There is no state income tax in Alaska. More likely the expected gratuity has to be distributed to the rest of the staff, and possibly the owner? Restaurant food appears real cheap when the owner has to pay virtually no wages!

DAvid

This is why servers get off easy.

As of March 31, 2008, the minimum wages are the following:

* General Workers Minimum Wage – $8.75 per hour

* Liquor Server Minimum Wage – $7.60 per hour (note: applies to employees serving liquor directly to customers in licensed premises as a regular part of their work);

Student Minimum Wage – $8.20 per hour (note: applies to students under age 18, if more than 28 hours a week are worked during the school year, the General Minimum Wage applies to all hours worked in that week);

* Homeworkers Minimum Wage – $9.63 per hour or 110 per cent of the general minimum wage (note: this wage applies to all homeworkers whether they are full-time or part-time, or students under 18 years of age);

* Hunting and Fishing Guides are paid for blocks of time, not by the hour. They get a minimum amount for working less than five consecutive hours in a day, and a different minimum amount for working five hours or more in a day-whether or not the hours are consecutive. For working less than five consecutive hours in a day: $43.75. For working five hours or more in a day: $87.50.

I don’t think Kris’ mention of it being a disincentive to work in a restaurant is true just because the potential to make good money is still there. Besides, if you’re desperate, you’ll take any job!

CAN: It’s not law. This relates to the earlier posting on ‘Quality’. If the service is quality, then I will tip accordingly. Tip is for service only, I’m already paying for the food so if the food is cold/bad I will complain and deal with it that way.

It’s a pretty good challenge to find really excellent service these days — service you would be willing to pay 15-20% extra for — in any field. Also interesting that tipping has become so ingrained as part of cash-based occupations and not other types of occupations. I had some work done on my house this year and the contractor went FAR above and beyond the norm (municipal issues). There’s no way I’m going to tip him 20% on his invoice but I will definitely get him some kind of material good/tip/thank-you.

The thing that REALLY bugs me is the sense of entitlement some service industry workers have about being tipped — mainly coffee shops. Why? Getting me a coffee is your J-O-B! That is what you get paid a WAGE to do! No one throws me a Loonie just for getting to work on time every day — that’s just part of my job!

The ‘Penny Tip’: I think the original intent behind leaving just one penny means you think the service was excellent (don’t ask me why). Of course that sentiment is totally lost in today’s $$$ world. Or I could be completely off my rocker.

At least we aren’t Zimbabwe where they are printing up brand new $200 Million notes (that’s not a joke — their inflation rate is 230 Million percent — seriously). A loaf of bread costs $35 Million. That’s no joke either. Imagine trying to figure out a tip on a dinner for two, and carrying around the 17 pounds of cash to leave on the table! Even worse, the poor waiter at the end of the night who has to carry all his tips home! Bet he wouldn’t mind a couple of them shiny pennies.

If I’m the designated payer for the table, I’ll wait for everyone to decide on the tip for the entire table, and then pay the meal with the credit card and leave the tip in cash.

There are some places in the USA (eg Alaska), where the expected gratuity is assumed in the server’s income, so they get taxed on it weather you leave one or not. So if you don’t leave a gratuity there, the server loses money. (Incentive for good service, or disincentive to work for restaurants?)

On large tables, where the tab is a few hundred dollars, most of the places I’ve eaten at, automatically include the gratuity. In which case sometimes additional amounts are left if it was exceptional service.

It’s almost a disincentive to eat out anymore since restaurants are either raising the prices or making the portions smaller. If I can prepare the same thing at home for 1/4 of the price, may as well do that if the cost of the food and imaginary cost of my time makes if worth it.

I pay with credit cards and tip on the card. I’ve never had a server complain. I get 3% cash back on restaurant bills. I see no compelling reason here to carry around extra cash to use for tips just cause it might marginally benefit the server somehow.

For little things, I think you always need to carry some cash around. There’s so many unwritten rules and people who expect to get tips for doing nothing that its hard these days.

As far as tips, I always leave a tip usually in cash and it ALWAYS depends on service. Once I’ve left 2 pennies for incredibly bad and insulting service. I’ve also left better than 50% when the service is exceptional. What I hate is when a server expects a tip just for being a waiter/waitress or complains that the tip wasn’t 15%.

I almost always pay using CC, and tip with it also. It sucks if the restaurant takes the credit card fee out of there, but I’ve got no sympathy for those wanting cash so they can avoid taxes. No one else gets to dodge taxes, why should servers? Only if I received a discount would I pay cash.