(November 20, 2014 at 8:12 pm)pocaracas Wrote: If people are willing to tip you for 10% of the bill, then why not... here's a crazy idea... increase the prices by 10%, and pay the waiters 10% more?Inertia. The restaurant that raises prices by 10% to pay better wages will go out of business unless its competitors follow its example (and they probably won't be inclined to follow its example). It's a cultural thing here, which is the same reason we are not expected to tip a cashier.
It's also unlikely to change because waiting tables isn't a career; for most people it's a way to make some money until something better comes along. I don't think there's a particularly strong lobby to push for changes because of that.
I tip generously because I can remember working low-wage jobs just to get by and since I live in NYC I figure most waiters get far more shit than they deserve, so it's probably nice to get a generous tip now and then. I won't tip well if the service was awful, but as long as it's decent they'll get 20% or more. I recall the time I tipped a young guy almost 100% because I had to admire the enthusiasm he was bringing to the job. I can still see the look on his face when he realized he was getting a $40 tip for a $43 meal; I think he almost passed out.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
