Jul
19
Check Please! : Money in Transition
July 19, 2007 |
Two ‘older’ gentlemen, having just finished their lunch, were talking together as they walked their lunch check to the reception desk at the restaurant’s entrance. They were, perhaps, a little surprised when the girl behind the podium seemed to shrink back in horror as they attempted to hand her the check.
This scenario is in stark contrast to the story of the grandmother I recently wrote about. Here we see these two generations acting, not from a common experiential base, but from a set of understandings based on time fixed custom.
How to Pay in a Restaurant
The elderly gentlemen were observing the second rule. They weren’t in a diner. It would have been very difficult to confuse their current surroundings in the Legal Seafoods Restaurant with a diner. But they were having lunch and this fact may have propelled them into diner mode. The girl at the podium, on the other hand, had probably spent most of her outside dining experiences observing rules one and three. Under the current circumstance she had no idea why these gentlemen would be trying to hand her the check.
This was becoming a source of growing frustration for the gentleman with the check in his hands. Fortunately there was a second hostess witnessing what was threatening to become a scene of elderly righteous indignation. This young woman was approximately the same age as the first girl but was able to bridge the generational chasm She had the good sense and presence of mind to accept the check and promise to deliver it to the appropriate server. As I watched this scene unfold I wondered how these gentlemen might have reacted if they had stayed at their table long enough for their server to come by with the restaurant’s new pay@table device. 
Variations on Rule Three: Don’t Touch My Plastic!
Welcome to the Legal Seafood Restaurant at the King of Prussia Mall. I have had the advantage of watched my server instruct the mother, lunching with her son at the next table, in the intricacies of Ingenico’s new pay@table device. I therefore knew that, for my security and convenience, my debit card would never leave the table.
When it came my turn to experience the wireless device my server began to patiently explain what I was expected to do. The i7770 pay@table wasn’t complicated. In fact anyone experienced with the ubiquitous, do-it-yourself debit stations everywhere, from gas pumps to grocery stores won’t find the process difficult. The most ingenious innovation in this process involves the repurposing cash-back feature. However, instead of prompting you to take more cash for yourself, the pay@table is programmed to make it very easy to leave a tip for your server.
The Institutionalization of Tipping
In this way the i7770 promises to become boon for undertipped servers everywhere. There is currently an informal set of rules regarding tipping procedures. Most restaurant patrons understand that, depending on their server’s level of service, and their own discretion, tips from 15% to 20% are standard. In the case of large groups many restaurants impose a tip of 18% to insure that their wait staff is fairly compensated. It is only in this last case where the choice of percentage and calculating the actual tip amount have been handled automatically by the restaurant.
Now, courtesy of the pay@table device sitting on the table in front of me, all I had to do was press number 2 for a 15% tip, 3 for a 18% tip, and 4 for a 20% tip. No need to make those onernous calculations; good news for the mathematically challenged. This is also good news for servers. There will be no more confusion concerning how much to tip your server. It will be clear that these percentages, 15%, 18%, and 20%, represent usual and customary practices. Although patrons can choose to calculate and add their own tip, most will choose to press one of the buttons.
This will also another potential upside for restaurant patrons. An incompetent server who currently gets a subpar tip can always rationalize it away by denigrating the customer’s mathematical skills. With the pay@table a customer has to do little more work to leave a tip either less than 15% or more than 20%. Servers will learn to pay attention to the message a customer is sending by proferring by a tip that falls outside the clearly defined norms.
Comments
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Just a note on the tipping issue- you’d be surprised how many people choose to ignore the standard 15, 18 and 20 percent buttons to leave 10 percent or less. Most of these instances are not provoked by bad or inattentive service, but rather the stinginess or even spite of the customer. It’s sometimes shocking to see how easy it is for someone to drop $100 or even $200 on lunch or dinner and then how hard it is for them to leave the extra 15% for service.
Isn’t there a cutoff point as far as what the server has actually earned?. Dinner for four at a Family Diner: $22.00- a 15% tip @ $3.30. Dinner for four at a Fine Dining Restaurant: $200.00 a 15% tip @ $30.00.
The diner server deserves more money; the fine dining server may do a little more work, but their tip is inflated by expensive spirits and wine, potentially. Why do I want to pay another $30 when $10 plates and $40 plates take the same amount of walking and “is everything OK?”. I don’t. In my opinion, Flo and Pierre do the same amount of work. Earn a living off of tips at your own risk, especially in an America that is ever consumed with consumerism.
All that said, I empathize with all servers and usually give’em a hearty tip (even Pierre).
This response is to Jeff- if in your experience a server at a diner does more work than a server at a fine dining restaurant, then you are eating at the wrong fine dining restaurants. If you are financially able to eat at a fancy restaurant, then you’re financially able to leave a %15 tip.