A Few Tips on Tipping - Payment by Performance

Posted by Philip Fisher on Wed, 01/08/2012 - 07:14 in Blogs 1291 5 comments | report

As we enter the holiday season, it is perhaps timely to consider that often embarrassing and humiliating concept, tipping the serving classes.

It might be instructive to read a history of tipping, the offering of gratuities or the payment of service charges.

Those three different descriptions explain something of the confusion that many of us feel when trying to decide whether and to what extent a payment should be made to somebody who has been kind enough to do the job for which they are probably being severely underpaid.

If trying to decide what to do on your local patch is tricky enough, when you pack up the luggage and/or family for a couple of well-deserved weeks respite in foreign climes, the conventions become even more baffling, potentially leading to unwanted stress during a period that is supposed to be devoted to well-deserved relaxation.

As an example, in New York the customers to pay approximately double the sales tax figure meaning that the typical restaurant tip will be around 18% of the cost of the meal, or more if you are feeling generous.

In the 21st century, there have been some subtle changes. There is a feeling that our parents' generation were given a manual of tipping and understood instinctively who got what and when. Back then, 10% seem to be de rigueur whereas more recently restaurants in London have tended to drift their "optional" service charge up to 12½% or even 15%.

Nowadays, apart from restaurants and possibly taxis, there can be a great deal of uncertainty. For example, do you offer a payment over and above the quoted amount to barbers/hairdressers, their assistants, bellhops (whatever they are), doormen, porters, croupiers etc?

Picking up on those three terms, a gratuity suggests an additional payment that one feels compelled to make because of unexpected delight at the level of performance by the relevant individual. A service charge by contrast seems much more like a compulsory additional payment akin to that much loved favourite, Value Added Tax. Finally, a tip might have the characteristics of an inconsequential selection of coins dropped off into the hands of an individual for whom one feels a little bit sorry.

That sympathy vote is quite relevant. In many cases, these employees are paid salaries that would leave them in poverty if they were not supplemented by the generosity of the general public. Is this right? Of course it isn't.

The decision becomes far starker when service does not live up to expectations. Why should we feel under a moral obligation to make a significant payment for something that is not delivered? After all, where a product is ordered through the post and never appears, we will instantly demand a refund and it is difficult to see why failure to serve or do so efficiently should be rewarded with a service charge.

I have one friend with whom I have recently been to restaurants on three occasions for pre-theatre meals recently, all proving to be varying degrees of disastrous.

On the first occasion, the service was so slow that I got a starter, she got nothing and neither did the waiting (now there's a word to conjure with) staff.

Round two was slightly better since we both got a tasty meal, albeit very rushed because of the inefficiency of waitresses happier to chatter amongst themselves than serve. Because the food was so good, they got paid a totally undeserved bonus.

The final chapter in the sorry saga saw us wait 45 minutes to get indigestion but, after healthy discussion with the restaurant manager who had to leave us to try and pacify another unhappy customer, a free meal.

Perhaps it is time to publish a new manual of service appreciation to help us all out of this quandary. It would also be great to introduce a basis of double or quits. Assuming that 10% is regarded as a fair gratuity, perhaps we should all start meals by explaining to our dedicated providers that if they perform up to a suitably high standard, we will give them not 10% but 20% as a reward. The obvious corollary is that if they cannot come up with the goods, they will get exactly what they deserve.

Comments

No tip

Flash Gordon | Wed, 01/08/2012 - 15:47 | Permalink

I'm against tipping. I'm stingy like that! I work on the basis that someone is getting paid for doing their job and unless they perform particularly well over and above what I'd expect they shouldn't get a tip. My clients don't tip me (well one did by way of a gift voucher one Christmas and he's since done well by way of free services because he's a grade A++ client) so why should anyone else need a tip just for doing their job. I have been known to give posties a Christmas tip when they've been good (struggle round with multiple Amazon packages for me, put signed for items through the letterbox if I'm not there to sign myself etc) but I'm damned if I'm going to tip someone in a restaurant who can barely manage to take my order let alone show enthusiasm. And likewise a mediocre but over-priced haircut.

My view - tips should be a bonus, not expected as a right.

I'm with Flash, and further ...

Old Greying Acc... | Thu, 02/08/2012 - 21:32 | Permalink

... I really object to "discretionary" service charges being addded to bills.

That to me is pretentious, and makes it awkward if you really don't want to pay it, and why is it always those restaurants that have over-priced food that charge it, and generally make you pay extra if you wants chips and peas with your steak - it is bad enough paying £20 plus for a steak, but to pay another £10 for a few veggies takes the proverbial, and then to add 10% for luck!

I agree that tips need to be

Katmandu | Fri, 03/08/2012 - 11:05 | Permalink

I agree that tips need to be earned and I have no problem with tipping where someone has gone over and above the level of service expected, but I refuse to tip where the service has not been good. Call me grumpy but as soon as a waiter or waitress crouches down at my table and refers to my husband and I as 'guys' then they have pretty much instantly done themselves out of a tip as I find it intrusive and over familliar.

The sad thing is that I used to work in restaurants many years ago and it was for a chain that added a 12.5% service charge to all bills (and 12.5% is a lot now, let alone 15 years ago!). Some customers (quite rightly) got quite upset about it and I had to take a lot of stick about something I strongly disagreed with. The really sad thing however was that that service charge wasn't divided equally amongst the staff as the unsuspecting customers may have presumed, rather the vast majority of it was used to fund the SALARY of the trainee manager and one of the junior chefs at the restaurant. Having been the trainee manager who worked all the hours god sent for a pittance and knowing that the waiting staff who worked less hours but took home more money because of the tips they got I soon got fed up and left for a career in accountancy. Thinking about it, I actually have a lot to be grateful to that service charge for!

I think the real problem is that working as a waiter or waitress is seen almost as a demeaning job in this country whereas on the continent it is viewed more as a profession and as a result people doing the job have more pride in their work and the service is in general much better.

Service Charge

louisVW4 | Fri, 03/08/2012 - 12:54 | Permalink

We are a nation that used to believe in manners, and always seemed to leave a tip for anyone who did anything for us.

Today, good manners seem to be frowned upon.

I still give an extra £1 to my barber, but he charges only £10! I doubt I would be inclined to do that if I went to a West End 'salon' charging £50 (not that I would). They'd probably sneer at the £1 coin!

I no longer tip black cab drivers. They have charged themselves out of the market. The numerous times I've returned to Heathrow, often tired and annoyed with various flight problems, only to find the black cab driver trying to persuade me to lie to the rank manager that I'm not going to Chiswick (less than 15 minutes away) because it's outside his free return option.

If they want to sit on their arses for 2 hours in the hope of getting a £50 fare, that's their problem, not mine. They could make more driving around the City for 2 hours; plain laziness!

I rarely pay what's on a restaurant bill. I don't believe service charges are obligatory. Indeed, I believe you can refuse to pay the entire bill if it is justified. Why should you pay 12.5% in an expensive restaurant for the same service you can typically receive in a less expensive restaurant? Serving a steak is pretty much the same wherever you are! I leave a cash tip of my choosing for my 'server', and only if deserved. Leaving nothing says far more to the restaurant and the server!

Tipping and or paying the L'addition at all

Housiaux | Fri, 03/08/2012 - 14:07 | Permalink

I read with interest, I enjoy decent restaurants, and therefore I reward accordingly. By the same token, if I feel it has not come up to the standard that I believe it wishes to have the reputation of, I will without a scene draw it to the attention of the 'Manager' quietly. Remember the law is the goods 'must be fit for purpose' and the items must be of 'merchantable quality'. You do not have to pay the full amount of the bill you are presented with, the law states that if you are unhappy, you can pay what you believe the meal or meals are worth, if you do that you must provide the restaurant with your bonafide, name and address, failing to do that can get you arrested for theft. Now moving onto tipping, if I feel the service has been godd or better, I will add an extra, but I will not include that as part of the meal Invoice, so I do not do that by service on my card, I pay that by cash directly to my waiter or waitress. Otherwise the restaurant is left having to deduct Tax as it goes through their accounts, and the Restaurant may then have a group policy whereby everone in the Restaurant gets part of the tip whether or not they have worked well. Remember, just because they are blue collar, they are entitled to civility and fair treatment. I quite often explain that I do not do Service charges, and everytime I raise that issue, in the end the restaurant backs down. I am not there to be brow beaten.

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