It is very interesting and suspicious at the same time that each country is different and has own custom in terms of gratuity. Some countries, tipping is a good manner and common way to behave such as France, but some it is inappropriate to compensate individually such as Japan.According to "The end of tipping in New York? Top restaurant group bans gratuities" (2015), there are some well-known restaurants in New York which plans to start a no gratuities policy, even though it will have a lot of mixed reactions. This reminded me to think of the topic "tipping", because while it looked like a little thing which we are familiar with, there are some people who thinks that it should be more equal.
Will it be better if the compensation included additional rewards are professionally divided by acceptable and reasonable criteria? In my opinion, I prefer to pay the total prices in restaurants which are included tax and service charges, and the service charges have to be sure as well that they are shared to all staffs, not the owners, not only the waiters but all the workers like cleaners also.
I now hopefully await for the changing of tipping customs in Thailand and all over the world, I would like to see that gratuity in restaurants is not about manner - the way of acting that the society believes are polite (Hartmann, 2007), it is just what is charged in the bill.
_______________________________________
My question is:
Should we stop tipping, especially in restaurants?
___________
Reference
Hartmann, P. (2007), Quest 2: Reading and Writing, page 12.
I prefer tipping to service charge.
ReplyDeleteTipping will force the waiters and waitresses pay attention for their works, although it seems making them do better services for rewards, it will be given from the satisfactory of customers.
For some employees who are really nice in general, this will be their inspiration and represents the "thank".
Speaking of restaurant in anywhere, I think it should be stopped if tipping is the policy of the restaurant to force customers to do like that. Yet, if this is not such a compulsory policy and customers are willing to give it for waiters, it should be the rights of customers to show their gratitude to good waiters.
ReplyDeleteAlthough tipping as one kind of the interesting incentives could make waiters provide better service as Poy said in her above comment, I still view that the true duty of waiters in any restaurants are to provide the best service regardless of additional rewards like tipping from customers who intend to eat their restaurants. Whether customers will give tip for them or not should be based on customer’s satisfaction and impression.
Personally, I quite don't like the idea of service charges because in some restaurants, waiters just take our orders and serve (sometimes is very slow), and never come back till we ask for a bill.
ReplyDeleteFor me. they don't enough offer any good services to customers , so why I still have to pay 10% for service charges?
So for me tripping might be better to say thanks for a good service.
But I also think that tipping should be that everyone can do willingly and without being forced.
I'm in two minds. I often tip where it's expected, and the amount reflects my satisfaction, but as Feem points out, good management should ensure that all customers are treated well by the waiting staff without any expectation of a tip - that is, after all, their job, so it seems like customers are being made to pay twice to get a properly done job. That would be like AUA students tipping the teachers who teach well!
ReplyDeleteAnd that suggests an unpleasant reason to me why owners like tipping: it gives them a nasty excuse not to pay their waiting staff a decent wage.
The idea of adding on 10% for a "service charge" is outright dishonest I think. It's part of the normal cost of the meal, not something optional, special or extra, and calling it a "service charge" seems to me little different to telling a lie. Again, the managers and owners should be paying their staff a proper wage, and incorporating that into the cost of the meal, not being tricky and dishonest to make customers think they have some option to pay less for their meal. If they need a 10% increase in revenue to cover the cost of paying reasonable wages to employees to do their job well, then increase all the prices by 10%.
A bit late, but this article, "The case against tipping," in The Economist today (October 26, 2015) is informative and thoughtful on the subject of tipping in restaurants.
ReplyDelete