Tip Jars. What's your opinion?

Could be some like to leave a tip the old-fashioned way, on the table under a cup or partially under a plate, while others prefer to leave the tip at the register when paying the bill.

Working years in restaurants as a teen, I've seen people swipe tips off of tables, frequently the girlfriend/wife of the guy who paid the bill. Seriously. I've seen that go down more then a few times over the years. The couple will get up to leave and at the door the woman will tell the guy, "let me double check if we accidently left anything behind....I'll meet you in the lobby, car, out front, etc." I observe the women going back to swipe the tip.

 

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Wow Sal, why didn't you just start a thread about politics or religion???

While it is obvious that there are extremes of opinions, from generous to none, tipping is a human behavior that is individually different, and there is no "norm". (Hey, that's just like coin collecting/accumulating! )

I think tip jars are fine for those who wish to use them; they are just one aspect of the human behavior of giving (or notably, not giving) for "service".

During high school, I worked weekends at my uncles Sunoco station in Valley Stream, Long Island. I earned a flat $15 per day, but put all my tips into the "tip jar" for the full-timers who worked all week. In college I worked at a service job which paid about $13 for a 6 hr shift, but tips were usually 2 - 3 times that amount (we "pooled", then split tips evenly).

I have also worked in a retail store with an hourly rate, where occasionally some people actually tried to tip (which I politely declined).

It seems to me, through my experiences, that people generally like to tip not just because it may be customary, or because they perceive superior service, but also because they get personal satisfaction by doing so.

Personally, I generally tip 20 - 50%. And while on very rare occasions I have left no tip, I will generally leave at least 10% even when I consider my experience to be "substandard", if for no other reason than that I am not going to let someone else determine how I act, but that's just me.

So yes, I have used tip jars, not often, but when I want or need to (especially picking up "to-go" orders at Asian restaurants ).

Next up, let's discuss "other drivers"; and then giving to beggars on street corners.

 

During the years I worked part-time summer jobs at restaurants and the one time I worked at a restaurant the summer following my high school graduation, we never had to deal with taxes on tips. That whole taxing tips thing started in the very late 80's and maybe into the early 90's. My mother told me about it since she still worked as a waitress at that time. According to my mother, in the very very beginning of having to report tips as income, the rule was that a business had to have at least something like 10 or more employees before they had to tax the tips. That was like during the first year or three of implementing the taxing of tips law/rule.

Those were good times to work as a waiter/waitress. Uncle Sam didn't have his grubby hands on my tips.

 

As long as people in the restaurant industry are not paid a living wage tipping will remain with us. In many states, by law, the minimum wage for servers is a couple of dollars an hour based upon an assumption that tipping will lead to a decent pay check.

 

Well, you were still supposed to report it, but in those days it was all cash so it never showed on your W2. It was up to your honesty, and if you got audited there would be trouble. Now that it's mostly on credit cards, the income is more visible. I think there are also now IRS rules for what your minimum tip income should have been.

It's funny how human behavior spills over into the employees too. One place I worked, the default was to give 10% of your tips to the busboys and dishwasher. One waitress never did. She was also constantly eyeing other people's tip jars and lobbying the hostess to give her more tables. I imagine when she went out herself that she was a very bad tipper.

 

During the first few years of the start of implementing taxing on tips, I was told that how they did it was, when you wrote out an order, there were serial numbers on those stubs. You would have to report the number of orders you wrote, recording the serial numbers. So, they didn't actually know how much tips you got per order tag you wrote out, but they would simply, for each tag you wrote, you would have to claim a specific %. From what I gather now, if you don't leave a tip at all, the server is out of pocket for the amount Uncle Sam gets per order that the waiter/waitress took but didn't get a tip for.

 

Tip jar at the common restaurant for just giving you the food,just put a fake for play cent in the jar.The nice restaurants along the shore with delicious fresh food here,I'll tip those ladies anytime.

 

Right. Our "move away from tipping" would of course require restaurants to pay their employees a real wage.......... just like other businesses.

 

That's exactly what they've been doing in Japan for many decades. When I was stationed in Japan and shared an apartment with my girlfriend, we would eat out almost every evening. Very seldom would we eat at home. But in Japan they do not tip, especially back then. It was actually rude to tip, as if saying that the food/service was so bad, they need a donation to stay in business. Now however, they will take your tip if you leave one in Japan. But they will look at you like you're just a stupid foreigner so why not take it if you're dumb enough to leave it.

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, I was telling that to my mother about this since she was still a waitress at that time. Her question was: "if you don't leave tips, how do the waiter/waitress' make money", because in the US (back then) a waiter/waitress usually made at or slightly over minimum wage. Mind you, back then minimum wage was well below $5.00 an hour, not like now where it's like $17 to $20 per hour. And back then your cash tips would make up for the low hourly wage.

It was simple, in Japan you don't give tips, the business pays their servers much more than they do compared to America. My mother then asked, then why doesn't people just eat at home most of the time. Fact was, back then, it was actually more to cook and eat at home compared to eating out and not giving a tip. Groceries were very expensive in Japan. A square watermelon was almost the equivalent to $40 US dollars back then. Steak? Lol. The only time we ate steak was when I first bought everything at the commissary on base and then spent an hour on the train carrying it all back home. What a pain.

It was cheaper in the long run to just eat out every night, no lugging a bunch of groceries on the crowded train, or paying very expensive price for groceries out in town at the local Japanese grocery stores, and the gas/electric bills going through the roof because of cooking meals at home very day for a month. Easier & cheaper just to eat out.

 

Hmm. When have I ever eaten at a restaurant on a Sunday? Never that I remember. I was just talking about the Marijuana Dispensary having the tip jar. I always get deals there and FREE apparel and such.
I'll be in the corner as you all agree to disagree. LOL.

 

I exclusively tip with $2 bills. Love the reactions that I get. For quite a while I liked leaving Ike dollars but I ran out of them.

 

Wouldn't that be the same as like tipping a pharmacy or drug dealer on a street corner? I guess, and I am guessing, that tipping in that type of business would be doing so because maybe they'll give you in return some killer buds, above the rest.

 

I don't "tip" at Church, either.

 

We just do it because the person/s behind the counter is very friendly and engaging, something that you don't see much of anywhere, especially in the Northeast part of the "good ole USA".

 

That's why I stopped going....

 

Just give them these instead,cheap and pretty hilarious.

 

I never put a tip on a credit card. Cash only.

 

Always tip your budtender.

 

Yes. That keeps the cold ones coming.