I see. Seems like it evolved into more of a general discussion about tipping, more or less unrelated to the specifics of the OP (at least those outside the tipping questions essentially).
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
First trip to the USA - tipping
- Thread starter Mildredop
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Understood, and the link was certainly interesting, and something right on topic addressing (or at least touching upon) a lot of questions/discussions that have been brought up. Just the "old thread" part made me wonder a bit, but that's been clarified, so it's all good.
That's like the beginning of Reservoir Dogs.
[doublepost=1462216691][/doublepost]I would like to mention that tipping isn't a scam in America because the servers only get paid about $2.15/hr. without tips whereas the rest of America has a minimum wage of 7.25 (which still isn't an amount you can live on in a normal 40 hour week).
Right after reading your question I saw this on www.msn.com:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddri...tip-for-every-situation/ar-BBslQb2?li=BBnb7Kz
You have the cause and effect backward; employers only pay $2.15 an hour BECAUSE of tipping, not the other way around. I really don't care how much the employer does (or does not) pay the server. Passing on costs to a consumer is fine; doing it on what amounts to an honor system is going to cause problems, or at least inconsistency and hurt feelings.
Just 'cause America stops tipping doesn't effect restaurants to raise their servers until after most of them have gone homeless. If you want to protect the people who are serving, restaurants have to make their end of the deal first. It's not really cause and effect starting from the consumer end, it has to start with the business end, and unfortunately that won't happen.
Why ever not? Sounds to me like a pretty reasonable justification for a spot of regulation of salaries…….
Yeah but what looks great on paper normally underperforms in practice in America. The government already has a minimum wage in place but servers are exempt from that, chances are, if you were to include servers in the minimum wage hike a few large businesses who aren't financing well would go under quickly.
But, you know, I have a massive ethical, and philosophical problem - not to mention a bit of an issue with simple economic and financial competence - with the basic concept of a business that cannot afford to pay its staff. At all.
(Especially if it is the sort of business that pays its directors rather well).
And, if a business goes under, maybe its business 'model' wasn't so robust to start with?
Slavery, and the feudal model of society - hopefully - went the way of the dodo with the welcome defeat of the Confederacy. Businesses that plan not to have to pay staff tend to be constructed on the basis of exploitative models and relationships such as serfdom, slavery, and the weasel words of zero contracts. (Or internships, where you need to be able to afford to work without pay before even contemplating taking one).
Last edited:
I agree with you entirely, a company CEO makes on average over 200x what the lowest employee makes at a company, I think there should be a little more distribution of wealth, but corporate greed keeps it down and is what forces servers to work at 2.15/hr. If the company is about to go under, the CEO bails and leaves it up to the next person in line who doesn't know about it and thinks they are getting a good deal.
With that being said, I thought about opening a business up, it would be commission bases starting at 50% commission per job, and as the number of jobs went up the pay did too, all the way up to 90% commission, I take a little off the top just so I can manage the business. Eventually I'd be making way more than my employees but at least they'd have a fair cut of what they did. Quantity vs quality. After doing a cost analysis, my employee's would have had an opportunity to make $10,000 a month, working 40 hours a week, I wouldn't make that much until I had 10 employees doing the same amount of work.
How can you pay 90% commissions, take a little off the top, and still cover your expenses?
It's not my job as a consumer to protect the people who are serving. If I stay home and make myself a dish of mac and cheese, that server still doesn't get a dime of support from me. It's not my responsibility either way.
And as you pointed out, employers aren't going to spontaneously raise servers' salaries universally unless they're made to do it - so perhaps instead of it starting with the business end, it starts with the consumer end? Think about it - people quit tipping, quality servers leave the industry en masse, employers are left with poor (or no) employees, forcing them to rethink their strategy. Not altogether likely, but plausible.
In Europe, servers are paid a salary, and there is none of this mad mathematical nonsense of having to debate ethics when dining out. You tip if the service has been very good, ands not otherwise, except maybe as a small token of appreciation. And even that is entirely discretionary.
Well, with the business model it's easy, if commissions are based on per location, and lets say that it's $50 per place, if a person works 5 or less places a month they make 50% commissions saying that they make 50% they get 25 I get 25 a month, (each place takes about 30 minutes). If they work 6 - 10 it's 60% commission, yes I lose as soon as they hit 60% but it's a drive that gets them to doing over 30 which nets the full 90% 30 * (50 *.9) = 810, assuming the person does a location an hour for 40 hours a week and rounding to 4 weeks a month after 90% commission = 7200, I get $720 now assuming the person can do two locations in an hour at 15 minutes each with 15 minutes travel time for each that goes up to 14,400 with my profit going to 1,440 a month, just off that one person, now I have 10 people working for me all doing the same amount of work. Now do you see how it works, and this is all online, so I have no costs outside of cloud server costs which start with a free tier. (or a small number of connections a month in terms of the Internet small) This is how my business model works. I also know HTML5 and the code-behind to make it all happen, so that cost is just the work I put into it.
[doublepost=1462224410][/doublepost]
No one said Europe was wrong, IMO they are in a much better position.
When the hell did this become the norm? I have never tipped for delivery other than food.
Seems like it is for many others. (And it kind of seems like carrying in some heavy furniture or appliance usually into some location side a house/apartment might be even more worthy of a tip than someone just running up a pizza to the door.)
That's not what you originally said. You said an employee would get a 90% commission (meaning you would give the employee 90% of the sale) and you would take an additional off the top for yourself. If you took anywhere near 10% for yourself, then you've given the entire sale away to yourself and your employee as commission. How do you cover your expenses? How do you pay for whatever it is you just sold?
We are deterring from this post, I'll PM you.
[doublepost=1462289274][/doublepost]
Yeah you could stop tipping but how many servers would become homeless before anything changed? I'd almost throw money on it and say 80%.
Agreed, food delivery is the only thing that I tip for. When I've gotten furniture delivered The store always charges for delivery, so why would I pay extra. The delivery workers are making at least minimum wage, and I've already paid the store for the convenience of not having to pick it up myself.
I'd say closer to 8%.
Think about it - if your employer were to cut your pay to the extent that you could no longer make ends meet, would you wait until you're homeless before you got another job? Do you think 80% of all the workers in an industry would follow your lead? I don't.
With so many people living paycheck to paycheck, it wouldn't be to long until they are out of a place to live, and if you had that many people trying at once to get new jobs it would be very difficult.
However if people stopped tipping the servers would just drop down to minimum wage rather than below since the law says:
Simetimes there's a food delivery charge too, yet people still tip. And sometimes delivery is included or free through some promotion or something else when it comes to appliances or furniture.
BTW, thanks for the interesting read. I downloaded it a while ago and just got to it.