Lost in the change

Food for thought

After a meal or a snack outside, when presented with a bill, how many of us feel like leaving a little something for those who served us? Not too many, waiters from across restaurants say.

This is true even at restaurants that don’t add a service charge, equivalent to tips, in your bill. “Only fancy restaurants follow that practice,” says the supervisor at Dasaprakash, on MG Road. “You can’t make it mandatory for customers to pay you for your service.”

But how dependent are restaurant staff on these tips? After working for 22 years as a waiter, Joseph M V of Lakeview earns Rs 9,000 a month. “So the tips I get do help with household expenses,” he says. In a week, this fetches him an additional Rs 1,500 to Rs 1,800, he adds.

However, people who the come to dine in are less likely to leave a tip than those who order from their cars outside, he adds. “Only about two or three in 10 who eat in here leave us a tip,” he says.

Moreover, with people increasingly making card payments over the past couple or weeks or so, tipping has reduced by about 50 percent, he adds. “It’s really hard because you can’t even complain to anyone,” he rues.

Several other waiters, however, say while the money is always welcome, it doesn’t impact their income as much. “Yes, it’s like pocket money for me,” says Akumugha Wotsa, a native of Nagaland, who has been waiting tables at Egg Factory for a year-and-a-half now. Barring his living expenses, he sends most of his salary back home, but he keeps the Rs 600 to Rs 700 he receives in the form of tips every week for himself. “We used to get Rs 200 to Rs 300 more before we introduced service charge a few months ago,” he says. However, his salary has also gone up since, he adds.

Abhishek, who works at the adjacent MTR, shares a similar opinion. “Foreigners are more generous, but we hardly get one or two a month. Otherwise, it’s mostly Rs 10 to Rs 50 per table, depending on the bill amount,” he says.

Despite this, the tips they get comes up to a minimum of Rs 250 a week, which suffices him to top up his phone balance or travel to his hometown and back.

Indian Coffee House, a rather old establishment, has never attracted much by way of tips, its waiters and manager say. “We’re run by a co-operative society, so we are here to serve regardless,” says manager B H Hanumanthaiah.

The waiters get not more than Rs 50 a day from tips, he adds. Gangaiah, who has worked there since the late 1970s, pitches in: “We pool what each of us gets and share it out equally at the end of the day, but usually people only leave some of the change we return; most, particularly the regulars, don’t leave a tip at all.”

Apart from the monetary benefits — for every rupee counts when your salary is a four-figure amount, Gangaiah admits — it also boosts waiters’ morale. “It makes us feel like they (customers) have recognised our service,” he says, while Hanumanthaiah adds that this is especially important because most of the staff here has been on the eatery’s roll for decades. “It makes them happy and increases their self-worth,” he concludes. Darshan Devaiah, a student, says he’s all for leaving a tip, provided the service is satisfactory. “So long as there’s no delay — if the first course arrives in 15 minutes or less — and the waiter is polite, I do leave a tip,” he adds. “Even if I’m swiping my card, I ensure that I additionally give about 10 percent of the bill amount in cash.”

His classmate Lesly Joseph also goes by the waiter’s behaviour, “if he or she is putting in a little extra effort”.

“This usually happens when we go in large groups. They hover around to serve us,” she offers.