Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich for February 05, 2010

Deliberate sarcasm

Deserved sarcasm!

8 or more is 20% and usually added anyway. There are STOOOOPID people out there, though.

As a non-US person I do not undersand why restaurants pay such crappy wages in the US. Do you tip the person who scans your groceries at the checkout?

Restaurants pay the waitstaff less-than-minimum wage because they’re allowed to. It’s understood that they’ll make up the difference in tips, and a good server in a good restaurant can make a really good living off tips, but it’s not a certainty. Unless I’ve gotten conspicuously (and unaccountably) bad service I leave 15% plus a bit, and for really good service I might go over 20%…

I only tip when there’s actually table service, though. I rarely throw change in tip jars by the register, where all they’ve done is throw something on a tray and ring up my purchase.

Graham

Minmum wage for tipped wait staff in the us has been frozen @ $2.13 per hr since 1991.

Cashier at a non union shop minimum wage is just a tad higher @ $7.25 per hr

They don’t have to so they don’t.

More places should enforce the automatic gratuity for 8 people or more. Especially if they pay their wait staff less than minimum wage expecting them to make up the difference.

If I were her, I’d smack him up side the head…then take his wallet…good wait-staff is hard to come by…at least keep ‘em well tipped…

I feel sorry for the good servers when all of the tips are split among all of the servers. The lazy ones will still get a decent amount - not fair!

A lower minimum wage for food service (like they have now) should be eliminated, as should the IRS assumption that that tips make up the difference, such that servers get taxed on tips they may not even get. Pay the people decently, and build it into the price. Tipping is an insulting and archaic holdover from the master/serf era.