Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

gourmet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 183 posts

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#71

Post by jholman »

sp332 wrote: post #29
drivingmenuts wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems unethical to me, strictly speaking. Sure, everyone's doing it. Doesn't mean cheating someone else out of their fair share is right, though.

"Fair share"? As if each person deserves to be served? Talk about a sense of entitlement. The restaurant will serve whomever it likes. You wouldn't think it unethical for the restaurant to give regulars a friendlier smile, or a specific table they like? If you have a personal relationship with someone, no matter how tenuous, they will give you better service. It's not "cheating." Especially for busy restaurants, ther…

I agree that the language of "fair" and "ethical" seems a bit over-entitled (although I admit, my emotional reaction is one of unfairness and unethicalness).

But I'd like to try to reframe this, to focus on what is lost, and who pays the price.

I value transparency and predictability in (most) transactions; I want shopping to be easy, and so I'd rather pay a non-negotiable $100 for something, versus see a pricetag of $200 that I know is negotiable in the range of 30%-70%. (Admittedly, if we're talking about $100,000, I start being interested in the $200,000 plus haggling).

As such, if I learn that a certain business has a non-transparent cost structure, including this tipping-oriented one, I'm disinclined to shop there. So if I witness you bribing the staff, the business owner loses some of my goodwill (even more if you bribe the staff to cut ahead of me in line), which is a Real Loss for them. I'll acknowledge that perhaps the business owner would rather have the business of the bribing type, for whatever reason (perhaps they're bigger spenders).

I guess my conclusion here is that it is unethical for an employee to accept bribes, if and only if they have been given (explicit or implicit) work direction to not do so.

I don't have much to say about whether it's ethical to bribe them, except of course bribing them for unethical gain (e.g. bypassing safety inspections) would be unethical, and maybe it's unethical to incent someone to behave unethically?

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#72

Post by Elite »

e1ven wrote: post #4

See also: http://www.esquire.com/features/the-state-of-the-american-ma... http://nymag.com/nymetro/shopping/features/9939/ http://www.chow.com/food-news/54576/will-this-20-change-your... http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0303-MAR_20DOLLARS

I read the esquire articles and the chow.com, and neither of these authors really perfected the art. Although the self-titled $20 millionaire occassionally got serviced, he was often punked because he had no style, no swagger.

And when he DID get service, he did it openly & brazenly without the required discretion. Publicly announcing in a first class airplane section that he wanted to trade seats?! Tacky. Cutting the line at a cab stand, only to end up having to pay not only the front customer, but also the 2 cab stand guys? Buddy, that just cost you sixty bucks and a half cup of coffee thrown at your cab.

The demeanor and style in which you execute the handoff matters just as much, if not more than the actual note you've got in your hand.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#73

Post by jamesbritt »

BobbyH wrote: post #44
acabal wrote: post #28

Interestingly, this sometimes works the other way around too. I frequented a coffee shop in my town for a few months (I later moved house). The baristas came to recognize my face, even though I didn't make smalltalk or introduce myself. I would come in, order a coffee, and work on their wifi for a few hours before leaving, more or less every other day. One day the barista recognized me and said, "this coffee's on the…

If you think about it, it is economically rational behavior for a barista/bartender to do this for regular customers. After all, she gives you a drink that is free to her and gets back real money as a tip. The only loser is the coffee shop or bar, who has trouble tracking the number of drinks served. My friend runs a bar and this is a huge problem for him that he calls a "bribe back". The only solution he found is hi…

'My friend runs a bar and this is a huge problem for him that he calls a "bribe back". The only solution he found is hiring good people, as monitoring the bartenders makes him look like he doesn't trust or respect them.'

Back in my bar-hopping days I learned about buy-backs. I was surprised the first time it happened, but it was explained that this was common thing (at least if you drink enough).

Given that it was apparently common knowledge in the bar culture, I'd have to believe that anyone running a bar knows this is happening and either makes some educated guesses on the amount, or simply has the bartenders do some tracking. It seems like just part of doing business and sales, nothing underhanded.

Broadly speaking, it seems a businesses will have trouble keeping customers if the owner or manage does not give the line people authority (within some bounds) to give stuff away. I've mainly seen this in the hotel business. You can keep a customer, and make them want to come back, by smoothing over a complaint with a comp'ed night or free meal, and the win to the hotel is terrific (it's expensive to get new customers vs. keeping them). But if the restaurant manager or front desk staff has to first get the OK from the head of F&B or the Front Office manager it tends to just not happen because people are afraid they'll get in trouble for doing what is arguably right and in the long-term interest of the business.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#74

Post by lotusleaf1987 »

RK wrote: post #65
kevingadd wrote: post #30

Growing up, I rarely was in a situation to tip, but these days, living near Palo Alto, i've noticed something interesting: out of the places I go to eat or get coffee, a few are small independent businesses owned by locals. At the ones where I was getting consistently good service, I started tipping 20%+. Within a few weeks of this, I was surprised to notice that they began discounting my food and drinks without ment…

I think a very common tip increasing strategy used by people serving food is to give discounts. If I'm selling you something for $10 and you'd normally tip $1 and I give it to you for $8, you are much more inclined to tip me $2-3, because you'd still pay the same or less and received "special" service. This of course may be unethical for the employee, depending on store policy. My best friend falls for it every time,…

When I worked at a steakhouse the smart servers would never charge for sodas or extras like baked potatoes, rice etc. Because as soon as the person got the bill, whatever amount was discounted almost always was directly added onto the tip amount. It might be bad for the restaurant for their soda/potatoes/rice, but that stuff costs as close to nothing as you're going to get.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#75

Post by hariis »

gyardley wrote: post #40
jpwagner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seriously?

Seriously. The maitre d' isn't a public official in charge of a public or legal duty - this isn't a building inspector we're talking about. I suspect any bad feelings around tipping the maitre d' for a table come from lack of knowledge of the custom - someone who doesn't go to good restaurants regularly or is from another country where customs are different.

then, why is it done under the table?

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#76

Post by _cbsz »

illumin8 wrote: post #51
BobbyH wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think about it, it is economically rational behavior for a barista/bartender to do this for regular customers. After all, she gives you a drink that is free to her and gets back real money as a tip. The only loser is the coffee shop or bar, who has trouble tracking the number of drinks served. My friend runs a bar and this is a huge problem for him that he calls a "bribe back". The only solution he found is hi…

Yeah, this is a huge problem. I was on a business trip once and eating dinner at the bar of TGIFridays. I normally wouldn't eat at a chain restaurant like that, but I was in Virginia and there was nothing nearby. In any case, these college kids were sitting at the bar next to me, and we started talking. They seemed to be friends with the bartender and one of the told me "give the bartender a $20 and you'll drink all…

There are companies that audit bartenders by very carefully inventorying the liquor. I found out from this article in my college's newspaper: http://www.michigandaily.com/content/2008-09-24/bar-audits-m... .

The company is Bevinco (www.bevinco.com), and I'm sure there are others.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#77

Post by edge17 »

illumin8 wrote: post #51
BobbyH wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think about it, it is economically rational behavior for a barista/bartender to do this for regular customers. After all, she gives you a drink that is free to her and gets back real money as a tip. The only loser is the coffee shop or bar, who has trouble tracking the number of drinks served. My friend runs a bar and this is a huge problem for him that he calls a "bribe back". The only solution he found is hi…

Yeah, this is a huge problem. I was on a business trip once and eating dinner at the bar of TGIFridays. I normally wouldn't eat at a chain restaurant like that, but I was in Virginia and there was nothing nearby. In any case, these college kids were sitting at the bar next to me, and we started talking. They seemed to be friends with the bartender and one of the told me "give the bartender a $20 and you'll drink all…

I definitely know about some bartenders at a similar establishment that lost their jobs for that type of behavior. The bartender's basically stealing from the establishment.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#78

Post by euroclydon »

jon_dahl wrote: post #70

There is something similar with hotels, esp. in a place like Vegas: show $20/$50/$100 at check-in, and get an upgraded room. Google "twenty dollar trick". Not that I've had the nerve to try it.

Saw it. I guess there is a disconnect between the rate charged and the room assigned in hotel management systems. I could fix that pretty quickly with a few queries.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#79

Post by rjett »

euroclydon wrote: post #66
kevingadd wrote: post #30

Growing up, I rarely was in a situation to tip, but these days, living near Palo Alto, i've noticed something interesting: out of the places I go to eat or get coffee, a few are small independent businesses owned by locals. At the ones where I was getting consistently good service, I started tipping 20%+. Within a few weeks of this, I was surprised to notice that they began discounting my food and drinks without ment…

I guess this isn't quite like the experiences I've had, where you have a reputation of tipping well, and all of the sudden items are missing from your bill. That's just an illegal transfer of wealth from the owner to the employee.

I have a friend who used to approach concession stands at sporting events and ask the teenager behind the counter if he'd give him a free x,y, or z if he put $2 in their tip jar. This usually worked.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#80

Post by jdietrich »

> Increasingly, I was struck by how much impact the experience was having on me. Surmounting this challenge night after night was actually giving me a certain self-assurance, a feeling of having grown up. Some might find this disillusioning: “You mean life is not first-come, first-served?” I found I had a different reaction: “You mean all it takes to crack one of New York’s most daunting thresholds is fifty bucks?” Even if I chose not to do it on a regular basis, just knowing how doable it is brought the whole puffery of New York restaurants into perspective. Bribing, it turns out, has as much effect on the briber as it does on the bribee.

If you ever wanted to know why corruption is so entrenched in many parts of the world, there is your answer.

Post reply on HN