Having lived in Japan for the past few years, I'm so over the tipping culture it's pretty hard to stomach when I go back to the States. Besides the issues it causes for employers that this article covers, I really dislike the power dynamics that it causes for the customers: but maybe not in the way you would think.
While the customer may be financially powerful in the relationship, I feel that tipping culture gives power to the server to withhold good service as a punishment or as an optimization strategy at their own discretion. It causes a server to judge you as soon as you walk through the door... will this person give a good tip? Should I ignore them and focus on this other table?
The worst part is that the tip happens at the end of the meal after all of the 'costs' of providing good service are already done. If the patron stiffs the server, then the effort was 'wasted.' It's far better to make an educated guess based on… what? the way they dress? their grammar? the car they pulled in with?
As an American living in Europe for the last year, I have drawn the exact opposite conclusion about tipping culture. Many of the restaurants I have been to (in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Belgium) have, by American standards, horrible service. The waitstaff is inattentive or rude. You have to call waiters over constantly to give them your order, ask for another drink, or get the bill.
I think that part of this stems from different cultural opinions on service (i.e. it's rude to bring the check preemptively), but some of it is just lack of incentive, I think. What incentive does a waitress have to give you good service if she's making a standard wage and no tips? Especially if the waitress has increased job protection in certain countries (it's harder for an employer to fire people in France than in the US).
I'm quite certain this is a cultural difference. What you find to be rude or inattentive is considered polite in some European countries. For a waiter to be appearing at the table often, unsummoned, is rude in Germany, for example.
If you want the waiter, so etiquette says, you'll summon him/her.
Seconded. As a Brit living in the US I often find US waitstaff's behavior intrusive. In particular, the 'is everything OK?' asked five minutes after the main course is served always bemuses me, especially when it interrupts someone talking. It's cultural for sure.
As an American living in the US, I also find the "is everything OK?" interruption to be especially annoying.
One thing I've noticed, though: this happens in chain restaurants regularly, but in smaller, independent restaurants only rarely.
It's not really cultural: I think it's a product of the disconnect that naturally occurs when people without any feet-on-ground presence are making policies to be followed by the staff, and the other end of the feedback loop isn't isn't in place.
The reason they come back right after delivering the food is so they can make sure your meal is as you ordered. Is something cold or taste especially bad? Was the wrong sauce or filling used by the cook?
Everyone understands that as the reason for it, but it doesn't make it less rude or overbearing.
If I have a problem with the food, I'll get a waiters attention - perhaps with a snap of my fingers - which is expected and not at all rude and let the waiter know.
Snapping my fingers at the waiter isn't something I'd ever do in the US though.
I'm an aussie and I find it really annoying as well. Definitely cultural. Be polite & friendly at point of order, and then stay out of the way.
A reply below you says its to make sure you got what you ordered, etc. I could count on a few fingers the times ive ever got the wrong thing/meal, and then you just ask.
The primary reason they do this is less altruistic, though. Once you've agreed that the meal (as presented) is satisfactory, you're on the hook to pay the bill.
Yeah sometimes the "overtly polite" and very smiley and friendly attitude I get from (the small amount of interaction) with American service staff just seems so fake and saccarine at times.
In the UK, you just catch their eye. Good waiters will be scanning frequently for customers in need of service. You can also just make a subtle hand gesture like slightly raising the index finger with the palm of the hand facing down.
Same in Australia. This is actually where the US system backfires. Because the servers aren't actually "waiting" for these subtle ques from the customers I've at times had trouble getting their attention.
In Japan, some restaurants (not the fancy ones, but family-friendly places) have a button on the table just for that. Push it, and a few seconds later a waitress appears, just like in an airplane.
If you have younger kids, you have to be careful to sit them away from the button.
Shouting politely is always an option, but I feel restaurants should really adopt having a button at each table that customers can use if they have any requests to make to their waiter or waitress.
not sure if you are trying to be sarcastic or just lack experience. while you can always shout or call out politely, you can also waive at the passing server (it doesn't have to be the one that served you). and if you find shouting too crude you can just excuse yourself from the table and walk to the waiter. at most restaurants the servers are on standby if their guests need any attention, but that does not require them to show up at the table to check if you enjoying your meal.
I don't think it's a common experience in America.
I was eating at an Italian restaurant in Miami. Two beachgoers came in a bit after me, stared at the menu for 15 minutes, and left in a huff. Even if they had looked around the restaurant in a grumpy "where the fuck is our waiter" manner, he would've been at their table in 10 seconds.
The normal hover/frequent checkup behavior of American waiters and waitresses seems to be counter to this in almost all ways. It seems as though the rounds they make to check on everyone makes it much harder to get their attention when needed, in comparison to a waiter who stands back and watches.
There's no journey, they give you their name and proceed to take your drink orders.
No need to be condescending here, he even prefixed it with "in America," and what he said is absolute fact. If you aren't waited on in the first 15 minutes, in America, you aren't in a good restaurant.
It's normally something like "Hi, my name is Kybernetikos, I'll be your server today. If you have any questions just let me know. I'll bring out some water and take your drink order."
It's something you typically ignore until it's not there.
As a South Floridian, I'll point out that Miami is a culture unto itself, and what goes on there cannot be taken as an example of the typical way of doing things in America (or Florida, for that matter.)
>As an American living in Europe for the last year, I have drawn the exact opposite conclusion about tipping culture.
As a Brit when in America I find it awful how the waitress will pretend to be friendly. If we're just a group of guys or whatever I don't want you to be pretended to be interested in who we are, what we do. Putting a hand on my back isn't going to make me prefer the food I'm here for. If I wanted someone to pretend to be my friend, I'd be in a titty bar.
I think there is a good middle ground, in the UK tips are expected to be about 12.5% max. All staff share them, and front of house aren't so transparent in trying to get a bigger tip from you. People appear to take pride in what they do, rather than just being mercenary.
Foreigners have the saying here in the Netherlands: "You can complain about the fake friendliness of waiters in the USA, but in the Netherlands you know they genuinely f*n hate you."
As an American working in the UK, I was surprised to discover how often Brits and other Europeans assumed that genuine friendliness was "fake friendliness". Their own attitudes toward others were assumed to be universal, so any sign of friendliness that they wouldn't have expected in their own society was assumed to be fake.
Yes, sometimes it is fake, but very often it's a case of being unable to imagine a culture where genuine friendliness toward strangers is a lot more common than what they themselves tend to feel toward strangers.
It's true! Why, you and I may not even be of the same social class! It would be quite impertinent of you to address me as an equal or presume an easy familiarity!
> As a Brit when in America I find it awful how the waitress will pretend to be friendly
Depending on where you've visited, this may have little to do with the restaurant setting, and everything to do with the local culture. There are some regions in America in which engaging with others at that level of familiarity is expected in any context, and being impersonal and excessively "professional" is considered rude.
> Putting a hand on my back isn't going to make me prefer the food I'm here for.
Perhaps you're immune to the effect, since you know about it. But in aggregate, it can change the disposition of customers (measured using the metric of increased tips).
Is there a tipping culture in the UK? I always thought that the mandatory service charge in some restaurants (especially when one has a big party) made up for it. Now I feel slightly guilty.
10-12.5%, but not if there's a mandatory service charge. Restaurants, cab drivers, barbers etc, but not in pubs (if you're mates with the landlord, offer them a drink on you sometimes...)
Conversely I find staff in America over-attentive, prone to interrupting and getting in the way, dressed in plastic smiles and faking happiness just as hard as they can.
To me, tips encourage wait staff to get in the way and try to make themselves part of the evening, which is not something I want in a meal out with friends.
I was a waiter. Checking back every N minutes is not to get a bigger tip; it is almost always forced by management. Chili's, for example, requires that you check back within 3 minutes of serving the main course. Also, at my store, they required that you take the order down on one knee in order to seem more "casual". Bleh. I didn't do it.
Yup, this. Macaroni Grill had 17 steps of service that HAD to be hit at every table including checking back within a certain time to make sure everyone's pasta bolognese was to their liking. It's a management step to legislate to the lowest common denominator, both in waitstaff (ensures no one is in the back smoking while a patron has a raw steak) and customer (as in software, the user rarely understands they need more butter until 2 minutes after the food is delivered).
I have noticed that this happens at Nandos over here in the UK too, it seems to be part of their formula. That is typically the last interaction you have with the staff though, as their model is that you pay when you order.
I am spanish and when I go to a restaurant where the witer knees to tale the order, I find that it's coming too close, like when they seat. It's a cultural think for sure but I read it as an intrussion in my space.
Yes, but saying that the purpose is to be "casual" as an explanation sounds a lot better to the employees who are listening to it than saying that the purpose is to be "submissive", which is what kneeling before the person you are taking orders from really is.
I'm an American. And usually if they're on their knees, they're looking up at you. At least when they were the ones looking down, they had the plausible excuse of having to move around all the time.
Something I do not want is to be chatting with friends, and to have the wait staff plop down on a chair with us and try to chat me up. It's such an obvious ploy to get tips.
This is just a cultural difference. You expect American style service from a different culture with different values and manners. What's "rude" to you is acceptable and even polite there. You will have to learn to deal with this as normal. When I was living in a European country I was told about this in advance from the locals who gave me an orientation. What bothered me most was some of the other Americans I was with complaining about how "rude" all the locals were. They were the ones being rude by expecting the entire world be have the same concept of manners as them.
What incentive does a cook have to give you a good meal if she's making a standard wage and no tips?
What incentive does a dishwasher have to do a proper job washing your dishes if she's making a standard wage and no tips?
What incentive does a fast food employee have to good service if she's making a standard wage and no tips?
What incentive does a barista have to good service if she's making a standard wage and no tips?
"What incentive does a cook have to give you a good meal if she's making a standard wage and no tips? What incentive does a dishwasher have to do a proper job washing your dishes if she's making a standard wage and no tips? What incentive does a fast food employee have to good service if she's making a standard wage and no tips? What incentive does a barista have to good service if she's making a standard wage and no tips?"
From what I've heard, in the US it's standard practice to split the tip among the staff in a restaurant. The cook, host/hostess, even the other waiters get their share of a single waiter's tip.
I'm not sure about the dishwasher. But it's pretty obvious what incentive the dishwasher has in keeping the dishes clean: if they're not, he/she will get fired.
I have a data point of 2. I knew two waitresses. They both took home their tips at the end of the night, without sharing with anyone. One of them was required to only report 15% of her sales to the IRS for taxing, but always took home way way more than that, so she made tons of tax free income. Also the United States is a large place, there is different customs different places.
It's pretty obvious what incentive the waitstaff has to provide good service, if they don't, they get fired. Tipping is arbitrary. I tip the person who pours my drink at the bar, but not the person who pour my drink at McDonald's.
Oh, by the way, when I was younger and in high school/college I worked three public facing customer service jobs where I didn't earn any tips. I worked my ass off at each job for standard wages. I always provided the best customer service I could. My incentive was I wanted to do my job effectively and not get fired or reprimanded. It is incredibly naive to think that if waitstaff earned a fair wage without tips they would all suddenly stop doing their job. Especially since they already know they are going to get a tip anyways, it is pretty much required to give a tip, no matter how bad the service was!
Here's an interesting experience from an american living in Croatia. A small excerpt:
> The waiters and waitresses in Croatia keep it real. And by keeping it real I mean they maintain authenticity, and by that I mean they do things like finish their cigarette or magazine article before taking your order, approach your table with almost total indifference and sometimes do everything in their power NOT TO NOTICE YOU! For my American readers it may sound strange, but I prefer this kind of “service” to what we have in the US. As it is with lots of things in Croatia, once you go through the looking glass, there’s no going back.
Most people paid hourly wages or monthly salaries aren't doing jobs that are entirely composed of rendering direct personal service to a customer over an extended period of time.
Tipping is indeed customary in every service trade that I'm aware of, because it conforms to the reality that the waiter/deliveryman/taxi driver/etc. actually is working, at least in part, directly for the customer.
So, in other words, little to no incentive? The prospect of a bigger tip is certainly an incentive. I speak from experience. It's also the reason that many waiters (myself included at one time) will prioritize, say, a group of four adults ordering drinks over a grumpy family with two kids ordering salads and water.
The depends on how well the employer monitors performance and holds employees accountable.
Of course, employers who do bad at this in terms of customer service staff will find their business develops a reputation for poor customer service, and loses out to businesses that do a good job at this, all other things being equal.
That's maybe a culture difference.
Here in italy we prefer to not have the waiters constant near to you but to call them only when you need them. They are "allowed" to come near only when they see all the people in a table have finisched their dishs.
Also, it's rude if the waiters give_you/ask_you_if_you_want the bill before you ask for that.
Haha, I kind agree, but I also lived in the US for a while. I talked to a coworker a while back though, and he came back from a conference in the US and was annoyed that waiters kept asking him if he wanted anything and when he said he didn't they brought him the bill right away. It's pretty common in Germany for example to just sit at the table and talk with your friends, but he felt like as soon as he stopped ordering anything they wanted him out.
It's not terrible service, it's just a welcome hug to foreigners. If you like the place or the food, give a small tip, come back, and you will be befriended by a smile.
> What incentive does a waitress have to give you good service if she's making a standard wage and no tips?
Does your boss pay you a few extra dollars if you were extra productive and cheerful today? No? Would that be kind of demeaning, actually? Do you do a good job because it it's what you want to do?
"Does your boss pay you a few extra dollars if you were extra productive and cheerful today? No? Would that be kind of demeaning, actually?"
It may be demeaning to you, as you probably make far more money than a waiter. But waiters in the US typically get paid an atrociously low salary, and make most of their income from tips.
"Do you do a good job because it it's what you want to do?"
Few people consider waiting tables their dream job. They usually do it because they consider it a temporary job, not a career. Some may take pride in doing an exceptional job, but they're probably the exception rather than the rule.
> It may be demeaning to you, as you probably make far more money than a waiter. But waiters in the US typically get paid an atrociously low salary, and make most of their income from tips.
Waiters get paid an atrociously low salary because it is anticipated that their real pay will come from tips. This is part of the "tipping culture", not an external factor which justifies tipping culture.
"Waiters get paid an atrociously low salary because it is anticipated that their real pay will come from tips."
I think it's rather that employers aren't willing to pay more, and waiters usually can't afford to turn down work that pays them these salaries, and there usually isn't another alternative that pays any better.
Regardless of the reasons for this state of affairs, the fact is that watiers in the US do get paid atrocious salaries and can't afford to look down their noses at "an extra few dollars" in tips.
I'm sure plenty of waiters would trade in the tip system for a guaranteed higher salary, but it's usually not up to them to decide.
> I think it's rather that employers aren't willing to pay more
I think its rather that employers are specifically legally permitted to pay less than the minimum they would have to pay others for the specific reason that waiters are expected to get a significant share of their income in tips.
While, obviously, restaurants may pay more than the minimum, the lower minimum for this particular class of employees depresses wages across the entire class.
So, yes, what employers are willing to pay is a factor, but what employers are willing to pay is driven by expectations that are set by, among other things, what employers are required to pay. And one of those other things, as well as the express reason for the lower amount employers are required to pay, is the presumption of tipping.
> Regardless of the reasons for this state of affairs, the fact is that watiers in the US do get paid atrocious salaries and can't afford to look down their noses at "an extra few dollars" in tips.
Well, yes, dependence on tips in certain jobs is a product of tipping culture. That's actually one of the arguments for tipping culture being a bad thing.
How you correct it given the way it is deeply ingrained in both the formal (e.g., law) and informal aspects of culture is, of course, another question.
While I'm sure there are good waiters that do their best to treat all customers equally, I can confirm that their tends to be a snap judgement made about the tipping probability of a customer. In one place that I worked the waitstaff used the euphemism "Canadians" to refer to customers that weren't likely to tip (e.g. "I just got sat with a table of Canadians...").
That being said, I sympathize with waiters and tend to tip relatively well since I know firsthand the pressure of only making $2.15/hr + tips on an unpredictable schedule that ended anywhere from 11:30pm to 2:00am (depending on how long my last table stayed).
I'm sure that euphemism is based in experience, but as a Canadian, I've found that most of my compatriots (myself included) feel it's only polite to tip at least 20%, and we're VERY IN TO BEING POLITE. :)
I'm not sure where the term originated at that restaurant, but it probably had nothing to do with Canadians' behavior since it was in a small Texas town that only saw an actual Canadian every once in a blue moon. :)
It may not be meant to make any sense. I worked in retail (probably like most people, ever) and we seemed to have a variety of signal-type words that made no sense to customers...or management. Makes the job more fun.
I'm pretty sure the origin is in irony because if someone overheard you calling them "cheap" or a negative stereotype there would be a problem, but if you we overheard calling them "Canadian" it's a lot more benign. I've heard "Canadian" used when working in restaurants outside of Texas, so I think it's fairly common in the US.
I've met Canadians that described the income they used to earn from tips in a top Vancouver restaurant as being far more than they could hope to earn in a mid-level professional job.
I am only guessing, but Canadians (on average) tend to tip lower than Americans. I have always considered 10-15% standard. In the U.S., they tell me that it is 18-20%. I could never bring myself to tip that much when I lived there. There may be a core of truth to Canadians appearing cheap to American waiters which may be where the euphemism started.
I believe in pay for performance in all professions so I certainly would prefer such a system for a hospitality industry. The minimum I've ever given anyone for a tip is 15% and honestly the service has to be terrible for me to give that. If the service is good I give 20% and if the service is remarkable I'll give more.
The way I think of it is that the cost of the meal is at least 15% to 20% higher than what is on the menu. If I don't want to pay that, I eat at home.
I don't get wanting to pay 15% to 20% more on the menu and then having no ability to give an incentive for people to perform better.
I tip well too but the server doesnt know that. Maybe in non-competitive markets it works, but in a place like NYC where I lived before moving to Tokyo, a table/seat and the servers attention might be in high demand and servers would make judgement calls.
Even if you could declare your tip up front, you're not incentivizing them to perform better, you're competing with other patrons. You're paying them to neglect others.
It's not that I don't want the ability to incentivize… It's that I want only the owner/manager to have the ability to incentivize, not other patrons.
How do you determine the waitservice quality upfront? You can't trust reviews, since the super positive ones might have all been written by people who 'looked like high-tippers' and got the special service, and likewise the 'apparently poor-tipping party' service reviews might make an otherwise good restaurant look bad.
So you're pretty much stuck with going repeatedly or relying on anecdotal suggestions by friends or locals. And maybe you still can't trust those, for the same reasons.
I think the incentives for doing good work as a server should be the same as they are for every other job: keeping your job. I'd rather the restaurant tell me what I'm going to pay upfront, rather than look at the menu and think "The burger's $7.99, plus 9% for sales tax, plus 15% for tip. If the server is god awful and spits in my food, maybe only 10% for tip".
> Is money that tight? Maybe you should just be eating at home.
My point is that I'd rather the menu just said $10 for a burger. I would give them $10, they would give me a burger, and we'd both be happy.
> Food tampering is illegal in the entire United States. In some states, food tampering is a Class I Felony. So your hyperbole is far from reality.
Yes, that was a hyperbole, you got me. The point for that one was that even when servers give awful service, you're still expected to tip them because that's how they get their money. That basically defeats the whole rhetoric of "tipping incentivizes good performance".
Pay for performance is a fine goal to strive for. The problem with tipping is that, unless you return to the same place often, there's no disincentive for customers who defect and stiff the waiter. The waiter can't reclaim the service he's already provided. So actually providing pay for performance has to be done mostly out of altruism rather than as part of a fair exchange. The result is that some people do defect, and those who don't literally end up picking up the tab for them.
Pay for performance is a fine goal to strive for...The problem with tipping is that...there's no disincentive for customers who defect and stiff the waiter
So, it's a fine goal. Does that mean we scrap the goal because of one problem?
People cheat welfare, social security, medicare, take-a-penny/leave-a-penny bins, lost and found departments, disability insurance and every other part of life. Some people will cheat the tip system. Inevitable.
Unless you advocate getting rid of welfare, social security, medicare and - frankly - everything... Why are you holding tipping up to such scrutiny?
I agree with your first statement. Pay for performance is a fine goal to strive for and we shouldn't throw the baby away with the bathwater because of a minority of cheaters.
> Does that mean we scrap the goal because of one problem?
Of course not. But it doesn't mean being complacent and living with a bad solution. There are so many better ways to provide pay for performance. For example: one could change the protocol so that instead of a baseline of zero service charge, the baseline is, say, 15%. This is part of the bill. But then you are free to add more for exceptionally good service or subtract for exceptionally bad service. Fewer people will stiff waiters if they have to be proactive in order to do so.
BTW (and this is a rhetorical question): why should pay-for-performance be limited to waiters? Why not extend it to the cooks as well? Why not let people just pay what they thought the meal was worth? Why not extend it to other professions? Pay your doctor, your lawyer, any service provider, what you thought the service was worth after it has been provided?
I think the difference here is that the article didn't just say "I threw out x." It said "I replaced x with y and y has proven to be more effective in my context based on performance indicators that I care about."
> So, it's a fine goal. Does that mean we scrap the goal because of one problem?
No, but we could, instead of the tipping culture, just handle it like every other area of economic endeavor: customer willingness to pay the business is driven by the business's performance in meeting the customer's needs, and the business's willingness to pay the employee is driven by the employee's performance in meeting the customer's needs.
There's no need of a special case solution for restaurant waitstaff when there is already a general solution to acheiving the goal that does not have the problems at issue.
Interesting though that the author wrote that at his restaurant that took tips, the average was 22%, so even if some people stiff waiters, it is more than made up for.
You can provide the incentive by frequenting the business. You can provide feedback on poor performance directly to the management. I'm salaried, and no end-user ever can ever give me direct feedback, but they can provide feedback buy buying (or not buying) my companies products. Management then interprets this signal (given many other variables) and takes such actions as makes sense, such as providing incentive rewards or retraining or firing. There's no reason why this model can't work in a restaurant.
If your reasons for supporting tipping as a practice are "pay for performance", it doesn't make logical sense to give a 15% tip regardless of how bad the service was. I hear this argument a lot, and honestly in most cases the differential on performance comes out to a few dollars on a $15+ tip.
If you honestly tip to reward good performance, why are you rewarding horrible performance at nearly the rate that you reward excellent performance?
You're assuming everyone does. I "pay for performance" and my tips will generally bottom out at 10% (I feel a cad not tipping at all, though I shouldn't) and max out at 50% (very, very uncommon and usually requires my creating extra work for the server, such as breaking a glass/ spilling a drink on the floor).
But even then, you're clearly not 100% motivated to "pay for performance". To some degree you are, clearly - but a large part of why you tip is cultural expectations, or you wouldn't be tipping 10% for horrendous service.
Which is fine, I'd never not tip in Canada or the US either, but let's be honest with ourselves - everyone tips because you're culturally expected to tip.
There is also a problem with messaging even after the bill has been paid due to unclear standards of tipping.
I have a friend here in Seattle, who likes to consider himself a generous tipper. As such a 20% tip is for truly horrible service. 25-30 is standard and 50% is common enough for good service. I do think this good for the servers - but they have no clue that they sucked (I imagine) when they get a 20% tip. Unless I stiff them on my ½ of the bill :)
And while he may be extreme, diversity in the minimum/maximum range for tips means the messaging about performance is muddled.
Pay for performance is probably misguided in at least some professions (extrinsic reward can drive out more effective intrinsic reward), however even if you believe in pay for performance, the appropriate person to pay for better performance is the employer, not the customer.
For large parties it's only fair to add a gratuity. I was stiffed by so many large parties I just stopped taking them if I could. You have some T-ball team and every parent all paying separately, some % don't even pay their bill, the rest tip like crap, the kids make a huge mess, you spend almost your entire shift serving them, and walk with $6.
Back when I lived in San Diego I took my parents to the Linkery. The service was so bad it actually reversed my opinions against tipping. The servers clearly didn't care much about making us happy, messing up almost every aspect of the order. They put meat in my food - I'm vegetarian. My father got his food 20 minutes after my mother and I did. The waiter forgot one of my drinks. We called over the manager who offered us a free dessert to make up for it. Guess what? The dessert was on the bill. I'm always happy to tip 20+% for good service, but being forced (yes, we asked) to pay the service charge added insult to injury.
This is just one data point, but the Linkery was infamous around San Diego for having much worse service than other places in a similar price range. I'm convinced their experiment with tipping was correlated with this.
This is a question of the restaurant's culture, not an inevitable result of not tipping. I went to a prominent no tip restaurant in New York, and I've never experienced better service. The servers were warm and friendly, so every interaction them felt human, but they somehow managed not to interfere with the meal at all. They knew when to stick around so we could ask questions, and they disappeared as soon as we didn't need them. But I'm sure a lot goes into creating that kind of service. Adding or subtracting tipping is one of many variables.
I totally agree with you that bad service is not inevitable from no-tipping - some of the best service I've ever gotten has been in countries without tipping. And I do think The Linkery had particular issues, especially with the way it was managed.
But I left feeling the lack of tips enabled poor service. I personally am uncomfortable with the concept of tying someone's pay to an arbitrary decision, but a small or zero tip sends a very strong message to a server in a targeted way. I think it's hard for a manager to micromanage service; the way they can do it is pretty inelegant and probably often inefficient. The manager could have fired the waiter, but maybe he was just having a bad day. The manager could have cut the waiter's hours, but that doesn't fix the issue. Also the manager likely doesn't hear about a lot of issues that go on - many people prefer not to complain except in the most extreme circumstances.
but a small or zero tip sends a very strong message to a server in a targeted way
Such a system is completely broken-
-servers simply write off people who leave small or no tips as cheapskates, and...
-cheapskates do take advantage of this to take offense at all opportunities and save themselves a tip, leading to an vicious circle.
It all just leads to an unfortunate cycle of assumptions and posturing. Getting rid of it would be fantastic.
Heading to their Yelp page[0] and searching the word "service" seems to agree with this account, fwiw. A few good reviews, to be sure, but mostly complaints about both food and (especially slow) service. Many complaints also about the mandatory tip. They had a 3-star average.
Yelp itself provides an alternate way to provide feedback, which gives the restaurant a significant incentive to improve service but doesn't enable cheapskates to rip it off.
Interesting... if every restaurant in San Diego had tip-less systems, do you think that the 'average service quality' for the city would go down or would bad restaurants go out of business until an equilibrium was found that is higher? Maybe just variance in quality (from place to place as well as from patron to patron) would go down. I'm trying to understand why you seemed to be on one side of the argument but one experience at one place made you question it. I've had terrible experience at tipping places too and I suspect that it would take very strong management to break the existing culture of the service industry.
Presumably if enough people like you complained, the staff that was causing so much trouble would be fired, and eventually people who had a good work ethic/customer service would survive?
A restaurant can have management and cultural issues, tips or not, and such should be reflected in reviews. And from those reviews, if the serving staff aren't doing their jobs they should be fired (circling back to the management comment).
And isn't the cook really the part of service that matters most about a restaurant? If you want to talk about inducement, shouldn't a tip pool yield a better result, even if the guy who carries the plate walks a little slower?
but being forced (yes, we asked) to pay the service charge added insult to injury
The alternative is that the restaurant simply increases the price of everything by 18%. It really doesn't make any difference. As to being forced, most feel culturally forced (if not sometimes legally forced) to tip for even horrendous service.
No. Tips for waiters is an incentive to provide good service. Without tips they make very little. The establishment would not be forced to raise prices because that service charge is not going to the business. Cooks are of course importAnt, but lets be real; these are not chefs. They are cooking according to a very precise recipe. There's no room for innovation.
If the food is cold because the server took too long to bring it out it then it doesn't matter what it tastes like. If I don't get drink refills it, again, doesn't matter. If my order is screwed up when being entered it doesn't matter.
Servers are the face of the restaraunt. If servers made much less then the experience would be wildly different. Imagine the level of service provided by a cashier at your local McDonald's.
No. Tips for waiters is an incentive to provide good service. Without tips they make very little.
Are you talking without the context of the linked article? Because the idea behind the linked article is that a service fee is pooled and distributed among all staff (though still favouring servers, which is a nod to the past more than any rational evaluation of scope of importance). The linked article is that the servers still made a considerable amount more than their base pay.
And no, servers aren't by any measure the most important. I would dare say they are the least important in the whole venture.
No, I was responding to the parent comment. Pooling is fine. Have you worked in a restaurant before? Waiters can screw up any part of your experience (or, conversely, make it better). No other position in the restaurant can say the same.
That's not unethical, it's fraud. And if you go to a bank and say "I don't want to pay this they forgot my drink!" They will probably not even wait to hang up before laughing at you. If you get back service, don't go again and write a bad review or two.
> They got the bill, challenged it, and were informed that they had no choice.
The manager asserting that they had no choice doesn't mean they did; if they disagree, they could have refused to pay unless the offending items are removed from the bill. Obviously, that would have been an escalation, and they chose to acquiesce instead, but that was a choice.
They were informed they had no choice with regard to the service charge. Which, if California's laws in this respect are as odd as they sound, may be a legal barrier and not one at the restaurant. There is no indication in the article about them challenging the dessert.
The bank route is all or nothing. You don't get to say "I feel the service was bad, the manager said this $10 dessert would be free and it wasn't, therefore I want to start a chargeback on the entire $100 bill." No.
If the dessert is the issue, don't pay the bill until you ask the manager why it's on the bill when it was supposed to be free. Let them call the police if it gets to that point (it almost never does). But once you pay the bill you're accepting the charges. There is no such thing as "paying under protest" for stuff like this.
That's not true. You can dispute any portion of a charge you feel like.
A few years ago, I signed up for wireless internet service that ended up turning into crap after a month. I was willing to pay for the month where I got service, but I felt that they used false advertising to get my business, and as such they did not merit the activation fee.
Luckily, I paid with a credit card. My charge was $75, which combined the $35 activation fee and the $40 charge for the month of service. I disputed only the $35 and got my money back.
There comes a point where that is no longer a viable excuse. When the manager gets involved to rescue a situation after multiple screwups, you're way beyond that point.
I disagree. Charging a single person for a dessert that they were served never amounts to "outright fraud" as you think it is.
It can be a simple mistake, a boneheaded mistake, a major mistake or a colossally stupid mistake. But unless free desserts are promised systematically to a percentage of customers which are then billed for it, it's not "outright fraud".
Fraud has nothing to do with volume. Charging a single person for a dessert that was promised to be free is sufficient. It doesn't need to be "systematically" done.
One could argue that this wasn't deliberate and therefore should not count as fraud. That's what was done in the comment I was replying to. But one cannot argue that this wasn't done to enough people and therefore should not count as fraud, because they have nothing to do with each other.
This is an odd title. The article gives an interesting explanation for why, theoretically, a restaurant would choose to go with a service charge rather than a tip-based system, but doesn't contain many observations from the now-tipless restaurant.
The whole idea of mandatory "service charges," or "fees," in any business, is kind of bizarre. It seems strange that we've accepted that certain types of businesses (airlines, hotels, ticket brokers, in some cases restaurants) should list prices that differ significantly from the actual price charged. There does seem to be some backlash against this practice: Kayak, Hipmunk, and many other travel sites now list the full price of airline tickets (though, often, not hotel rooms, with their "facility charges," whatever those are). And today I noticed that StubHub now shows prices inclusive of all fees. I understand why a business would like to list prices that are 30% lower than what the customer actually pays, but it seems a little odd that we're all OK with it.
I agree, it's crazy. Seems like a slam-dunk case of false advertising if you say something costs $X and then you actually charge $Y.
If a restaurant wants to charge more so they can pay their staff a wage that doesn't require them to live off tips, then great! I'm all for it. But then they need to list their higher charges, not just tack on an extra 18% (or whatever) on top of what they advertise.
Oops. Well, in that case, I don't see a lot of service fees at restaurants that don't have a notice of it on the menu ("18% for groups over 6"), which I would assume covers them.
When I have been in that kinds of restaurants (not in the US) there is always stated on the menu that X% are added.
But since we in Europe are used to being advertised pre-VAT prices I suppose it is not a big deal for us.
Also I have seen wine/birthday cake charges - the establishment allows you to bring your bottles of wine if you pay X EUR per bottle, same with the cake.
> But since we in Europe are used to being advertised pre-VAT prices I suppose it is not a big deal for us.
Wait, what? In most of europe, all prices listed must be VAT-included, unless they're specifically business-targeted. I'm pretty sure VAT-excluded advertisement would be fraudulent there.
Prices are often noted as both VAT-included and VAT-excluded at the point of sale, but the most prominent one is VAT-included.
Relevant to note that almost no American businesses include sales tax in their listed prices either. (Though it's required in some countries [at least in some circumstances].)
Yes as an European I find it really odd how Americans get to put up with consumer abuse, just because "this is the way things work".
And this is the country where supposedly everything is done in the name of consumer.
And listing taxless prices and hiding the cost of service from me by expecting me to tip waiters.
This is also the reason why I find this article distasteful. So if you are really that sure about your position, why the hell don't you raise your prices 20% or even 30% for that matter. And when people ask you why are you so expensive, you can tell them that you pay your people fairly.
The reason why prices are almost always listed as taxless is complicated. Sales tax in the US is weird, and varies a lot by product and jurisdiction. We have no national sales tax, but each state can levy a sales tax, also each county and each city can tack on their own tax to that. In New York City for example, there is a additional small sales tax that is a fraction of a percent that goes to the MTA. Each percent of the sales price can go to 2-3 or more different places. As a result a product can be taxed differently down the street. Each item is taxed differently, food isn't usually taxed, unless it is restaurant food. Clothes are in some places are aren't in some places. Sometimes clothes are only taxed if they cost more than a certain amount. Tax laws can change at any time, so it is easier to program a register than to reprice the entire store if tax laws change. Our sales tax went up recently.
> This is also the reason why I find this article distasteful. So if you are really that sure about your position, why the hell don't you raise your prices 20% or even 30% for that matter
Unless they have forged a particularly tight bond with the community, simply raising prices is a sure fire way to lose potential customers.
Tipping is so ingrained in American restaurant culture that everyone assumes it to be in place. Unless they have a gigantic sign that flashes "NO TIPPING" in neon colors, you can bet that anyone scanning their menu will just assume it's a really expensive restaurant.
No, he is saying that when I look at the menu of a restaurant, before walking in, I look at the prices and make a decision on whether it is in my price range or not. If I don't notice that the tax is included on this menu (but not the dozens of others I have looked at over the past years), I will think, say, a sandwich at $10 is a bit expensive because I didn't realize tax was included in the price (tax is almost never included in American retail prices).
Ok taxes are different between places. But if you wanted to sort it out, you could have - like we have. We just abstract accounting away from the point of sale. Thus all the prices could be advertised with tax.
But I was asking about tips in GP.
I think we all know it is actually preying on the dumb and those weak willed people(look a 12$ lunch! Which turns out to be in fact a 15-20$ lunch in reality).
I live in Denmark. Here tipping is almost not even heard of. Maybe our food just costs a little bit more, I don't know - because it doesn't say "+ 10% tipping fee" or something anywhere. Here you just pay the prices noted next to the food and drinks that you order.
And the kicker, the service is always good. Because if the server isn't nice, they'll probably get fired. Because guess what, serving food and being polite about it is their job. That is what they're getting payed for. So demanding extra money to do their job with a smile just seems too weird for me.
So demanding extra money to do their job with a smile just seems too weird for me.
It's funny how famous Americans are for disrespecting other cultures while Europeans feel free to call anything American that differs from their own cultures "weird" or worse.
There's plenty of things about Denmark that I find "weird" but I was raised not to insult other people's culture so I won't call them out.
Perhaps I'm disrespecting my own American culture, but it _is_ weird.
Which industries expect tips and which don't feels arbitrary and ridiculous. Cabs, food service (sort of? Lots of fast food places leave a line item for tips, but I don't think it's expected,) bell hops. People in the fashion industry like tattoo artists and hair dressers expect tips, but I've never heard of people in retail wanting tips. Food delivery wants to be tipped (especially given that they have to cover their own vehicle costs,) but not package delivery.
I know that I'm not the only American that considers tipping to be arbitrary and backward. The only American I've heard who defended it didn't understand that we wanted to replace his tipping wages with fair wages
Waiting tables is the extremely faint end of a spectrum that reaches to prostitution at the far end. Why pay someone to bring you food, if you aren't ill? Because you want to be made to feel good. More feelgoods, more money.
>> Why pay someone to bring you food, if you aren't ill? Because you want to be made to feel good. More feelgoods, more money.
I'm not paying someone to bring me food, that's not the part of the experience I'm there for. I'm there for someone to cook me food. That the wait staff are there at all is a convenience, but they're sure as hell not the main attraction.
I live in Portugal and tipping is pretty rare too, we pay for the advertised prices and there are no fees, it is confusing to me that tipping is a standard, if they feel they need more money raise the prices don't add extra on some sort of "hidden" fee.
Here in Portugal, it is not asked to give money, but I wouldn't say it's rare. Usually if the server is good, helpful and gives a good service, people give some tipping but because THEY WANT and feel good about it.
Obviously it's nothing like that crazy system (to me it is, at least) on the other side of the atlantic, where people have a fee to pay just for that. That and prices without tax included... Really strange, to me it is false advertising.
I worked in a normal restaurant some years ago, and the system is something like this:
* servers receive tips, everybody puts them in a central place.
* at the end of the day they are divided amongst all working people.
* in good days, everbody would receive between 15€ to 25€.
Obviously this can change from place to place, specially the part about sharing with everyone.
My previous post was written without much time or thinking, forgot to mention that I do tip sometimes if I feel like the service is exceptionally good (unfortunately many times it is not, maybe its the places I go) but as you said, I do it because I want not because there is that crazy system.
"Really strange, to me it is false advertising." couldnt describe it any better
Not entirely related, but I wasn't pleased with the surcharge that came from paying with a credit card (especially when I visited with a mindset that I could pay electronically for most things). Not sure if Denmark still has it, though.
I saw an interview recently with David Chang [1] who implied that part of the thinking behind the design of his 12-seat, 2-Michelin star restaurant Ko was an experiment in ways to improve the wages of his employees. Because KO is so small and the kitchen bellies up to the diners, the cooks are also servers and can legally make tips.
[Edit - Whoops. As a San Diego resident, I feel bad for neglecting to mention that The Linkery was awesome and like lots of folks here I'm sorry to see it go.]
"A certain small number of very vocal men (and it was always men) resented that we were not letting [them] try to exercise additional control over our team members. This was true even though compelling research has shown that servers do not adjust quality of service as a result of tips; instead the idea that the restaurant was not offering our servers up as objects of control, was heresy. For these people, the primary service they wanted from the restaurant was the opportunity to pay for favors from the server..."
I think the vocal group probably felt if i have to explicitly pay a separate line item for service then I want explicit control of that... the whole 'primary service is control' angle feels to me like newspeak
If there is a flat 18% service charge, why not just add 18% to the base prices and get rid of the service charge? Or does a restaurant have to 'hide' these costs as an added percentage in order to make their prices seem reasonable?
Or does a restaurant have to 'hide' these costs as an added percentage in order to make their prices seem reasonable?
You hit the nail on the head here. Some places "hide" this charge better than others. I once had another patron at a place let me know that my check already included tip so I wouldn't double tip, as my check just had a total on it. It wasn't itemized at all. That seemed pretty dishonest to me.
I have a friend who worked at a chain restaurant where they circled the total on the receipt with a black sharpie.
It was the standard practice of all the servers there to make sure the circle went through the item showing the included gratuity for parties of six or more.
Apparently, as a result, they'd get double tipped for large parties about 50% of the time.
You saw the exact price beforehand in the menu, it's the same on the bill, you seemed to be ready to pay even more, and they told you you don't have to pay more. How is that dishonest?
You misunderstand. The prices listed on the menu did not include the automatic gratuity. Even if I added everything in my head, there's still other fees not included like tax. I didn't think twice about it because I've been to this place before & they didn't have an auto grat. They tried to sneak it in under the radar after years of operating without it.
Also, as I said, the "they" in this situation was another patron, not a worker at the restaurant.
If tipping weren't customary, then I'd agree with you that the service charge is just an obnoxious way to hide the true price (a la ticketmaster). But in US restaurants, the diner's expectation is that they will pay 15-20% on top of the listed prices for the tip. So long as the no-tipping policy and 18% surcharge is made clear on the menu, I don't see a problem with this.
Agreed. If I didn't see a service charge, I would assume that I was supposed to tip. If my tip was then refused, I would just be confused and make them explain the whole system. Easier to just say that service is a fixed percent charge and meet expectations.
I always assumed that only the servers and not the business owe income tax over this part of the bill. Also, don't credit card companies waive fees over tips?
edit: hmmm, it seems the latter isn't even close to true!
I've never understood why I need to pay the wages of restaurant employees directly, when just about every other business seems to figure out a way to fund employee wages by selling products or services.
I have had consistently worse service from restaurants that I know share tips. There is no reason for a server to do better than their coworkers which brings everyone down to a common denominator.
This is in Massachusetts that does have a tip credit and where servers rarely get paid the statutory minimum wage if it is a slow night (against the law but it happens). Just for reference, the server minimum wage is $2.63/hour. If you can't make enough in tips because its a slow night and one of your coworkers is bringing the tip average down, your incentive drops off dramatically as well.
For something like this to work nationwide, the tip credit has to go.
Coming from the UK, added service charges always annoy me (unless it's for large parties). A tip is something that I volunteer to express gratitude for a good experience. It is also something I can refuse if the experience is bad. Forcing a service charge assumes I will pay X% more than the price I have been shown regardless of experience.
However, that view is based on the UK system where minimum wage for the serving staff is enforced and where tip pools are allowed.
It's still not always clear where your tips are actually going in the UK:
Pre-2008, credit card tips/service charges actually went to the employer, not the service staff, and the staff were generally told to lie about this[0].
Post-2008, credit card tips may be subject to employer deductions[1]. There has never been a fixed rule as to whether your cash tips are pooled or kept by waiting staff[2].
Also, in the UK it's nothing like the restaurant in the article. I have the rule of asking, if there is a service charge, who gets the money from it, and so far in 100% of the cases, the money goes to management, which is ridiculous.
Tipping is fairly rare here in Italy, and the food is "pretty good" - some might say excellent - even if there is a tragic lack of good Mexican food in this country.
Tipping isn't for quality of the food, as highlighted by the fact that the tips are often legally restricted from being passed on to the cooks. It's for quality of the service.
There is some excellent spicy stuff in southern Italy that's pretty good, but it's mostly not in the same league as 'hot' cuisines in terms of scoville's.
There are also Indian restaurants here and there that have pretty spicy food that is tasty; although I'm not all that knowledgeable about Indian cuisine in general.
I love Indian food, but I spent most of my time in Germany, where the spiciest thing to be found is the occasional sausage that accidentally brushed up against a pepper.
Having spent time in Bavaria, I know they really enjoy Kren, which is horseradish. Generally you can buy a plate of cold meats with grated Kren. It will set your eyes watering.
2 places have no tipping in New York City:
- Sushi Yasuda - considered by some the top sushi spot in the city. (Certainly one of the most expensive)
- The tap room at Whole Foods - let's just call it a little more lowbrow.
My budget hasn't encouraged me to visit Yasuda in several years, but I will say that I like not having to pay tips at the tap room. It certainly makes an inexpensive place seem even cheaper, and their service hasn't suffered for it at all.
Japan goes beyond that. In many 'tipless' cultures they will accept tips anyway. In Japan, they will give it back to you. I have heard stories of Japanese waiters running after customers as they leave, to return the tip.
A young lady who I knew from my high school, who doesn't speak Japanese, visited me in Japan one year. We went to my favorite sushi shop, where I've been a regular for 8 years.
As we were walking home, she said "That sushi was so excellent I left a $10 tip."
"We have to go back."
"WHAT?"
"You don't tip in Japan. We have to go back."
"Maybe YOU don't tip in Japan, Mr. Stingypants, but I tip in Ja..."
"Matttttttttttttttttttttttte"
"Who was that?"
"That's the sushi guy, who has commandeered his grandmother's bicycle to chase after us."
"Alright then, Ms. Totally Platonic dropped her money. Tell her to be a bit more careful with it? There's all sorts of forei... people in Ogaki who might steal money that's just left on a table like that."
Ha ha, this makes me laugh a little. The only time I've ever had any waiter chase me after I had left was at Decibel, a Japanese sake bar in the East Village (New York). My friend and I had ordered two small glasses of sake, totaling about $25. My friend, being new to the city, tipped the waiter in the customary bar fashion: $1 a drink, because the waiter did nothing except pour us our sake (and was slow in arriving) and never followed up except to take our bill. The waiter (who was most definitely of Japanese ethnicity) angrily demanded if we had a problem with his service, and if we didn't, why did we only tip him $2.
I don't know how closely this sake bar hews to any Japanese convention (my guess is that it's be the Japanese version of hipsterism), but it was an amusing episode that led me to never revisit that bar again, as much as I like the place.
On a visit to China many years ago, waitresses would regularly return or refuse tips. However, on a more recent trip, they would expect or even ask for it. Bad habits are easy to pick up.
It makes sense. Good servers are compliance professionals, whether you or they know it or not, and their pivotal role in the experience means that the good ones can make good money.
But I know that I've not gone back to restaurants precisely because I didn't like interacting with the staff, or I didn't like how they interacted with my guests.
And looking back, the most specific I could be about it was "well, the waiters were kind of intense." You know what I mean. They were professional, they did their job, but ... they were intense. And they didn't need to be; we're going to give them 20%, but they don't know that. So they're ... slightly intense, forward with their presence, so you won't dare undertip, instead of melting into the background and letting the food and ambience dominate.
In a restaurant like this guy posits, waiters aren't compliance professionals.
On the other hand, in a tipless restaurant, they aren't paid based on merit, so maybe they won't be as motivated to do a great job in the parts of their work that require concentration and diligence.
But they're doing a job that a robot should be doing as soon as possible, and a whether my server is good, great or okay isn't going to affect how my food tastes.
Sorry -- it's a reference from the book "Influence", which is a fascinating and, dare I say, influential tome. It doesn't mean anything more complicated than it reads as.
> Compliance professionals often play on this trait by
> offering a small gift to potential customers.
> Compliance professionals can exploit the desire to be
> consistent by having someone make an initial, often
> small, commitment.
> This trait has led compliance professionals to provide
> fake information on what others are doing.
...sounds like it's psycho-babble parlance for "sales people" or maybe a broader definition meant to include social roles such as actors, spokespersons, and celebrity endorsements.
No reason to be sarcastic. The phrase 'compliance professional' isn't used in common speech and seems to carry more weight than just the sum of the words. Googling for it reveals the wiki article for Media Manipulation and some PR websites but neither of those ideas fits neatly with the OP's narrative.
I think that in a tipless restaurant, the manager becomes even more important. In this case, you wouldn't express your displeasure at bad service by giving a poor tip; you would instead get the manager.
Is there ever really a case where the server is so bad that you have to take it to the manager? In my 14 years of frequently going out to eat I am hard-pressed to recall even one such instance.
I think it is quite peculiar that the service of the server is perceived to be such a profoundly important component to the overall restaurant experience. Think of it this way: have you ever had to report a floor clerk at JC Penny or Sears to the manager, because he ruined your buying experience? Or a McDonald's employee or a Taco Bell employee? Front floor people are important, but it's probably not fair to place them above people in the background (cooks, dishwashers).
This reminds me, my favorite restaurant (Pita Inn in Evanston Illinois) does not even have servers, you just pick your food up, go to the table and eat it. Honestly, I prefer the "experience" there over other fancy restaurants -- I just like to be given my food and eat it without interruptions, and without going through a sometimes-socially-burdensome task of having to decide on a right tip.
In my own opinion, yes. The point of a restaurant is to have the food brought to you. I can make perfectly good food at home. If I don't get good service, then why should I even go out to eat?
> On the other hand, in a tipless restaurant, they aren't paid based on merit, so maybe they won't be as motivated to do a great job in the parts of their work that require concentration and diligence.
So should we conclude that as a general rule the chef isn't as motivated as the waiters to provide good service? This sounds to me like bullshit.
English pub food is paid for at the bar with your drinks, that you yourself walk away carrying. They often give you a number on a wooden spoon and if you hate the food, you just don't go there again.
"and if you hate the food, you just don't go there again"
If?
With love,
Frenchie
disclaimer: not French, but having spent time in both countries it's clear that tipping is nowhere near as prevalent as in the States where 20% is pretty common.
In pubs in England it's traditional to tip by offering to buy the staff member a drink. They'll charge you for a nominal drink - often saying that they'll save it for later/when their shift ends as the explanation for why they're not pouring themselves a drink right then, and the money goes into the tip pool.
hmm, I've never done/seen/heard of that and I've lived in London my entire life. Is it common in other parts of England? Or am I just a stingy bastard?
Even in America, part of polite bar culture is buying an especially good bartender a shot or a drink. It also makes you a quick friend who might conveniently forget a couple drinks on your bill :)
It seems common up here (York) though the reaction varies. Some decline, some places drop the value in the top jar, some may even make a point of chatting to you to drink the drink if the are not busy (though that is fairly rare).
I expect it varies as much in London, but culture tends to follow people who then follow the culture they are used to - so you may just frequent places where not tipping that way is the norm by virtue of your preferences and circle of friends.
Can't vouch for down South, but at least in the North-West it's common to say 'And your own' at the end of your drinks order. They usually only take 10-20p rather than the cost of an actual drink, though.
I think it's more common in the North. I'm a Southerner and lived in London for about 9 years and can count the number of times I've seen this on one hand, and then it's mostly been folks from the North that do it.
It could be an artefact of different sorts of relationship people feel they have with bar staff (and serving staff in general).
It's not traditional to do it every time, nor even every visit, and I've barely ever done this myself.
I think it's fairer to say that traditionally you can tip the staff by buying one for them, but it's not something you observe happening all that often.
Actually some of the best food in the UK is to be had in pubs IMHO. Also some of the worst, if you just pick one at random you might get either end of the spectrum.
"English pub food is paid for at the bar with your drinks, that you yourself walk away carrying."
In my experience it's more normal that you order your food at the bar, and a member of staff then brings your food to your table. A tip isn't normally expected in this case.
In a gastropub your order would normally be taken at your table and you'd tip just as if you were in a restaurant.
Isn't the real problem that the industry has driven itself into a corner by charging unrealistically low prices and giving consumers a distorted view of how much restaurant experiences should cost? A well managed restaurant should be able to pay its staff a decent wage and turn a profit based on the prices it charges for its dishes, end of story. If a 20% tip is basically mandatory in the USA why don't all restaurants unilaterally up their prices 20%. And then that would allow the odd generous guests to tip/overpay in the somewhat rare scenarios where the establishment has genuinely excelled. Sounds like you got yourselves into a right old mess.
I have both run and worked in food & beverage businesses and that is exactly the problem. Even here in Austria where service personnel usually gets paid much fairer wages there is still the problem of simply not being able to pay them those really fair wages because perception of prices by customers is broken.
The reasons for that are similarly complex to why no iOS dev I know could likely make a living from selling apps on the Apple app store.
E.g. one woman/man food cart or bar owners who offer services for dumping prices don't know and/or value how much their time and energy is actually worth or simply feel the need to take the risks to get a competitive edge.
It's a true race to the bottom. In 2013 actually very, very few individuals and companies are still generating profits (thinking about Amazon, Salesforce.com, etc).
So profits are drying up for most of us, it's a shame really that a lot of capitalism critical thinkers seem to have been right all along.
How can we get to a more even distribution of authentic wealth without throwing out the benefits of capitalism?
The food service industry is supported by a huge mass of people who just do their jobs, a small group of people who want to be stars but probably won't, and a tiny group of stars who can actually earn enough money to live well.
Any of the recent food star autobiographies will tell you that life in a kitchen is a 60-80 hour grind, every week, and that investing in a restaurant requires only slightly less foolish optimism than buying a boat.
I think it's more about supply and demand. A good server is harder to find than a good cook. Let's also not confuse a "cook" with a "chef" (who is responsible for purchasing, menu design, teaching the cooks, etc).
It's possible there are other factors at play here, but I don't know enough about the situation to bring those up.
I was also shocked by this. Surely your servers aren't worth almost twice what your cooks are! And with the "no-tips" model , I don't understand why pay wasn't more even.
It sounds reasonable in a racist society. The cooks are probably immigrants, possibly illegal, and can be paid low wages to perform a rote task. The servers have to smile and be nice and handle customer complaints, and will determine whether people come back more than the food. (Just look at Yelp reviews... people don't care about the food, they care about the service)
Let's not play that game. As a former cook, I can tell that yes, there are lots of immigrants. Most of them work unbelievably hard, and really, really depend on these jobs to survive.
There are also a _lot_ of addicts, psychopaths, morons and other assorted human detritus, of ever conceivable hue competing for these jobs, which also depresses wages.
Furthermore, restaurants don't have any damn money. Restaurants are on razor thin margins always. Usually a bad week or two from going under.
Qualifications for working in the kitchen consist of:
1. will you work for very little money?
2. can you work ok when you're high and/or drunk?
For fancy places:
3. can you safely handle a knife?
4. will you toil endlessly for no apparent reason?
Yeah, what is it with drunks and addicts going hand in hand with cooks? All the chefs i've known would down a bottle of vodka a day, if not more. The Betty Ford Center would probably get 3 Michelin stars.
Yes it seems that cooking takes a lot more skill than serving. But in a fast-food society, they have taken all the skill out of cooking, it is just an assembly line of prepackaged ingredients.
For just some interesting historical context, around the turn of the last century, new middle class in America were very against tipping in restaurants, viewing it as un-democratic and un-American.
> Anti-tipping advocates often championed an egalitarian vision of capitalist consumption in which both consumer and employee would benefit. Tipping, they maintained, undermined the dignity and independence of citizens in a democracy. “Let us not congratulate the servants on their gain,” one writer admonished, “for no servant takes a tip without losing something of manhood or womanhood.” Another argued that to accept a tip “is to enter into a relationship of dependence to the giver and by implication to acknowledge his superiority.” Frank Crane, a syndicated columnist, contended that the tip put waiters “into a class with the beggar, or the receiver of a bribe.” And Alvin Harlow, a historian popular at the time, wrote: “What, may I ask, is more un-American than tipping? It doesn’t belong in American society; it doesn’t belong in a democracy. It is a product of lands where for centuries there has been a servile class.”
http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/summer2012/features/tip...
"So, the two servers make a total of about $26/hour each, while everyone else in the restaurant is stuck at $8/hour."
My first jobs were as a busser, dishwasher, prep cook and line cook.
As a customer, I hate tipping! Tipping is an absurdly unfair practice. I never tip over 15%, usually 10% and sometimes nothing at all. Waiter/waitresses are overpaid for what they do.
If the food is good, tip the kitchen, not the person who brought it to the table.
I never really understood the point of tips instead of just charging everyone the service charge. If it is some kind of feedback mechanism to the server for doing a good job, then why can't the restaurant just implement reviews?
I never understood why servers need an extra incentive to do their job well. It's their job - shouldn't they have some sort of entitlement to do perform well, even without the extra cash? There are so many other professions in the service industry, where the tip culture is nonexistent, yet there never seems to be an outstanding issue.
The cashiers at Safeway, McDonald's drive-thru, flight attendants, and anyone in the workforce for that matter, don't whine about tips. They do their job, and they get paid for what their services are worth from their employers.
I'm not opposing giving tips if you received amazing service and you truly feel like giving one. I just hate the fact that the 18% tip is almost taken for granted nowadays, and you become the cheap one if you tip less. The tip system, if at all it should exist, should work so that the extra money customers pay actually reflect the service they received - not be socially forced down their throats.
If restaurants really wanted to insure prompt service, install bells at each table that would silently notify the staff members when a customer presses it. This is how it's done in Korea, and in every airplane, and it works perfectly.
No need for waving and trying to make eye contact on that part, and no need for servers to constantly interrupt your conversation. Not to mention this is also more convenient for the servers as they can monitor a single screen rather than the entire room.
I've eaten at this restaurant several times, and I should say the service was always excellent, contrary to what you might expect when the service charge is fixed.
I suspect that skillful, attentive management (such as the author's) makes tipping unnecessary to ensure quality service, but also that tipping is one way to compensate for the lack of such management.
It should be noted that the restaurant now charges a mandatory "service charge" in lieu of accepting tips. I put service charge in quotes, because in some jurisdictions[0], there is a legal distinction between a "service charge/fee" and "auto gratuity". If a restaurant automatically charges you gratuity (many do this for tables of 6 or more), you don't legally have to pay it. You do have to pay anything labelled as a "fee" or "charge" though.
[0] I have some knowledge of this in the mid Atlantic states, but the author is speaking about the West. Maybe it is different over there, maybe it isn't.
I can see the point of a fixed service charge for certain situations (e.g. large parties, or if the restaurant wants to avoid the problems with tipping like the OP) when there is an existing cultural expectation of tipping. But if there's no expectation, how can you justify the service charge? Isn't this just like when ticketmaster tacks on a surprise 20% fee at the end after you've already entered your credit card info?
Is it common to refuse an additional tip if offered? In my limited experience, only once has an additional small tip (such as rounding up 18.50 to 20.00 EUR) been refused.
I found it rather strange as well, but it was a pretty strange circumstance: Small restaurant, late at night, simple food, owner was just hanging out with a friend playing darts for most of the night, so probably didn't care much one way or another whether I was there eating. On top of that, it was clear I was an American and therefore might have thought tipping was effectively mandatory as in the states.
Still, it was strange. Just making sure it wasn't some larger pattern that I was unaware of and that the author's refusal to accept tips at all was truly unique, or at least atypical.
Not sure why it didn't work out exactly. If you/we want to find out apparently we'll have to follow his blog. I do know that the same people who owned another restaurant here in SD closed another of their restaurants (El Take it Easy) where they did have tipping. I'm guessing they might have found the changing food market in San Diego hard to bear. Everyone and their brother has a 'Farm to Table' restaurant now, so unless you are something very special I imagine competition will be very, very strong.
> Our servers’ total pay rose to about $22/hour, most of the cooks started making about $12-14 depending on experience, and the diswashers about $10.
Can someone explain to me exactly why servers make 2x that of cooks? I certainly appreciate service, but I go to a restaurant to eat after all.
On a technical level, I also appreciate the skill (and occupational hazards) involved in cooking, perhaps more so than the interpersonal skills displayed by servers.
Being a line cook in most restaurants is very repetitive and doesn't require much skill. You basically just enter a zen state and become a sort of robot for whatever kitchen station you are manning. That said, the restaurants where being a cook requires more skill do not usually pay a better wage, which is unfortunate.
> That said, the restaurants where being a cook requires more skill do not usually pay a better wage, which is unfortunate.
Yes, I realize I should have been more specific. I was in fact referring to restaurants that employ skilled & experienced cooks.
Anecdotally, I have acquaintances with solid (non AI) culinary degrees employed at boutique restaurants who make just north of minimum wage. The author of article seemed to imply that his restaurants also employed more skilled cooks, which prompted me to ask this question.
Being a server is also very repetitive and doesn't require much skill (sorry if that insults any servers, but I don't see how server is a more skilled job than a cook)
It involves a bit more, you have to take orders, keep tabs on the dining room, run around balancing a bunch of stuff, interact with people, smile at patrons and smile at the sous chef who calls you a whore or a queer every time you pick up. In contrast, being a cook in most kitchens is like being an assembly line worker. The "grill cook" literally just stands over a grill flipping stuff. You don't have to ever speak to anyone or even need to know english. (I was a grill cook in a busy restaurant once)
I'm not saying being a server is worth 2x as much as a cook but I can see how they could get paid more. In the same vein a bartender makes hella ducats more than either a server or a cook and most of the time they are just serving beer or vodka & cranberry drinks.
> In the same vein a bartender makes hella ducats more than either a server or a cook and most of the time they are just serving beer or vodka & cranberry drinks.
I literally don't understand why opening a beer warrants a (basically mandatory) $1 dollar tip. I've come to viewing it as essentially a bribe for future service, which has caused it to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
They need to maintain pay for wait staff in the new system otherwise the best wait staff goes somewhere else for better pay. Under the old system they were making around $21 per hr.
I'm an Aussie living in Phoenix. I try not to get too opinionated about whether a tipping culture is better or worse.
I see comments here from Americans who say that when they eat out in other countries they're amazed at the poor service and figure this must be because of no tipping. Back home in Australia if a restaurant doesn't deliver good service they'll go broke. So most places I ever ate at back home had (what I would call) good to great service. This isn't to say I didn't receive some very rare bad service.
Here in the US I've had about a similar experience. Mostly good to great service, and some rare bad service.
The one big difference I've noticed is that here in the US (and I believe this is because of the tipping culture) I've had to "suffer" through "overly attentive" service. When the server constantly asks if everything is satisfactory, constantly topping up / refilling drinks and (I gather) thinking that they're giving us excellent service....... But in reality they're just infringing on our enjoyment of a night out.
the tipping phenomenon only occurs because the resturant industry gamed the system to legally pay their wait staff below minimum wage. So now I got to tip the wait staff because you can legally pay them 4 bucks an hour? OK... Ohhh and tip pools are illegal most places because why?, ohh yeah because management consistently takes the wait staffs tips and takes a cut or redistributes as they see fit to incentivize their business. so thats why its illegal many places, so instead they call it a service charge to get around the law AND take a cut or redistributes as management sees fit to incentivize their business...
the whole reason for tipping is because management can pay the wait staff less than minimum wage, cooks dont get tips because cooks cant legally be paid lowball rates, so why is it good that this guy is STILL paying his wait staff under minimum wage and then not allowing them to be tipped so he can incentivize his other staff?
Why dont you just charge me for the food however much it takes to make your business stay profitable and not force the customer to worry about the details?
Did you read the article? The writer states that waiters made 22$/hour, cooks 12 to 14, and dishwashers got about 10 when he brought in the system, all of which was higher than their base pay before. Do you have proof that does numbers went below minimum wage?
-- 'So, the two servers make a total of about $26/hour each, while everyone else in the restaurant is stuck at $8/hour.'
the waiters would have made 26 dollars an hour under a tipping scheme instead they make 22 dollars an hour under his scheme...
thats really all he is doing here, taking tip money from the waiters and dividing it among the employees as he decides too... and thats fine EXCEPT why doesnt he just put the menu prices up by whatever % he needs to and then run his business how he sees fit? RIGHT because then he cant advertise those low prices (on his menu). Why is that legal? ohh yeah because america has a tipping culture for dining, and why is that? because wait staff is explicitly exempt from wage laws to a large extent
i read the article, thought about it, looked at the numbers and applied critical thinking, and came to the conclusion that this scheme benefits management of the resturant more than anyone else
On a side note, if you have a waiter or waitress that you particularly like and want to provide a tip that will not necessarily go into the tip pool, just leave a cash tip. This gives the waiter the ability to choose how much of the tip they report at the end of their shift.
Conversly, leave a tip on a credit card bill if you want to ensure that the entire tip is subject to any tip pool.
I usually tip by credit card to ensure it's reported to the IRS - serving is an industry that needs to stop thinking of itself as above income tax law.
I do the opposite and always leave tips in cash but not just to give a bonus to the server (if they don't declare/share it).
It also makes it so that my receipts, credit charge email alerts, and monthly bill all reconcile. Otherwise you can have a transcription error when the server or restaurant owner misreads (or mistypes) the manually written tip line of your receipt.
>It also makes it so that my receipts, credit charge email alerts, and monthly bill all reconcile. Otherwise you can have a transcription error when the server or restaurant owner misreads (or mistypes) the manually written tip line of your receipt.
To make sure it reconciles correctly, make sure you fill out the Total line legibly/correctly, not the tip line. That's generally what systems have you input at cash out, and they calculate the tip amount from that difference. The vast majority of mistypes/misreads stem from the Total field being left blank and the manager does the math on the fly, or the customer didn't do the math right when they wrote in the Total (so they end up tipping $4.50 instead of $3.50, or $1.50 instead of $2.50)[1].
Why? Do you think the US government mostly spends that money on good things? They mostly spend it on foreign wars and throwing it at a broken and disfunctional black hole of education, healthcare and social programs.
People actually working in restaurants have earned that money and can use it to better their lives. It's a moral crime to forcibly take the money from them.
I'm Canadian, so I could have more correctly written "CRA" instead of "IRS" - and on balance, I do believe my government spends the money on good things. Certainly there are parts I disagree with, but that's why I, you know, vote and stuff.
More importantly, I think a server who grosses $50,000 and a QA analyst who grosses $50,000 should end up paying the same amount in income taxes. The server shouldn't get a pass just because lots of his/her income comes in the form of tips.
I think taxation is legitimate when needed for protection of people's rights, which is the purpose of government. (I acknowledge that people differ in what they think rights are, but that's a different discussion.) I also think it's OK to tax to fund programs that shouldn't be funded in the long run, while you're in the process of phasing them out; I'm not for changing things drastically overnight.
That said, I think it's wrong to think that the government can invest money more wisely or efficiently than the people who have earned it can, and I think it's morally wrong to take money from people (like wait staff--note that doing this materially hurts their pursuit of their own goals and happiness) for government boondoggle.
Which is essentially his first point of inequitable distribution >> "Some servers may decide to withhold a tipout, in a sense cheating the system, and the employers is precluded from redressing this"
The article made a distinction between tip out and tip pool. Tip out was made to sound entirely voluntary, presumably on credit tips too. My post was meant to refer to an involuntary tip pool policy restaurant. The cash tip gives the waiter the ability to tip out 10% and keep the rest. Im not saying this is good practice on the waiter's part, but it is a reality.
From real world experience - the argument is just semantics, whether it's a forced tip-out or a voluntary tip-out, in practice, the result is usually the same with cash tips.
While interesting I really don't like articles that are setup with entirely hypothetical scenarios which are constrained in such a way to make the entire premise seem more valid.
>if one job gets a $2/hour raise, that most likely means that another job will have its wage reduced by $2/hour.
This statement right here sets up half of this posts argument here and isn't realistic at all.
As the article mentions, the margins on the restaurant business are slim enough that the wage pool is effectively fixed - it's not a hypothetical scenario, it's a practical constraint.
Wages/margins/costs/expenses are far more elastic than the zero sum game the author presents.
If you need to pay somebody $2 more an hour the money can come from more places. Increase a drink price, decrease tomato quality, steam clean every 3 weeks instead of 2, wash the bathroom yourself instead of hiring, call the newspaper and ask for a reduced rate, etc etc etc.
If you need to pay somebody $2 more an hour the money can come from more places. Increase a drink price, decrease tomato quality, steam clean every 3 weeks instead of 2, wash the bathroom yourself instead of hiring, call the newspaper and ask for a reduced rate, etc etc etc.
Of course, you are also assuming that decisions like these (aside from the newspaper one) don't affect the revenue of the restaurant in the long run.
IF there's a fixed cost for employee wages, then $2 more to one person would come at $2 less from another.
As he states, "Theoretically, it seems like there would be ways to free up more money for labor, and there are some methods that help. In the end, though, restaurant-going is so prevelant that the expectations of the market — for price, quality, ambience, and so forth — are pretty well set in every dimension. And the cost of meeting those expectations is pretty well set, too."
Which means his entire experiment is how to increase revenue that can be directly allocated to wages without decreasing the quality of his tomatoes or the cleanliness of his carpets.
The intended point the author was trying to make still stands, which you're agreeing with, in that the margins in the industry are so small that the $2 has to come from somewhere else.
First, I think you mean far less elastic. In economics the more elastic two variables are with respect to one another, the less independent they are - implying the zero-sum-game the author suggests. Second, in any business if your margins are that slim chances are you're already being creative like that, making all kinds of tradeoffs wherever you can, or you're fixing to close your doors.
Juggling and heroics make the variables of a business much more dependent on one another, not less.
Have you managed or owned a restaurant? The margins are extremely slim, which is one of the reasons the wait staff wages are tip based; it allows the owner to minimize his labor expense as much as possible.
Gross margin, sure. When you isolate food or beverage cost, it looks all rosy. Then you take out your overhead (rent, insurance, depreciation, utilities, payroll, cut to investors) and that margin slims down faster than a meth head.
Seems like there are a lot of comments about whether or not tipping promotes good or bad behavior from the servers. Seems pretty divided to me, opinion wise.
I think that's part of what the article was saying. Regardless of whether or not the server behavior was good or bad, the tipping culture created complex and unnecessary social dynamics that were difficult to control in a predictable, effective manner.
My take away is that tipping was an inelegant, overly complex solution, and that simplifying it made the social context much easier to deal with, so that the owner could produce consistent, high quality results.
After that point, I'd say that servers or employees that are good or bad become the same issue you have with any other customer facing job. You address it through culture, disciplinary action, ranking, scheduling, perks, reviews, wage increases, or any number of other methods (I'm not endorsing any of those specifically). The incentive structure becomes a job more or less just another retail job.
The blog post makes reference to a 9th Circuit case, Cumbie v Woody Woo[1] and the Department of Labor policy purporting to overrule it.[2] The latter is full of incredibly weak legal reasoning. It's so bad, I forced to wonder if John Yoo[3] has taken a job with the Department of Labor. I'd go so far as to say that a lawsuit filed on the basis outlined in the memo would be frivolous and sanctionable.
>This time, I wasn’t excited; I was terrified.
If I didn’t learn to code, we were done. I would have to crawl back into the world of finance.
I wonder if this is a dying breed? I think this is an interesting juxtaposition to the kid graduating HS who goes on to:
1. Dual major in business and C-S when they do their undergrad
2. Intern at big corps while in school (make $15-20/hr and have no debt)
3. Work at a startup or two for 2-3 years after graduating
4. Start their own startup.
I run into more and more kids with the above game plan and it seems so much more solid to me. I realize folks who already have careers can't do the above, but as the number of young people who have done the above increases I wonder how it will change the game.
Notice that amongst all the discussion of money and wages, one thing that is completely avoided is any thought of operating on a lower profit margin. All the hand-wringing about poorly paid staff, but never once any thought about taking less money for himself to aid their plight!
Did you read the top of the article? He opened with a section about how hard it is to actually reduce profit because many/most places don't have any! I agree that in many industries, this is an option, but I don't think most restaurant owners are rolling in cash.
He doesn't go into much detail about his quoted 4% margin. Is this the average including all unprofitable restaurants? If so, then they will drag down the average of all the others, and there's no point worrying about the wage structure of a restaurant that is doomed to go out of business as it is losing money.
If we sampled just the restaurants who were viable, profitable concerns, or simply those that had been around longer than (say) a year, you'd find that the average profit margin would be much higher.
The rather excellent Fabarnak in Toronto doesn't accept tips.
Their 'tip jar' next to the register has a big sign that says something like "Fabarnak staff are paid a good wage. Any money left will be donated to the 519 [community centre]", which Fabarnak is housed in and is generally affiliated with. I think their is a similar message on the bottom of the menus if you choose to pay by card at your table.
The food is excellent, and the service is always pleasant. The lack of tips doesn't seem to be upsetting their staff.
Does anyone know the reason as to why this is true:
"However, to give the tip money to every worker would be illegal. The law is historically very clear — the $220 in tips belongs to the two servers only, and cannot be distributed to any other employees." ?
I don't think that is valid reasoning. I would bet you are probably right, as that is "why", but I see no reason why an owner shouldn't be prevented from gathering up all the tips, and distributing them to the staff in any way they please (provided it is above the min wage).
Is there an inherent disconnect in being anti-tipping and pro-pay-what-you-will? How is a restaurant letting you pick your own price for service with the expectation that you will be fair different from a humble bundle letting you pick your own price with the expectation that you will be fair?
I'm not trying to be difficult or argumentative, I'm genuinely wondering. I'm pretty anti-tipping and pro-pay-what-you-will myself, and I'm just wondering if I'm fooling myself now.
It sounds like profit sharing may also be a solution to the inequity of wages between the back-of-the-house and the servers.
It seems to me that if everyone in the restaurant (or perhaps just those in the kitchen) made a percentage of the profits of the restaurant, that productivity would increase all around and the sidebar between the kitchen and the servers wouldn't carry nearly as much weight.
Freakonomics[1] did a show on tipping. There's a few different arguments against it presented, but I find the discrimination one particularly interesting.
I know I'm almost OT, but let's consider for a moment the topic of "tipping taxi drivers". I find it completely unfair to tip cab drivers, and yet, they give it for granted it all to time. The couple of times I tipped less then expected I had to meet angry reactions.
The Linkery was in my neighborhood in San Diego. It was a great place, and really influential in revitalizing a culture of good food in that area of SD.
Another thing after reading these comments, so many people practically worship waiters? Honestly, what? They're servants, they bring you food, they clean up messes, they're there to fix things when they go wrong, not spend their every moment trying to decide whether to shine your shoe or flip you off; It's like they're celebrities or athletes or something from the way some people talk about how they need tips or they'll start doing this or that thing to make your stay unpleasant. They have a job, if they don't do it well, they should lose it, they have a fixed income, if you don't want to pay it, you should know ahead of time what it's going to be and be able to decide whether to eat there or not, not judging after the meal.
I really like this article, he raises points I hadn't thought about. As someone who is American and works in a restaurant, I still think it's a terrible system. Waiters do not do more or better work than the rest of the staff, they are just like everyone else and the fact that they get paid double or triple their coworkers is insane. It's certainly not about their attitude, because people who get paid $8/hr behave just as well (or often do because it's their job and they don't want to lose it), and waiters are just as often rude and inattentive. It mystifies me really that restaurants in 2013 havn't been relegated to the same model every other business follows, just tell me the price and be done with it; tipping is a terrible system.
Hear hear. When I was cooking (at a fancy place) years ago, the waitstaff used to walk home with $500 in (unlikely to be declared) cash after a 4 hour shift on a good night. I walked home with $90, for my 11 hours of humping shit, and paid taxes on every penny. cooking sucks. hard. still miss it though.
While the customer may be financially powerful in the relationship, I feel that tipping culture gives power to the server to withhold good service as a punishment or as an optimization strategy at their own discretion. It causes a server to judge you as soon as you walk through the door... will this person give a good tip? Should I ignore them and focus on this other table?
The worst part is that the tip happens at the end of the meal after all of the 'costs' of providing good service are already done. If the patron stiffs the server, then the effort was 'wasted.' It's far better to make an educated guess based on… what? the way they dress? their grammar? the car they pulled in with?
It's a terrible system.