What % Do you tip for home delivery of food?

grumpy old man wrote:The driver should have been sent packing only to return if he had the correct change.

Or Dean's solution would work,

But we were hungry!!

I should have done what Dean did

You KEEP the food, pay him and include the $6.62 tip and tell him to come back with the correct change.

umm...to answer a few things here...

one...the minimum wage thing doesn't matter if it was in Winnipeg or not...MOST of the food service companies are National or International...so when they change their policies in one location, they spread it across to other areas...and then other companies in that area adjust as well.

two...if you've indicated when ordering that you are paying cash...and the driver doesn't have the correct change...then you grab the phone while the driver is there and call it in. Twice I've done that, and the restaurant has apologized and told me to keep the food. (though I'd imagine the driver was charged for it).

I know when I was a delivery driver...I would NEVER carry loose change in my pockets. But would ALWAYS have change in the vehicle. SO if someone wanted the $.30 or $1.00 back...I would just say "I'll need to run to my car to make change for you"...and typically I'd get a "don't worry about it"...and get the extra bit of tip on top of the $2-5 I normally got.

Typically, with tips (and this was 20 years ago now), I was making $16-20/hour as a driver, plus $6/hour for minimum wage...and since I received a paycheck on top of my tips...I only claimed my $6/hour as my salary on taxes.

Not too sure about the minimum wage thing there. The local laws apply no matter what a national company wants to do. If the provincial labour laws mandate a $10 minimum wage without exclusions then everyone, including those earning big tips, must receive $10/hour.

grumpy old man wrote:Not too sure about the minimum wage thing there. The local laws apply no matter what a national company wants to do. If the provincial labour laws mandate a $10 minimum wage without exclusions then everyone, including those earning big tips, must receive $10/hour.

Exactly, no national company can come here and pay less than the minimum wage.

I know from my time in the States, they have or had a thing called tip equalization, where the employer may pay 50% of min wage and a pecentage of tips goes to cover the rest of the min wage, don't know if that still exists

one.
Local law labour laws trump company laws (thank god). The only way SOME companies get around this is they try to call their delivery drivers "independent contractors"

two
its funner my way.


"I'll need to run to my car to make change for you".." see now THAT would be fine.. but these guys are too often trying to pull a fast one and they really do have change and just refuse to admit to it trying to raise the tip themselves.. fuckem, make them experience the pain of wasting time for me to count pennies.

three.
. The one time. I had ZERO money and told them I was paying with the debit machine, the guy was like.. oh crap... I totally forgot it. Handed the food over and said.. will you be home for a couple of hours? I will bring it by on the way past again. Cool by me.. he even brought back an order of bread sticks and another 2 litre with him. HE got a very healthy tip.

four
not claiming tips is illegal

Yes USA...
NJ was like that (it's not now...since the Democrats took over and started giving all the non-workers everyone else's money).

But...a company like Dominoes which is international would have stores in that environment...and then the law would change, or they'd realize they can charge a delivery fee in an area like Manitoba, where minimum wage is mandatory for ALL workers...and implement it in all areas they cover. It allows them to make extra money in the areas like NJ was.

And to Dean's two:
When I first started delivering, I wore a nail pouch with change in it, and that way I ALWAYS had change on me. Then I forgot to take it one night and just left change in my car...and realized I made an extra $20/average from what I had made the previous night...and started testing that. Learned really fast that it's a great money-making trick.

And to Dean's three:
I honestly don't know about the machines...they weren't around when I delivered. If someone wanted to pay by CC...they had to do it over the phone, and it was processed before we ever hit the door. They were given the option on the call to pay the tip up front, or wait and give it to us at the door. When we (the drivers) took the phone calls...we generally overlooked the "tip" part of the call...because if it went in the computer...then it came out on our check with taxes deducted...but if we got cash...no taxes...

and to Dean's 4:
according to tax documents...paying taxes is "voluntary"...and there is no way to actually track taxes from cash tips...

THAT SAID...I did get audited once...because I worked in a high-tip industry and wasn't claiming my tips. They estimated (at the time), that I should have been claiming 10% of my "hourly rate" as tips...and since I didn't claim anything...it triggered the audit. After that, I would claim 10% of my W2 as tips...no more audits.
Though...I beat the audit...cause I convinced the auditors that they had no proof of me earning any tips at all...just didn't want to go through the hassle again.

The sad part is that everything seems to be based on minimum wage, and not a living wage.

Should there be any job that doesn't allow one to earn a living wage?

My company rents space from a company that has about 25 workers, all of them working on these huge $100,000 machines manufacturing plastics. I found out that all the men are being paid minimum wage.

rosencrentz wrote:The sad part is that everything seems to be based on minimum wage, and not a living wage.

That is like a dog chasing its tail.

Increase everyones salary to a "living wage" and you end up with a higher cost of living the next day.

Minimum wage jobs exist to encourage people to work harder or go to school to get better paying jobs. The kid assembling my Whopper should not get $18/hr.

AGEsAces wrote:The delivery fees were introduced to cover minimum wage.

For a long time, certain jobs that were high in tips, did not require businesses to pay minimum wage. They could pay a reduced wage since the tips were considered the majority of the income.

Now though, the delivery fee is there just to cover the minimum wage...PRIMARILY for when there's no service being performed. So when the delivery driver is sitting at the restaurant, or doing jobs other than delivery.

It's typically customary to offer a $2-5 tip depending on the SIZE of the order, not the price. So if the driver has to carry 1 or 2 pizzas and a bottle of pop...that's probably a $2-5 tip...but if they have to carry 5-10 pizzas, a few bottles, maybe some breadsticks too...now it should be more like $10.

Having worked as a pizza delivery guy for a number of years, I will state that I never "spit" in someone's food...but if I was going somewhere that ordered regularly...that was a cheapskate and didn't tip at all (and there are those who expect exact change and don't tip)...they probably had cheese on the roof of the box, or a mess on the floor when they opened the pop bottle.

Anything less than a $2 tip these days though (especially with gas being so high) on any order, is really insulting to the driver.

Back in the mid 80's I worked at Domino's Pizza on McPhillips street. I got paid Minimum wage $3.80/hour plus I got 7% commission on all deliveries and kept all tips. I worked at several Domino's locations throughout the late 80's and found that the best tippers were the people who has the least disposable income. Some of my best tips came from the north end (and not the garden city/west kildonan areas) On a good night I would make piles of cash, and back then it was easy to have a good night every night (i.e. way less competition).

This thread also reminds me that I need to go on a diet.