tipping

I would like to know a) where you are living and b) how many people you are feeding with groceries that cost less than $60.

― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 4 June 2009 16:01 (Yesterday)

Near Boston, food's expensive in my neighborhood (there are buses to cheaper places, but that really makes shopping trips longer and less convenient), and I have four roommates. We share groceries, but I do something like half the shopping for the five of us and spend $50-60 a week. As long as you don't mind vegetarian meals involving lots of pasta, beans, and rice, and just shell out on some fruits and vegetables, it's quite possible.

17.5 is actually kind of difficult, why not just be satisfied with any number slightly closer to 20 than 15? Not like the difference between 17 and 18 is going to be subject to serious analysis from the server.

(ps beer & wine are not included in the $50-60, but this is ma and you can't sell those in grocery stores ANYWAY.)

Britisher sales tax was 17.5% for many years; unlike in the US places I've been it's already included in the prices you see in the shops, so you never had to work out out for real, but "add tax at 17.5% to this" was a standard part of the teacher-reads-out-questions don't-show-workings maths tests that were part of our exams at 16, and even when sober it was kind of annoying to have 45 seconds to work it out without writing stuff down.

These US-dominated tipping threads make me nervous. Like, I think 10-15% is acceptable UK-side and 20% would be reserved for the best meal of your life, but maybe I'm just really mean and restaurant staff hate me?

Tipping is 20 per cent in America because of various employment practices and systems of business taxation. Servers are paid a very low 'basic' to prove they're in the building for those hours and then they are taxed at 8pc of their table takings. So you give them 20pc of the bill.

British restaurants OTOH have been inching up 'service' percentages for years (nicer places obv) but it has nothing to do with the mechanics of staff taxes as in the US. Your 10-15pc is actually spot on, stop worrying.

http://jesustips.org

Our Tip Tract is not an alternative to giving money or an excuse for Christians to be miserly.

In fact, it's printed on an envelope that is just the right size to hold dollar bills, and we encourage you to be generous with what you put inside! The point here is that, in addition to giving money, we can leave something that is of much more value - a list of simple tips that point a person to true salvation in Jesus Christ.

Leaving money without any reference to Jesus is a wasted opportunity. But leaving a tract without any money is just plain stingy.

much amusing tipping blah here http://www.anglotopia.net/british-identity/humor/15-way-to-not-look-and-act-like-an-idiot-american-in-britain/

is it ok to tip with a $1 coin in a bar?

yes except in philadelphia and parts of the northwest

i just put it in the register and put a paper dollar in my jar. my boss doesn't bitch at me about it. yet.

in new orleans of course one can get drinks to go. this leads to all the neighborhood heroin dealers stopping by to get long island iced teas in 16oz go cups, which cost $6 at my bar. i've managed to shame a couple of them into tipping--mostly by pointing out the huge wad of cash they pull out and give me exact change from--but others are resistant. i figure this costs me $10 per shift. that's two packs of cigarettes. my coworker just charges them $7 and pockets the extra buck but she is a cute girl and i am not. the point of all this is that it's really fucking annoying. also: old men who tip a dollar every like five drinks and make a big show of it. fuck them too.

How much do you tip a cab driver?

Failed to tip some delivery people this weekend as they actually arrived near the start of the promised 4-hour timeslot (every previous delivery has happened, oh, 3 hours after the end of it) and by the time I thought "uhh... must find purse" they were already out the door. Sorry delivery guys.

Honestly, I've never tipped a non-food delivery driver in the UK and can't imagine anyone doing this here. Movers are a different story.

Oh, that's good to know. Previous deliveries which were v. late were a) the movers (remembered to tip them) and b) when I was out so I've no idea what they got, if anything.

They certainly weren't hanging around looking like they expected a tip, or they'd have got one. Straight out of the door as soon as paperwork was signed.

Back when I bought a bunch of appliances (fridge/freezer etc) the delivery guys made a great show of moaning about how heavy said appliances were and I was all 'you deliver for Argos, at what point did you think there wasn't going to be any heavy lifting, and when did you wise up?' in other words OH BOO HOO, GRAB A TISSUE.

ok, here's something weird i'm noticing that i'm hoping someone can shed light on:

i've had at least 3 times at 3 different places in the last few months where i've paid a tab and left a tip on my debit card. (i know servers prefer cash tips and i do it when i have the convenient cash, but that's not always the case.) but anyway, in these instances, when i check my bank account a few days later, all i see charged is the amount of the tab, not the tip. at first i thought it might have to do with a lag time -- they initially authorize the amount of the tab and have to enter the tip separately -- but i just checked the one from about 3 weeks ago, and the tip never shows up on my account at all. it was a good tip too! i tried to work out if there are some kind of shenanigans involved, something worked out between staff and management where they accept a smaller tip in cash so they don't have to pay it, but the bottom line is still that i'm not getting charged for any tip at all, so i don't understand how anyone can make money off it.

and if it had only happened once, i would think it was just a screwup by someone forgetting to enter the tip. but 3 times at 3 places seems more like a pattern. any ideas?

i mean "a smaller tip in cash so they don't have to pay taxes on it"...

oops, i take it back. i see that one of them does now have the full amount charged. so maybe on two of them (including the most recent, which is still showing just the tab) it was just the lag-time, and on the other one it really was just a mistake.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=132000908466&ref=nf

1 Million Servers Strong Against Oprah's Comments

Oprah Winfrey has recently stated on her TV show that it is acceptable to tip servers 10% in our current economy. This group is being put together to show Oprah that her comments have a crippling affect on servers all over the world. There are so many fanatical people out there that take Oprah's word at face value and will now believe it is acceptable to tip servers only 10%. She gave this "money saving tip" on her tv show as a way to tell her audience how to enjoy a night out while cutting back costs in our current economy. Oprah obviously does not realize that servers rely on their tips and only make 2-4 dollars an hour BEFORE taxes. If Oprah wanted to give her audience some tips on how to save money when eating out she should have told them to have only one drink with dinner instead of two, or cut back on appetizers and desserts, or check the paper for coupons. Oprah needs to realize that the majority of servers are people that are trying to put themselves through college or have a family and kids that also rely on tips as 90% of their income. To sum everything up, the purpose of this group is to unite servers all across the country and try to show Oprah that she is wrong in using her platform to tell people that 10% tips are acceptable regardless of service. Oprah needs to go back to her studio and tell people better ways to save money that is not directly taking money out of peoples pockets and food off of their tables. Thank you for joining this group and please, please tell every server you know about this group and urge them to join!

god oprah is a shithead

Hoax.

ok but i still hate oprah!

That's cool.

I went out for dinner in Lisbon on Saturday with some Portuguese people. When I asked whether it was the norm to tip in their city, they fell around laughing.

because it is or it isn't, though?

I got the impression that they reckon that tipping is something stupid tourists do.

If you go to somewhere casual to eat, semi-regularly, and one time you have really bitchy service, is it ok to 'retaliate' by leaving a small tip or none? Or just rise above it and pay for having the server make you feel like crap, just because you don't want even bitchier service next time?

just don't go back (for a while)

give a regular tip because unless u are richie rich eating at fancytown its an extra couple bucks and probably your server is just having a bad day and if she/he is always a bitch than she/he will eventually get fired

not necessarily, i remember hearing a "this american life" story a while ago where they tested this and found that the same waitresses got better tips when they were bitchy, i guess because people wanted to be liked or something.

in the situation of outright bitchy service i would probably leave a smaller tip than usual but would not leave none.

And really, it's a requirement by law in Canadian provinces that restaurant staff are all paid (a) minimum wage (um I think a couple have separate wages for servers/bartenders but it's not much less than normal minimum wage). Yes, in some cases that isn't very good, but it's pretty much on par with the rest of the service/retail sector... it's not like in the US where there's a massive gap between state minimum wage and the wages servers get... yet people still follow the same tipping custom... which might be even more frustrating because it seems so unnecessary compared to in the US

^^

Seriously, I completely understand the reasons why one should leave a standard 15-20% tip in the US. Since coming back to Canada, though, it seems odd to me that I should pay the same tip during an economic crisis in a province where waiters and waitresses make these wages and have free health care. (The cost of living outside Toronto is not that much higher that this seems justified to me.) I'm willing to pay all the taxes in the world but I don't understand why we need to tip so highly for average or below-average service. All this said, I tip generously and will continue to do so until the social norms change.

(While the cost of living is not that much higher, the cost of alcohol certainly is, which exacerbates the frustration.)

not to stoke old fires but why is british tip 10% and american tip closer to 20?

I didn't even know you tip at all in the UK, TBH. What is a server's wage in the UK?

you'll get about £5 an hour at the very least, often more, sometimes quite a lot more if it's a posh joint

and we are not the sort of disgusting savages who don't tip. except we don't tip barmen or coffee vendors, that's dumb

;)

Been stuff in the news lately that even if you do tip in the UK it probably won't go to the server anyway, they're trying to change the law to stop that tho.

Yeah, that should answer your question. After the exchange rate (and health insurance), consider the difference: http://www.humanresourceblog.com/2009/03/24/server-minimum-wage-in-new-york-for-2009/

Barmen = liquor servers?

xpost

yeah, people who hand out drinks, behind a bar :P

also wow that's a low minimum wage

Yes, in the most expensive city in the country. Wake up, this is the basis of every ILX tipping argument EVER.

If the employee does not earn enough tips to average $7.15 per hour, the employer must pay the difference.

Would be shocked if any employer actually paid the difference, btw. Can anyone confirm/deny?

British system is fairer IMO, and besides you often get Brits who give 20% anyway for the hell of it.

give a regular tip because unless u are richie rich eating at fancytown its an extra couple bucks and probably your server is just having a bad day and if she/he is always a bitch than she/he will eventually get fired

so what are tips for? I thought they were a way of rewarding good service.

popcorn.gif

Oh dear, have I just triggered the recurring ILX tipping war?

theyre a stupid way of making sure that servers get paid at least a minimum wage

10% in the UK is fair enough I think (more for great service), as eating out can be a lot more expensive. I never used to tip in the jar at the counter when getting a coffee or whatever though, only table service. How expected is this in the US?

Here in the US, eating out is generally a fair bit cheaper so 15-20% doesn't work out so expensive. Also the service is generally a lot better - people give you glasses of water without having to ask! They bring the bill quickly! That said, in the UK I've never experienced bitchy service - if it's not up to scratch it's usually just incompetence or gormlessness....

i don't tip for coffee and you shouldn't. if i ordered a fancy coffee drink or sandwich maybe.

Also I've read a few accounts of (American) servers who just assume Brits won't tip. So I'm still feeling a bit like I need to tip on the higher end just to over-compensate. But then if you get crappy service it rankles a bit, either pay through the nose or reinforce their 'tight Brits' assumptions!

Britishes were never unreasonable about service/tipping. Germans and the French, OTOH, fucking sucked.

Also, civil servants.