Delivery Driver vs. Waiter - Who do you tip more?

[martinss01]

To those of you that tip your waiter more for reasons such as the "skill" required for the position, or time spend serving you, thats ridiculous. It requires no more skill to deliver a pizza than to serve a table, and each position spends equal time. I'm not saying I don't tip my waiter more than my delivery driver, but the reason behind this is the waiter gets paid almost nothing hourly while the driver gets slightly more hourly with minimum wage.

i guarandamntee you that if you wait on my table and i tip you well, its cuz you ran your ass off. i don't recall my delivery driver coming to my house 2 or 3 times to ask me how everything is and another 4 to 6 times to fill up my drink before i finish it. you can lack customer service skills as a delivery driver and still do well. you can't get away with it nearly as easy waiting tables.

If BOTH positions earned the same hourly pay, you tip your driver more. Look at it this way, the driver took at least as much time driving to your house and putting the finishing touches on your order (Boxing, sauces, transport, etc) as a waiter spends serving you. You may spend an hour eating in a restaurant, but during that time a waiter is also serving other customers. On average, each position spends 20-30 minutes just on your order.

and the delivery driver has to deal with me being a royal pain in the ass for all of 30 seconds.

if it makes you feel any better my base tip is 5 bucks regardless of what is ordered. price of meal, skill and hotness increases the tip. but only incompetance decreases it.

 

[FKAGobucks877]

Ok, I'll answer honestly:

The pizza dude probably gets $3, unless I don't have the correct change, then he gets more, because I'm not one to wait and make some poor high school dropout try to do math on my front porch (no offense to all the pizza dudes here )

The server gets between 15% for average, less or more depending on how good they are. I will add that I drink a ton, so I typically get a little pissed at meals because I'm waiting on a refill. Don't make me wait.

Of course, if I'm paying with the company credit card, I start at 20%, and only ever go up.

 

[The KSB]

Did you just do the "something called and wants its something back" bit?

yeah, I guess it was pretty wack of me.

 

[gregorylee]

Having been a bartender for some 12 or more years, the work involved from the waitstaff is much more involved than that of a delivery person so they deserve more. and me being drunk doesn't hurt any.

 

[ulukinatme]

i guarandamntee you that if you wait on my table and i tip you well, its cuz you ran your ass off. i don't recall my delivery driver coming to my house 2 or 3 times to ask me how everything is and another 4 to 6 times to fill up my drink before i finish it. you can lack customer service skills as a delivery driver and still do well. you can't get away with it nearly as easy waiting tables.

and the delivery driver has to deal with me being a royal pain in the ass for all of 30 seconds.

if it makes you feel any better my base tip is 5 bucks regardless of what is ordered. price of meal, skill and hotness increases the tip. but only incompetance decreases it.

A waiter may come to check on you more often than a delivery driver, but it still doesn't cost the waiter to come to your location. Delivery driver certainly doesn't require customer service skills like a waiter, but things certainly don't always go well. As often as there was a mistake in the kitchen, there would be a mistake with a pizza delivery, or in either case there would just be a customer you couldn't satisfy. In those circumstances you had to diffuse the situation and try to rectify it as best possible...and some people are just plain rude no matter how hard you try.

It should also be mentioned that, while a delivery driver doesn't have to deal with a customer as much as a waiter, the delivery driver often has to deal with idiots on the road. Then a customer bitches because you didn't get their pizza out to them in boofu, on Halloween, with kids runnin' all over the streets

While on the topic of pizza delivery, I've got some good stories on customers...or should I say non-customers....that wanted free food. I was working morning shift one day when a "gentleman" called. He said that on Tuesday night, 4 days prior, a driver had come to his door at 11pm. He said the driver asked if he ordered a pizza, the man said no, and then the driver supposidly asked the man's children to go door to door asking neighbors if any of them ordered it. Well, I knew our night driver, an elderly guy that would have never asked such a thing. I told the guy I'd call him back shortly. Well, I spoke to the manager and later the driver, both had the same story. The driver did in fact go to this appartment, but the resident asked his kids to go door to door after the driver asked him not to. Sure enough, the "customer" called back a short time after, wanting to know when he would receive his pizza as compensation. I told him the story I heard from our driver and manager. The man stopped, and then countered with "So, you're calling me a liar?" I said "Sir, I never said those words." He repeated "You're calling me a liar." I then chuckled a bit. He concluded with something about him getting me fired or something, but by then I was trying so hard not to laugh more that I wasn't really paying attention to his exact words. When he hung up I laughed for quite awhile, we then promptly flagged his account for no free pizza ever, and to take our sweet time delivering any orders he places.

 

[The KSB]

A waiter may come to check on you more often than a delivery driver, but it still doesn't cost the waiter to come to your location. Delivery driver certainly doesn't require customer service skills like a waiter, but things certainly don't always go well. As often as there was a mistake in the kitchen, there would be a mistake with a pizza delivery, or in either case there would just be a customer you couldn't satisfy. In those circumstances you had to diffuse the situation and try to rectify it as best possible...and some people are just plain rude no matter how hard you try.

It should also be mentioned that, while a delivery driver doesn't have to deal with a customer as much as a waiter, the delivery driver often has to deal with idiots on the road. Then a customer bitches because you didn't get their pizza out to them in boofu, on Halloween, with kids runnin' all over the streets

While on the topic of pizza delivery, I've got some good stories on customers...or should I say non-customers....that wanted free food. I was working morning shift one day when a "gentleman" called. He said that on Tuesday night, 4 days prior, a driver had come to his door at 11pm. He said the driver asked if he ordered a pizza, the man said no, and then the driver supposidly asked the man's children to go door to door asking neighbors if any of them ordered it. Well, I knew our night driver, an elderly guy that would have never asked such a thing. I told the guy I'd call him back shortly. Well, I spoke to the manager and later the driver, both had the same story. The driver did in fact go to this appartment, but the resident asked his kids to go door to door after the driver asked him not to. Sure enough, the "customer" called back a short time after, wanting to know when he would receive his pizza as compensation. I told him the story I heard from our driver and manager. The man stopped, and then countered with "So, you're calling me a liar?" I said "Sir, I never said those words." He repeated "You're calling me a liar." I then chuckled a bit. He concluded with something about him getting me fired or something, but by then I was trying so hard not to laugh more that I wasn't really paying attention to his exact words. When he hung up I laughed for quite awhile, we then promptly flagged his account for no free pizza ever, and to take our sweet time delivering any orders he places.

So let me get this shit straight. My fucking kids go all over the neighborhood looking for the house your dipshit driver couldn't find and my only reward is shity(er) service. Man, that is totally wack.

 

[ulukinatme]

Oh, the house number was right, the phone number was right. Either somebody pranked this guy, or he was hoping the driver would just give him the pizza when he found out nobody at that addressed ordered it. I'm going with the later, especially since he called back 4 days later to be "compensated" lol Yes, the poor service is completely wack on our part, yo.

 

[ScarletBlood31]

I'm not saying that it takes more skill or patience by any means, but delivery driving does include a lot more risk. I know it sounds funny, but it actually is a pretty dangerous job, considering the high chance of an accident or getting robbed. Not to mention most of the time the drivers are under pressure to make deliveries quick, so they may often be driving in a rush along with other bad drivers out there on the road.

With waiters, they do spend more time in customer service, but it doesn't take anything to come by and fill up drinks. They can knock out drinks at 5 of their tables within 5 minutes, where a driver is mainly committing to driving all the way out to some guys house, and sometimes having to make a second trip if the order is wrong, food is messed up, something forgotten, etc.

 

[BayBuck]

I'm not saying that it takes more skill or patience by any means, but delivery driving does include a lot more risk. I know it sounds funny, but it actually is a pretty dangerous job, considering the high chance of an accident or getting robbed. Not to mention most of the time the drivers are under pressure to make deliveries quick, so they may often be driving in a rush along with other bad drivers out there on the road.

Then it's their employer's responsibility to compensate them for that risk, not the customer's.

 

[buckeyefool]

Then it's their employer's responsibility to compensate them for that risk, not the customer's.

Off topic, but I did see where they are saying to expect to see a jump in the price of pizza soon, because of the cost of fuel and the cost of wheats and flours are going to spike this summer

 

[CleveBucks]

That's wack. If a large portion of the person's wage is set up to come from tips, how the hell can you justify not tipping them because That's between the waiter, the restaurant, and the government? They get the low hourly precisely because they assumed to be getting tips - from normal diners following normal rules of dining.

I never said I DON'T tip. I just don't consider their salary when I decide what to tip. I'll tip the same % at the local joint as I would at a nice restaurant. Bartenders I'm pretty sure get paid more than waiters, but that doesn't mean I'll reduce the tip for them.

Do pizza guys get to deduct mileage on their income taxes? 50 cents a mile or whatever the going rate is?

 

[ulukinatme]

Don't know about the mileage myself, the family accountant never mentioned anything when doing my yearly taxes and asking about the job. Maybe hes no good, I dunno. I do know that you have to declare what you made in tips for tax purposes. Some drivers withold a portion of their tips to declare from taxes, some drivers only declare a small portion and withold that amount of tax purposes, then theres some drivers that "don't get tipped." When I worked it was up to the driver to decide what he wanted to do, most drivers either didn't declare or declared a smaller portion though.

As far as whose responsibility it should be for the risk involved delivering, it probably should be the employer's, but they shirk the duty. They do pass on part of the cost of deliverying a pizza, using the delivery charge, but they assume little or no risk, thats usually on the driver. Most delivery places won't hire you or kepe you on payroll if you have more than 4-6 points on the license, so they try to avoid risk rather than assume responsibility.

I have to admit that I did get in two fender benders in the years I was delivering in school. Once was my fault, lady in an SUV hit the breaks early one morning coming downhill, road was slick and unfortunately I wasn't awake and alert to hit the breaks earlier, and I skid into her. The accident was minor, though. The 2nd time I was coming through a stop light in December, young girl in an SUV slid through the light and clocked the back end of my car, total wreck and pretty scary. That collision spun me around almost 360 degrees and I definitly never saw it coming. Drivers are on the road 3-4x more than your average driver, so the risk does increase quite a bit. The company gives you a policy/guidelines to follow when in an accident, but nothing more. Generally, if the manager knows you well enough they will clock you out before the accident occurred so you were not "on the clock" at the time and normal insurance will cover the collision.