The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on September 30, 2016, 01:35:02 pm ---I didn't realize she took the role on Transparent until the article came back to it, near the end.
--- End quote ---
If it weren't for that, I'd never have heard of her. I'm pretty distant from the fashion world, too.
Are you all familiar with the Pulitzer-prize-winning author Michael Chabon? He just wrote this thing about taking his 13-year-old son to Paris Fashion Week, because his son is super into fashion. As I read it, I kept alternating between feeling affection for Chabon for helping his son have this experience, feeling admiration for the boy for having the self-confidence to be himself despite the consequences, and feeling that the extreme obsessive attention to the tiniest details of an outfit is the silliest thing I've ever heard.
http://www.gq.com/story/my-son-the-prince-of-fashion
Jeff Wrangler:
Being way behind in my reading as always, over lunch today I read Nathan Heller's Oct. 10 article about living without cash in contemporary Sweden.
On thing he did not go into in the article is how you tip in a cashless society (maybe people don't tip in Sweden, but they do in the U.S.). My friend Phil the waiter explained to me that if you tip in cash, the waiter gets the money immediately. If you add the tip to your bill and then pay with a credit card, the waiter has to wait for his paycheck to get the tip.
I suppose in a cashless society, where two people can pass money between each other from one electronic device to another, you could tip that way. However, that would add the social issue of the waiter knowing immediately how much or how little you tipped. No more leaving money on the table and fleeing the restaurant because you're embarrassed that you can't tip more. Perhaps tipping in this way would lead to bigger tips for waiters, and so they would like it.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on October 20, 2016, 01:35:55 pm ---On thing he did not go into in the article is how you tip in a cashless society (maybe people don't tip in Sweden, but they do in the U.S.). My friend Phil the waiter explained to me that if you tip in cash, the waiter gets the money immediately. If you add the tip to your bill and then pay with a credit card, the waiter has to wait for his paycheck to get the tip.
--- End quote ---
As a former longtime waitress whose two sons have often worked as tipped wait assistants (busboys/food runners), I can tell you that's not always, or maybe not even usually, how it works.
When I was a waitress many centuries ago, your base pay was less than minimum wage and you had to declare to the employer enough tips to equal minimum wage. The actual tips were far beyond that, you got them in cash regardless of the customer's payment form, and walked out with a pocketful of money every night. I would be guilty of tax evasion, I guess, except that I didn't make enough money back in them days to pay taxes anyway, so whatever I paid I would get refunded the following year.
At the restaurants where my sons have worked over the past few years (probably about six or so establishments between them), their tips come from the waiters. The waiters are expected, though not forced or monitored, to pay the wait assistants a percentage of their tips. Sometimes the servers hand them cash directly, sometimes it gets funneled through the restaurants and they receive it in their paychecks. Then they not only have to wait for it, but a larger percentage gets withheld for taxes. In their case, it's not a huge deal, because again they don't make enough in a year to pay taxes at all so they get bigger refunds the following spring. But for obvious reasons, they're not fond of that system. Another problem with it is the one you hinted at -- the paycheck system means the waiters tip anonymously, so those who undertip aren't identifiable.
In any case, none of it -- in the restaurants where they've worked -- has had anything to do with what form of payment the customer uses.
My understanding is that tipping is unusual throughout Europe, but correct me if I'm wrong, Eurobrokies!
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on October 21, 2016, 10:45:12 am ---As a former longtime waitress whose two sons have often worked as tipped wait assistants (busboys/food runners), I can tell you that's not always, or maybe not even usually, how it works.
When I was a waitress many centuries ago, your base pay was less than minimum wage and you had to declare to the employer enough tips to equal minimum wage. The actual tips were far beyond that, you got them in cash regardless of the customer's payment form, and walked out with a pocketful of money every night. I would be guilty of tax evasion, I guess, except that I didn't make enough money back in them days to pay taxes anyway, so whatever I paid I would get refunded the following year.
--- End quote ---
Yes, but if you were the server, and the customer added the tip to the bill and then paid with a credit card, including the tip in the payment, where did that cash come from? Did management take it out of the till at the end of the night, or what? Did somebody have to go through the credit card receipts and add up how much tips each individual server got that wasn't in the form of cash left on the table? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand. ???
--- Quote ---At the restaurants where my sons have worked over the past few years (probably about six or so establishments between them), their tips come from the waiters. The waiters are expected, though not forced or monitored, to pay the wait assistants a percentage of their tips. Sometimes the servers hand them cash directly, sometimes it gets funneled through the restaurants and they receive it in their paychecks. Then they not only have to wait for it, but a larger percentage gets withheld for taxes. In their case, it's not a huge deal, because again they don't make enough in a year to pay taxes at all so they get bigger refunds the following spring. But for obvious reasons, they're not fond of that system. Another problem with it is the one you hinted at -- the paycheck system means the waiters tip anonymously, so those who undertip aren't identifiable.
In any case, none of it -- in the restaurants where they've worked -- has had anything to do with what form of payment the customer uses.
--- End quote ---
I believe bartenders are generally expected to share their tips with the barback, or barbacks, too, so they would get the money in cash at the end of the night.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on October 21, 2016, 11:23:10 am ---Yes, but if you were the server, and the customer added the tip to the bill and then paid with a credit card, including the tip in the payment, where did that cash come from? Did management take it out of the till at the end of the night, or what? Did somebody have to go through the credit card receipts and add up how much tips each individual server got that wasn't in the form of cash left on the table? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand. ???
--- End quote ---
It's been a long time since I experienced it myself, and I've never asked my sons about the details of how it works now. Back then, you'd hand the bill and credit card slip to the cashier and she'd (it was always a she) would hand you cash in the amount of the tip. If the tip was in cash on the table, of course, you'd just grab that.
--- Quote ---I believe bartenders are generally expected to share their tips with the barback, or barbacks, too, so they would get the money in cash at the end of the night.
--- End quote ---
Exactly. Everyone gets tipped -- the servers tipped the bartenders, too, at least in my day -- except, for some reason, the cooks. Probably the cooks got a better base wage.
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on October 20, 2016, 01:35:55 pm --- No more leaving money on the table and fleeing the restaurant because you're embarrassed that you can't tip more. Perhaps tipping in this way would lead to bigger tips for waiters, and so they would like it.
--- End quote ---
This led me to wonder later, on my way to work, how much does he tip, anyway? I usually aim for 20%. If it's a close calculation, I probably round it down a bit, figuring some of the bill total is taxes and so forth. If the service was unsatisfactory, I'd go as low as 15%. If the service were bad enough that I'd be tempted to tip less than that I'd probably complain to someone and expect to get something comped.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version