Giving tips in Poland

Stupid question: where is "here"? In Poland?


The same system is in Quebec, Canada. It's just greedy government. So unfair to everybody: clients and servers.

I don't know what are you talking about. It's a practice to tip 10% in restaurants in Poland. Waiters are underpaid and tips make up a big part of their wage. Unless of course they make you angry.

There is no practice to tip anywhere else, even if servicemen try to suck it out from you.

really??? How can Canadians walk away without leaving a tip at all, then??
Mostly, I posted because I was concerned about Polish travelers getting an undeserved reputation simply because they thought their servers were getting an ample salary already.

Yeah. I was talking about one province in Canada. I'm not familiar with the rest of Canada.


They pay. Sometimes the tip is already included.

Were you talking about Poland?

Bzibzioh
No, I'm talking about US. For some reason, many of the Canadian tourists here are under the impression that the tip is already included on the check.

If it's included then it's not a tip. Tips are voluntary not mandatory and you can refuse these "gratuities automatically added" things. Most people don't look that close at the bill, and others don't want to make a scene. It really is slimy.

The restaurant does not get to decide how much you tip....YOU do. Without that being true the whole point of a gratuity is null. It becomes rather an added fee than a tip.

Agree. It pisses me off, too. I went once to a self-serving salad bar and at the end there was a 15% "service fee" added. And there was NOBODY serving me at all! Welcome to socialist Canada.

I presume that most of the waiting stuff in Poland and in Europe is on salary. It is not so in the USA. Therefore, your tip is the waiter's salary they need for their rent, college tuition or food, whatever. I don't know who came up with this type of system, but that's what it is. Basically, the waitress (waiter) are simply sales people who sell food. It is their job to sell drinks,appetizers, more expensive entries, desserts and do it pretty well with a charming smile. The nicer and better they are, the higher their salary is. Working at a fine restaurant (a high end steak house)can mean 40K + a year - easily. Unfortunately, you have no evenings for yourself nor holidays. It sucks and you have no life. I know, I've done it in the past. Luckily, it was a couple of decades ago and I would not want to do it now, good money or not.

It may have changed, but we paid 15% on our credit card charges tips only and did not have to declare cash tips. YPEEE. Nowadays, 20% is the norm. If you can not afford to pay for the service, just pick some junk food to go or cook your darn food at home.

you were lucky! we had to declare 15% of total sales, and if we complained, then it was assumed that we were not good enough...
The only thing I miss about those old times is that once my shift was done, I was free. I didn't take my work home - physically or mentally.

I do pay for the service...and the prices are already quite high. The difference between you and me is that you think that tip is part of the service. (which it is not...it is a reward for GOOD service) You think you deserve the tip because your hourly rate is low. I do not. If you want a guaranteed higher hourly rate get a different job.

When I have to pay 100 dollars for two people to eat out I am not going to pay 20% more if the service is not stellar. I do not feel obligated to subsidize your salary..I feel obligated to reward good service because that is the system. Yet most waiters have decided they "deserve" the tip because they don't get much in salary. Sorry it doesn't work that way.

Yes, that it. That was the good part of it. Now I can't shake off my work issues until I go to bed! lol.

beelzebub
then obviously you do not understand the system here. Maybe you should talk to somebody you know that works for the tips. But the best lesson for you would be if you, or somebody you care about, had to work for the tips. Until then, I'm afraid you'll remain clueless.

I understand it perfectly. And the only people who think like you are wait staff. The normal public sees tips as rewards for service. We are often guilted into it by people like you because you paint us as bad guys if we don't tip you as a standard. You get tipped if you deserve it not because you think you do.

Again, I think the public you are talking about might not realize that the base salary might be a buck an hour. And you might think that the wait stuff has something to do with setting the prices on the menu. Or what is on the plate. Or how fast the food comes out of the kitchen. Sometimes, great understanding comes from having to walk in someone else's shoes.

No. The normal public sees tips as a reward for a service received. Bad service smaller payment, excellent service - a great reward. The general public is highly aware how the restaurant system works. Only a few little and cheap people here and there are not.That's when they get a flat tire on way back from a restaurant..hehehe.

LOL Cheapskates should at least be savvy enough not to patronize the same place again... because if you think the wait staff will not remember you, you are so wrong... Unless, of course, your idea of a steakhouse is Bonanza.. or Panderosa.. or Golden Corral (I had to google :) )

That's the same thing I said. When you get good service you tip well..when you get poor service you tip low or not at all. That is how the system works.

If some people choose to tip just because the "poor widdle waitress" makes 2 dollars per hour then that is their choice....but gratuities are a reward for good service system.

Nobody forced them into that job...they knew how it worked. This smug attitude that says they deserve a tip as a matter of fact...regardless of the quality of service...is WHY you would receive a lower tip...customers pick up on that. If someone gives bad service but it's because they are slammed and sick...they still get a good tip...if they give poor service and are an arrogant tw@t they get zilch.

f-stops comments about how anyone who doesn't tip well it a cheap loser are exactly why people are adversarial toward the system often. I refuse to have my food held hostage by someone,threats of doing something to it or giving poor service intentionally are pathetic....if a place understands the good service equals good tips system they are rewarded well and get repeat business. If they are like you guys seem to be they will not.

You are just thick as a brick. NO, THE 15% GRATUITY IN US IS A PAYMENT FOR HAVING YOUR FREAKING GRUB BROUGHT TO YOUR PIEHOLE! IF YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND THIS, NEXT TIME JUST PULL UP TO THE DRIVE THROUGH WINDOW!

No...its not. And your lame insults don't help your case. In the US you tip well if you get GOOD service...I do not owe you anything extra if you are a jerk, screw up my order, charge me wrong etc. Maybe you were taught this by other entitled servers but the average person views tips as a TIP. A REWARD for good service. It is a payment above the required payment to show appreciation for good service. Simple.

Please tell me where you work so I can be sure to avoid it. I would hate to have to accidentally tip you 20% because you were faking it but behaving like this when the customers can't hear you.

You are confusing how you want it to be with how it really is.

I bet most of the wait staff has you pegged walking through the door. No wonder you have problems getting good service.
The "appreciation" is above and beyond the 15%. Get his through your head!
And do not assume you know more about this bussiness than I do. You don't.

You would lose that bet :) I get good service from good servers and crap service from people with attitudes like yours. You are so arrogant it is oozing out of the screen.

You are shooting yourself in the foot because I tip well when it is deserved. The only people who seem to get upset about this like you are are constantly underperforming servers...they get bad tips then blame the customers for their own incompetence.

Are you really going to keep with the line that you deserve 15% simply for carrying the food over? Regardless of how well or accurately you do it?

Unfortunately, there are customers who do not tip well, simply because they are cheap or do not understand how the restaurant business works. They would leave 10% or less even if the waitress would do a dance on her eye lashes and on top of her prompt and attentive service. Maybe that's what f stops is trying to say. I remember from my humble past some customers that none of us wanted to wait on, we rotated them ( the hostess would help), so we don't 'waste' our table on them. Yet, they were educated and prominent people.

Needles to say, we hated them! :)
Also, don't EVER sent your plate back to the kitchen twice.

No f-stop is an entitled little child. One who thinks they "deserve" a gratuity simply for being alive. He/she doesnt understand the system at all but rather has twisted it into something that benefits them regardless of how they perform. As I said they blame poor tips always on cheap people rather than their poor performance.

You guys are highlighting why I don't like to go out much...you have a bunch of people who are controlling your experience and kind of have you held hostage. If your food is bad and you send it back YOU get blamed or messed with. If you leave a low tip because your service was HORRIBLE then YOU get the blacklist treatment.

Restaurant people are a bunch of whiny tools often...but then that's why they work there usually...they can't get a decent job where they don't have to whine about tips.

I hate repeating myself. If you can't get it through your head that the moment you walk into a restaurant with full service, you are agreeing to subsidize the wage of your wait staff to the tune of 15% of your bill, I don't know what else I can say. The low wages of the wait staff are based on civilized, honorable clientel that, for most parts can grasp this concept. "Appreciation" is above and beyond that. This is not a 'napiwek' for someone that already makes a full salary. Do you get it? Do you understand that they pay income on 15% of their sales? The system sucks, I grant you that, it's like if you were able to take back half of the saleslady's hourly wage if you were not satisfied with the service. Ask yourself this, why would your waitress purposly give you bad service? Or screw up your order? If I am really ticked off about something my waiter did, I talk to the owner - if the help is incompetent, he should know about it. But I will not be a part to somebody serving me, however badly, on slave wages. In this country, if you are not happy with your employee, you have to pay them for the time they worked, then you can fire them. I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp, so I'll say it again: the moment you walk into a restaurant with full service, you are agreeing to subsidize the wage of your wait staff to the tune of 15% of your bill. That is the system. And people like you are just ignorant.

I do not agree to that and neither does anyone I know or most anyone I have ever talked to about this. We agree to pay the price on the menu...and to tip well when we get good service. We do not agree that we pay you 15% as a standard fee. YOU are the problem here not me. YOU are the one that is acting like a spoiled child and biting the hand that CAN feed him even more.

Maybe you should re-evaluate your career choice. You aren't really cut out for it since you don't understand how it works.

Actually, think a little here. If there were no wait stuff - there would be no fine restaurants or simple diners. Where would you take your hot date then? What makes you think that restaurant people are a bunch of whiny tools? Most of the people I worked with long, long time ago were college/university students (including me). One of my former coworkers became a known lawyer in Chicago... the rest of us got good jobs after finishing studies. There was also an opera singer waiting on tables between shows...and singing when she had a 5 min. to spare.. Your attitude toward your server may influence the service you get too..sometimes it's not all about the money. After a while you tend to smell an as*hole from a distance.

tips always sucked in PL....
but service too...

beelzebub
Service industry paid for my college education. You, and your ilk (lot of roofers), who are deluding themselves that the fact that someone is waiting on them makes them superior and that they know anything about the bussiness are a thorn in everyone's side. Like i said, just pull up to the drive in window. you don't have to tip anyone there.

Are you saying I am a roofer? How could you have the slightest clue as to my job?

See you have projected so much onto me when all I have said is a tip is a reward for good service...this is how I was raised and how everyone I know thinks.

I didn't say I am a demanding, rude, or difficult customer. I am not. I am very polite and I don't think I am above the server. I just refuse to be held hostage to a fee that is supposed to be MY decision based on YOUR service. If you do well you have nothing to worry about. The thing is when you do poorly and are tipped poorly you blame US rather than your own mistakes. You keep trying to belittle me by saying I should eat at lower class places. I have heard other whiners like you say such things to people when this topic comes up.

Most people do not take kindly to others DEMANDING they pay a voluntary gratuity. You have lost touch of how it works and your attitude is horrible.

Quote: "Are you saying I am a roofer? "

I'm just trying to think of other people I've met who cling to the idea that a 15% gratuity in a restaurant is just a "sign of appreciation".


Then, I guess your vote is for Polish system, where the salary of your wait staff is in food prices, and you can kiss your waitress a$$.