When you're at a restaurant and you have a different person that seats you, takes your order, brings your drinks, brings your food, refills your drink, corrects mistakes, brings your dessert, (You get the idea here.) and cleans your table, do you tip each one when you leave?
I waited tables for 7 years through high school and college like a lot of folks. We all "worked" tables that weren't our own (didn't "take the order"). Sometimes we were "on split tips" and sometimes our tables were our own depending on time of day. I worked at one of the busiest BBQ restaurants in the world, Parker's BBQ in Wilson NC. We all worked everybody's tables like they were our own. We figured it all came out in the wash (and it did). Only the strong waiters stayed around and that's just the way we worked. Maybe it was unusual. I don't know. I never waited anywhere else, but it worked for us. My point is that the only tip there was, was the one on the table at the end of the meal and it went where it went depending on whether we were on split or not. As a customer there today, and at any other restaurant for that matter, I tip the table. Where it goes after that is none of my business (nor concern for that matter).
When I first learned about the new contracts at WDW, I used to tip everybody that touched a bag of mine. Habit. I waited tables. I get how important tips are and how these folks make a living. Recently, I started equating my tipping to resturants and my work experiences at Parker's. Protocol isn't and shouldn't be my concern. I didn't "stack that deck." Disney and the unions did. That's not my fault. When it comes right down to it, I don't really know how many people touched my bags. I lose track when they INSIST on taking them out of my sight before taking them to my room (which ticks me off too but that's an different argument entirely). Now I tip at the end of the line. How they divvy it up (or not) is no longer my concern. Stacking the deck so that 5 people can stick their hands out doesn't matter to me. Those are stupid management and union decisions. All I want is my luggage on my cart and to walk with that ONE person to my room and drop it off. Anything beyond that is somebody else's problem.
After all that, sorry so long, but I'm making a point (I hope.). Tipping is a passion to me because it's what helped me through high school and college like a lot of folks. I've said thousands of times that everybody that graduates from high school or college ought to have to wait tables for a year before they can begin another career and I mean that. It teaches you to deal with the public and even more importantly; it teaches you how the public can be to deal with.
I tip the end of the line; ESPECIALLY at WDW. The point that they choose (for whatever reason is of no concern to me) to have 5-10 hands poked out at me doesn't bother me anymore, even though it used to. Bad management decisions on protocol are not my concern, and it's apparent in tipped positions all over WDW. Somebody's going to argue that the employees can't help it either and I obviously see that coming. Blame the employers and the unions. I don't care. I simply will not drop $5-10 in every hand that sticks in my face just because Disney decided to put another hand arbitrarily in my face. Sorry. Right's right and wrong's wrong, and the tip stacking at WDW is just wrong and is, by it very design, stacked against the consumer and preys on the good nature and generousness of the WDW guest and I resent that. Period.
{EndRant. LOL}
Bill
