Julia Altshuler > wrote:

>Amarantha wrote:
>The tipping system is barbaric IMO.

>Agreed. The next question is what, if anything, can be done about it.
>I'd love to wake up tomorrow and discover that restaurant tipping was a
>thing of the past, that every restaurant management paid its servers an
>appropriate hourly wage as it does its cooks, and that customers weren't
>figuring 20%. The trouble is that if one restaurant did this, the
>public wouldn't get it. They'd still expect to tip. That's not
>unreasonable when you consider a lifetime of doing it one way isn't
>going to be undone when they see (or don't see) a small notice on the
>menu. It would take a huge public education effort, and I can't imagine
>that any restaurant or government agency would be willing to undertake
>one. And why would they? From their point of view, there would be no
>point.

From nearly anyone's point of view there is no point in getting
rid of the tipping system. If it were somehow eliminated by
fiat, some diners would decide to tip anyway in an effort to
gain better service. Within a short length of time, we'd
be back exactly where we are now. So it'd be a pointless
exercise.

Steve