Should it be mandatory to tip your waiter?

Should it be mandatory to tip your waiter?

  • Tipping should be expected - It motivates good service

    Votes: 10 4.4%

  • Tipping should be optional - Tips are for extra effort, not guaranteed

    Votes: 139 61.5%

  • Service charge should be added to the bill as standard

    Votes: 6 2.7%

  • Just raise prices and pay staff properly - Tips shouldn't be needed

    Votes: 68 30.1%

  • Other

    Votes: 3 1.3%
  • Total voters
    226
In Japan they don't accept tips at all and the waitstaff are one of the best in the world.
 
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Reactions: bkb
Not against tipping waiters, but it ends there. We must guard against US levels of tipping madness.

Waiters OK, they ran around and brought my food, and it's culturally ingrained by now.

But now what about take aways, uber drivers, petrol attendants, hairdressers, grocery baggers, hotel porters, car guards, baristas, the guy working at the nursery, where does it end. Must I tip the nurse at the doctor's office? I tip the 60 60 guy. but what about the Takealot delivery guy?

It's gotten to the point where I aggressively guard my suitcase if I'm at a hotel, in case some clown grabs it, moves it 10 meters and then wants a tip.
 
Rickster said:
In Japan they don't accept tips at all and the waitstaff are one of the best in the world.
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Yes, this is true. Good service is expected and a given. Their food isn't expensive either. Even a simple McDonalds (Sumo burger FTW) is served with care, a smile and diligence.
In SA I use this method: I start at 20% tip. For every 'poor' service/lack of service moment, I deduct 5%.
 
Also, what is the difference between a mandatory tip, and a higher price. Functionally it's the same thing.
 
You’re a real dog if you spend 1000 - 3000 at a restaurant and you don’t tip the person who made it all happen for you. You’re a bottom of the barrel individual. Please get hit by a bus on the way home in your luxury sedan.
 
i will tip if i get good service - if they are surly cants who act as if they are doing me a favor they will get fookall and they can stand on their heads and whistle through their ar5e
 
Just tell the waiter their tip is dependent on their service once you sit down. I do it all the time.
 
This topic is close to my heart. When I started working 30 years ago, my salary was barely enough to cover my rent and transport to work and back. So I was lucky enough get a 2nd job as a to waiter, which enabled me to afford things like food and toothpaste. I worked Monday to Fridays at my "day" job, and waitered evenings on Wednesday to Saturday Nights and Sundays I pulled a double shift waitering, which mean I started at 09h00 on a Sunday Morning and knocked off between 21h00 & 23h00 on a Sunday night. Sometimes I didn't wait tables, I manned the bar. Being barman for the night paid a better "basic" than waitering, but the chances of tips were way less, as few people came to the restaurant to sit at the bar. They would sit there to wait for their companions before moving to a table, or came in for one drink after work, before going home.

The "basic pay" for a waiter was nothing basically, and the most of your earnings were through tips. Now, this restaurant didn't do the "service fee will be added to the bill on tables of 6 or more" like others do these days. I cannot tell you how disheartening it is if you work on a Friday or Saturday night, and you are assigned a table of 10 or more people, and at the end of the night you get tipped nothing. You basically worked for free. Those types of tables on Friday or Saturday is your only table, and they normally run up quite a bar bill, which makes you run up and down the whole night.

Then you get customers who complain just for the sake of complaining, or to get a free or discounted meal. I cannot tell you how many times I put a meal in front of a patron that I know with 100% certainty that they ordered, just for them to say that they ordered something else. And you get the bullies. People who just find pleasure in tormenting their waiters, or someone who has a personal beef with you. Even once had a table where the guy's wife openly flirted with me and he didn't appreciate it.

And one night the Financial Manager of the company I worked for came in to pick up a take-away order and she saw me. She came up to me and asked me why I was working there. My exact words to her were "You know what my salary is, would you be able to live on it?". In the next week I was called into the GM's office and they effectively doubled my salary. Which was still a very low salary, but at least I could stop waitering.

I tip, and I tip well, because the almost two years that I waitered, wasn't the best time of my life. I think a service fee should be added to the bill, so the waiters can make a decent living.

If you don't want to pay the waiter for the service you get, then don't go and eat out at restaurants. Get takeaway instead. And remember, if the food is not up to your high standards, it is not the waiter's fault. The problem is with the kitchen or the management. If you see your entire tables's food standing there getting cold, or your drinks order takes 30 minutes to come, then you can blame your waiter.
 
Last edited:
notayoba said:
Also, what is the difference between a mandatory tip, and a higher price. Functionally it's the same thing.
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Hungary does this for example, it allows them to say it's 100 on the menu, then charge you 120 for the bill.
Biggest issue I have is that sometimes forget service charge is included, so have tipped once or twice on top when I had a nice evening at the beginning.
 
saor said:
What's the tipping situation in the US?
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its like its compulsory and the twats expect more than 20% all the time ...... they are fooked in the head there - you should see the commotion these karen waiters and waitresses cause on Facebook and make stupid comments like if you cant afford to tip then don't eat out ...... can these tw@ts not realize that the place where they work will close down then and they lose the tips as well as the basic salary ....... they are total utter dofhead doefus cants in my books
 
One thing I have noticed is that Brits have no idea around tipping. Went to dinner with a friend from the UK the other day. Let's say our bill was R893 or something. He just rounds it up to the next R10. So R900, and thinks the R7 is a tip.

I left a R100 or so tip on the side, as I actually have to live in this town, and want to go back to the restaurant without them spitting in my food next time.
 
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