Sunday, January 25, 2015

The Tipping War

An Argument Against the Practice of Tipping

I truly never thought that when I started to do a little “quick” research for this blog post that it would take me this long to actually put the thing together and get something written up, but after seeing this College Humor video I felt like it would be a good subject to talk about.
 
I started by posting the video to my facebook wall as well as on our Facebook page and asked what other people thought about the subject. I didn’t get the outpouring of comments that I would discover usually accompanied any post about eliminating tipping but I did get a few of my friends who work in the service industry to leave me some feedback as well as a patron who could see the benefits of discarding the tradition of tipping. 
 
EV: Interesting stuff. I don't care if ppl don't tip as bartending isn't my regular gig. Will I remember you and hold it against you? Yep. I also disagree with the Cornell study they reference. I get my biggest tips from ppl I take care of the most. While I try to treat everyone equal, Assholes-a-plenty can make this difficult on busy nights. Raising prices isn't an easy answer. Just gives the masses something different to complain about...my .02 cents.
CN: It's a novel concept, but one that would take years and lots of money to change. Small businesses (non-chain establishments) would be the first to feel it, so the backlash would be a pr nightmare. There's a restaurant in New York (?) that just banned tipping because they gave their employees a livable salary + benefits, but that causes the owners to increase the price of everything, which is a risk.
LB: Hmmmm. Interesting I am not sure how I feel about this. I feel one of draws of serving is the potential of earning more than minimum wage. Especially in a small town at least in my experience you take care of the people they take care of you. It's my part time gig, but I wouldn't do it for straight minimum wage.
AH: I think it makes sense! I know many times I may have under-tipped just because my friends and I would base it off of how many little bills we had in our wallets.
 
My biggest discovery through my research is that the tipping war has become one between the consumer and the server, and the owner or franchisee is almost always left out of the argument. Most responses went something to this effect:
Server: “I work my butt off serving going above and beyond my job description and I often receive $0 checks because my salary doesn’t cover the amount I have to pay in taxes on the amount I make in tips. If you can’t afford to tip, then stay home. If you don’t tip me well, expect bad service…etc.”
Patron: “I don’t think that I should have to tip in addition to what I’m paying for my meal. I put forth good money to enjoy the service of eating out and being served is part of that service so I don’t think I should have to tip more money than what I’m already paying. If servers don’t like their jobs, than they should work harder, get a better education and move into a job that pays better!”
This is just a basic compilation of some of the arguments on both sides, but the crazy thing is that for some reason most of the Patrons are arguing against the servers and the servers against the patrons. The fact of the matter is that the FEDERAL minimum wage for tipped employees is set at $2.13/hour…FEDERAL! As with other occupations, employers have to pay whatever is higher, the Federal or State wage so you do have states, such as Minnesota, that pay their tipped employees the same minimum wage that other entry level employment positions get paid. And that kind of leads me into a response to one of the largest arguments…
Restaurant owners couldn’t afford to pay greater wages to their employees because than they would have to raise prices and most patrons would not be able to afford to go out to eat!
I probably spent the greatest amount of time trying to discredit this argument. Almost always, people would reference that the profit margin for most restaurants is a measly 2%, and although that may be true for some restaurants, that figure is an average nationwide…which also includes all of the restaurants that don’t make it. So one restaurant may be making a profit margin of 40%, 6 others offset that by losing money and closing their doors, and unfortunately it is true that restaurants close every day, it could be from poor management, poor marketing or location, or even bad or not well trained staff. It happens…in every business, not just the restaurant business.
But my main question here was, “how do restaurants handle the change in minimum wage per state? How can it have such a huge impact on the profit margin yet we still have restaurants in states the pay the minimum wage? My obvious answer was that restaurants inflate their prices where they have to pay their employees more, which makes sense considering that you need to offset costs through the price of your products…but then I saw an Applebee’s commercial and saw that their 2 for $20 menu was back…and I thought to myself, well how the heck can a national brand like Applebee’s run a commercial like that? Their restaurants are franchised so each owner, depending on their state and the other expenses they face must be able to set their own prices, right? If they can’t and the prices are set by corporate, how the heck do they survive?
I guess the answer is that the 2% profit margin may just be a bit of bullshit.
Sure the states that get to pay their employees less will have a greater profit margin but the other states must still be doing alright for themselves in order to keep their doors open and their employees employed. Upon further research I discovered that the actual profit margin for most restaurants (those that make it) is probably closer to the 10-12% figure, in large part, thanks to lobbyists
$0 Checks
I know it stinks when you bust your butt working for someone and then when your pay period ends you receive a check for $0 or you may even end up having to pay in. It has to suck, but it's not really an argument for why people need to tip more. I'm sorry, but everyone who works for a living has to pay taxes, it's just how things work, and when you get a $0 check, it doesn't mean that you worked for free...it means that you made so much money in tips that your measly wage that you are being paid by your employer has all gone to paying the taxes associated with the amount of money you made.
I'm not happy with the amount taken out by the government each pay check that I receive either, but for my current jobs I'm paid a fair wage by my employer and when the taxes are taken out I still have enough to pay my bills so I keep my current positions. If I wouldn't make enough, then it would be time to find different employment, it's not rocket science...it's life.
I may be willing to bet that if servers actually claimed every tip that they made, they might have to pay in quite a bit more than their $2.13/hour pay check as well. Another perk of this type of employment is cash tips...and cash is pretty hard to tax if you don't claim it.
HOW THE HELL CAN FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE ONLY BE $2.13 FOR TIPPED EMPLOYEES?!
It turns out that way back in 1991 (which doesn’t seem that far back to me), restaurant lobbyist convinced congress that there should be a different minimum wage for tipped employees…how did they do this, why the same way everything else is done in congress, by buying politicians votes. Who could afford to pay to get something like that done?! Poor restaurant owners who were trying to scrap by on the crumbs of a 2% profit margin…sound fishy to you?
Here’s the kicker…The Federal minimum wage was $3.80/hour in 1990 and was raised to $4,25 an hour starting April 1st, 1991. The Federal minimum wage today is $7.25/hour with talks of an increase up to $10.10/hour…but the tipped minimum wage has remained at $2.13 since 1991. Let’s say we get to that $10.10 point by 2016, that would mean that in 15 years we have seen an increase in the minimum wage for most employees of 137%...which may be wrong since it’s been quite some time since I’ve had to use math…but in that same time frame, the tipped minimum wage will not have changed at all.
The law states that if tipped employees do not make the minimum wage when their salary and tips are combined than the employer must make up the difference, which of course is a terrible system as you put it, once again, back on the employee to bring this to their employer’s attention. If you take the time to read some of the other links I provide at the end of this post, and read the comments left by people in the service industry on those posts, you’ll hear horror stories of how employers have even been known to skue the amount employees made in tips in order to not have to pay them the additional funds…you’ll also see that most tipped employees, despite what their base salary is, make far more than most if not all entry level positions once you figure in their tips.
SO WHY ARE WE ARGUING OVER THIS?
When it comes right down to it, my personal belief is centered on the fact that big business (restaurants) are geniuses. Not only have they locked in their minimal ways of paying employees with the federal government, they’ve turned over their responsibility of paying those employees to the people who are using their service. If a server doesn’t make the amount they think they deserve, they aren’t upset with their employer, they’re upset with the customer.
And honestly, how could they be upset with their employer? I don’t think I’ve ever taken a job without knowing what I’d be getting paid in advance and the same goes for servers. They’re told what their base salary will be and are aware of the fact that they are mostly paid by the consumer through tips.
WHY WOULD YOU WANT EMPLOYEES WHO WORK FOR TIPS?
I get that if you have employees work for tips, than you can pay them less and consequently rake in more money yourself, but what are the negatives associated with this practice?
Pilferage. First of all, count on pilferage. If you tell someone that you’re going to pay them right next to nothing to do a job for you, but someone else tells them that if they give them a little extra kick in their drink or some additional food than they will tip them handsomely, than how do you prevent them from taking from the person who’s giving them nothing and giving to the person that has offered to give them extra?
The number one problem that restaurants deal with is pilferage, and as stated above, how could it not be? If employers went out of their way to pay their employees what they're worth, and outlawed the tipping practice than why would employees pilfer? If they knew that giving someone an extra shot of alcohol in their drink wasn't going to lead to more money for them, than why would they risk doing it? A better question may be, why haven't restaurants gone this way if pilferage costs them so much? I think a good reason may be that they save more money in employee costs than the costs associated with pilferage. The attempt to stop this in restaurants/bars is a prime example of having your cake and eating it too. More profits for the restaurants and less loss is definitely to their benefit, but apparently increasing the wage of their employees doesn't really cross their minds as they try to find a solution to this particular problem.
Off Days. What happens when you have a tired employee? Say this employee has been a blockbuster for a couple of days and has made pretty darn good money in tips, but last night they went out and just don’t feel like working today. They may lower their performance simply because they don’t really care to be there and know they’ve already made a lot of money for the week.
Company Image. This kind of goes along with the last item, but what kind of employees do you want representing your business? How demanding can you be of an employee you only pay $2.13 to do their job? It is a staple in the customer service business that the customer pays your wages, not just for tipped employees but for anyone in customer service at all. People get to decide where to spend their money and if your service isn’t good they will go somewhere else and spend their money. If they go somewhere else, that translates into less money for the owners of the operation and also less hours for the employees and possible closure of the establishment.
If you want to have employees that represent what you want your business to stand for than you have to compensate them for the job. If you rely on someone else to compensate them (through tips), than expect them to portray the image that gets them paid the most, which more than likely won’t be the standards that you set.
Have you seen the movie "Waiting?" Quite frankly it is a disgusting portrayal of the restaurant business and many of the people I have known who have worked in the industry have said that it's actually a pretty accurate movie for some of the places they have worked. If you haven't seen it, it may be worth a watch just so you can see why they say, don't mess with people who prepare your food. When people work for the customer and the customer pisses them off, it isn't a good thing. These things may happen no matter the wage set for servers because we've all seen how terrible some people treat others but maybe we could have better behaved patrons and servers if owners paid their employees more and management was given more of a green light to refuse service to patrons who lack respect for restaurant employees.
CONCLUSION
We all get an opinion on everything, that’s what makes this country so great and in the same sense, tough to live in! But when it comes to tipping I think we really need to consider what it is, a way for employers to get away with paying their employees less which translates into higher profit margins for the company. A better bottom line, regardless of other arguments. The restaurant industry is a multi-billion dollar industry which employs a giant portion of working individuals, but like many industries it is just another business with the same risks/reward possibilities that others face but are protected towards better profits because of a loop hole which allows them not to pay a livable wage to their employees. They’re smart, though, turning the debate away from them and towards the consumer/server relationship.
I hope in the future we see a change in this system and employees are paid what they are worth by their employer. I, personally love to tip for great service because I like to reward people who do their job above the call of duty, but when you consider the markup on food and drinks at all restaurants, you start to question why you’re paying double for the single service you’re receiving. The best thing that restaurants do is when they automatically add on a certain percentage tip for larger groups. Servers and patrons alike see it as a way to ensure that the server doesn’t get “stiffed” by the patrons, but really it’s just a way for the employer to ensure that the employee is getting paid by the patron, not them. The industry has done one hell of a job pulling the wool over all of our eyes, and hopefully someday we can do something about it.
WHY AM I QUALIFIED TO MAKE THESE ARGUMENTS?
For one, I’m a writer who adds another heading after his conclusion heading, so I must be better at something other than writing, right?
But more importantly I had a serious three month stand in the industry. For the most part I washed dishes but one day I was given my big break to attempt serving!
I got to serve exactly one table.
At that table I took their drink and food orders right away as they came in knowing what they’d like as they were regulars. There were five patrons who all ordered a pop as well as a water and then their food order. I filled the glasses with the appropriate beverages, loaded them on my tray, brought them over to their table, and then proceeded to spill the entire tray on all them.
They were absolutely soaked but fantastic about the whole situation. I was obviously very embarrassed and apologetic but they were unreal. They said that it wasn’t a big deal at all, and allowed me to continue to serve them the rest of the time, all while sitting there in their soaking wet clothes! They even left me a really good tip, I remember because it was the first and last table that I ever got to serve. After that it was back to washing dishes until I decided the restaurant business wasn’t for me.
But that’s not really where my restaurant story ends. I actually, somewhere along the line, started to love to deal with people and for a long time felt like running a restaurant would be something I would be interested in so when I had exhausted most other majors in college (I think I had gone through about 6) I decided to get my degree in what used to be known as Hotel & Restaurant Management which has now taken on a broader scope to include the entire service industry and is now known as Hospitality Management.
I have yet to re-enter the restaurant business but have strongly been once again contemplating it and felt like the issue of tipping may be something that would be worth doing some research on. The links below will lead you to several other great articles and facts about tipping and the restaurant business in general so I hope you check them out! But I started this blog with a video and I’d also like to end it with one. This is a TED Talk given in Canada from an individual who has worked in the Restaurant industry his entire life and has some fantastic information and suggestions about tipping. If you don’t check out the other links, at least give this video a watch. It’ll cost you 20 minutes of your life but the gratuity is already included!
 
Searching for the Life Lesson?
How about, don’t judge a book by its cover? When we talk about tipping it becomes too cut and dry of a topic, there aren’t tippers and non-tippers and those are the sides, both are really fighting against the establishment…they just don’t realize it a lot of the time.

 
A Few More Articles for Your Reading Enjoyment.
(Make sure to read all of the comments to really get a feel for how the battle has become one between Servers and Patrons rather than against the Restaurant Owners)
 
 
 
 

Monday, January 5, 2015

Stuart Scott


I hadn’t really thought about it for quite some time, I remember watching the touching tribute during the ESPY’s and I remember being very moved by the Jimmy V award winner’s speech, but Stuart Scott was a young man, a person who was always there and would undoubtedly win his battle with cancer. I didn’t really think too much more about it…until the morning of January 4th, 2015.

My dad and I were just preparing to leave my sister’s place in the cities to begin our journey back home after a nice vacation together. I had just stepped back in from outside when my sister told me the news, Stuart Scott had died. It was a weird feeling that came over me and I think I shared with the others in the room, we didn’t know Scott, but in a way we did…and we were all going to be sad that he was no longer with us.

I went to the gym when I got home to play some basketball and spoke with one of my great friends about this legendary ESPN anchor. He said that he had seen the announcement and that he had actually shed a tear (I certainly had as well). He put the sentiment of many in a good perspective, he said, “You know it’s kind of strange, I didn’t know the guy at all but he’s been a part of my life for like the last fifteen years. I don’t really know who he was as a person, but every single day I would listen to Stuart Scott for one program or another.”

It’s crazy how a personality you know no other way than through a program you watch can have such an impact on your life. But if you have seen any of the coverage since his passing, you can see that it may not be the same for every television figure that you run across, that some people just possess that quality no matter where you find them, and that Stuart Scott, by all accounts…was special.

I was saddened by the loss in a lot of the same ways that my friend was, but until last year’s ESPY’s…that was the only thing I knew about Stuart Scott. I wasn’t aware that he had been fighting the same battle my mom had once fought and I wasn’t aware that there was more to this person other than his dynamic personality that truly shone through his television persona. But then I watched the ESPY’s and saw a glimpse at this man’s battle and also who he was as an individual.

 

Then I heard him talk about his battle…

 

And I saw the essence of The V Foundation once again personified, as I had seen through Jim Valvano and I had seen through my mom’s battle. The will to not give up, to keep fighting as hard as they could right until the end because life truly is worth fighting for. I was moved by this man and how he was not just fighting this disease, but how he was living his life. He was not letting the disease define him, but was living with cancer.

I spent a great deal of last night watching tribute videos of Scott as well as re-watching these videos from the ESPY’s…and I cried. I watched more this morning that were televised through ESPN, videos of his co-workers and friends talking about the impact he had on their profession, the sports world, and most importantly, their lives.

Later on my dad stopped by the house to chat and have a cup of coffee and once again he and I spoke a little about Stuart Scott and I got to the point where it was hard for me to talk about it. I often get caught up in the fight against cancer because it’s so near and dear to my and my family’s hearts. Losing a loved one to cancer is never an easy thing and when talking about my mom, I always hate to say that she lost her fight against cancer. It’s just never felt right. She fought her ass off to beat the disease, to survive not for herself but for us and because life is worth living, so when she did pass away from cancer it didn’t really feel like she lost. We all feel a loss without her in our daily lives anymore, but she fought like hell and if there had been a way to truly win the battle, I can’t help but think that she would have.
That’s why I lost it this morning. I remembered my mom’s fight, and I’ve spent theses past nine years trying to figure out a better way to describe her battle, rather than saying that she lost it…then I heard Stuart Scott give his speech. I heard the words come out of this man that I had been searching for for the better part of a decade, “When you die, that doesn’t mean you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live and the manner in which you live.”
Here at Banana Daiquiris and Life Lessons we've talked a lot about heroes and I found it kind of funny to see that one of Stuart's favorite "heroes," Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland's 24 Character) presented him with the award, and he mentions it because it seems like a big deal to him. What's funny about that to me, is that it appears that he doesn't understand that there are two men standing on that stage, and that one played a hero on TV, while the other exemplified everything we believe a hero to be.

One of my favorite quotes of all time was something Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” I’ve always associated this quote with sports and have always found it a great way to inspire young athletes when I’ve worked with them throughout my life. But it wasn’t until after I heard Stuart Scott’s speech that I started to understand that this quote goes beyond sports, that it immortalized the same sentiment that Scott portrayed through his speech and the great Jim Valvano had done with his 20 some years earlier, that fighting the good fight and giving it your all…win or lose, results in victory.

Scott went on to say, “So live. Live. Fight like hell. And when you get too tired to fight, lay down and rest, and let somebody else fight for you.” While he was still with us he spoke of the family and friends that stayed by his side and reminded him to stay in the fight at his lowest points. So he kept fighting, just like Jim Valvano, and just like our mom.

All of these people, as well as so many others that I’ve known who have passed away from cancer continued to fight right through the end…but now they’ve reached their resting point and can fight no longer…so now we must continue our fight for them.

Each year a fantastic group of people join us to continue our fight against cancer through Hoops for Hope and The V Foundation for Cancer Research. If we hadn’t continued our mother’s fight we would never have found the amazing organization that we are now a part of. We wouldn’t have been inspired by her and Valvano to help continue to fight to find a cure and I may have never found the words that represent how I felt about my mother’s fight, through another warrior in the battle, Stuart Scott.

He would have just been a Sports Center anchor to me, I may have still shed a tear for him as my friend had, but I wouldn’t share this connection with him like I feel I now do.

One of the things that bothers me more than anything is that after we lose someone to cancer the family is left behind to try and pick up the pieces. I know this is a terrible thing to have to go through because me and my family have done it, and continue to do it every day. If I could I would love to talk to Stuart’s daughters and tell them that I’m here for them if they need someone to talk to. That despite the heartache that they’re currently feeling, that they need to know that they’re not alone. That there will be hard times, but the love their dad had for them won’t go away, its warmth will be with them for the rest of their days and every time they hear a story about their dad or see something that reminds them of him that it may hurt…but it also brings him back.

I would tell them to not forget his words, to live their lives to the fullest and to not forget how hard he fought to try and stay with them. That his love for them kept him going through an over seven year battle against a terrible disease. That they were his life.

I’d like to recruit them to join us in keeping the fight going for him. I hope they remember how hard he fought and how he seemed like he was never afraid to speak to others in the fight with him and offer an encouraging word to keep going, and that legacy is something that they can keep going to help him to keep fighting.

According to the tributes, Stuart Scott was also a man who loved children. He would go out of his way to talk to them and have actual conversations with them, and from all accounts he was loved by so many kids for these efforts. He knew that he was a public figure and he used that to bring joy to everyone, adults and children alike, which is something we should all strive for.

A plaque which my Grandpa always had hanging from his wall when we were kids read:

“That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much;
who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul;
who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it;
who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.”

It’s a way I’ve tried to live my life and when I heard of Stuart’s passing, it was the first thing that came to mind.

Stuart did not lose to cancer. He wanted to win and gave everything he could to win. He touched so many people in his far too short of time here and leaves a legacy which will continue to touch others long after we’re all gone as well…That man…is a success.

None of us know how we’ll die…but we can choose how we live, and Stuart Scott helped to inspire us to live life to the fullest and that it’s worth the battle.

Rest in Peace, Stuart.