I went to a restaurant recently with my wife for our anniversary. Had great reviews on Google Maps above 4.5 stars. Yes I know this should not be the only indicator of a good experience, but the food sounded good and it was in a neighborhood we don’t often go to. Something new.
When we got the bill, the server came to us and skipped past the food prices to the tip screen immediately. That should have been my red flag to stop and ask why she did that, but I didn’t. I tipped 20%, then later found out that they already included that in the bill. So I tipped 20% on top of the total that already included 20%. Needless to say I won’t be going back.
I call and complain for crap like this all the time now. I make sure to let them know I bitch to all my friends and coworkers about it too.
My latest crusade is restaurants that put 4% service fees to help pay for people’s health insurance. Just raise the price on the individual items on the menu. Making me math out what you are actually charging like that is bullshit.
Smart businesses know that the key is “customer retention” and they don’t screw you. Dumb businesses operate on “one and done”. “We’ll screw them and they probably will never come back”
It wasn’t the business that did this. It was the server looking for a one time bonus.
I would have gone back and not left until I had both 20%s in my hand. Call the police? Please do!
Tips in the US must be entirely out of control. In my experience, 10% is for good service, above for rare exceptional and less if you weren’t entirely satisfied. Not even printing anything below 16 is insane.
Tipped minimum wage in the US is $2.13/hour, hence the reason for the high percentages.
Oh right i forgot about that. That’s insane as well; minimum wage should be… well, minimum, obviously; for everyone.
Sad thing is regular minimum is only $7.25 at the federal level. This country absolutely despises it’s workers.
That’s the true problem, federal minimum wage hasn’t changed in decades despite the inflation and costs over the years! That’s the true problem!
I’m not sure it would be better without minimum wage for tipped employees rule. For example the minimum wage in Ontario is $17 and it’s the same for servers, but all the restaurants have tip suggestions like: 18%, 20% and 25%
Idk where you are living but in MN it’s $11.10/hr plus tips. I get paid more because I am an assistant manager as well so $15/hr plus my tips as a server. I make almost 3X more than when I was a teacher working full time and I have half as many hours…
No because I live in Australia where the govt forces restaurants to Pay their staff in full rather than outsource their wages to the customers directly.
Edit: Pay, not Pauly.
Pauly must be busy.
Wow must be cool living somewhere completely irrelevant to this post!
we’re in a section called “shitpost” and you’re complaining about quality? also - its related by “tips”, but maybe you just wanted to practise your sarcasm.
Stop tipping!!! no more
Stop tipping culture. If you just stop tipping people who rely on tips, you just make their lives much harder
Ok genius, tell us how to stop tipping culture without stopping tipping?
Pass a law that removes the minimum wage exemption for “tipped” professions.
What a coincidence I just put on my lawmaking socks!
Try to avoid services that rely on tipping? Don’t go to restaurants or order food delivery where you’re expected to tip.
I understand it’s not an easy thing to fix, and I sure as hell dont have the solution, but not tipping someone who is relying on tips is just a dick move
Part of the problem is that it’s considered the customer’s responsibility. The real dick move is on the employer not paying a decent wage.
Complain loudly while you tip?
I think the only chance this will work is moving somewhere it’s not a thing.
I like tipping. The service is better, and servers are paid more than they would be without it.
Customer pays for product/service, and it’s the employer’s job the pay the employees. What the employer needs for this is his/her job to include in the price.
Tipping is a holdover from slavery. It’s a way to control service workers.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t tip people who rely on tips, it means the system is fucking broken by design.
Wait so you get scammed but still give 20% tips? This would be an automatic 0% tip
Yeah, what’s likely happening here is that the tip numbers were calculated off the subtotal intentionally. So say you buy a “happy hour” drink and it is $3 instead of $6, they tip is calculated before the “discount”.
Their machine could have actually been wrong, but using a total before discounts seems more likely.
This may be anecdotal, but I ran into this exact same issue a few weeks ago. The suggested 20% was significantly higher than the 20% on the bill. It took me a little bit to figure out, but we were at the restaurant for a steak special and happy hour. The 20% tip was for the non-special price. For example, the steak and two sides special was $18, but the normal price was $28. The drinks were $5 but the normal price was $8. So the suggested tip was 20% of $36, not 20% of $23. These aren’t the exact numbers, and there were two of us, but you get the idea. The POS/Tip suggestion is setup so the servers don’t get the shit end of the stick when the restaurant is doing a deal/special. I’m not sure I fully agree with it, and I have my own beef with tipping culture in general, but I’m just looking to explain what might be seen in OP’s photo.
I don’t know if Groupon is still a thing, but at its peak there were posts online on a regular basis from wait staff who got stiffed, because customers would tip based on the balance they owed after the 90%+ discount Groupon voucher.
I’m surprised no one mentioned that a lot also calculate the tip after applying taxes.
Example: Meal was $40, then a 20% tip would be $8. But if taxes were $4 (making the total bill $44), then the receipt would show $8.80.
I don’t tip on tax.
But on the flip side if I receive a discount of some sort, I tip on the pre-discount amount.
Makes me wonder how many servers out their think their customers are being cheap because they only tipped X% when in reality they actually tipped 15% or whatever before tax.
I got chewed out on reddit once for being “cheap” because I said tip before the tax. Guy was super pissed over what amounts to a difference of cents. Went off on a huge rant belittling me like I admitted to murdering puppies…
Like… Dude, if your whole life comes crashing down over 40¢, to the point that’s your reaction, maybe there’s a much bigger problem going on here?
Yeah, you shouldn’t tip on the tax, that has nothing to do with the food or service.
Sorry to inform you, but I’ve been told recently that 20% is now considered bare minimum and cheap. Yes, I eat out a lot less accordingly.
I don’t care what people think, I’m still doing 10% for okay, 15% for good, and 20% for great.
It’s not my job to give servers a raise. The food prices have already exploded, they are already getting more in tips just because the base cost went up
My $10 meal and 15% tip ($1.50) is now a $15 meal with a 15% tip ($2.25) which would have been a 22.5% at previous prices. They already come out ahead in that scenario without tip percentages increasing.
Which is insane, it’s a percentage, compensation for inflation is baked in.
Fuck tips. 0 tips. Pay your people.
You pay for the service of being waited on… don’t want to tip… then go to McDonald’s! wtf! 🤬
You WRITE the tip amount on the receipt? How does the payment terminal know how much to take?
The server has to manually enter it.
Here’s their bullshit workflow:
- Print the check
- Customer reviews it
- Credit card is given to the server
- Card is swiped/authorized at the POS
- Server returns with the receipts
- Customer then writes in the tip amount and signs on the merchant copy
- Server takes the signed receipt and enters the tip amount back at the POS
For whatever reason, the USA keeps using their signature, when the technology for pay at the table has been around for decades.
Meanwhile, chip & PIN has been standard everywhere in Canada for the last decade, with some businesses using it for almost another decade prior to that. Mexico wasn’t far behind either, so it’s absolutely possible to adopt better methods.
It’s entered manually, usually at the end of the shift. It’s standard for most, if not all restaurants in the United States
If your employees rely on tips to meet months end, your business model is shit.
I’m guessing the tip is calculated before any discounts/comps, which would be conspicuously cut off in this photo
Why would you calculate the tip before the final amount? And why would that incorrect amount be printed out for the customer?
It certainly shouldn’t be the default “pre-caluaclated” amount, but if I have a gift card or something, I’ll still tip based on the pre-discount.
Say the bill was $100 for a group of 4 and we use a $50 gift card, I’ll probably still tip the $20. Seems kinda scummy to only leave $10.
It’s a terrible system that exploits people. I can’t change the system, but I can do my part and tip someone fairly for the hour they’ve helped me out.
That would be quite optimistic, but this is something I’ve noticed at multiple restaurants myself. I saw the tip “suggestions” were not accurate so I checked to see what numbers they might have been using and tried the after tax amount etc, but nope the numbers are just inflated artificially. It’s happened with or without alcohol on the tab, with and without sale items, and I don’t ever really get anything “comped” unless it’s a sauce on the side or something. I wouldn’t say it’s a scam, but I did roll my eyes the first time I noticed it.
I have yet to encounter an automatic tip calculation that doesn’t base the tip on the total bill including taxes. It’s a pretty infuriating cash grab. Not only am I directly having to pay an employee’s wages so the restaurant doesn’t have to, I’m having to tip the government, too? (Yeah, I know the government doesn’t get the tip)
But the government does get some from the “claimed” wages of the server
Tipping by percentage never made much sense to me. I order a coffee at a diner, the waitress only gets a 42 cent tip? She should get more if she has to carry a plate of food? She checks on me the same amount. That’s a five dollar tip at least.
Not only that but that waitress at a diner is probably providing a hell of a lot better service than that bartender where I have to wave money just to get served
