tipping

I was reading that this morning too and thought it was crazy. But I have also read that Heads in Beds book that someone left at my place and people tip hotel staff like crazy at the beginning of a stay to get premium service.

Yeah, I remember reading that but I've never seen it actually pan out. Here's a tip I learned from a friend, though: bake cookies or bring treats before a flight and gift them to the flight attendants on the way in, especially during the holidays. *That* sometimes pans out with upgrades and other comped stuff.

But $10 per person per day for a hotel? No way. I rarely make anything close to a mess, always reuse my towels, etc., throw out gross trash somewhere else. No way am I stripping beds, folding towels, vacuuming, dusting, fluffing pillows or whatever *and* tipping $10 a day per person in advance of the maid coming. The social contract is I pay for a room, I am not a slob, and I tip a couple of bucks a day.

Oh, I sat next to a super clean cut guy with a Yale sweatshirt on that had every single attendant come up to say hi to him. I finally asked what was going on and he told me he always brings attendants Godiva chocolates to thank them for their work in the hopes of getting bumped up. It works when they have the space. ( I assume it also depends on the person).

The heads in beds book thought really says it's the front desk that has all the power in getting free booze and food sent up if they don't have the ability to upgrade rooms and taking a bunch of stuff off the end bill, late check out, etc. But it's funny it was interesting when he was describing the whole bell hop culture.

Wasn't there a whole section on Brian Wilson?

OH yeah, there was that one random part about him.

Yeah, I remember reading that but I've never seen it actually pan out. Here's a tip I learned from a friend, though: bake cookies or bring treats before a flight and gift them to the flight attendants on the way in, especially during the holidays. *That* sometimes pans out with upgrades and other comped stuff.

this feels like "wear a jacket" folk wisdom. all flight upgrades are handled by frequent flyer status and a computer these days.

$5/day is standard for a hotel room in the US. p.s. US tipping culture is vile but what are you going to do?

my gf is a server in a farm to table resto. it's not hyper-expensive but people are usually paying at least $100 a head. they give a good tip out, based on a percentage of the price of the bills given to tables, to their kitchen staff. so when she is bilked by tables with stingy tips - generally of rich people, many of them american tourists, once one of the richest men in the city gave her circa 10% - it ends up costing her money.

In the US, servers’ tax liability is predicated on 8 per cent of their takings. So if a party stiffs then on tips, they lose out twofold.

its a terrible system, agreed

you can also have the uk system of minimum wage and hardly anyone tips any amount. not great either

right but at least there is clarity about who to guillotine under that system

One thing that was pointed out to me is that if you are the kind of person who has their room made up every day (which I do not for various reasons) make sure you tip every day rather than one big sum at the end bc it’s often different crews working on different days ie the person who works Tuesday might not be the person working Thursday

In Ireland, we have a minimum wage and everyone tips now anyway

cos of TV and that probably

I mean not for insane stuff like pouring a drink into a glass

pretty much always did tip tbh

lookit we're just better we prob oughtnt rub it in

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/travel/ipad-tipping-gratuity.html

It was 2015 when I first began to grapple with tipping when ordering at a counter-service restaurant. I had ordered a fried chicken sandwich at Pine State Biscuits in Portland, Ore., and a friend chided me for not tacking on a gratuity to my credit card payment. I hadn’t even considered it.

https://www.grubstreet.com/2020/07/tip-50-percent.html

Tip at least 50 percent. Tip 75 percent. Tip 100 percent. What’s stopping you? Do you need to save that money for the vacation to Saint-Tropez you’re planning on taking once this is all over? If you can afford to go to a restaurant right now and have a leisurely meal — because you don’t need to save as much money as you can? — then, yeah, you can afford it.

Steal a car. Divorce your mom. What's stopping you? You like your "Freedom" and want to go home for the holidays? Well cry it up big baby. Nobody cares about you and no one is coming to save you. Time to hunt and kill an endangered species.

i had to look up who wrote this. It did not disappoint.

Is this journalism

So I went to pre-order the El-P reissue of Fantastic Damage on vinyl. On the final page of the checkout process, there was a prompt to "Show Your Support for the Team at Fat Possum Records" with options to include a 5%, 10%, 15%, etc. I didn't really want to tip the mail-order guys at the company I'm buying a record from? But I figured if I didn't tip, there was a non-zero chance they would spit on my burger record. So I gave them 5%. But I definitely feel weird about the expansion of tipping outside of the restaurant/personal service sphere. Has anyone else seen anything like this, where there's an online tipping option for something you're just shopping for?

I always ignore those cases. They must know they're pushing the edge with that

Do you guys tip on a pickup restaurant order?

I do. Even though I'm not getting the service that I would normally tip for, I operate on the assumption that the tip is going to someone in a tipped position.

btw, "tip for" should be in quotations because I just automatically leave good tips, regardless of any hiccups in service. You'd have to actually do a shit on my food or something before I left a bad tip.

definitely tip on pickup orders! this has been of extra importance since the pandemic started --- so much more business shifted to pickup, and there was way less business overall, so people who rely on tips experienced enormous income drops.

but it's always been appropriate. i haven't been in the service industry in a decade now, so i'm not sure what would be the current standard, but i'd say at least a buck or two if i'm just getting a sandwich or something, or like 10 or 12% or something like that on a more substantial meal order. not what you'd tip if you sat there and got table service, but enough to acknowledge that you got service, and that that took the time of someone who relies on tips to make their money. because very often, the people putting together to-go orders (and getting them to the front, nicely wrapped with all the condiments and whatnot) are people who are really on the clock to wait tables or tend the bar. so the time they spend taking care of your order is time not spent taking care of their in-person customers. especially if the place is busy and/or understaffed, they really could lose out.

I tip on pickup because usually somebody is reporting those sales and tipping out on it.

Nothing made me more pissed off when a client of mine ran up a huge $300 order at a local restaurant to feed our customer care team, and after hemming and hawing on whether to tip on a meal they paid with w/ their corporate card, stiffed them cos "they might get mad at headquarters if I give a big tip".

Obv I couldn't push back, if I attacked our client I'd have been out of a job. Just wish I had cash to throw in the appropriate tip myself, but alas I did not and there was no ATM.

(fuck that, I have a corporate card and I tip much more when it ain't my money)

if you don't tip on a pickup at a restaurant you run the risk of literally taking money out of the servers' pockets (if they tip out the kitchen on the amount sold, which is not uncommon ime)

yep. it is literally costing them money (in most establishments here at least)

I remember losing $1 on a 12 top table when I waited tables, because the bill was over $120 and they left me like two bucks. fortunately my manager cheated and 'comped' some of the bill after it had been paid so that I could get a bigger tip.

but people stiff on pickup all the time because "all they're doing is handing me food", when in reality they're putting the order in, checking on it, ensuring it comes out correctly, and then keeping it warm/safe until you arrive (sometimes late). and tipping out on that money later.

Ringing up takeout pulls me away from service for the people who actually put on their grownup clothes and came out to eat and drink, so yeah I tip on takeout because golden rule and such.

https://www.grubstreet.com/article/new-tipping-rules.html

the "because i said so" attitude there isn't very convincing

It's written by and for people living in NYC. The author doesn't bother to make a distinction between NYC and, say, Omaha or Spokane, because for the purpose of New York magazine those places hardly exist, and they certainly don't matter.

where is the galaxy brain take that points out the "everybody gets a tip" approach supports businesses underpaying their employees?
i waited tables for 17 years and never expected to get a tip for takeout

Tbh, this note from Choire and company via the Vulture email basically sums up that piece and the whole of their NEW RULES DROPPED article, not really worth the air to discuss it

I hope you enjoy or are very angered by our rules! Please let us know by furiously sharing them on social media.

I will confess that I tip very generously (there were a few categories in that guide that I am not quite there with, but the general thrust is not far off from what I do).

Because the individual workers did not create the system that shortchanges them Punishing them for its existence doesn't work for me.

Theoretically, nonparticipation may EVENTUALLY change the business model, but I can't look a busser in the eye and tell them that my resistance to tipping culture is ultimately in their long-term best interest. If this makes me an enabler of capitalism, well, put me against the wall when the revolution comes.

For now, I just calculate generous tipping into my dining / drinking / carryout budget. If I can't afford to tip generously, I'll just go get some food from a grocery store and cook it.

Yo, tip your grocery store cashier.

Tips for takeout is normal to me but most places I worked we had a person on dinner shifts dedicated to takeout - it was usually a bridge between hosting or food running and waiting tables so they were getting $2.13 an hour + takeout tips.

I draw the line at tipping for buying a bottle of water.

Coming from a non-tipping country, I find the idea of tipping a grocery store cashier bizarre - I do find it stressful having to deal with tipping when I'm in the US, so any explicit guide as to what and who you should tip is welcome to me. But why US employers can't just pay their employees what they fucking deserve instead of leaving it up to the customer to make a judgement call is beyond me.

Yeah it’s weird how everywhere else in the world everyone gets paid fairly. It’s just in the US that they aren’t paid a fair amount.

where is the galaxy brain take that points out the "everybody gets a tip" approach supports businesses underpaying their employees?
i waited tables for 17 years and never expected to get a tip for takeout

Fwiw, most of the people I hear complaining most about the omnipresence of tipping prompts in places they previously haven't been isn't so much about not wanting to tip or being anti-tipping, just more that it feels extra annoying since it seems to be popping up more and more just as prices on almost everything are going way up.

just so we're clear on the level of the discourse(tm) associated with this pronouncement, here are several more NEW RULES that accompany the tipping section:

40. Do not touch the small of my back to move around me at the bar if you’re ugly.

44. You and Bobby De Niro may go way back, but to everyone else, he’s Robert.

59. The correct number of slices of pizza to order for a group of X people is 2X + X/3.

68. Disperse — don’t clump — the superstars at the table.

82. It’s fine to use COVID as an excuse to get out of almost anything.

120. Even when a kids’ party says “no gifts,” you’re supposed to bring a gift.

basically clickbait works and also people like being told what to do

I’m an American and I have never tipped a supermarket cashier. Where in the US of A is this done?

It’s not. That I’m aware of.

I used to get tips as a bag boy tho.