To Tip Or Not To Tip: That is the Question

I read a blog the other day written by a waiter who said that the 15% tip is no longer standard, and is actually rude.

Of course, there were many differing viewpoints in the comments people left, with waiters arguing that they deserve 20% or more for all the work that they do (and on less than minimum wage) and customers arguing that if waiters don't like what they're making, they should look for other work.

Generally, I've been a customer, but I have worked for tips before, and I must say, it's a really nice feeling when you get a tip, especially bigger than you usually get.  However, I don't make my living by that, so I'm not worried by the tips I get.  Also, all the tips go into a jar, so I don't know who tips what.  Maybe if waiters had such a jar, and less knowledge of who tips what, they would also feel better.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

As I read these comments left by waiters and having read articles in the past about the 15% tip, I came to realize that it annoys me that waiters expect to be tipped at least 20%, and that they dislike customers who tip less.  I've always been uncomfortable with the whole tipping thing in general.  Supposedly, it's an option, a bonus you give to someone who does a remarkable job for you, but in reality, it's mandatory, a fee imposed on you for the service rendered.  If that is the case, if it's mandatory and not optional, why not just call it that?  Why not call a pig a pig?  Why say, "It's nice if you tip me but if you don't tip me enough, you suck?"  As some commenters noted, the system needs fixing.  

That said, the anger of waiters is misplaced onto the customer.  Sure there are bad, terrible customers in the world, but waiters are not the only people who deal with them; so do DMV workers and McDonald's workers and any other customer service workers who don't get tipped.  The problem then is not the customer; it is with the system that allows managers to pay their waiters less because they'll make it up in tips.  That's the problem.  If waiters really want to make a difference, what they should do is to get mad at the people really responsible for their low pay - their managers and their government.  Their managers could pay them more and their government could force their managers to pay them more.

Customers are just there for the food and the ambiance.  Service is there but customers imagine that the service is included in the price.  Imagine if the McDonald's worker who bussed your table after you left demanded a tip?  Then you wouldn't think you got a deal, which is also something customers like.  A deal.  That's why we'll come in by the hoards on $1 taco nights.

We also like things at face value.  If we pay for a $10 meal, it would be nice if it came out to $10 at the end of the night, but then we have to figure in tax and tip.  So why not just raise the price of the meal to pay the waiters so that everyone's happy?  Managers won't because they know if people see high prices for food, they'll go somewhere else.  Of course, that seems to be what waiters would like to see happen to people who can't tip 20%, but these waiters seem to neglect the fact that if enough customers go, so goes their job.

Perhaps what is really needed is just to change the term "tip."  The term "tip," like "gratuity," implies something extra, a bonus for work done.  Why not just call it what it really is, a "service fee."  If the bonus is not an option but a demand, then the waiter should demand it at the end of the night or negotiate for it at the beginning of the meal.  Say, "If you think I did a good job, I expect to get a 20% service fee, all right?  If you can't afford that, please step out of the restaurant and go someplace you don't have to pay for this fee."  Or perhaps managers could just include the 20% service fee on their menu, like some places do in Europe.  That way, customers know ahead of time what the cost of their meal will be and can decide whether they can afford it or not before they dine at the establishment.  I imagine a lot of customers who waiters complain about would not even enter the door if they knew this.

Honestly, there's much to much math being done at a restaurant, especially if you're dining with a large group.  It's such a headache to pay the bill at the end of the night.  All the calculating make me just want to go running to McDonald's or Baja Fresh, or any other sit-in place where the price is the price, and I pay it and I'm done.  I'm fine with serving myself; just like I'm fine with the self-service pump at the gas station.

I don't mind being generous, but forced generosity isn't being generous.