The "Hidden Tip" on bills.

[Jenkins]

mmmm...

In Australia the tip is included in the meal too. It's called the "wage", which the restaurant owner gives directly to the waiter/waitress depending on their hours. I understand America has a system whereby the tip is used in lieu of paying the service staff the kind of wage that they technically should get (apparently waiters/resses are paid below minimum wage on the understanding that tipping makes up the balance?.

Actually Sask, if I could correct the misconception...
Minimum wage is in theory exactly that, the minimum you can pay someone per hour. Most waitresses make minimum wage plus tips, not less-than-min and tips to make up the balance. While there are probably quite a few shady businesses who still operate that way, the law doesn't actually allow it.

BUT...

Minimum wage is not enough to live on by any means, so minimum wage plus an additional 10-15% earnings through tips is still chickenfeed for someone to earn.

something WRONG with eating chickenfeed??? *pecks ground*

 

[Saskwach]

In Australia the tip is included in the meal too. It's called the "wage", which the restaurant owner gives directly to the waiter/waitress depending on their hours. I understand America has a system whereby the tip is used in lieu of paying the service staff the kind of wage that they technically should get (apparently waiters/resses are paid below minimum wage on the understanding that tipping makes up the balance?.

Actually Sask, if I could correct the misconception...
Minimum wage is in theory exactly that, the minimum you can pay someone per hour. Most waitresses make minimum wage plus tips, not less-than-min and tips to make up the balance. While there are probably quite a few shady businesses who still operate that way, the law doesn't actually allow it.

BUT...

Minimum wage is not enough to live on by any means, so minimum wage plus an additional 10-15% earnings through tips is still chickenfeed for someone to earn.

Thanks for clearing that up. I feel justified in my analysis with this added information. Tips sound good in principle but create a nasty system where the pay sucks and everyone hates everyone else. Much better to be honest about how much you're supposed to pay.

 

[Shapsters]

I pay the tip, Fuck it. It's only 1 dollar.

It doesn't matter how much the tip is, it is immoral to automatically take a tip and not tell you.

 

[Gitsnik]

Minimum wage is not enough to live on by any means, so minimum wage plus an additional 10-15% earnings through tips is still chickenfeed for someone to earn.

Someone (it may even have been you Khell, but I think it was some random canadian) told me that living conditions were appalling where they were - that you could hardly get by on minimum wage. I can't speak for the rest of the world but:

I have an old high school friend who lives in perth, west aus. She makes minimum wage (child care) and manages to live quite well. She share-houses with two or three other people. That's the secret.

Minimum wage might not be enough to live on your own, I'm ok with that - but even waitress' have friends, and/or people who are looking to share and ease the rent. It's all about living within your means.

 

[Erana]

One of the things I like about my father was his philosiphy on tipping:
If you can't tip, you can't eat.

And yes, I tip $4 when I order pizza. If I can't, then I don't order. Saves me money in the long run- I wind up ordering less- and it makes the delivery people happy.

Win-win.

 

[PTSpyder]

Its crap and I don't add anything besides the change to the nearest dollar if a sever grats my table. Believe it or not, almost every restaurant offers the choice to the server to add the gratuity to the bill or leave it up to the guest.

 

[Gitsnik]

Minimum wage in Alberta, when I was doing the pizza delivery, was recently upped from $7.15/hr to $7.50/hr. In your average 22-workday month, that means you bring in $1320.00 on minimum wage. Taxes are roughly 23% with EI and WCB, so call it $1016.40 take-home pay. At that same period in time, rent on your typical 1-bedroom apartment/condo ran roughly $500, utilities extra. $30/mo water, $100/mo gas (average over the year, call it sixty in the summer, one-fourty in the winter), and $50 electric. So taking rent and utilities out, we're down to $336.60 in the pocket for all of life's other essentials including food, clothing, transportation, and some entertainment now and then so one does not go loopy and shoot their neighbor. A bus pass is $60 here, owning a car is definitely out, and the odds of finding a job within walking distance of your home is nil. Can you live on $277 a month?

That life is one with no cellphone, no internet, no computer for that matter. Even on the skimpiest diet, you are looking at a bare minimum of $150/mo in food, and that's eating mac'n'cheese or ramen for every single meal, and drinking only tapwater. That $277 doesn't even get you a healthy meal every day in the month.

So yeah, I guess people can live on minimum wage here, if you call that living. Personally, for the grief most min-wage jobs are, the stress and the constant nightmare that what you earn will never afford you the education to get out of that career path, I'd sooner shoot myself.

Wow that is bad, worst I ever had to deal with was not much higher, but in AU. Spose US is a stronger dollar but there it is. Again, it depends on what you choose to do.

For the record until recently I wouldn't spend more than $20 per week on food, and $30 each week off of my utilities bills which I looked after quite solidly. I also made do by borrowing books from the library and using their free internet. I never once took a handout, nor got tips for being the shit-kicking helldesker. I took books from university give aways (that happen when they get too small) and rummaged trash for other parts and services. No phone, no TV, no internet (except stolen wireless courtesy a laptop I begged and scrimped my parents to get me), and the only gas I used was for the hot water service (if I'm cold I put on more clothes). I got lucky with a job closer to work, but a friend of mine (actually a cousin) used to walk through the suburbs for an hour or so to get to work (Adelaide people: He lived in burnside and worked in paradise) because he had to.

I suppose all that (and other stuff) is why I'm against tipping people, and why I get kinda crappy when people force me to tip (or I hear of others being forced to tip). Tipping in Australia isn't the norm, but it does occasionally happen, and we get by just fine.

Two final points:
1. Yes that sounded like a back-in-my-day, uphill-both-ways scenario, but it was only two years ago and I mean for it to illustrate that I understand what living on shit money can be like.
2. This is assuming that the attendant receives minimum wage, none of this BS from shop owners saying "I won't pay you as much" so they can have a hooker blow them on the way home to their wife and 10 kids. Fuck that.

 

[Ameatypie]

Sorry we live in a society where a tip is to be expected regardless of how well a job a server does.

Thats gotta suck...... I live in New Zealand. Tipping over here is not common, in fact its incredibly rare for a tip to be given. That makes New Zealanders sound like mean bastards dosen't it...... hold on a moment here. What i mean is that the culture in New Zealand has not grown in a way that incorporates tipping and such things into normal, everyday society. Its not that we're all assholes or all service is sloppy - its just not done.

 

[hypothetical fact]

Sorry we live in a society where a tip is to be expected regardless of how well a job a server does.

Thats gotta suck...... I live in New Zealand. Tipping over here is not common, in fact its incredibly rare for a tip to be given. That makes New Zealanders sound like mean bastards dosen't it...... hold on a moment here. What i mean is that the culture in New Zealand has not grown in a way that incorporates tipping and such things into normal, everyday society. Its not that we're all assholes or all service is sloppy - its just not done.

That's because Aus and NZ culture is that it's the employer's job to pay the employees not the customer's. But our min wage is also alot better than theirs and I'd rather have that stability than work tirelessly with the hope that the customers like me.

 

[Ameatypie]

That's because Aus and NZ culture is that it's the employer's job to pay the employees not the customer's. But our min wage is also alot better than theirs and I'd rather have that stability than work tirelessly with the hope that the customers like me.

Wait.... so in America waitresses and such do not get payed by their employers? Well you learn something new every day....

 

[hypothetical fact]

That's because Aus and NZ culture is that it's the employer's job to pay the employees not the customer's. But our min wage is also alot better than theirs and I'd rather have that stability than work tirelessly with the hope that the customers like me.

Wait.... so in America waitresses and such do not get payed by their employers? Well you learn something new every day....

They get paid just not enough to live on so they need tips.