Built-in tips …

Recently I read that some big city restaurants are doing away with tips. They will automatically add 15-20% to the bill instead, and, so they say, will share the extra money among more of the restaurant staff – like the bus boys and kitchen staff, as well as the waiters and waitresses.   

Two things come to mind.

First, the last class of people in the business world I’d expect to handle money properly and equitably is restaurant owners. These are the same folks who hire illegals off the books at slave wages to increase their take. They are also most likely to go under leaving unpaid bills and back taxes in their wake. Cooking the books and not reporting cash receipts is a time-honored tradition. So in what universe would you trust them?

That’s not to say there aren’t honest restaurant owners.  But if you think they’re reporting all the cash they get, you’re naïve.     

Next, this is just stupid. Deciding what to tip your waiter or waitress is the only real opportunity you get to reward them for providing good service. Conversely, within reason, it’s also the only way the average diner has to send a message for bad service. 

I’m not talking about the burnt steak or dry pork chop – that’s not their fault. 

I’m referring to waiting an hour for your drinks, seeing your order cooling on the pickup counter for a half hour, bungling your order altogether, a snotty attitude, or ignoring your requests for simple things like butter or water. That’s their fault. 

A confession:  I routinely tip at least 20% for decent service; significantly more on low-priced meals where that percentage doesn’t seem fair. A $6 breakfast with good and friendly service warrants a $3 to $4 tip, to me.  I know people depend on tips to make a living – if they are working in a place with $6 breakfasts they need all the help you can give them.

It’s the same reason I don’t factor in discounts when I tip. If some restaurant sends you a card for 50% off your next meal for two it’s not fair to tip based solely on your reduced bill; the person waiting on you shouldn’t take a hit because you got a deal.  Fair’s fair. 

So my tipping threshold isn’t that tough. The waiter or waitress is always going to get at least 20% just for doing a reasonable job. To get less they have to work at being bad.   

I can remember only one time in my adult life I didn’t leave a tip.  It was at an Outback near me and the service was so truly awful, and the waitress so incompetent and completely and aggressively rude, I couldn’t reward her bad behavior. I still regret that, however.   

Okay, so why am I so opposed to built-in tips? To me it’s just another example of taking away penalties for doing a bad job.  

When you leave a good tip for a waiter or waitress as a reward they connect good service with better tips.  If they get the same amount automatically – assuming the restaurant owner actually does split the take, which isn’t a given – you, the customer, don’t matter as much.  If there’s no change in the reward for doing a good job or a poor job, why bother to do better? 

I know there are many people who think restaurant workers are woefully underpaid and that it’s demeaning to have to work for tips. 

I have news for you – waiting tables in a decent restaurant is a performance art.  When you’re good at it you make more money; when you suck at it you don’t. That’s life.  Some wait staff make very, very good money because they are excellent at their job; they really are professionals and deserve all the money they get in tips. 

Others just go through the motions. They shouldn’t automatically be rewarded just for showing up.  But then again, that’s part of the problem with our culture today. People demand more money because they feel entitled to it just for showing up, not because they’ve earned it or added value.

It’s no wonder that the news media thinks built-in tips are a great idea. They also believe every slacker in a paper hat at Mickey Ds should get $15 an hour. 

For what?