More and more places I go have that electronic kiosk on the table now that has an optional survey that includes feedback on service.
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I didnāt say that!
It isnāt lagal in any state. The tips are added to the less than mimimum wage pay. If it doesnāt average out to minimum wage, the business would have to supplement the difference.
I just donāt think it should be legal for a business owner to use tips paid by patrons. It is legal however so they arenāt breaking the law. I just believe there shouldnāt be a seperate minimum wage for tipped employees. The business owner should have to pay the minimum wage per hour. There are plenty of different jobs that get optional tips that have to pay their employees minimum wage, meaning they do not take tips into consideration. And a tip for your server, while the social norm, is still an optional payment (unless added to your bill with prior warning).
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Listen, as a manager Iām going to say that if a complaint about a team member results in them being fired? Itās a pattern that has been addressed and which they fail to rectify
Nobody is going to get fired over a one-off
And who knows if it was the serverās fault ā the kitchen has way more control over your experience than I ever realized
Finally, as a manager I need to know when my team is not performing to standards or we canāt fix it. I need to know who needs coaching for improvement, and I need to help them with how they are performing their job so that they can maximize their income (whether tips based or merit increase based)
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Ah. You know, I have only been to one or two places that have those kiosks, and Iāve basically just ignored them. 
Only once was I actually āforcedā to have to use it to pay, which I found annoying.
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I havenāt heard of that. I was a terrible waitress for about a year and a half. I did get only $1 from a table I kept inadvertently neglecting. I felt awful for neglecting them not angry I only received $1.
It is usually pretty easy to tell if it is the kitchenās problem or not. Iāve mentioned it before, but our experience at Steakhouse 71 was less than stellarā¦but that was entirely the fault of the kitchen, not our server. While the server comped us for one of our meals, I still tipped her on what the full amount WOULD have been because her service was still great.
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Right. That was kind of the point of the penny, in my motherās day. It was a signal, and unless it was clear that it was NOT their fault, my mom did usually recognize why she had received the penny. In one particularly terrible case, she actually spilled coffee directly on a customer!!! 
(ETA: Not intentionally, by the way!)
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Not from a good manager at least. The on shift manager or serving manager can be in that position just because they were there x amount of time. They can have no real knowledge of what it is to be a good manager and just have operational experience. Iāve seen and heard some crappy ones berate servers.
I so wish the American posters to this thread could read it with the same eyes we foreigners do. Some of you have stated tipping policies that are almost beyond my parody.
The American tipping system is idiotic: immoral, illogical, inconsistent, indefensible.
And hereās the proof: you people canāt even agree amongst yourselves what the system is.
In December my party of four dined at GG on the CP package. This turned out to be the most expensive meal we had during the trip, in part because of the CP uplift to the prices. The tip ended up being around $60. I have to work for an hour to earn that kind of money. My friends have to work for around three hours to do so. How long did the server spend waiting on our table? Five minutes?
And what made that meal special? Not the food. And certainly not at those prices. Not the server, either, who did the bare minimum required. It was the theming and the characters. And how much of that $60 goes to the characters? Iām guessing none, but I donāt know because the system isnāt even transparent. I have no idea where the money goes.
What is so bizarre to me is how slavishly loyal Americans are to this ridiculous system. At best they will throw their hands in the air and say, well it is what it is and thereās nothing you can do about it.
Which is nonsense of course. State and federal legislatures could do something about it and you vote for those people. I know they have more important things to do, like protecting children from drag shows, but there must be a little bit of time available to address economic issues.
But an even quicker, easier solution is available. Disney could announce today that it was banning all tipping at its parks and will instead pay its cast members a fair and reasonable wage. (I checked into a Marriott hotel in Canada in the 1990s that had exactly this policy.)
Wait. Whatās that you say? All the CMs at CG would quit in protest? Because they make more money than half of the people they serve because of the hugely inflated tipping system that Iām sure was 10% when I first visited the US.
And doesnāt Mr Pink have a point? Why do you tip the TS wait staff but not the QS servers? Seriously. I want to know. Donāt say itās because the QS have a higher base wage. With tips the TS are making vastly more money. And why? Do they work harder? Clue: No, the QS ones do. (Donāt believe me? Which job would you take? Hmm?)
And if itās about base wage, why do you tip Mousekeeping? Theyāre not on three bucks an hour.
These debates are always sterile because the US can never admit itās wrong about anything. US exceptionalism prevents you from learning about other countries and how they solve their problems. And your foundation in Puritanism still instills in all of you that the poor are poor through their own failings: they should be punished for being poor and kept poor. So the caste system of TS and QS must be maintained, however crystal clear the inequality of it.
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So really what you are saying is that is it seems to be difficult to change cultural norms?
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I think most people dislike the American tipping āsystem.ā Would anyone here in this thread defend it? I certainly wouldnāt. Thereās little we can do about it individually though. Some restaurateurs have experimented with a no-tipping policy but it hasnāt caught on at scale.
Putting pressure on a behemoth like Disney isnāt a bad ideaāthey could exert some real influence on the matter. Maybe someone (
) should start a petition.
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Slightly off topic (but related)ā¦but in GENERAL, pay is usually more based on replaceability than necessarily who works harder. So, working at, say, a fast food joint is far easier in terms of replacing one employee with another. But waiting tables at a TS restaurant, this isnāt at all the case. There is a lot to learn to be good at it.
I will say that many people who make FAR less than me work way āharderā. Why? Because the time to train or find someone who has my expertise in what I do far exceeds the time it takes to, say, train a worker to work on an assembly line. That isnāt to disparage their work (my dad worked his entirely life at an assembly plant, eventually working his way into managerial roles). Only to illustrate the point. (And the point is in general, because there are definitely exceptions!)
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To answer your question about the penny- it is dangerous. My sister freely shares the story of chasing customers out to their cars and whipping the Pennieās at them while screaming, āyou forgot your change!ā.
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Thatās scarily funny! 
Had a friend do that same thing when we were in college too.
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Well you could tip smarter.
That tip I gave at GG? I should have tipped $20. Thatās plenty generous for the work involved.
Oh, but they get taxed on the expected tip, you say? Fine. Iāll pay the tax. Whatās the rate? 20%? So the tip āshouldā be $60. I got $20 of value from the server (at most). Plus 20% of the expected tip. Total $32.
Edit: Actually, now Iāve paid too much. I should only pay the tax on the difference between the expected tip and what I actually tip. So $20 + 20% x $40 = $28.
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You yourself said you donāt know where the $60 went. Maybe some of it did go to the characters ā¦ and/or the kitchen staff ā¦ and/or the host station. You might be stiffing all those hourly workers who depend on tips to make rent.
Look, I donāt like the current arrangement either. Pay the staff a fair wage and be done with it! But this is how it works now, and I donāt like the idea of punishing workers for the lousy system.
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Have wondered the same thing. Is it still a thing.
Tho it was 2 cents.
Lots of time the manager was the owner and was the head and possibly only cook. You didnāt ask to talk to the manager.
Fairly sure hardly anyone has heard of leaving two cents nowadays.
There is pressure to tip. I donāt care. Iāve worked enough in food service Iāll not tip and wonāt be back. I probably wonāt be missed either. 
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I remember my dad mentioning this 1 penny tip way back in the day. Have never done it but donāt think it has been used for a very long time.