Man says his perspective on tipping was transformed after speaking to his server friend
Topics: US News, Food and Drink, Shopping, Money
Joe Harker
Featured Image Credit: TikTok / @7am.thepoet / Antony SOUTER / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: US News, Food and Drink, Shopping, Money
Tipping is one of the more controversial parts of the restaurant experience, though it's a practice many will still carry on with even if they don't think it's the right way to do things.
Getting the bill is pretty much everyone's least favourite part of eating out, unless the chef has been pulling some Kitchen Nightmares antics, but what comes after that is figuring out how much to leave in a tip.
The question of how much to tip is difficult one to answer and while you probably don't want to dip below 10 percent on your tip there are some who think people ought to be paying significantly more than that as a gratuity.
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The acceptable rate seems to vary in different countries, as does which services someone would expect to receive a tip for.
It's generally accepted that waiting staff in restaurants should get tips, but there are some other professions where people have been asked to cough up a little extra and it's not gone down quite so well.
Plenty of people complain about tipping culture in general even if they do pay tips as they think it's engaging with a system which keeps people's wages down unfairly and forces them to rely on the generosity of customers.
If customers don't pay the tips the ultimate loser is going to be their server who works for a pittance and relies on their money to make ends meet, so as much as people may not like tipping many still do it.
One man revealed that his whole perspective on tipping had been flipped after talking to a friend who worked as a server.
Taking to TikTok to explain, he shared a clip from another video taken by a server where a table of nine people who'd spent over $200 had left behind just a measly $5 tip.
He said: "I had a good friend of mine that used to be a waiter at Applebee's and every time we went out to a restaurant as a big group he would make sure that we'd tip on top of the tip, the gratuity that's added.
"One day I asked him 'what's up with the tipping thing bro, we 'ain't ballin', his perspective changed my entire attitude towards tipping. His perspective was they gave him a $140 cheque.
"I'm like 'dude, minimum wage is 10 bucks, what are you talking about a $140 cheque?' He said 'no, for waiters and waitresses it's $2.30 an hour'. Imagine you working for two weeks and they hand you a $140 cheque."
The TikToker also confronted an argument he often heard against tipping, that of poor service from 'waiters and waitresses with bad attitudes', arguing that they were often caused by 'customers with bad attitudes'.
For those whose livelihoods rest on customers being generous tippers it's an issue they can't afford to dodge.
Fortunately there are people who champion the cause of those who don't get paid enough, as one mom sent her own son back to a restaurant after learning he hadn't left a large enough tip.
Mr Beast was recently hit with a backlash after leaving a sever a car as a tip after people realised that the name of one of his brands was daubed over it, though the YouTuber responded by revealing that the gaudy logos could easily be removed.