The tipping point...

Why, when the subject of tipping comes up with FOH friends, I get the following arguments;

A) Servers are generally single mothers working to support their kids.

B) If you don't like it, don't cook!

...

While I too, can picture the exhaustive looking waitress in a sketchy deli, the underlying tone it implies is that generally, servers are barely making ends meet on their wages.  This is far from truth. In Ontario, the average serving rate including tips range from $20 - $40 an hour. From a cook's view, isn't it safe to assume there are BOH single parents too?

The latter statement is a cop-out. I love what I do, if I don't like something about it and can see a solution, I am prone to stick around and attempt changes.

When you think about it, what possesses everyone to be so placid on their reasoning to give up to 20% of a bill (regardless of mark-up) towards tipping?

As a professional cook (and someone who is admittedly on the biased end of this argument), it's hard to see the logic for tipping on anything other then outstanding service.

So lets be clear where I stand. In restaurants*, it's easy to see the imbalance in earnings between FOH and BOH.

(*By this, I mean stand alone restaurants. Hotels, banquet halls and other large production kitchens tend to pay cooks much better comparatively. Though, servers at some of these places reach six figures.).

This is an active source of animosity that creates a division between the two and results in many cooks to walk away from the industry.

Sure. Why go to school for two years, do a three-year apprenticeship and end up at $13 an hour (or the flat $140 rate for 12 hours at decent kitchens)?
Its frustrating to watch under-educated staff put in equal value of work, yet walk away with 100% more salary then the poverty line hugging cook.

I have always thought if I ever had my own restaurant I would need to change the pay scale. 

Rather then only do an apprenticeship for cooks, I would run an apprenticeship of restauranteurs.  Formal hospitality education and an extrovert personality would be prerequisite. Training would be all encompassing.  Both BOH and FOH would be taught to everyone and all would do equal time throughout the restaurant to become well rounded hospitality specialists. 

 Solid base salaries and gratuities would be evenly distributed according to rank.

 The reasoning is pragmatic. The staff would be better paid, better educated, work in a professional environment with higher standards, and FOH/BOH unity would be solid.

Finally, why not offer serving staff formal education and apprenticeships?
Make them a proper profession.
Pushing enhanced quality and increased sales aside, it would blow away the stigma of their chosen career and offer a level of respectability the great ones already deserve.

 All cooks have stories about the sad hilarity of under-prepared staff, and the sad thing is, this is totally accepted and we are complacent to it.  

We could be so much better.

Tipping in North America is more of an assumed duty expected on the guest under all circumstances, save but for the very worst of experiences.
Like cooks, great servers happen to be the exception, not the norm, so why is the tipping assumed?

I recently came accross a great TedX presentation dealing all about gratuities in Ontario.  It's a poignant watch that nails the correlation and causality of having a tipping culture in hospitality.

The video is worth the watch and something to mull over next time you blindly shell out 20% because you don't want to seem cheap.

-Jerek