LafayetteLady
Posts: 7683
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Northern New Jersey
Status: offline
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So obviously, many of us here have done our "time" waiting tables, or had loved ones who did.
To the one who said "double the tax," in an area where the tax is 5%, you are tipping 10%, and apparently not basing it on anything but someone told you to.
As Tazzy said, the wage for food servers in the majority of the US is legally less than $3.00 an hour, somewhere between $2.13 and 2.83 an hour and as not changed in 20 years.
As everyone has said, "tipping out" is the norm, not the exception. While different restaurants have different policies, most often the tip out is based on SALES, not what the server made in tips. This means that if everyone has tipped the server poorly, then the actual percentage of the tip out (based on the tips) can really cut into pay.
Most restaurants do not offer medical benefits, paid time off, vacations or anything else. Most servers work an hour before and an hour after their shift doing "side work," cleaning and stocking various parts of the restaurant. There are no tips for this.
Where there are food runners (people who do not take the orders, just deliver the food), your server has no control over what those people do. Regardless of how they write the ticket that goes to the kitchen, they can only hope the expeditor in the kitchen reads it properly and sets up the tray correctly. I hated working with food runners and most expeditors because they had no idea how to set up a tray and the food was "auctioned off." You know the "who ordered the salmon?" question. I trained servers for a number of years and taught them how to properly write the order so they could refer to it and told them to never auction off the food. When I was younger, I could easily deliver drinks and food to a table of 20 without ever asking who got what. Rarely did I mix things up, even when the customers had changed seats (although then they did get a joke from me of how they were trying to confuse me by changing seats).
My best friend is from Germany and she got a decent wage and commission on her sales. This, in my opinion, is one of the best ways for a restaurant to get their servers to do a great job. All servers hear from the managers "up sell," getting customers to order more, with commission, the server has a stake in seeing that happens.
As for the old and disabled, or the single mother eating out if they can't afford to properly tip. No, they really shouldn't. As Tazzy mentioned, a server's time has value and shouldn't be disregarded because someone can't afford to eat.
The standard in the US now is 18-20%. The 15% concept has long since died. The most frequent thing that people seem to lower the tip over is when their food is not cooked properly. Servers have no control over that. I was known for telling customers I had no problem returning their steak to the kitchen if it wasn't the way they wanted it.
To the OP, you didn't list a dollar amount, but you also didn't list a percentage amount, I would say that chances are you are under tipping.
To everyone else who thinks that it is ok to tip shitty...if you frequent that establishment, know that every server there knows who you are and your service is never going to get better. You earned the reputation as a crappy tipper, and you will get the bare minimum service required. Good food servers have many other customers who tip them well to worry about trying to impress you. They don't care that you want us to kiss your ass to earn that better tip. They want you to eat your food and get the hell out so the table can be filled with people who they enjoy serving and who appreciate the server's efforts.
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RE: How much do you tip your waitress? - 
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