Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Must Have Been Something I Ate

But there is no way in the world I am eating at restaurants with a mandatory 20% tip. Sorry, if I don't get good service I should have the right to adjust my tip accordingly. Otherwise, it is a tax. It isn't because I am cheap either. If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to eat out is the way we were brought up.
To level the playing field, waiters are taking action. Some are resorting to guerrilla tactics — it's not uncommon for waiters to personally confront stingy tippers, or to blog about them on sites such as WaiterRant.Net.

One former waiter, Yakup Ulutas, is proposing restaurants change the system. Ulutas, a 36 year-old restaurant manager in Atlanta, founded a nonprofit organization, Fairtip.org, to persuade restaurants to implement an automatic 20 percent service fee on every check. He estimates 2,500 waiters have joined.
Sometimes I pay with my debit card and tip with cash because servers have to pay taxes on 8% and I don't want to leave a paper trail for them to have to pay more to the government.

I'm a really good cook, so when I go out I'm looking for good service because I don't feel like cooking. If I don't get it, I shouldn't have to pay for it. Where is the incentive to do a good job? I have spent my share of time as a server and know how hard the work is, how ungrateful the customers can be and still made good money.

If a restaurant can't afford to pay its employees, then maybe it should consider going buffet, Mongolian or cafeteria style.

Plus, it will be a short leap for the government to start taxing the extra 12% since they would know for sure what you made. The servers might want to rethink this plan.

3 comments:

  1. A waiter is paid a tip because of good or bad service, the establishment pays the wage. Perhaps they should start trying to get better wages because after all tips are extra.

    The servers are doing the job that is expected of them, to wait on people, so they should start asking for better pay.

    I tend to tip fairly and well, even for mediocre service mainly because servers and bartenders to not make proper wages. This should be brought up to the industry as unfair and not forced upon the customers to provide where the industry fails to provide proper pay.

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  2. "This should be brought up to the industry as unfair and not forced upon the customers to provide where the industry fails to provide proper pay."

    It will be forced on you one way or another. If dining establishments are forced to pay higher wages, they'll just raise the price of the food.

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  3. I don't have to pay. I can cook and do more and more frequently. I can even do sushi (chirashi bowl and easy wraps) in a pinch.

    I should be able to determine the tip. To Insure Prompt Service.

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