
Tipping is an odd business. The Wife tends to tip everyone 15 percent, no matter what. A couple of people I know tend to tip everyone a dollar, no matter what. I've known people to have semi-serious discussions about whether or not the waitstaff at Sonic Drive-In should be tipped, and if so, how much. I have always been against forced tipping, which is standard practice at very expensive restaurants where they are charging far too much for food anyway. But then, this is usually only done with large groups.
Last time I paid any attention, it seems that waitstaff were paid something like $2 an hour and the rest of their wage was supposed to be made up of tips. The tips are supposed to be taxed, but I have always thought that relying on the honest of people to report how much they are tipped way a questionable business as well.
I like tipping, as it is one of the few chances I have in life to be a big shot and show some generosity of spirit at the same time. But I know that not everyone tips well, and I have never been a huge tipper myself. My brother always likes to do a bit of math and say-Well, there a hundred people in here and if they each tip two dollars than the waitress will get two hundred dollars-that's enough, don't you think?
There is something to that kind of logic. Surely no restaurant would voluntarily pay their waitstaff the two or three hundred dollars they make on a good night? Or is that even a good night, but merely an ok night? Or is it the kind of night they only dream of? There are so many flavors of restaurants out there that it is impossible to make a definitive answer.
I have always been in favor of the idea of a living wage-plus tips. That way there will still be some incentive to give good service, but the waitstaff doesn't miss a car payment if they have a bad week.
A standard argument against any plans to change the system, as no one likes any kind of change whatsoever, is that if they don't like the system as it is-they can go get a job doing something else. Or at the very least, try to get a job at a better restaurant where the tips would be substantially better on hundred dollar meals than on twenty dollar meals.
Or so I might assume, as I say, I don't really know. Should tipping be done away with? And how do you enforce no tipping rules anyway? Just wondering.




