My first job (when I was 16) was at Taco Bell. I worked the drive thru, and this one guy drives up and orders a bean burrito, and is careful to specify that he did want onions. The reason he ordered it this way was that (at least at the time) it was standard practice to make a stock of bean burritos, and regular tacos ahead of time, since they were ordered so frequently, and since almost everyone always ordered “bean burrito, no onions” they usually just always made the pre-made ones without onions, even though it technically was a standard ingredient.

So anyway, I understood perfectly why this guy ordered it this way; he just wanted to make sure he got a traditional one – with onions like it’s supposed to be. So I said OK, finished taking his order, and repeated it back to him. Then he (obviously irritated by someone getting this wrong before) told me to be sure that there was onions on this one, since we (“you guys”) usually mess it up.

“I know what you mean”, I told him, “I’ll take care of it”.

Him: “No, I want to be sure. Will you be making it? If not, I want to talk to the person who will to make sure they don’t screw it up.”

Me: “I can’t really do that sir. I’m not supposed to be making the food, and the people who are are busy making food right now, but I’ll be sure to let them know.”

Him: “No, put it in as ‘extra onions’ just to be sure.’”

Me: “OK, fine”

Me: goes over to the food line when they’re making his, grabs a large handful of onions and tosses them in his burrito, making it easily >%50 onions.

He never came back to complain. From what I’ve heard of food service stories, that is a pretty mild one when it comes to customers who get a bad attitude. If you want to nit pick about your food, I would advise you to at least speak to the server as humbly and respectfully as possible, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because you really don’t want to piss anyone off that comes into contact with your food while you don’t see it.

That’s NOT true at all. The food is prepared a certain way, because just maybe(which has happened to me because the waiter admitted he did it), pressed the WRONG button and the kitchen cooked the COMPLETELY WRONG entree. So, NO, the wait staff has some control over the way the food is prepared if they don’t put the food order in correctly to BEGIN with. Secondly, if I have ordered a side of ranch and the server brings it to me with NO ranch, GEE, who’s fault is it? It’s the SERVER’S, because the cook was NEVER told the order verbally from the customer, the SERVER was. So, honestly, the server is the ONLY person that knows the order. Not even a food runner may have no idea if it isn’t printed on a ticket. Since the server took my order, it is up to THEM to make sure they bring out the ENTIRE order correctly. It’s like don’t come with onion rings, if I ordered fries. Honestly, HOW will the cook know if the server doesn’t print the ticket correctly or verbally tell the cook? Also, even if the cook knows, the tip relies on good service, so depending on SOMEONE ELSE for a server’s tip is just STUPID. The only person the server can trust is THEMSELF. So, I say don’t rely on the cook or food runner to get the order right, because, 80% of the time, I have something missing when a food runner brings my food. I have had some servers bring condiments to me BEFORE my meal arrived, because they told me they didn’t want to forget them. Those servers got a GREAT tip for caring about the customer’s needs. Also, if I ordered white bread and the cook put wheat bread, it’s OBVIOUS the cook messed up and for a server to bring it to my table that way is INSANE. So what if the cooked messed up, wasting my time bringing the wrong thing to me doesn’t help the server’s tip any, it just makes things worse by wasting ALL customer’s time, not just myself. Bring it out correct, that should be the goal.

I am the complete opposite. If some of the meal is wrong, it’s the server’s job to make it right. I am NOT going to enjoy my food unless it’s COMPLETELY correct. Like if I don’t have my side of ranch dressing. I don’t like ketchup, but I do like ranch dressing with fries. I am PAYING for the server to get it right, by gosh, GET IT RIGHT.

“And if you can’t treat them well out of simple respect.”

Simple respect, would accompany an apology for my missing item. Say your sorry like you care and I’ll care more about your tip. It’s disrespectful not to apologize for a mistake, whether it is a small mistake such as forgetting a side of ranch dressing or a huge mistake like a completey wrong entree brought to my table.

“This is also why it kind of even bugs me when people do complicated special orders of stuff that isn’t really on the menu, or add/subtract so much from it that it takes a whole sheet of paper to write down the special instructions.”

Disagree with you TOTALLY. The customer wants a hamburger medium well with lettuce and onions only with 2 sides of mayo and 1 side of mustard. That is how I’ve ordered before. It has gotten messed up a few times. I don’t like too much mustard and I like a whole lot of mayo. Sometimes, the cook may put too much of mustard and not enough mayo. I’d rather be prepared AHEAD of time and just order it on the side. I am the customer, so please me, that is the server’s job, whether it is complicated or not. If the server can’t write each and EVERYTHING down, it’s not my fault that it comes out wrong. The server didn’t take ANY EFFORT to TRY to even get it right. Also, if they do write it down, WHY NOT just REREAD the order BEFORE bringing it to the customer? Otherwise writing it down is USELESS.

Simple fact is, you are in the minority of people who rather see the restaurant charge instead of the customer tipping. What is it that will change your mind?

Your opinion truly doesn’t make sense to me because you say that the employee should be paid that 15% but by the employer and not the customer. What does it matter? Just think 15% is an obligated tax on top of you meal and if you have good service then you could tip.

The pros of tipping:
You can actually skimp the “obligated” 15% if your service is bad. You can’t do that if your burrito price has increased.
The employee is happier.
The management is happier.
The customer is happier because they know they are in control of the customer service.
“Idiot” employees; as you egregiously called them; work harder.
and all the others above.

Cons of tipping:
You don’t need to multiply the tax.

If the CM fired 85% of the caddies what would you suggest for having to hire, train and weed out 40 good caddies in 1 week?

I also don’t think it’s appropriate to call them idiots. One reason, what’s stupid about knowing you could do half the work for the same pay, that’s not idiotic, it’s lazy.

Anyways: The point is not that the Caddies were not disciplined but that they work harder, more efficient, and are feel better about thier work when they get paid/tipped directly by the consumer.

And this example is the only example any of us can bring to this conversation because this is the only example that has/had real consequences of not tipping in a tipping field of work.

implying that food service employees are some kind of lower class person that will never do good work without tips to motivate them

I am saying that great work or higher then expected work would occur when that great service is compensated directly and not indirectly.

You cannot compare yourself to this situation because you make more money and you are not in a “customer service” field. It’s different when you see one customer a month or year than 50 a day.

Maybe we should talk to a waiter or waitress. Because neither of us are very familiar to what is best.

But I do know tipping is the best in most fields because I have experience with it. I couldn’t imagine 2 years ago my Caddy Master giving every Honor Caddy a certain wage, and getting non-expected tips. In my experience, since certain occasions we did do this, it created two types of employees, the ones that worked real hard for the extra tips and another that would smoke dope all day and do nothing because they knew it wasn’t worth it since there was only a 10% average difference in total wage. From your previous comments you would say, the Caddy Master needs to fire those stoners and get better employees. Not possible/practical since it consisted of 85% of the caddies on those days and most importantly when we went back to normal, every caddy worked 110%. So from a managers point of view club determined that employees work best under tipped compensation. And I would think it would be the same in the restaurant business, but all speculation.

Of course, if you have a bad manager, then they won’t be observing their employees’ customer service (along with all the other relevant aspects of their jobs), but I could just as easily say that there are plenty of “bad” (or unfair in regards to tipping) customers out there. Some will not give a good (or maybe even any) tip for excellent service, many will still give the expected 15% tip regardless of bad service, and I’m sure there are more than a few that will give a bigger tip to certain waiters (or waitresses, more specifically) whom they “click with”, if you know what I mean.

Every inadequacy and bias you point out about managers can also easily be applied to customers. To say that it’s impossible for managers to assess performance I think is incorrect.

Also, not expecting tipping will in no way hinder your ability as a customer to provide input to the owner/manager on how their employees or doing, nor will it prevent you from tipping the employee if they do provide good service. If anything, it would enhance it. I’m not suggesting banning tipping, just suggesting that the restaurant could let the customers know that no tips are expected.

That way, if you as a customer receive excellent service, you are still completely free to tip the employee, or just make a comment to the manager that the employee provided excellent service. In the same manner, you also still have the ability to report bad service to the manager, which is probably much more effective than “sending your message of disapproval” by giving a small (or no) tip.

Unless no tips are expected (as I suggest), employees that give mediocre service (or even bad service) are still going to get tips a lot of the time (in the current model that you favor), whereas in mine, the customers would only give tips if they were really deserved, so if anything my strategy would provide even more tip-based motivation for good service!

Furthermore, if the service really did deteriorate like you predict, even the bad manager would quickly notice the drop in sales that would result, and then start paying more attention to the part of their job that involves monitoring service and make adjustments accordingly.