Service and Tipping

[pen_grunt]

I'm sure this is just a weird personal quirk, but I hate most things associated with a higher level of service. I dislike people carrying my bags for me (no, it's not a "don't touch my stuff" kind of thing, I'd just rather do it myself), I even hate people asking me if I need anything or if I'm looking for anything in a store. Therefore, things like hotels are all sorts of uncomfortable--particularly the nice ones.

The LaQuinta resort prides itself on a level of "celebrity" service--which means they take your bags before you check in and then escort you to your (far away) room on a golf cart (it's a village-type setup, with each pair of rooms being their own little casa). As I'm being escorted away from my bags, alarm bells are going off in my head. Must. Not. Be. Separated. From. Stuff...

The goal of the service industry is to anticipate my needs and constantly ask me if they are being met. In my world, this means that their goal is to harass me when I'd rather they just leave me alone.

Imaginably, this makes me resent things like tipping. In my stodgy midwestern view of things, I shouldn't have to tip people for doing things that I really would rather they not do. It's both a waste of money (uh, I do tip when convention dictates I must, so the driver got $2 for loading my luggage, one bellboy got $2 for taking my bag out of the taxi, the golf cart guy got some money for driving me to my room and insisting on putting my luggage in its place, and so on), and it's embarrassing (yes sir, please stand there awkwardly while I fish for small bills in the deepest recesses of my pockets).

If I had my druthers, it wouldn't be frowned on for me to get my own damn stuff. It would also be up to the hotel to pay their service staff enough to compensate for the lack of tips so that I didn't have to go through the uncomfortable exchange 3-4 times when I check into a hotel.

Then again, maybe I'm just a grouch--I would rather the food at a restaurant cost more and not have to worry about a tip (because I'm going to tip 20% unless there are bits of debris in my food and the service is really, really, really poor--so why not just add it onto my bill automatically and save me from weighing down loose bills with the salt and pepper shakers). It's not that I'm opposed to giving hard-working service persons tips, and it's not like I feel they don't deserve them, it's just that I feel they should be paid at a rate where tips would no longer be expected so I can be rid of the whole transaction.

Comments

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

OMG I completely agree, mostly because of the "they should be paid at a rate where tips would no longer be expected" part. So many people see tipping as optional and don't realize how badly they're screwing someone who's being paid a rate that assumes tips -- like, not only will they go home without that tip, but at most restaurants these days they will have to PAY that tip into the pool whether they received it or not, so that's just bullshit. The whole concept is ridiculous at this point.

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of paying the expected tip into the tip pool before. WTF? That's downright appalling.

I imagine that if employers paid service employees at a higher rate they'd end up with higher-quality, more experienced workers anyway--and how could that possibly HURT business (with the exception of slightly raised product prices)?

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's how it worked at the chain restaurant I worked in for a while. It's pretty common in chains. The servers had to tip out 20% -- considering plenty of people tip a standard 15%, and large parties tend to tip an amount that "looks right" to them, like $10, even if their bill was $500... a lot of people paid out of pocket for the tip pool. They'd get a percentage of it back eventually, of course, but it still bit.

I think the business owners just aren't thinking past the bottom line -- if I pay more, I get less profit in the short term.