Tipping and Self-Serve Cost Control
The topic of tipping regularly comes up for discussion in the blogosphere. Coyote Blog is no exception, discussing it in the context of a post about reducing costs by outsourcing effort to customers.
I am a strong supporter of tipping well in industries where tipping is the traditional way for the workers to earn much of their money. Restaurants and newspaper delivery, for instance. Been there.
On the other hand, there are situations where it is milked, both by employees and proprieters. The valet service he mentioned is one such instance. Not that it isn’t standard practice to tip the valet, but the sign more or less demanding it is rude. It sometimes bothers me to see tip jars, especially pointedly labeled ones, out in places one might not expect to tip.
Typically in a restaurant where someone is waiting your table or your spot at the lunch counter, it’s tippable service. You expect the employees to be paid restaurant rates and to need to earn the extra to make the job worth doing. Typically in a step up to the counter, order, get food, carry it away place, you don’t expect tips, and if it’s not much more than minimum wage, you can assume the staff is not being paid sub-minimum restaurant rates.
I have mixed feelings about the specific instance. Could you consider the $4 what you would pay for parking anyway, and the tip a standard valet thing? When you go to Arisia at the Park Plaza Hotel, if you use the valet parking it is something like $18 a day with unlimited in/out, which is similar to or slightly more than what you’d pay for do it yourself parking in the closest garage. This seems like plenty of money for them to pay the valet staff, but do they? I don’t know. I do know that when I have used the service, I have tipped at least a couple bucks, might have been as much as five, on retrieving my car. I might actually be less inclined if a sign were visible urging me to tip.
Anyway, the bulk of the post is about putting things onto customers to save money. Paying valets zero and putting up a sign saying as much to provoke tips is an example of a rather offputting way to do it. Cafeteria or buffet style restaurants strike me as another way. Fewer employees, largely self-serve, and the added bonus of less or no tipping expected. In the area we once had a chain called York Steakhouse, one of my favorite places to eat, which was cafeteria style and expressly forbid tipping. Besides the great food and ability to select a wide combination of sides, drinks and desserts, it was unique and fascinating to me when I was a kid. Fast food places do this in a small way with self-serve drink stations. In the scheme of things, that fractional amount of time saved by the employees on each order must add up.
I like the firewood scheme. In fact, I would prefer it to the packaged wood. If it saves the campground own money, all the better. If most of the crates get returned, then there’s minimal offset cost and it works well. I haven’t camped somewhere and bought firewood since I was a kid. If I remember right, it was mostly freeform; just grab a bunch. Though that may have been places where the wood was free.
Anyway, sounds like a great plan. I had never thought about “outsourcing to customers” as a coherent concept before, so in that regard the post provided a bit of a eureka moment for me. Don’t listen to me though. RTWT
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