Tip Your Pizza Hut Driver Or He Might Pee On Your Door

[CatholicCid]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1352988223' post='2510497']
Generally it's pretty well known what places base wages on tips.
[color=#ff0000]List, please? Would help me to know where to or not to go.[/color]

when you patron a restaurant where servers are being paid based on tips, it is irrelevant whether it's right that the restaurant should be doing that or not. if you think it should be more like the European system, then that's a fine theory you have there, but in practice it doesn't absolve you from the obligation to pay a tip. It'd be like going to a parallel universe restaurant that used slave labor, and saying it wasn't your fault that the slaves weren't being paid, that's all on the restaurant owner; no, it's on you. sure, the restaurant owner would be at fault ALSO, but so would you.
[color=#ff0000]It would actually seem the moral choice would have to be to [b]not[/b] patronize such places which deny a just wage to their workers, especially with your parallel universe example.[/color]

Obviously that's an extreme example, but it illustrates that you do indeed hold certain responsibilities as a consumer, especially when you have the opportunity to participate in the payment of the person giving you service.
[color=#ff0000]Normally, this "opportunity" is given in the form of a bill for services render. I would assume that participating in the payment of the person providing service would be included in patronizing the place at which they work and which should be paying them a just wage.[/color]
I don't really see how you don't see not tipping as depriving a worker of wages; you go to a place where you know the server is expecting a tip in exchange for their service, they provide you with service expecting the tip, you don't give them a tip... you deprived them of the expected payment. bad tipping versus good tipping is an entirely different story, but NOT TIPPING AT ALL is depriving workers of a wage that was due to them for their service to you.
[color=#ff0000]I suppose I fail to see a tip as being a portion of a worker's wage. If I were to enter a restaurant, I would assume it more reasonable that I am not entering into individual contracts with each staff member that I encounter, but that I am entering a contract with the restaurant as a whole. The restaurant would charge me an amount, which it then uses to pay for the individual staff that make up the restaurant.*+[/color]

Now, to the argument that no one's in danger of not getting a living wage if you individually don't tip, I don't agree that this constitutes it not being withholding wages from a worker. you have a personal responsibility to tip the waiter completely separate from how much he's getting from other people; when he does a service for you, you owe him a wage for that service.
[color=#ff0000]His service, however, is not an individual service. It is a part of the service of the entire restaurant. This is reflected in the general custom of not being able to refuse the overall service of waiters at restaurants. The restaurant provides and requires the use of the waiter. Therefore, when the restaurant charges me for services, I would assume this includes the service of the waiter.*[/color]
just because other people make up for you stiffing him does not mean you have not deprive him of a wage that was justly due to him. but if you don't want to go with that paradigm, I will grant that at the very least it's theft of services.
[color=#ff0000]I don't believe I made such an argument (that the tips of others compensate for others not tipping). I simply think that the "just wage" the waiter would be due is due to him from his overall employer, which is the restaurant.[/color]

Honestly, I don't know what was going on with the delivery driver. he could've been having a bad day, maybe a lot of people had already stiffed him, maybe he was having emotional trouble or financial trouble... while I do not justify what he did, I absolutely understand the emotional state that he was driven to by not being tipped. It is very emotionally enraging to be stiffed by someone, it is certainly the type of thing that inspires emotions of vengeance. that's why it's not hard for me to connect the sin of not tipping with one of the four sins that cries out to heaven for vengeance, that would mostly apply for poor workers who rely on their tips as their main income, because God sides with the poor and identifies with them, and he would absolutely share in the outrage of the service worker getting stiffed.
[color=#ff0000]For this particular driver, are we certain he was not earning a just wage from his employer?[/color]
[/quote]

*I'm just wondering, but if you go out to eat, who do you normally tip? You tip the waiter, it seems. If there is a busboy, do you tip him? He is providing a service by bussing your table for you. The chef has cooked a meal for you. The hostess has found you a seat. etc... Each of these individuals are providing a service for you. Do you have a personal responsibility to them as to the waiter? If not, why not?
Also, who else should you tip in the service industry? Do you tip the bagger at the grocery store?


Also, how would you suggest calculating tips? The general way I've always learned was a certain percentage of the overall bill. But, the bill does not seem to reflect the actual work of the waiter, more so of the chef.

+This also assumes knowledge that the waiter is expecting a tip to compensate them for their services because they are not being appropriately compensated by their employer.

Edited November 15, 2012 by CatholicCid

[Anomaly]

[quote name='CatholicCid' timestamp='1353011944' post='2510735']
*I'm just wondering, but if you go out to eat, who do you normally tip? You tip the waiter, it seems. If there is a busboy, do you tip him? He is providing a service by bussing your table for you. The chef has cooked a meal for you. The hostess has found you a seat. etc... Each of these individuals are providing a service for you. Do you have a personal responsibility to them as to the waiter? If not, why not?
Also, who else should you tip in the service industry? Do you tip the bagger at the grocery store?


Also, how would you suggest calculating tips? The general way I've always learned was a certain percentage of the overall bill. But, the bill does not seem to reflect the actual work of the waiter, more so of the chef.

+This also assumes knowledge that the waiter is expecting a tip to compensate them for their services because they are not being appropriately compensated by their employer.
[/quote]
It's part of living in a society and becoming familiar with the social practices and how it is done. Are you Canadian or European, or just incredibly back-woods?

It's pretty universal in the US that you tip wait staff in restaraunts because that is a significant part of how they are paid. Standard polite practice is 15-20% of your food bill (before taxes).

Waiters are paid that way because it's incentive to get good interactive and attentive service during the course of your meal. The employers set up the pay scale that way. In most nice places to eat, the wait staff is very highly compensated through tips. You go to a restaraunt not just for adequate food, but for good service, and atmosphere. You wouldn't normally interact with the chef or busboy, the hostess interaction is very brief. If you want special service from the hostess to sit somewhere specific, it would be expected to tip. You don't get table service in a fast food joint.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Anomaly' timestamp='1353014450' post='2510759']
It's part of living in a society and becoming familiar with the social practices and how it is done. Are you Canadian or European, or just incredibly back-woods?

[/quote]
Tipping in Canada is the same as the US (except perhaps Quebec, because they are weird, and I do not know in this case), except apparently we tend to tip just slightly less.
I usually shoot for 15%, and when relevant I try to round up.