In her excellent series on tipping, Connie Schultz (wife of Sherrod Brown, D-Oh) of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, exposes how many restaurants and party centers are ripping off their employees. This is apparently sanctioned by the National Restaurant Association.
The National Restaurant Association supports tip skimming on its Web site. "A substantial argument exists that when a customer leaves a tip it reflects the customer's satisfaction about all aspects of the dining experience, including the food ordered as well as the service provided by the servers."
Well, they got the first part right: A substantial argument does indeed exist. The fight begins whenever management decides that what we're really saying with our tip is, "Yes, please, by all means, pocket this money we intended for your server."
No matter where you live -- here in the Cleveland area or around the country -- tip skimming might be happening in a restaurant or party center near you.
It's time we customers educate owners about tipping and what we think of this "industry standard."
What they are saying is that, when a customer leaves a tip, they WANT management to keep the money as a reflection of the fabulous dining experinece they have just had. What a load of bull!
A similar shittiness is happening in the coat check rooms at party centers. She first wrote about it back in April when she attended a big function at a popular Cleveland party center and noticed that the jar in the coat room was stuffed with bills. She felt good about tipping the young woman who had helped her. Until she got curious and asked her if she got to keep all of it. She was told that all of the tips went to management. She wrote a column about it the next day and received thousands of letters from angry Clevelanders who had always assumed that their tips went to the employee.
Schultz suggest asking the server every time you go to dinner, or the person working the counter at the coffee shop, or the coat check room, whether they get to keep their tips.
The Toths have been asking servers and coat-check workers about their tips ever since April, when I wrote about how management at Windows on the River in the Flats kept hundreds of dollars of tips each week intended for its coat-check workers.
Windows management told me no one would care who got the money in the tip jar, but more than a thousand readers responded that day alone. The following morning, Windows changed its policy.
Several other party centers and restaurants quickly followed suit after readers ratted them out to me and I made the call.
Few stories generate the kind of response I get whenever I talk about that tip jar. Regardless of where we fall politically, socially or economically, we all agree: When we hand a tip to someone, we expect that person to keep it. That goes for coat-check clerks, valet attendants, bartenders and servers -- hourly wage earners all, most of them without benefits.
Apparently, some managers still think we don't care who gets our tip. When I called Marty La Malfa, senior vice president of the party center, he refused to talk about his tip-jar policy
Since reading her series, I have been asking the server every time I eat out if she/he gets to keep all of their tips. Some are reluctant to talk about it. Some mention the fact that if you pay by credit card, a service fee is deducted by management. Schultz suggests that, even when you pay with a credit card, you should try to leave a cash tip.
Please ask your server next time. Don't assume they are reaping the rewards of your kindness and compassion. And, if you find out they are being ripped off, tell management you think it is shitty, and then spread the word.
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