Tip for Tipping

Those of you who have been a waiter before (and even those of you who have not) might think that you know where I'm going. You might think that I'm gonna rant and rave about how people these days don't tip enough, but that's not what I want to talk about. This is really more like a case study into the lives and psychology of waiters.

The job of serving food requires that a person deliberately choose to be on the downside of an unequal relationship: The power is all in the customer's hands. In any other setting the waiter and customer are (at least theoretically) equals, but not in this setting. In the restaurant the customer is always right.
Whatever the customer wants, he gets. The waiter simply does the bidding of the customer. Every day the waiter literally works for the approval of the customer and the customer gives the waiter indication of his approval through his tip. I've received some good tips in my day, some bad tips, a lot of regular tips, and a couple of really, unexpectedly awesome tips. By awesome I mean I received a 100% tip. Yep, the guy's meal cost him $10.38 and he tipped me 10 bucks! (It's more like 96.3%...but that's not really the point is it?) What made him do that? And why is getting a tip of more than 15% such a big deal for waiters? Let's break down an example day for a waiter:

Joe Server gets to Cafe Cool at 5pm. Few people eat that early so he serves maybe one table between 5 and 6 pm. 6 to 7:30 is a popular time to eat so he's really busy serving 3, 4, and 5 tables at a time til about 8 pm. 8 to 9 pm he serves a coupla tables and then his shift is over. He's worked 4 hours and served maybe 10 tables. Let's say the average table spent $40 on dinner. So a 15% tip from each table would be $6:
$6 x 10 tables = $60
4 hrs x 2.50/hr base pay = $10
Total Earned = $70 (or $17 per hour -- nice)
subtract 5% of total sales (which is $40 x 10 tables or $400) = -20 dollars
subtract 15% of $70 for taxes/social security = -10.50 dollars
final count: Joe walks out with $39.50 (or slightly under $10 an hour)

So what's the point of taking you through the example? The point is that waiters are good with percentages. That 15% is expected. It really is, without it they don't get close to earning minimum wage. And it's the baseline for evaluation. 15% to the waiter means that they were adequate and pretty much invisible to you. 20% means that you noticed them and were impressed with their service or just respected the fact that they do so many services so that you can enjoy your meal. 10% on the other hand, means that they did a really bad job of serving you or that you just don't respect how much work they do.

A 20% tip is an affirmation of value. As a waiter I see a 20% tip and I get all happy because I know that the person or people I just served appreciated the work I did for them so much that they parted with more than the minimum required amount of money just to indicate that to me. In a sense, they are validating me as a person. They are reminding me that I'm an equal. (Now, I don't think that most people consciously do this, or would ever say that they thought I wasn't their equal, but as I mentioned above, the power inequality is still there.) So can you imagine what I did when I got that 100% tip? I honestly didn't even know what to do. I walked around and showed it to all my waiter friends (yes we do that, for good AND bad tips). I thought back over the meal and tried to see where I could have done something so amazing that it would warrant that sort of tip. Nope. I did a good job, but nothing special. So the only thing that I could do is assume that he were affirming my value as a person. I walked away from that 4.5 hour shift with $21 dollars and felt great.

So what's the application for you? Well, times are tight. Seems like everybody is being more frugal...which is probably a good thing overall. But if you're going to go out to eat please don't be frugal on your tip. You're doing more than saving yourself a dollar by tipping light, you're saying that you don't care about the waiter as a person or value his or her work. And when you give a 4 dollar tip for a 20 dollar meal (instead of a $3 tip) it won't go unnoticed. That little extra dollar goes a long way to validate your waiter as a person. Sounds a little melodramatic, maybe, but it's true.