agonyaunt | (no subject)

(no subject)

DEAR ABBY: It seems that everywhere I go, people expect tips. Yesterday, I pulled up to the drive-through at a cookie store, and before I paid or was handed my cookies, the clerk asked, "Would you like to leave a tip?" My niece recently told me that after she left a tip at a restaurant, the server followed her outside and asked if she hadn't been a very good server because the tip was small. I can give you more examples just from my family regarding their experience with tipping.

In this economy, I don't feel the 20% rule should apply. For the price of a lunch for two at a sit-down restaurant these days, the tip costs as much as a small entree. When I go through a drive-through, I don't feel I need to tip because I'm not inside using their facility. But if I don't, I get a disappointed look from the gal who gets paid to make and hand me my drink. What are your thoughts? -- TIPPED OUT IN IDAHO

DEAR TIPPED OUT: The server you mentioned may need tips to survive on her sub-minimum or minimum wage income. However, a tip should never be requested, and for a server to follow your niece out of a restaurant to discuss a small tip is beyond the pale. Although some establishments "suggest" tips that can go as high as 35%, most customers give 15% or 20% of the total bill.

Since you asked for my opinion, here it is: Quit complaining. If you think you received adequate service, leave a tip, and you will be warmly welcomed at whatever eatery you choose to patronize.

Link

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"In this economy" you shouldn't have to tip as usual when you eat out? Your money isn't so tight that you can't eat out, LW - do you think your server exists in some alternate, better economy?

Admittedly, I think it's shocking that a server would follow a patron outside to complain about the tip - but then, I've never heard of that happening to anybody before, so maybe the tip was just outrageously small?

Or the server and LW are both bad actors, but the server is rude and brazen while LW is selfish and stingy, so LW is still worse.

And that’s assuming the niece wasn’t just spinning a story to shock their relative or curry favor (if the relative was griping about servers wanting tips, telling them a story along those lines is an easy tactic to build rapport, and plenty of people have no issues telling small lies that can’t be easily fact-checked).

I have my suspicions about that story because I’ve worked food service, and following a customer out of a restaurant has been a big no-no, reserved only for egregious dine-and-dash or if the customer left something important behind that should be returned. Following a customer to ask for more tip is basically inviting the customer to return and complain to the manager, and that’s the last thing any server wants; it could even get you fired. it just isn’t worth it to beg for another few bucks, and most wait staff can’t afford to lose their jobs. (Those that can afford it aren’t working in the kind of establishments where people would leave small tips.)

Also, restaurants are often deliberately understaffed to save money, so you’re busy trying to keep up with your tables, and you often simply wouldn’t have time to return to the table quickly enough to assess the tip, run outside, see if they’re still there, and accost them. You have way too many other tasks to be doing that. Even during slower times with fewer customers, there’s no end of silverware to roll and other tasks to prepare for the rushes. And if a manager sees you run outside after a customer and you don’t have a damn good excuse for why you went out there: oof.

I was just thinking about your last paragraph and I'm glad you said it. I can't imagine a restaurant being so dead that a waiter can just leave and harass a customer without at the very least severely jeopardizing their next x number of tips.

Honestly, I have done a lot of exhausting things in my life including being a midwife, and I have never been so exhausted as when I was part of a five-person serving team handling 100+ people.

A restaurant manager approached my father about a low tip once when I was in high school (1999 through 2003); it was one of those places that had an automatic 18% gratuity for parties of 6 or more, and during a time when 15% was considered a good tip. We had 7 in our party, and if it was a normal restaurant the tip would've absolutely been warranted, except this was a self-serve all-you-can-eat buffet where you served your own beverage as well, and no one came to our table between when we were seated and when we were given the bill (not even to remove the plates we had stacked at the end of the table). So my dad crossed out the automatic gratuity and wrote in a 10% amount instead.

Was it kind of a dick move? Yeah. But it did actually get the attention of someone so we could say "no, actually, the service was not good."

There was a social media brouhaha a few weeks ago that’s so much like this I’m wondering if they’re referencing it. An influencer and a family member or friend went out to a nice restaurant and left a tip of $5. The waitress came outside to ask her if the service was bad (I think maybe her manager was questioning her performance?). Of course one of her entourage was filming and they put video online—the influencer was not the hero of the story she thought she was.

"In this economy," servers probably need that 20% as much as if not more than you do. If you do need it so badly that you cannot spare it, you cannot afford to eat out. It sucks, but it's how U.S. restaurant culture works.

Seriously, that is what I was taught and what we have taught the kids who come after us: the tip is part of the cost, if you cannot afford the tip, you cannot afford the meal.

And sometimes we spell out "if that means you have to skip dessert or not order a beverage, you DO THAT because that money is PAYING THE SERVER, and you can drink tap water but they can't pay their rent in tap water."

And I’m seeing people throwing conniptions about what they perceive as the latest sneakflation tactic: restaurants calculating the suggested tip percentage from the total including tax.

I’ve always done that: the server has to pay sales tax on things too!

I remember a reporter doing a story on the money-saving practice of calculating the tip on the pre-tax total. He got shredded. Shredded.

Is this the article you were thinking of?

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/tipping-trick-could-save-you-over-400-a-year.html

Quite possibly. If it is, I suspect it was edited to add the bit about servers' minimum wage.

If I buy a $5 latte and pay 10% sales tax, then a 20% tip is either $1 or it's $1.10. If for every five dollars I might pay an extra TEN CENTS then we're talking about a $50 tab before I have to pay a whole dollar "extra." No question the server can use it more than I can, but in any case it's Not Much. And most places have lower sales tax than Seattle.

I don't tip on drive-through* or hand-me-a-thing type counter service---like a bakery where the assistant just gets a pastry out of a case and drops it in the bag. If the staff are fixing me a coffee, or toasting something, or doing anything more than handing me a good for money, I am a tipper.

*unless it's an espresso hut, they usually have a tip jar around and if I have small bills I tip there too.

If I’ve placed a takeout order that I know will inconvenience the staff, such as arriving in the hour before closing and requiring them to reheat the frying oil, I damn well offer a preemptive apology—-and back it up with a tip!

That's different from normal counter service at a bakery or other service counter (cheese, e.g.)! They are preparing food for you to order.

Distinction granted.

The US should abolish the concept of a tipped wage lower than minimum wage. The entire idea that you have to rely on the kindness of strangers to voluntarily pay your wages is insane.

Especially when many people are like LW.

Truth. But until we do people need to STFU and tip.

Yep. Complain to your congresspeople, not the workers who can't change anything.

Your congressmembers and your state legislators. Minimum wage is the higher of the federal and state minimum wages. In a few states, that minimum applies to all jobs, including ones where people are likely to tip. When I lived in one of those states, I still tipped unless the service was actively bad, which seemed to be what most people did. Of course, some of them probably didn't realize that Washington didn't have a lower minimum wage for tipped workers; I wouldn't expect tourists to check that sort of thing.

Some states have done this - e.g. California. But interestingly the norm to tip as well still remains.

Yes.

In this economy we tip more than the minimum because we know if we are inconvenienced by rising costs, by gods a server most certainly is. The caucasity of some folks...

It took me years to convince my spouse that tipping was not simply a reward for exemplary service; tipping is literally a matter of survival for tipped workers. Having a lower minimum wage for tipped workers should be outright illegal. (Though standard minimum wage is still not a living wage either, so I still tip.)

Thinking about this, I found it really revealing that the LW's framing is "It seems that everywhere I go, people expect tips," like they are children demanding presents, rather than, "It seems that everywhere I go, employers have kept wages depressed such that more and more people need tips to get by."

The lower the price range of the eatery, the higher the percentage of the bill should be the tip. By which I mean, even 30% of $10 is way less than 10% of $100. And cheaper places are more likely to be understaffed by people who work harder than "fine dining" places where a lot of what you're paying for is ambience and being left alone. In short, always overtip at breakfast.
Tip in cash whenever you can, and when you do, write "cash" on the "tip" line on the charge slip. This will ensure more of the tip stays with the restaurant staff and less with the owner, credit card company, etc. (Procedures may have changed in many or most states since I was waiting tables in Ohio in the 1990s. At that time my tax burden was 10% of my tables' checks on the assumption that most customers would tip 15% but some would screw me, so if everyone tipped 15% or more, some of it was effectively tax-free. BUT if they tipped on the credit card the tax man knew exactly how much I'd got and took his share of all of it.

Edited (markdown will you please behave - guess not) 2026-02-12 20:15 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice to write "cash" on the line on the charge slip! I do tip cash when I have it.

To be frank, that protects you as well as the server; when you write "cash" on the tip line anybody who finds the slip at any later point will have a more difficult time altering it to write in a different total. 😕

fwiw i always tip, and i always tip 25% because i know ppl are struggling out here. But I do think leaving a tip for drive-thru service is kinda fucking wild.

The other day I bought a record, and I was asked if I wanted to leave a tip for the band. My dawgs, I paid 35$ for a record (for a record i know y'all were charging $25 for 5 years ago). I don't want to leave a tip.

Oh and concert tickets too. I've recently seen some venues asking me to leave a tip after they charge me $25 bucks for a small local band. You know i'mma buy some of your overpriced cocktails. dont make me leave a tip too lol !

I would prefer the US just abolish tipping already, but it has been hard for me to figure out if I should even leave a tip when literally no one is serving me. Like, ofc a barista should get a tip. but drive-thru cookies??? but waitstaff will always get %25 from me

The POS machine will autosuggest a tip, and I'm guessing that most people either don't know how to change/turn off that setting or just don't care to.

And its free money. There's no incentive to turn it off and fools like me will leave a 10% tip cuz otherwise they feel kinda guilty but then in some places it just feels really egregious.

idk. it sucks cuz like i said everyone except the 1% are struggling. but also i would probably give all my money away if i didnt reign myself in.

My kid didn't tip the first time he went to a local diner alone (they're cash-only and I deliberately gave him more than sufficient money for two plates of pancakes, tax, and tip, including $2 in quarters, and showed him how to calculate the tip). A few weeks later we went back together and I apologized to the server and said that the tip would look unusually large because we were also tipping for the previous visit. She was quite relieved that I'd noticed. Kiddo apologized too, unprompted.

PS. Also, if you had to replace your meal and it was uncomplainingly taken off the bill, or if you have a coupon, tip based on the amount the total *would* have been.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only