A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
Wit and wisdom, some smart assery, and a Mother and Daughter questioning “Are we even related?”
A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
Serving Up Controversy The Tipping Table S1:E13
Ever wondered if the custom of tipping in America has spiraled out of control? Join us as we unravel the complex tapestry of tipping in the U.S., inspired by our recent dining experiences both at home and abroad.
email: boomerandgenxer@gmail.com
welcome everyone to today's show. Boomer and jane x are walking to a bar, coming to you today from the rabbit hole studio, where you, as our listener, will experience some wit and wisdom, some smart assery and a mother and daughter questioning. Are we even related? My name is jane burt, my daughter is my co-host, her name is bobby joy, and for the next several minutes we're going to talk about a topic that came up here recently, uh, and it has to do with eating out and tipping.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm gonna get some uh comments about this one.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness. So with the political debates going on right now, people are talking about how much food costs and how much it costs to eat out, and you know the cost of everything right now and, let's face it, it has gone up significantly. One of the things that people have talked about, or that I guess in my circle we've talked a little bit about, is tipping, because now when you receive your bill, a lot of times it will have on there how much they feel that you should tip, and it used to be 10, then 15, then 20. Now I believe it starts at 18, 20, 25 and 30 is what they list on most receipts. Now it could vary depending on the restaurant that you go to, right, right, and it could differ based on the um level.
Speaker 1:I guess you know if you've got a classier restaurant, as opposed to going to taco, taco hell or taco bell I'm sorry, did I say that out loud? Um, that it could be a little bit different. And the other part of it is that you know, know, if I'm just getting it at the window, why am I tipping? Why are you turning that little machine around to me to tip Right? And sometimes I just don't understand it Now. The reason this came up for me is because we last year or two years ago, I guess it was, went to New Zealand, and in New Zealand you do not tip.
Speaker 1:In a lot of other countries you don't. And in Europe, when I was in Europe, they said do not tip, they pay them a full wage. And I don't know that that's all over Europe, but I know where we were, that's what they said. And in New Zealand they do not tip, and you know. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what the benefits are and what the pro. You know the pros and cons, because they should be getting a full wage and not really relying on the customer to pick up that difference. Right and um, you know, I don't know. Have you thought about this before, bob?
Speaker 2:I have. I've worked in food service and you know the hospitality industry for most of my life, for most of my adult life, and so tipping is a huge conversation point. I'll say huge conversation point, yeah. I'll say uh, because you have to look at america versus the rest of the world. We are paying our servers, our bartenders, things like that, way below minimum wage, right right average right now? Uh, in the town that I'm in, waitresses get anywhere from two dollars and 15 cents an hour to about five dollars an hour and I.
Speaker 1:I don't see how that can even be legal.
Speaker 2:I mean well because they go off of tips. I get that I understand the tips plus the hourly wage equals at least minimum wage. The owners in the clear right. So yeah, you're working for that money. I mean you're not depending on the owner, or you know the, the owner of the bar, whatever the owner of the hotel, to pay you. You're depending on those customers coming in to say, wow, she did a really good.
Speaker 1:You're selling yourself right, right and and I and I'm no stranger to the food industry either when I was young I worked at restaurants, I worked in a bar, I served food, I served alcohol, that sort of thing and at that time, back then, we got an actual wage, yeah, and then we got our tips on top of that, and then the law changed to whereby that would be supplemented. You know, your hourly wage would be supplemented by whatever tips you received. Right, that made dishonest people. Yes, because, I'll be honest, if we were getting cash, we weren't turning it in.
Speaker 2:Well no, because then you'd have to pay taxes on it. And then there goes your paycheck. Right, you worked 90 hours this week. Your paycheck's $4.
Speaker 1:And so what happened is, you know, it created a lot of liars because we were really just trying to get by, right. And the other part of it was if it was on your credit card, of course that's tracked Right if it was on your credit card of course that's tracked and that's taxable.
Speaker 1:And they were saying well, you know the cash has to be. You have to tell us how much cash you got and then we will pay you the difference, based on how much you got in tips, right and um, how do you feel about?
Speaker 2:that. Oh man, I have both good and bad feelings. So I started working. When I worked outside of the family business um with my father, I started working at Porky's Tenderloin, which was one of the only car hop places left in Des Moines A huge place bike nights car shows.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, amazing food that was. One of my first jobs was being a car hop, and even back then we earned a decent wage, not counting our tips, right. It wasn't until I was probably late teens, early 20s, that they really started to shift to where it was. You're responsible for making your own money, like we as owners will give you a couple bucks an hour to cover taxes on it, right? Otherwise you go out there. You have to sell yourself, you have to sell our product, you have to. You know things like that. And in restaurants, where there's bars, it's different. So, being a bartender for the last, oh God, since I was 18, I've been bartending off and on. So in a restaurant setting, the waitresses actually tip out the bartender. So we have our own bar patrons, we serve them. We get the tips directly. The waitresses when they order alcohol for their table, they have to take a percentage of that sale and tip us right, because we make the alcohol, we mix it, we, you know.
Speaker 2:We have that knowledge, we have the drinks and so between the waitresses and and the patrons. You know you try to get enough money together to to pay your rent at the end of the week type of thing right so I think in ways that it's great, because it has always been a fallback job for me. If I'm in a pinch, if I'm in a bind, I know I can go work on a weekend at a known bar and come home with my rent money. I can come home with my mortgage payment okay right there.
Speaker 2:No waiting for a check, no, nothing.
Speaker 1:If my car breaks down, I can fix it within two days yeah, because you've got that cash in hand and you're not waiting for a paycheck. So the labor laws changed to whereby they do support this. Of course you know they want you to turn in that cash right and the government my favorite people. They want you to be taxed on top of your taxing that they're going to tax you on for your taxes Right.
Speaker 1:And so the labor laws did change to support that. Now one of the things that I will say in my mind, logically, if I play out how much I would make in a year, let's say, and including tips, and let's say I worked a 40-hour week and including tips, and let's say I worked a 40-hour week and I added up all the tips that I made in the past year and how much my wages were in the past year, and let's say that I totaled up to be $35,000. Because I know waitstaff do not make that much money. No, come on, they don't make a buttload of money, no.
Speaker 2:Now they could. They could on a good weekend.
Speaker 1:But I'm just throwing a number out there.
Speaker 1:Let's say it's thirty five thousand dollars a year, and some of the argument has been well, if we pay our wait staff more, our food prices will go up.
Speaker 1:Understandable, okay, I get it, but I, as the consumer, am really not paying me anymore because by the time I pay that tip, I'm paying that higher price for that food, correct?
Speaker 1:So wouldn't it make more sense and it does to me in my little mind, uh that I would pay my workers the $35,000 a year as an hourly wage. I would increase their wage, don't give them a tip, and now they have a guaranteed income you don't have to worry about. Am I going to make $200 tonight or, you know, $1,000 this week in tips to cover my bills, or do I have a solid paycheck that I know after I work 40 hours, I'm going to get this much money because to me that's guaranteed income and it's guaranteed that I can bank on that right and I can strategically set up my bills and how I'm going to live the rest of my life based on what my salary is Well and it's not only good for that, but if you look at the owners of the restaurants, the managers, things like that, that is a huge point in keeping your employees and keeping them happy, in making the environment that you want for people to keep coming back to your restaurant, and it's been proven.
Speaker 2:There have been restaurants that have said look, no tipping, tipping in our restaurant. We pay our workers a great wage right and they have workers that literally stay there for years and years because they're guaranteed that income they don't ever have to worry about oh man am I gonna have a? Week. If it's a slow weekend, am I going to be able to pay my light bill, right?
Speaker 1:Exactly, and I guess that's my point. If I were still a food worker, restauranteur, whatever you call them, wait staff, bartender, whatever it is, I personally would rather get a wage from my employer. Raise the dollar amount on that burger a couple of bucks, because, let's face it, as a consumer I'm on the other end of the stick. If I'm going to pay a tip, it's all going to balance out, right?
Speaker 2:don't act like, oh, we'd have to raise the price of the food first of all over the past four years, like stop you've raised the price of the food considerably because prices have gone up on everything yeah, you can go to mcdonald's and you or you can go to a restaurant, because the meals are the same. Freaking price at this right so that's my position is.
Speaker 1:I would rather have a guaranteed wage. That's my position. That's what they did in new zealand. I can't remember what the what the wait staff said that they were making per hour. I want to say it was like 22 an hour, something like that, and we didn't tip them. And is it a high paying job? The answer is no you know right could you tip them if you wanted to?
Speaker 2:I guess you probably could, but they said don't tip well and and on the other end of it, maybe it's not good, Right? So let's talk about that. Yeah, so your waitstaff let's say you worked your butt off. You got the prime position Friday night dinner and drinks, you know, and because in a lot of places that's prime position, that's position for good waitstaff for senior waitstaff, things like that.
Speaker 1:That's your money days right there.
Speaker 2:Okay, you worked your butt off, you got to that prime position, you're guaranteed this, and let's say it's a high volume restaurant. Okay, you're looking at making hundreds of dollars an hour, right, on tips alone Right, but that you wouldn't be getting if you were getting just a wage.
Speaker 1:Right, but you have to share those tips.
Speaker 2:No, not always. No, absolutely not. Every place that I've worked, I've never had shared tips Okay, never.
Speaker 1:So let's say it is a high-end restaurant, so you don't pay them $22 an hour, you pay them $35 an hour. But still.
Speaker 2:You pay them 35 an hour, but still you pay them 40, whatever that dollar amount is to help balance yeah, I mean, I'm looking at you know from and I've had this experience where there's no way in hell you could pay me 50 an hour to work there, because I just walked out of there with 800 but you're not going to do that every week, you're right, you're not, and that's kind of the gamble that that wait staff and restaurant workers take, but man, when it pays off right right, but when it?
Speaker 2:doesn't, and when it doesn't it's hard, it's hard, it's hard, and you have to learn how to manage your money and have that, that safety net to fall back on on those hard days, on those days that you close down for a power outage or you don't have you know, or your patrons or you're sick or you know things like that.
Speaker 2:So it is on you. But at the same time, man, I just I don't know that I could give up possibly making the kind of bank that I could make knowing where I worked for a steady wage. I just don't know that I could make knowing where I worked for a steady wage. I just don't know that I could do that, okay.
Speaker 1:So we see it on both ends, because I, I would want that guaranteed income, whatever that dollar amount is. That's what I want. Let's take it to another angle. As the consumer, so I, I go to restaurants not primarily because their food is the best, but because I get the best service. That's why I typically will go to a restaurant. If I get super good service, I'm coming back. I always feel like, eh, you could probably, you know, do, unless it's really terrible, food Right. But if there's something wrong with the food, as long as my service is really really good, I'll probably come back.
Speaker 1:But when is it okay to say you know, I'm not giving them 18%, I'm not giving them 20%, I'm not giving them 25% and I sure as hell am not giving 30%? Now I had somebody recently say to me well, prices have gone up, you know for everything, and so you should be giving them 30%. No, and it's like you do understand. This is a percentage right. Come on, it's not like you're, it's a percentage Right. So if the food cost has gone up, whatever percentage you were giving them before, they're going to get more anyway. You were giving them before they're going to get more anyway. Right, you don't have to keep increasing the percentage based on you know, just because the economy has changed. But how you know? How do you justify that? I guess, if I have really bad service and I have, um, the service is a key point for me, okay, but if I have really bad service, um, you know, 18% is my lowest. I'm going to go.
Speaker 2:Is it? That's, that's your lowest, yeah, yeah, is it? Yeah, okay. So that's kind of your rule of thumb 18% is the lowest, and then you can earn from up there.
Speaker 1:Have I done a 15% before? Good thing you didn't tip our last meal.
Speaker 2:Our last meal.
Speaker 1:I came way under 18%. You did oh yeah, why I didn't get my chowder? Oh yeah, we didn't get our food. It was like oh yeah Well.
Speaker 2:I mean but okay, so first I'll go over my rule of thumb and then we're going to come back to that, to Dr Domain. So my rule of thumb starts at 18%, yeah, okay, but you can also go down, because I'm telling you what. There have been some people that I have not tipped and they earned it. They earned every non-penny of penny of that non tip that they got.
Speaker 1:What happened? Were they rude? Was the food bad. Was the service bad Like?
Speaker 2:you could just look at him and go. Why are you even around people, Let alone working with?
Speaker 1:people.
Speaker 2:Because the rudeness or the rudeness, the attitude, the way that they talk to you, the there have been overt racists that have said things and I'm just like, oh my God, did you just say that, like you're working and you just you just said that.
Speaker 2:Um, so there are things you know, but 18% is my base and I have gone all the way up to 50%. I have to. I have to without a thought, because the person was just, and there were screw-ups on that meal, but the person was phenomenal and coming back to that, so this is going to bring me back to it. So you didn't, you didn't get your food. Okay, now that that's a 50 50 shot on if that is the server's fault. Now let me tell you why. Because, number one, if the server might have forgotten to put the food in, to ring the food in, right, okay.
Speaker 2:Absolutely that's their fault. Two kitchen staff that cook, that sous chef whoever it was back there made a mistake, didn't see it, and when the wait staff came back to say hey, we're missing this chowder, they got their head bit off. Because I've been back there, I know how kitchen staff is. They're not great, they're like little goblins in the kitchen. You got to feed them regularly, but you know. So I kind of take an overall look at it. Whose fault was it? Was it an honest mistake and did they try to fix it? And it just didn't work out.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I'm going to come at you on this. The buck stops here with that waitress. That's bull. Because you take that order. You better remember to write it down. You bring that order to my table. You better be double checking that order and saying did I get everything? Did I get that, that clam chowder or that chowder, whatever it was, did I get that? And if the wait, if the kitchen forgot it, that's on me to run back there and say, hey, you forgot this. I need a bowl right now. And so the buck stops there for me I.
Speaker 1:That's where your point now where it doesn't stop with the weight with the waiter waitress or waiter is, let's say that he brings he's he or she from the kitchen, sends it out raw, right, they send it out cold. They send it out looking like somebody just puked it up on my right. That's a different story, but I still say the buck stops here. You know why that waitress or that waiter should have looked at that plate. They should have known whether it was hot or cold. They should have known how long it was sitting there. They have to have that attention to detail. You know why they are the first stop as it relates to between me as a customer and that restaurant.
Speaker 2:I do agree with you there. I do agree with you to a certain point. And then there's, you know, there's always the point of number one. We're human, right, okay, right, right, okay, right.
Speaker 2:But number two you got to think of especially lately, restaurant owners have been cutting staff majorly left and right, and so you have two waitresses or waiters covering the volume that five waitresses or waiters would have covered. Okay, we're human, we're in a hurry, we're trying to get you the fastest best. Yeah, mistakes happen. As a waitress, I own up to that. I say you know what? That was my fault. Let me see if I can get that taken off for you, otherwise I'm going to pay for it, right?
Speaker 1:And I think that's the way it should go. Now again, you know, life's all about choices. If I've got a kitchen that's constantly putting out bad food and I've got a owner that doesn't care, I'm going down the street and I'm working somewhere else. Life's all about choices, it is. And I don't care what kind of job you've got. Every single day you get up and you say to yourself am I going to take it or am I going to leave it? Today, and I don't care how much that job pays. You're either going to take it or you're going to leave it. How much would you have tipped that waitress last night? I would have probably tipped her 15%, because everything else was okay, you know, and she was very, she was very attentive, other than the fact that she forgot your, your suit.
Speaker 2:Now, how many times did you have to mention it?
Speaker 1:She wasn't around. She didn't come back. Oh, I mentioned it to her. Oh, she wasn't. I said something. Oh, yeah, you're right, you did. You said something one time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did she come back and say oh my gosh, I forgot it again, or anything. That was what caused the problem. Okay, she would have gotten $5.
Speaker 1:Zero recognition of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's like I don't care.
Speaker 1:Pretty much Her attitude was very much because I said oh, he didn't get his child and she goes. Oh, that's right and walked away.
Speaker 2:No other jobs like this.
Speaker 1:It's all down to performance and results.
Speaker 2:I don't get tipped in my job until I do get a tip indirectly. It's called a bonus.
Speaker 1:But it's based on my performance and my results. You don't result, you don't result.
Speaker 2:You don't perform, you don't get a tip Right, and something you've always told me is it don't matter if you're cleaning toilets or if you're making jet parts. You take pride in what you're doing because that's your job. And you walk into the building. That's your building, that's your job.
Speaker 1:People, they judge you on that, whether it's your fault or not.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I would absolutely do everything in my power to make sure that you know they were happy and they wouldn't have gotten more than $5. I'm telling you what They've just been like oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I forgot that Blah, blah, blah Well you know, I mean I considered everything else. I thought she was very, you know, she was very kind. Now she did. She was very flippant with him when he, you know, and I said, he didn't get his chowder and she goes oh yeah, and walked away and and so I understand his point.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, I do. The rest of the food was good and and let's face it, I mean I've given some pretty large tips in the past and some of it has to do with not only their performance and the food. If I know their situation, if I see they're struggling, I mean, bobby, you've gotten 150% off of me before, yeah.
Speaker 1:So when I've come in and just gotten a drink and gave you a hundred dollar tip, yeah. But, um, you know, if I know, and and that's just a matter of wanting to do a good deed to help other people out, right, yeah, but I am I guess I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't presume to know their situation, even if they tell me. I'm just like you know she's dressed really nice and has real nice nails, but I mean that could all be an at-home job.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm just saying that happens once in a while yeah, and it would be rare for me to give a 30. I mean, I really do try to stick with 18 to 20, 25 and uh to give a 30, but there's a lot of people out there going oh my gosh, you're still giving 20 or 25. Well, as your price of your meal goes up.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's a percentage, it's a percentage and uh.
Speaker 1:So I think that that's something to take into consideration. I, I, um I will say this much, though with the economy the way it is and with the price of everything, we eat at home a lot and uh, this is our diet plan now, because the price of groceries are so high, you know, I kind of look around and I say what are some of these people doing that really cannot afford these things? Um, it really is. I, I don't buy the things I used to buy, and it is our diet plan now. Uh, we don't eat out we as much once in a while, but, uh, we eat at home and we eat a lot less.
Speaker 2:And that'll be another episode. That's exactly right. Yes, yes, but it looks like that is all the insanity we have for today on this. We appreciate you joining us here at the Rabbit Hole Studio. Be sure to follow us. We look forward to spending time with you each week. Please like us, and if you have positive feedback for us, or if there's a topic or a question that you have that you want to talk about, drop us an email at boomerangenexer at gmailcom, or go over to our Facebook page. A Boomer and a Gen Xer, Walk Into a Bar and send us a message, write a comment or you know, just give us a thumbs up, and if you have hate mail, you know well, you know where to put that. So until next week. I'm Bobbi Joy and I'm Jane Burt.
Speaker 1:And you're stuck with us. Peace out Later, later.
Speaker 2:Later, later, later Later.