Tipping - how to advise teens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please also tell them to tip at hotels. DH has been drumming this into our kids for years.

For what?

Housekeeping. And if someone carries a bag for you.

[Anonymous]

I'm a waitress and I've seen young people venmo each other at the spot and one pays, but they were young adults. Usually if a group of youngsters comes in, they all want separate checks and it takes longer and quite frankly, it's pain to separate check. If they do tempt to calculate their share, they leave out the tax. The last person quite often only pays what's left and tips on the $5 for example that was left. They don't understand that others paid for his/her portion and that's why she/he needs to leave the tip.
This is what I've told my teen. He pays for it all and keeps the receipt. They can all figure it out later, not sit at the restaurant and haggle. If his friends can't calculate, don't have money or are cheap, it's on him and not shorting a waiter.
There is so much more to sending a teen to a restaurant than tipping.
I love my young customers and little children and I want then to keep coming back. If we are out of a soda they want, they give you this look as if I drank them all. After apologizing profusely, they usually forgive me. Kids are funny.
Just remembered, got one of those looks when a parent told me to tell the kids that we were out of icecream.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please also tell them to tip at hotels. DH has been drumming this into our kids for years.

For what?

Housekeeping. And if someone carries a bag for you.

Bag carrying yes, but housekeeping no- unless you are partying like it is 1999 and leave the room a disaster. They get paid for the standard cleaning they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tipping on the pretax amount is the definition of cheap.

I have always thought this, too. Worse are the people who say they don’t tip on alcohol. WTF?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Explain to your kid what categories of workers are "tipped employees" whose salary is lower by law because the restaurant lobby convinced the DOL long ago that they make a ton in tips, effectively passing the obligation to pay the employee to the customer directly and enabling the worker to evade taxes more easily.

This is not entirely true. Waiters and other tipped employees must make at least the minimum wage in combined base pay plus tips. If the tips received are not enough to cover this, the employer must make up the difference.

Not that this is an excuse for not tipping, but it is important to understand that no waiter (even the worst one) is actually making $2.something/hour.

Not sure where everyone is getting 20% as a standard tip, though. 15% is standard in the US for average service. 20% for good service. And complain to the manager for bad service.

Counter service is generally not tipped, but I might do it if extra effort is involved in packaging my order or something similar.

Emily Post has a good discussion on tipping on her web site.

And, yes, adolescents should tip the same way as their parents.

You clearly have never worked in a restaurant a day in your life.

A server for many years and I agree with the above except the minimum wage part. I've never known an employer to do this. But everyone in the service industry (or maybe all industries) feel entitled to more money; hence tip jars in every single store, push for 20%+ tip of else you are "cheap", tipping anyone and everyone with the exception of medical, legal, and financial work

I have a good friend who is a local politician/perennial candidate/activist who also owns a bar/restaurant. He has done a lot of research into this and has found that almost no owner does this (he does, though.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please also tell them to tip at hotels. DH has been drumming this into our kids for years.

For what?

Housekeeping. And if someone carries a bag for you.

This. How do you not know this?

[Anonymous]

OP, thank you for doing this and please remember to tell them to tip bartenders at least $1/drink. I didn’t know this for several years.

[Anonymous]

I have a good friend who is a local politician/perennial candidate/activist who also owns a bar/restaurant. He has done a lot of research into this and has found that almost no owner does this (he does, though.)

Restaurant owners who break the law aren't the customer's problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a waitress and I've seen young people venmo each other at the spot and one pays, but they were young adults. Usually if a group of youngsters comes in, they all want separate checks and it takes longer and quite frankly, it's pain to separate check. If they do tempt to calculate their share, they leave out the tax. The last person quite often only pays what's left and tips on the $5 for example that was left. They don't understand that others paid for his/her portion and that's why she/he needs to leave the tip.
This is what I've told my teen. He pays for it all and keeps the receipt. They can all figure it out later, not sit at the restaurant and haggle. If his friends can't calculate, don't have money or are cheap, it's on him and not shorting a waiter.
There is so much more to sending a teen to a restaurant than tipping.
I love my young customers and little children and I want then to keep coming back. If we are out of a soda they want, they give you this look as if I drank them all. After apologizing profusely, they usually forgive me. Kids are funny.
Just remembered, got one of those looks when a parent told me to tell the kids that we were out of icecream.

This is good advice. We teach our kid same thing. If you can’t pay for the whole bill don’t go, because at some point it will become an S show. That isn’t the restaurant’s problem or the server’s problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please also tell them to tip at hotels. DH has been drumming this into our kids for years.

For what?

Housekeeping. And if someone carries a bag for you.

This. How do you not know this?

I always take my own bags up and don't have any special housekeeping needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please also tell them to tip at hotels. DH has been drumming this into our kids for years.

For what?

Housekeeping. And if someone carries a bag for you.

Bag carrying yes, but housekeeping no- unless you are partying like it is 1999 and leave the room a disaster. They get paid for the standard cleaning they do.

But the bellhop/bag carrier doesn't get paid to put your bag on a cart and wheel it to your room? Tip housekeeping. FFS.

[Anonymous]

So, how much do people tip hotel maids? I would normally figure on about $2/day or so, left on the night stand at checkout, but there seems to be a wide varity of opinions on this, ranging from not tipping at all to $5 or more per day.

[Anonymous]

This 'restaurant paying the difference' is not always true. As far as I know, they are supposed to, but I also know that nobody checks it, and at least one owner didn't do it.
I have also worked in a restaurant where servers didn't even get a paycheck. Nobody came to ask how he ran a restaurant without servers-busy restaurant that had 12-hour shifts. I have 2 years of $0 when I look at my social security statement, but I know when I worked for him. He save up enough money to open up a second restaurant that ended up failing in economic downturn ca 2008-2009. Without W-2, I guess we didn't know how to do taxes, he didn't pay for us, used the money for a different restaurant and they filed for bankruptcy. His other restaurant still made money, but I doubt he was forced to pay up anything, because he kept them separately (per advise from lawyers).
Lot of fishy crap going on in restaurants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, how much do people tip hotel maids? I would normally figure on about $2/day or so, left on the night stand at checkout, but there seems to be a wide varity of opinions on this, ranging from not tipping at all to $5 or more per day.

I don't tip housekeeping unless we have been particularly messy (kid threw up in a bed, meals eaten in room, etc.) that would make their job harder and more time intensive than the general room cleaning/turn over tasks.

[Anonymous]

Other than claiming you’re cheap if you don’t, what is the reason someone should tip on the tax? It’s in no way related to service, work, earnings.