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This is tipping, but by calling it a “service charge,” it is no longer optional. Then comes the virtue signaling about benefits.

I don’t have an issue with this. I would like to see tipping become a relic of the past.

Tips Below 20% Make You a Racist Homophobe

According to this article, everyone should tip 20% no matter what.

You cannot will yourself to be blind to physical differences. Remove those biases by deciding to tip 20% before ever laying eyes on your server. Don’t even bring the quality of your service into the equation.

First, they attempt to quote scholarly sources like the characters in Harry Potter:

The sometimes-wise Sirius Black tells always-garbage Ron Weasley, “If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” Well said, dog stars!

The odd part is that this moron doesn’t even know that JK Rowling plagiarized that line from numerous historical figures.

Then they appeal to your leftist cred, because if you don’t tip at least 20%, you are a racist or something.

The tipping system also opens up opportunities for us to flex our unconscious biases. Racism, sexism, ageism, and ableism decimate the earning potential of many competent servers.

Not to be appropriative, but: you’re woke, aren’t you? A big part of being woke is admitting that you have unconscious biases.

Then they proceed to make flawed analogies:

I work a salaried job. I have bad days—days where I am grouchy, disorganized, and distracted. You know what my company doesn’t do in response? Send me a smaller paycheck that month.

Here is the flaw in your argument, cupcake: I am not your employer. You don’t work for me, I have absolutely no contractual obligation to you. If you don’t like your job or what you get paid, get a different job. To show you exactly how asinine and flawed your position is, I could use your same logic and apply it to my own job: If I have a great day at work and save your life, will you give me extra money in appreciation? If I have a bad day and kill your mother when I accidentally give her the wrong medication, shouldn’t I still get paid the same amount as when I saved a life?

This mental midget then goes on to make the classic threat that they always make: threaten to spit in your food.

Minimum Wage

Last November, the voters of Florida passed an amendment to the Florida state constitution that raised the minimum wage. As a result of that, the state minimum wage will be raised from $8.65 an hour to $10.00 an hour, effective at midnight tonight, October 1, 2021.

However, there is also a provision in that amendment restricting the amount of “credit” on the wages of tipped employees paid by employers who assume that some of their wages are paid in tips. The amendment sets that amount as what the FLSA allowed in 2003. In 2003, the allowable employer tip credit was $3.02 an hour.

What this means is that the minimum wage for tipped workers will increase from $5.44 to $6.98 an hour. Every restaurant in the state just saw their tipped labor costs rise by 28%. That will be passed on to the consumer, plus those workers will still expect tips.

Anyone not making minimum wage is probably just out of luck and won’t be getting a raise at all. I know I am not getting a raise.

So I recently had this discussion with some people while I explained my new tipping policy.

  • For bad service: 5%
  • For decent service: 10%
  • For great service: 15%

Next year, when the law gives you another 14% raise, to $7.98 an hour (plus tips) I will be cutting tips again. Probably to zero for bad service, 5% for decent, and 10% for great service. (Ask me what happens in 2023, when you get another 12.5% raise, to $8.98 an hour.)

The hate that I got back was legendary. I was told that if I can’t afford to tip, I shouldn’t eat out. It isn’t that I can’t afford it. It’s that I am receiving a service. Let’s list what service that is:

  1. The server writes down what food I want
  2. The server brings me a beverage and (sometimes) refills it. In the case of a cocktail, someone else who isn’t the server mixes that cocktail
  3. Someone else (not the server) provides the food and prepares it
  4. The server (sometimes, but other times it’s a food runner) carries that food to the table
  5. Someone (maybe the server, maybe the busser) cleans the table
  6. Someone else (not the server) washes the dishes

Anything else that is done is done (such as folding linens, setting the table, rolling silver) are done on the restaurant owner’s behalf, not mine. It’s a limited, minimum skill position.

Frankly, I am totally against tipping. I think restaurants should pay their own employees and not rely on customers to do it, but this is the system we are stuck with. So I get to decide what that service is worth, and to me it isn’t worth a quarter of the cost of my meal.

Here is the deal, skippy: You may have voted for a raise, but that law doesn’t apply to me. If your raise is causing me to pay more to dine out, then that additional cost will be deducted from your tips.

Tipping madness: Marriott

Marriott Hotels are now demanding that I pay them for a clean room, and then pay their employees for cleaning it.

Jessica Lynn Strosky of DuBois, Pennsylvania, who earns $7.75 an hour cleaning rooms at a hotel that’s not a Marriott, says only 1 in 15 or 20 guests leaves a tip. When they do, it’s a dollar or two; she’s lucky to get $20 a week in tips. “I’ve talked to lots of people who say they don’t know they are supposed to tip,” she said.
Unlike waitresses who earn less than minimum wage because tips are expected to raise their earnings, hotel housekeepers are paid minimum wage, and in expensive markets, substantially more. In Washington D.C., Sorenson said, Marriott housekeepers start in the mid-teens per hour.
Most hotel maids clean 14-16 rooms in an 8 hour shift. If Marriott’s formula of $1-5 per guest is followed, then their maids will be making anywhere between $9.50 and $17.75 an hour. For making a bed? No way is unskilled labor worth that kind of cash.

I have had some rather strong opinions about tipping for years. Many servers at restaurants complain that they do not receive enough in tips, even when they are making $100-200 during an 8 hour night. This is far more money that other, more skilled positions are paid.

Servers making $400-800 a week in tips, or maids making $400 a week is more than enough for the skill that they bring to the table. My sister and daughter are both working in tipped jobs. They each bring home $300 a week in tips. That is $300 in TAKE HOME tips, plus the $5 an hour they get from their employer. That is the equivalent of $12 an hour.

I tip 10-20% of my check at restaurants, with a maximum tip of $10. Any more than $10 for a fraction of the server’s time for the hour that I am there is more than I am willing to pay.

I am not tipping maids.

If you want to make $50,000 a year or more and can’t get that off of tips, here is my tip to you: Get an education and get a better job, but stop whining about the pay you make for unskilled labor. If Marriott feels that strongly that their employees should be paid more, then they should raise the price of a room and give the maids a raise. The market will then decide if the extra cost is worth it.

Tipping

So the IRS has changed the rules for the automated tips that many restaurants add to the bill of a large party. This will increase the taxes that they must pay, so many are doing away with the practice. The comments on the story have caused me to revisit my feelings on tips.

A waitress or waiter server writes down what I want and reports that to the kitchen staff. After the staff cooks the food, the server carries it to my table. The other duties of my server include filling my glass and bringing me the check. For this job, the server receives a wage of about $5 an hour from their employer.

My sister works at a TGI Friday’s and tells me that she brings home about $150 a night in tips. I imagine that she doesn’t report all of her cash tips, because many servers do not. This means that she is getting a tax subsidy, and is likely taking home enough cash to equal a $25 per hour wage.

My son in law works as an entertainer for a dinner show in the area, and at this show, there is no ordering of food, as the menu is a preset meal where the only choice is what soft drink you want. He reports to me that the servers get irate if they make less than $100 per show in tips. The venue does one three hour show per night Sunday through Thursday, and two on Fridays and Saturdays. That works out to nearly $40 per hour.

Compare that to the following hourly wages in the Central Florida area:
Paramedics: $13.23
Firemedics: $12.86
Registered Nurse: $24
Vending Machine Repairman: $10.50
Theme park ride operator: $8.35
Security Guard (unarmed): $10.55
Security Guard (armed): $13.25

After thinking about this, I am going to amend my tipping policy. If my party is less than 6 people, my tip for adequate service will be 15% of the check to a maximum of $8. I feel like a table that size taking up about 1/3 of a server’s time for an hour is worth no more than $8. After all, that works out to a gross of about $29 an hour. More than fair.

For a table of more than six, I will divide the number in my party by the number of servers that are taking care of the party, and pay 15% of the tab for adequate service to a maximum of $8 times that number, on the theory that large parties take up a larger amount of the server’s time.

It isn’t my problem that her employer or the other patrons don’t pay them more. If the server has a problem with that, they need to take it up with them. I am just no longer willing to pay someone $40 an hour to carry food around.