Stories from the Wait Staff

Are good tippers compensated?

Conversely, if you are a regular GOOD tipper, the servers may fight over the chance to wait on you. If I see one of my regulars sitting in a fellow server's station, I make sure to tell the server that he must get the best of service. These people are also the ones who get special favors, occasional food samples, and other freebies--whatever we can lavish upon them. A customer who tips well is almost always a pleasure to wait on in many respects.

And what about penalties to those who stiff the wait staff?

If you are one of those despicable types who doesn’t believe in tipping and who frequents the same restaurants repeatedly, I GUARANTEE the servers are doctoring your food or throwing it on the floor and then back onto your plate or worse. If you don’t tip at least 15%, I bet you have ingested your server’s saliva at least once.

The restaurant profession has the same percentage of crazy people that other jobs have. People can be really sick, especially after suffering repeated rudenesses without an option of talking back.

Servers pass the work around in the restaurant to other servers when you come in again. Oh yes, they’ll be ready for you. You’ll just never know it.

Stories from the Stained Apron.

Update: Tyler Cowen has a nice post on tipping here. Here's the story from other wait staff on customer service.

Tipping is an odd practice, mostly because it doesn't reward relative skills. It's efficient in the sense that it solves a principal-agent problem: the restauranteur leaves the job of monitoring wait staff to customers, who are in the best position to guage whether they are pleased with the service. But a restaurant's customers may not be knowledgeable of relative talents. Wait staff differ in skills, which may not be rewarded if a large part of their compensation is paid by customers. Most work diligently in order to receive added compensation, but relative wages may not reflect relative performance. An exceptional waiter who serves a cheap customer gets stiffed while a mediocre waiter lucks out and gets a good tipper. Over time luck is reduced to averages, but these averages again do not reflect merit.

The other problem is that tipping is a learned behavior. Many of us are ignorant of who, what, why, where, and when to tip. I tip my waiter but am I also expected to tip the woman who cuts my hair? What about room service at the hotel? They already charge me a substantial "delivery service fee." Do I discount for poor service? (This is a debatable point. some note that waiters and waitresses have bad days too, and should not be penalized for having one. But I am not certain if it's just a bad day or an individual who sucks at what they do and needs proper signals to find alternative work. Small tips send the proper signal.) 

And the fact that some services are tipped at 10% while others are tipped at 20 to 30% leaves me wondering about the rent seeking that goes on. Wait staff used to receive tips of 10%; now it's 20 to 30%. They must have better lobbyists.