UK credit cards in the States

MyRealNameToo

_Chris__2 said:

MyRealNameToo said:

_Chris__2 said:

It really is a ridiculous state of affairs when you're still expected to give a tip, even if the service (and food) was terrible!!

It's not a tip, it's service. Would you work for £1.58/hr as they do? Do you think you live in a big city like New York or LA on £1.58/hr? They have no right to paid holiday or sickpay either, if they are very lucky they will get 10 days for both, the average UK worker would be using half of that for sick pay and then wouldnt have enough days left to even cover bank holidays. 

US is supposed to be the land of opportunity so in their minds our "London living wage" of $19 plus sick pay, holiday pay etc is what's absolutely madness. Effectively you are paying staff well over $21 even if they are really poor and unreliable. 

They think it's better to allow customers to decide how much they get paid based on service or whatever other criteria the customer decides thus the good can earn well and the poor will scrape by. The reality of such however is even for poor service you should pay something else people can't live. 

But the issue is that I shouldn't have to pay above the charge for the dinner for example, if their individual service has been poor.

Thats a UK mentality where staff legally have to be paid a wage they can live on and there are benefits to help top up their income if they still can't afford life plus they get benefits like free healthcare. 

US has a totally different mentality, the price you see on the menu does not include service and does not include tax. Tax will be added on after and it's up to you what the server gets paid. Poor service is still service and so you still pay but not as much as you pay for good service. 

The US people visiting here equally struggle, a US colleague was really concerned when he went to the bar in a pub, got a glass of tap water and gave the bar staff a £1 tip and then got a look from the bar keeper. He was concerned he'd offended them by only giving a £1 tip for 2 glasses of water, had to explain it was a look of confusion as we wouldnt normally tip for a glass of water. 

_Chris__2

No-one, wherever they are in the world should be rewarded for giving a poor service.

MyRealNameToo

_Chris__2 said:

No-one, wherever they are in the world should be rewarded for giving a poor service.

And yet here they would be paid over $21/hr for poor service if you take the US mentality

MattMattMattUK

_Chris__2 said:

No-one, wherever they are in the world should be rewarded for giving a poor service.

Tipping culture in the US is very different, if you go out there and try and go for a no-tip or low-tip option you will at best have a very uncomfortable time. 

_Chris__2

MyRealNameToo said:

_Chris__2 said:

No-one, wherever they are in the world should be rewarded for giving a poor service.

And yet here they would be paid over $21/hr for poor service if you take the US mentality

Yep, and I'm not saying either country has got it right.

_Chris__2

MattMattMattUK said:

_Chris__2 said:

No-one, wherever they are in the world should be rewarded for giving a poor service.

Tipping culture in the US is very different, if you go out there and try and go for a no-tip or low-tip option you will at best have a very uncomfortable time. 

Yep, and I will quite possibly go along with it, but that doesn't mean I agree with it.

Nasqueron

Olenna said:

Nasqueron said:

MyRealNameToo said:

Theleak250 said:

Just a warning, when you pay for a restaurant bill, some places will give you the bill ,you pay the bill, then they will bring another receipt where you add your tip, you write down what you will tip and then leave, the tip is then charged to your card. (you have the card, they can still charge to it)

Never had that happen, the "check" normally arrives with a section on Service with them having helpfully calculated 15%, 20% and 25% plus an "other" for you to fill in as you see fit. When they come with the card machine they just make one charge for the total. 

If you select anything below 20% expect a discussion, if you say no service then in some places they can get fairly intimidating. Have to remember minimum wage for waitresses can be as low as £1.58 with service making up the rest, though if the service doesnt bring it up to £5.34 the employer must. Living in a big city £5.34/hr is going to get you nowhere 

The staff are rarely going to push back on claiming the difference because they know restaurant can sack them if they're in an "at will" state and they have naff all employee protections. The flip side, it's not my job to pay their wages, service should be a reward not an obligation, bad service being rewarded with a tip, even if "only" 10%, is not justifiable to me just because we might feel sorry for them. 

I'm sorry to say that you're simply wrong and will create a uncomfortable situation.

We got in heated discussion in a restaurant in Boston when we paid roughly 20% tip to use up our cash. The server was apparently expecting more and we popped in more notes to close the situation down. 

On another occasion, an English couple only paid the menu price for their breakfast in NYC and left the diner. The server started to swear, literally chased them down the street until they gave her a tip.

You might get away with not tipping in England but it's not the same story in the USA.

I'm sorry to say you're simply wrong because you replied to a comment I didn't make

Nasqueron

MyRealNameToo said:

_Chris__2 said:

It really is a ridiculous state of affairs when you're still expected to give a tip, even if the service (and food) was terrible!!

It's not a tip, it's service. Would you work for £1.58/hr as they do? Do you think you live in a big city like New York or LA on £1.58/hr? They have no right to paid holiday or sickpay either, if they are very lucky they will get 10 days for both, the average UK worker would be using half of that for sick pay and then wouldnt have enough days left to even cover bank holidays. 

US is supposed to be the land of opportunity so in their minds our "London living wage" of $19 plus sick pay, holiday pay etc is what's absolutely madness. Effectively you are paying staff well over $21 even if they are really poor and unreliable. 

They think it's better to allow customers to decide how much they get paid based on service or whatever other criteria the customer decides thus the good can earn well and the poor will scrape by. The reality of such however is even for poor service you should pay something else people can't live. 

US staff love the tip model and don't want it to change as they can grossly undeclare their income from tips and avoid tax.

We are not there to reward bad service with a 20% tip. Tips should be an amount, not a %. If I go to a restaurant and have a $5 drink and $20 salad, the waiter has done the same work as if I buy a $50 drink and $200 salad - $5 for the former, $50 for the latter, that can go straight in the bin. 

Olenna

Nasqueron said:

MyRealNameToo said:

_Chris__2 said:

It really is a ridiculous state of affairs when you're still expected to give a tip, even if the service (and food) was terrible!!

It's not a tip, it's service. Would you work for £1.58/hr as they do? Do you think you live in a big city like New York or LA on £1.58/hr? They have no right to paid holiday or sickpay either, if they are very lucky they will get 10 days for both, the average UK worker would be using half of that for sick pay and then wouldnt have enough days left to even cover bank holidays. 

US is supposed to be the land of opportunity so in their minds our "London living wage" of $19 plus sick pay, holiday pay etc is what's absolutely madness. Effectively you are paying staff well over $21 even if they are really poor and unreliable. 

They think it's better to allow customers to decide how much they get paid based on service or whatever other criteria the customer decides thus the good can earn well and the poor will scrape by. The reality of such however is even for poor service you should pay something else people can't live. 

US staff love the tip model and don't want it to change as they can grossly undeclare their income from tips and avoid tax.

We are not there to reward bad service with a 20% tip. Tips should be an amount, not a %. If I go to a restaurant and have a $5 drink and $20 salad, the waiter has done the same work as if I buy a $50 drink and $200 salad - $5 for the former, $50 for the latter, that can go straight in the bin. 

You're factually wrong; they have to work with the system they've got  - most dislike it as their core income isn't guaranteed and almost wholly dependent on the goodwill of patrons and tips won't count for things like mortgages or toward other benefits. They also rarely get things like medical cover, paid holidays or sick pay. 

European staff generally get their tips on top of a minimum wage plus paid holidays, government provided healthcare etc.

MyRealNameToo

Nasqueron said:

MyRealNameToo said:

_Chris__2 said:

It really is a ridiculous state of affairs when you're still expected to give a tip, even if the service (and food) was terrible!!

It's not a tip, it's service. Would you work for £1.58/hr as they do? Do you think you live in a big city like New York or LA on £1.58/hr? They have no right to paid holiday or sickpay either, if they are very lucky they will get 10 days for both, the average UK worker would be using half of that for sick pay and then wouldnt have enough days left to even cover bank holidays. 

US is supposed to be the land of opportunity so in their minds our "London living wage" of $19 plus sick pay, holiday pay etc is what's absolutely madness. Effectively you are paying staff well over $21 even if they are really poor and unreliable. 

They think it's better to allow customers to decide how much they get paid based on service or whatever other criteria the customer decides thus the good can earn well and the poor will scrape by. The reality of such however is even for poor service you should pay something else people can't live. 

US staff love the tip model and don't want it to change as they can grossly undeclare their income from tips and avoid tax.

We are not there to reward bad service with a 20% tip. Tips should be an amount, not a %. If I go to a restaurant and have a $5 drink and $20 salad, the waiter has done the same work as if I buy a $50 drink and $200 salad - $5 for the former, $50 for the latter, that can go straight in the bin. 

The minority who do well from it like it, the majority do not. Just look at the thousands of stories of people on pitiful guaranteed salaries having to ration life saving medicines etc because they can't afford to take the amount their doctor has prescribed as on a bad week they can't afford their rent or food let alone luxuries like insulin. 

Not sure there are many venues that sell a $20 and a $200 salad, most would tend to be at one end of the spectrum or the other. The UK has clearly decided a flat rate is better because we require staff to be paid by the hour in most cases for these types of jobs. The standard deviation on restaurant bills isnt typically that vast, especially for food, so the delta in tips isnt really that big if everyone pays the same percentage. There will be outliers like the person celebrating a landmark birthday who orders copious amounts of wine but then the waitress has done more then. There will be the person that accidentally wandered into the 3 Michelin star restaurant by accident and orders the side salad and tap water to save face and perhaps they couldn't afford the higher tip the server would be entitled to given the much higher ratio of servers to customers etc that these places typically have. 

No system is perfect, and though the OP has protested at the idea of having to pay someone who does only an ok job they do ultimately seem to slightly prefer it to increasing the prices to cover the fact salaries are over 10x what they currently are.