Originally posted by: torpid
Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo
how is packing and boxing up food to go more work than walking around, taking your order, refilling drinks, carrying and balancing plates of food, coming back to make sure everything is ok (potentially dealing with an irrate customer who's food wasn't prepared to his liking which has absolutely nothing to do with your waiting service), and then cleaning up the table/utensils/dishes after you?
Carrying plates of food is similar to boxing and packing. They still have to walk around. Why is that a duty worth tipping? They aren't leaving the restaurant either way. They still take your order and have to deal with irate customers whose food is not prepared to their ridiculous specification. Not all wait staff clean up after you, but I'll grant it anyway. So basically they do about half of the things mentioned for none of the tip. Like I said, which of those is worth that tip exactly?
Since when do the servers box hot food? Maybe it was just my place, but the chef boxed and packed everything up unless it was being wrapped up from a table that had finished eating. It'd be inefficient to wait for someone to come off the floor, take steaming hot pans and plates and start putting them into containers to pack up. Servers don't plate hot food, so why would you expect them to plate to-go orders? So what, they throw in some prepackaged utensils and some napkins. What a chore.
So they'd:
-Take the order and put it into the computer
-Throw utensils into the bag
-Retrieve the food
-Ring you up
The staff will do it in their down time anyway. It's not like they're telling that party of 15 to fuck off so they can get your $30 take-out order done. It's part of the job that comes with being a server in a restaurant that offers that.
And as for the tip, busboys can absolutely make or break a waiter's tip. If the bus boy isn't prompt on clearing off dishes, cleaning tables, refilling water glasses, or any of their other responsibilities, it's the difference between a $1.00 tip and 25%. I've shared as much as 50% of my tips with them at the end of the night because of the spectacular job some of them have done. You're not just tipping the waiter when you tip, you're tipping the entire staff. Unless maybe you're unique and you hand out your tips to each individual person.
As for their responsibilities.
-Like I said before, I don't know where your experience is, but servers don't box to-go orders. Not nearly as difficult as proper table service. And proper table service doesn't mean slamming the plates on the table and walking away.
-Dealing with irate customers on the phone is not nearly as taxing as dealing with the people in person. Most of the people won't realize until they get home, then they'll half-ass their bitching to the manager, who will give them a coupon for next time or whatever.
-I've already talked about how the bus boys responsibilities (cleaning, water refills, bread, etc) directly relate to the server's tips. Also that you're tipping the entire staff, not just the server.
-There are many more aspects to serving which go along with why people tip. Ask yourself why there are waiters and why there are bus boys. Then look at their attitudes and how personable they are. The differences are not only in what work the positions do, but how they interact with the customer on a personal level. That right there is a huge factor in how people tip. I've managed to still get very nice tips even when everything else has gone to shit because of how I interacted with the customers and how they viewed me.
There is not just a single aspect of these that deserves a tip. When everything comes together in an enjoyable experience, that's when the tip comes into play. Any single aspect can absolutely ruin the experience, resulting in no tip.
If anybody should be getting a tip for to-go orders, it should be the cooks. They're the ones doing all the work and the person you rely most on for the good experience. Completely different than table service.
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