to love me. Eventuallly an item disappears from my check, then two items, then... Oh my goodness! Our POS crashed and we completely lost your check! *wink wink* So I pay about 75% of what I would have paid for my bill entirely without tip as the tip.
quote:This is why our system of government is flawed...we're ruled by rich people who don't see minimum wage as an issue because they've never had to rely on it.
It seems that just about every other system of government has the same problem, only worse.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:This is why our system of government is flawed...we're ruled by rich people who don't see minimum wage as an issue because they've never had to rely on it.
It seems that just about every other system of government has the same problem, only worse.
I was using the term "our" to mean humans. Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:I don't go anywhere enough to be a known anything.
I'm guessing you don't drink at bars or clubs. Normally the tip you give on your first round gets you known pretty quickly.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by EKR: Belle, at some restaurants, the POS system which the servers use automatically add the gratuity to the bill. For example, at the restaurant I work at, our system asks the server how many guests are being served. If it's a party of 8 or more, the system will automatically add an 18% gratuity.
And Morbo, with the whol 2.13/hr for servers. If the server's tips don't add up to the federal minimum wage, then the employer must make up the difference.
I personally love tipping. It's kind of like an investment. I go to a certain bar that I love, and I tip well. Over the course of a few weeks, servers and bartenders alike grow to love me. Eventuallly an item disappears from my check, then two items, then... Oh my goodness! Our POS crashed and we completely lost your check! *wink wink* So I pay about 75% of what I would have paid for my bill entirely without tip as the tip.
I love being a tipped employee of California.
~Earl
In Taiwan most restaurants are family owned so you dont tip anybody you just become a family friend if you keep coming back and eventually you get charged as a friend instead of a stranger.
The sit down restaurants have the bill and thats all you are expected to pay, tips are a rarity. But then again I do not think there is a minimum wage in Taiwan and people just get paid how much the invisible hand of the market dictates. It seems to work for them just fine.
I prefer the family run restaurants, it so much more fun to eat from people you know personally.
Too bad there is nowhere in Utah I can think of where I could afford to go enough that the staff got to know me. Not to mention I can't think of anyplace with enough different good food to warrant that many visits.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote: All I know is is that minimum wage does lag far behind inflation trends.
See -- this is kinda my thought.
I'm not usually for government "enforcing" a wage of any kind - minimum wage included.
But we DO have a minimum wage, and while my own regular earnings as an employee I know have been increased (through raises) each year at least 3 to 7 %, I know that those who rely on minimum wage have NOT had an increase (unless they got promoted out of a minimum wage job to something better). I think the minimum wage has been the same for many years now, instead of adjusting each year as most of our salaries do.
And there are employers out there who, quite frankly, will try to get by with paying just the bare minimum to their people that they can. Instead of adjusting each year to take into account the cost of living.
quote:Originally posted by pH: I like the concept of tips. It means if you're an ass and ignore me or take twenty minutes to bring me ketchup, I don't have to give you, personally, any money.
I'm actually a really good tipper, and it takes a lot for me NOT to tip well, but I like to have that option.
-pH
I am a good tipper and really all you have to do to get it is be on the ball.
Just be polite (I am pretty nice to waitors because I know how hard it is for them) make sure I get plenty of refills on my drink, and after you bring my food stop by 1-2 times before I pay the bill to make sure everything is fine. You basically earn 20% of the total bill if you do all those things.
Exactly. And I often tip more than 20%, especially if the server went above and beyond. Like last week, my friend and I went out to eat, and I asked for something that wasn't on the menu (it was a really simple change, but still, not on the menu), and then we sat around talking for 30min after the meal, during which time the server kept refilling our drinks and didn't press a check on us until we asked for one.
quote:and then we sat around talking for 30min after the meal
I'm glad you mentioned this as a reason for leaving a higher tip.
For those of you who have never been in food service, this is one of the worst things you can do to a server, especially during a busy part of the day.
Every minute you sit at the table, you deny the server from getting another group sat in his or her section. If it's during the dinner rush and you've finished eating and paying for your meal and are just sitting talking for a half an hour or more, you might take up that table for the entire rush and it might never get sat again. That could mean another $20 the server never gets.
Granted, if the restaurant is empty, this is not a big deal. But if there's a wait or tables are filling up, you should definitely compensate your server for taking up a table for a long time after you're done eating. Think of it as renting the table for an extra few bucks.
Also, just to throw this in, try not to buy drinks at the bar and sit in a server's section - especially if that's your only drink for the night, and definitely especially if you're not ordering anything else. You've essentially taken that money source out of the server's rotation (sometimes of only 3 tables) for a large period of time. If you do this, try to kick in a few extra dollars.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
It wasn't busy, but even when we asked for the check, she told us we could hang out as long as we wanted.
And tipping bartenders is an especially big deal, since if you don't tip, you could be standing around forever to get another drink on a busy night. This was especially true at a bar that I used to hang out at that had ladies' night...which was a $5 cover, with free drinks for women. The bartenders would serve the guys before the girls becuase a lot of times, the girls only brought five bucks with them, and it was so busy that you might have to stand at the bar 10-15min to get service. Unless, like me, you always left the bartender at least a buck, depending on how many drinks you were having refilled.
Question: how do hairdressers get paid? Because I know tipping them is a big deal, too.
quote:Originally posted by EKR: And Morbo, with the whol 2.13/hr for servers. If the server's tips don't add up to the federal minimum wage, then the employer must make up the difference.
~Earl
That's over a two week pay period though for many restaurants. At the restaurant where I work, if servers get crappy tips for two weeks, then have one FANTASTIC night where they make 200 dollars, then those 200 dollars are averaged out over the course of the entire two week pay period. I don't think that's fair at all, but it makes it more or less impossible for them to make minimum wage on a DAILY basis.
Belle -
At the restaurant I work at, the servers have the option of NOT adding a grat onto a bill. If they've given great service, and like the table, they might not grat it, hoping they will tip more than 18%. But if it's a table of kids, or knowing my restaurant, a table of black people, 9 times out of 10 they will always put the grat on it, knowing from experience that they are never going to get full value from the table.
Also, where I work, 20% is considered the norm. Anything less and I hear grumbling.
As far as new training classes coming in, it never means less tables where I work. New servers means less shifts, not less tables. Either way you lose money I guess, but you aren't working for less money as it were. The floor is still staffed the same way.
I'm not sure what I think of the tipping thing. Maybe 10% of the tip could be rolled right into the price of the menu, which still leaves people the option of not tipping for poor service, but poor service is always acted on at the restaurant I'm at. If you complain to a manager, the server WILL be talked to.
Most of the servers I work with wouldn't work for an hourly rate. I think the ones that are good servers would still do a good job, and the ones that suck would still suck, that wouldn't change, but good luck attracting ANYONE to be a server if you're only going to give them 10 bucks an hour. I have to leave for work in a half hour, and I guarantee that every server there tonight will make more than I do, and I make 11 an hour (with a raise due soon dammit!), and few, if any of them would work for that. The job involves putting up with way too much crap from people.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:But if it's a table of kids, or knowing my restaurant, a table of black people, 9 times out of 10 they will always put the grat on it, knowing from experience that they are never going to get full value from the table.
This was one of the reasons I had to stop working in restaurants, specifically in Atlanta where I worked last. You become prejudiced - in the true sense that you pre-judge people as they come in the door into two categories "good tippers" and "bad tippers".
Often this broke down along racial, gender and age-based lines, and anyone with a foreign accent was automatically considered a bad tipper.
Watching the immediate attitude of my coworkers toward those deemed "bad tippers" - and catching myself prejudging in the same way - made me want to remove myself from the environment as quickly as possible.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I've been a server, and a charming one, and I'd still rather have a plump hourly wage. One of the perks of tips is that you are paid in cash. And when you are living week to week, as many servers are, having cash on hand is no small issue.
I've never been a bartender, and I think that the circumstances are different for bartenders.
I used to be a good tipper. Now I'm an awful tipper. It has nothing to do with the service and everything to do with my insecure income.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I don't wait tables, but on the whole, at least on average, those prejudices seem to be true.
Chaldeans are needy, but tip well. Black people are twice as needy, and tip half as good. Foreigners don't tip at all, or tip horribly, or tip in foriegn money, which might as well not be a tip at all. Kids tip horribly.
The Chaldean servers agree about Chaldeans, the black servers agree about black guests, and on down it goes. It's accepted. I personally don't have to deal with it, but everyone agrees, and learns it fast.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Just because it's a stereotype, doesn't mean it's automatically wrong.
All my experience waiting tables in Atlanta proved the prejudices true, but I fought against having my opinions of people changed by the color of their skin.
I worked in Buckhead, which is a popular area with a predominantly black clientele on Friday and Saturday nights. Where in NJ, I would make a killing on those nights and everyone fought to work during those times, in Atlanta it was the exact opposite - people actually tried to get out of weekend shifts, because they knew they'd make no money.
For example, in NJ on a weekday night I might have pulled in $80-$100 in tips, while on a Saturday I'd make $140-$180. In Atlanta, on a weekday night I'd make $70-$80 in tips, and on a Saturday I'd be lucky to pull in $50.
My impressions of people started to be changed by their racial background because of this, and I decided to get out.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Oh FlyingCow... you need to come to California. I'm just a barback and my weekday tips run anywhere from 100-150, and my weekend tips double my weekday tips.
Posts: 18 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
As I said about Taiwan, most Chinese/Japanese/Koreans do not know to tip, so when they learn that they are supposed to they lack understanding as the waitor certainly does not explain what a type should be.
FC: You are right, stereotypes are not always wrong. I blame Asian ignorance more than Asian disposition for poor tipping.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Granted, EKR, I was working in chain restaurants that specifically limit the number of tables you were allowed to have. (4 at Macaroni Grill in NJ and 3 at Cafe Tu Tu Tango in Atlanta)
That severely limited your earning ability. Of course, when people quit and you were allowed to have 5 and 6 table sections, tips rose dramatically.
As for bartending, the Macaroni Grill insisted on having 3 bartenders working the one bar on Friday and Saturday nights and two on weekdays for some bizarre reason. That meant the $450 in tips had to be divided three ways (minus tipouts) and $300 had to be divided two ways.
When I was a lone bartender, I did very well. When they divide the tips umpteen ways, you get killed.
Which was another worry of mine for lowering server minimum wage - it allows restaurants to hire more servers to have "more attention" paid to customers by shrinking section sizes (and therefore tips).
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
BlackBlade, before I travel to another country I read a guidebook that covers local customs, including if tipping is expected or not and how much. I'm sure the guidebooks for America cover it, too.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I'm with mph on this one; one of the bits I dislike most about American cultural imperialism is that the tip is slowly making inroads in Norway. Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Who cares about minimum wage? I'm crossing my fingers about the other part of the article, the estate tax. Permanently getting rid of the estate tax would be a problem for me.
Posts: 202 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I don't wait tables, but on the whole, at least on average, those prejudices seem to be true.
Chaldeans are needy, but tip well. Black people are twice as needy, and tip half as good. Foreigners don't tip at all, or tip horribly, or tip in foriegn money, which might as well not be a tip at all. Kids tip horribly.
The Chaldean servers agree about Chaldeans, the black servers agree about black guests, and on down it goes. It's accepted. I personally don't have to deal with it, but everyone agrees, and learns it fast.
Ha. My girlfriend's half-Indian, half-Iraqi. I can't imagine how confused the poor waiters must have been at her parents' wedding...
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
As far as the minimum wage goes, it's not a bad idea. A higher minimum wage is still barely livable -- there's a virtual guarantee that every dime's going to be re-pumped back into the local economy. Increasing wages at higher ends of the spectrum in no way guarantees that the money would be spent immediately or locally or, as you rise higher, that it'll even be spent in this country.
I'm not sure how I feel about the minimum wage, but it's hard for me to be unsympathetic. I've barely scraped by with $7-8/hour in two jobs without any costs but my cheap rent and food. A raise is a very small cost relative to executive salaries, and if anything, would probably increase sales in the very places where the minimum wage would probably be applied (McDonald's, etc.). And since many of these jobs involve direct customer interaction, there's little chance that they can be given to illegals for a lower wage. All the jobs that can use illegals, like cooks or maids, already hire them.
I can't see any drawbacks to a minimum wage unless taken to drastic measures, and though I can see concerns about a ripple effect, I doubt it would affect anyone who makes more than $9/hour. Are there any significant concerns I'm just not aware of?
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Basically, there seems to be at least some loss of jobs due to a minimum wage increase, and definitely an increase in prices (restaurants were studied, in this case).
Some questions: is it more important that the people working be paid slightly more, or that there be an extra 2% of people working? I suspect it will depend on who you ask . Keep in mind that people are agreeing to work for the current wage, and that raising the wage will only result in fewer people being able to do so (due to fewer jobs being available at that level).
Note that with this change there's a virtually guaranteed deadweight loss, so no, raising the minimum wage would not result in an overall improvement in the economy or people's standard of living. The gains of the ninety-eight percent having a ten percent wage increase would be more than offset by the two percent losing one hundred percent of their wage and the additional cost of living for those relying on the wage.
In many places in the US, the minimum wage is livable for one person. I think most of the US, in a surface area sense, even. Outside of cities, cost of living can be significantly less.
Many of the jobs at a minimum wage are held as part time jobs by teenagers or people seeking secondary employment -- these sorts of jobs are also among the most likely to be dropped given a wage hike (demand is more elastic for things like landscaping).
Raising the minimum wage creates an incentive to hire more illegal workers. Furthermore, it creates a disincentive at places already hiring many illegal workers to 'legalize' their operation.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
For another take on the issue, there is some debate over whether the job loss effects are real. For a long time data was very inconclusive, though I think there have been recent studies with more conclusive results showing a small but noticable effect. However, even if you don't accept those arguments, here's an article by one of my favorite economists (he's the author of the excellent "Armchair Economist" book (unrelated to the similarly-named website)): http://www.slate.com/id/2103486/Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote: Many of the jobs at a minimum wage are held as part time jobs by teenagers or people seeking secondary employment -- these sorts of jobs are also among the most likely to be dropped given a wage hike (demand is more elastic for things like landscaping).
I hear this often, but usually out of the mouths of college economists or folks of a class of people who don't expect to work minimum wage jobs again. From what I've seen, there is a large breadth of people who work minimum wage jobs, not merely teenagers. And even as much as we want only teenagers to work minimum wage jobs, I just don't know if that's the case.
I'm a fan of the targeted minimum wage increases for some of the bigger businesses, like security companies or big box stores, where the manager's salaries are three and four times the worker's salaries. In those situations, saying that a minimum wage decreases the overall employment, while true, is only true because of some nefarious business structure.
In those cases, it seems as if the company wants plantation overseers rather than supervisors.
posted
'round these parts, Micky D's pays $10 an hour.
But I don't think that would work all over the country. There's a shortage of labor, and companies can't raise their prices all that much because they'll look evil and uncaring.
However, we also have fewer choices when it comes to, say, fast food, which is why at midnight, there's always a line of cars out the parking lot and down the street at 24-hour McDonald's on St. Charles.
posted
And as an incidental aside, this article gives a really perfect example of how to make controls in a sociological study, as we were discussing the other day. Experimental design to delight even a physicist's eye, and as you must know, we are hard to please when it comes to the soft sciences!
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Fugu's article is also inextricably pro-Earned Income Credit. I'm a little worried about taking one without the other.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Irami, you seem to completely miss two things: the word "many" instead of "most" and the words "or people seeking secondary employment" instead of "just teenagers". And you should hear it from many mouths, because the statement is objectively true and backed up by numerous studies.
Not to mention that the article isn't pro-EIC, its just talking about considering something like the EIC vs the minimum wage and saying that if you want a minimum wage increase, an program like the EIC (or an increase thereof) is preferable in pretty much every way.
And no, saying a minimum wage decreases the overall employment isn't just true because of some nefarious business structure. If it were all a scheme where the company was getting significantly more worth out of the employee than they were paying in wages, then when the minimum went up a small bit there would be no incentive to fire any workers, because they'd still be making money off of every worker they were employing. Only if it is actually true that the amount of value the company derives from having the marginal worker is about the value of his or her wages is anybody fired when the minimum wage increases (making the marginal worker result in less profit than not having the worker).
But of course, the second article provides an excellent argument against the minimum wage increase even if there is no decrease in employment.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
All of my comments were directed towards the second article.
quote:And you should hear it from many mouths, because the statement is objectively true and backed up by numerous studies.
I've missed the research because I've heard it spouted as common sense from people who think that there are more suburban movie theater workers working at minimum wage than there are people working in other minimum waged service or agriculture jobs.
posted
Apparently you've again ignored the 'many' and the 'or' clause, and I assume you're exaggerating types of job for effect (or in your case, perhaps affect). also edit: or maybe somehow hearing silly things from people makes you miss research? I can't tell.
edit: and if all your comments were directed towards the second article, then it doesn't matter how the employment is distributed.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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It takes into account all jobs between minimum wage and $7.25 an hour, so it includes a lot of people not being paid minimum wage. However, in some ways that makes this point stronger.
Some details to note: over half (56%) of people working low wage jobs do not work full time. At least that many are either teenagers or not working their low wage job full time (since 29% are 16-19, and presumably at least a few of those are full time). That means it is quite possible most are either using it as supplementary income or are teenagers. As all I said is many, I think my point is proved.
Regarding breakdown of job-type, 53% is either retail trade or leisure and hospitality (though I find 'other' a silly category to put 48% in, and wonder why the people who did this breakdown made that choice, and think the fuzzy results funny). So that's more people working the 'suburban movie theater' sort of job than the 'agricultural' sort of job, though considering 'service' includes 'suburban movie theater' sorts of jobs, I'm confused why you're putting them on opposite sides of the comparison.
edit: and one last interesting thing. The numbers for people potentially 'indirectly affected' -- note this is people earning a bit over $7.25/hr, a good deal more than the current minimum wage -- the numbers of people working part time and teenagers all drop significantly. This strongly suggests that minimum/low wage jobs are different from other jobs in that they involve more teenagers and people working part time.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by citadel: [QUOTE] Perhaps the solution to the problem lies not in forcing employers to pay more, but rather in increasing the education & skills of minimum wage workers so they are more valuable.
Hmmm. Perhaps YOU would like to pick the asparagus, apples, grapes . . . scrub the toilets, change the diapers, serve the customer the food they didn't want to make, and bus the table, wash the dishes . . . mow the grass, launder the dirty shirts, scrub the floors, empty the garbage . . .
SOMEONE has to do these menial, uneducated, ill-paying tasks . . . whom do you suggest and for what sort of compensation?
posted
I don't think that's obvious. Consider domestic servants; there was a time when every middle-class family could afford a couple, and 'somebody had to do it'. These jobs basically got educated and technologised out of existence; I don't see any reason why the same can't happen to picking asparagus. Which is too bad for people who like cheap asparagus, just as it was too bad for people who didn't like washing their own dishes.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Edit to add: Exactly which time period were you thinking about, KOM, when most middle class families could afford a couple of servants?
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I am not going to rant on this topic. I will only say that it is one of the issues that completely destroys my faith in our government. They have completely, utterly let their people down in the Senate by ignoring the minimum wage for so many years. This is an utter travesty. They can tie it into other political issues if they'd like, but its just plain wrong to allow the minimum wage to sit at the same level as prices continue to rise.
I want to move to England and never come back here. Sometimes I really think I will do that.
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