This may be anecdotal, but I ran into this exact same issue a few weeks ago. The suggested 20% was significantly higher than the 20% on the bill. It took me a little bit to figure out, but we were at the restaurant for a steak special and happy hour. The 20% tip was for the non-special price. For example, the steak and two sides special was $18, but the normal price was $28. The drinks were $5 but the normal price was $8. So the suggested tip was 20% of $36, not 20% of $23. These aren’t the exact numbers, and there were two of us, but you get the idea. The POS/Tip suggestion is setup so the servers don’t get the shit end of the stick when the restaurant is doing a deal/special. I’m not sure I fully agree with it, and I have my own beef with tipping culture in general, but I’m just looking to explain what might be seen in OP’s photo.
Understood, but not my problem. If it says 20%, it should be 20%. For trying to pull shit like this it is going to be a 0% from me.
Restaurant tries to scam customers, yet they still give a 20% tip?
Pretty sure the waitress wasn’t the one who fucked with the register. Probably the restaurant trying to ensure they don’t have to pay the difference if the tips come up short and leave the staff below minimum wage.
I feels like reasoning like this is why it would never end.
You think place like that distributes tips honestly?
Fuck tips. 0 tips. Pay your people.
You pay for the service of being waited on… don’t want to tip… then go to McDonald’s! wtf! 🤬
Do you tip for the service for customer tech support or similar customer facing industries as well?
No, your comment is asinine and completely irrelevant, when you call tech support for example, Apple or AT&T, you are already paying their damn salaries with the bill you pay each month (plus they get paid more an hr-duh).
You don’t pay my salary when you come in dine at my table for hours and eat like $200 worth of food and provide NO tip! You occupied my table knowing others could come in and give me a better tips, that’s the difference!! You clearly haven’t worked in the food industry before.
I have! But in a civilized country, not the USA. I do pay your salary when I go to the restaurant, yes. You are paid by the restaurant only because people go there and eat. Your salary is literally dependant on people ordering food. It is the service you provide, you are not a fucking independent contractor that I have personally hires to serve my table lol. You are on the restaurant’s payroll, same as tech support is on whatever company’s payroll. No tips for one, no tips to the other. A techy gets paid the same whether they spend 5 hours on a ticket and licks the customer’s dick, or if they spend one hour and are complete asses.
Yeah, you have never worked the service industry in America so… comment invalid.
Don’t like tipping in the US than don’t go out, or stay in whatever county you are skimming servers out of tips you live in…
My restaurant actually pays us more than the bogus ass fed minimum wage and I don’t have to “kiss ass” of customers they genuinely like me, might be hard for you to comprehend but I get well over 20% on almost every table. I can make $3-4k a month with my wage and shifts like 25hrs a week, that’s what’s wrong in the US. When you make more as a server with half the hours than a full time teacher, something’s got to change…
Bottom line, my restaurant pays me $11.10/hr or $15/hr (asst manager) plus tips so basically tip your servers or do not go out and hit a drive thru instead. Stop punishing us because of what you believe in…
Wait so you get scammed but still give 20% tips? This would be an automatic 0% tip
You think the wait staff setup the machine to do math wrong?
Yeah, what’s likely happening here is that the tip numbers were calculated off the subtotal intentionally. So say you buy a “happy hour” drink and it is $3 instead of $6, they tip is calculated before the “discount”.
Their machine could have actually been wrong, but using a total before discounts seems more likely.
On the surface, I can understand this. It’s not the server’s fault that they got the happy hour rush when everything is 50% off. If anything, they had to work harder because it was busier. Why punish them for that extra work with lower tip calculations? The drinks aren’t any easier or faster to pour just because they’re half off. It should at least be transparent, but I at least understand the reasoning.
What does bug me is when the tip calculations are based on the after-tax total. Fuck that, I’m already getting taxed 10% on this, you don’t need your 18% calculated from that extra 10%.



