tipping

i mean, i don't get tipped every time i help someone with their theater tickets at work, and i smile like hell!

haha. i'm sure i'd just WANt to tip the australian waiter

As it is, you should tip if you feel the level of service was good. If not, fuck it. Seriously. Its one of the reasons that I try so hard to be a good bartender is that, by and large, if I put in the effort, people will pay me more.

If you completely disagree with tipping, however, you've never worked in the service industry in the US. Period. The feeling of earning a good tip is pretty damn satisfying.

to link but two of ten thousand ILX threads on tipping

there are certain jobs that because of how crappy they are, we have to pay taxes on them?

You think of tips as taxes?

i think of tips as a collective effort to improve the quality of life of service workers. they don't get paid enough, so the money has to come from somewhere else. MY POCKET. when all i wanna do is enjoy a few drinks after a long week without breaking the bank.

Exactly. Wishing and complaining isn't going to change it.

I still want to know why you described tips as taxes. Are you a freeper?

What's the protocol?

-- Surmounter (rra12...) (webmail), January 20th, 2007. (rra123)

just want to make sure the utter absurdity of this statement isn't lost. a few drinks after one week would call for a tip of around 3 bucks as minimally appropriate. that's all the dude would have to spend. 3 bucks a week. and he's complaining that this 3 bucks will "break the bank." seriously, man, examine what's going on with your life that lead to these circumstances. if 3 dollars is too much for you to afford, and you're still spending your money in bars, you need a therapist.

i think the tipping, for me, is the straw that breaks the camel's back

it's like jesus, i have to pay 5 dollars for a 99 cent beer and then a dollar on top of it to kiss the bartender's ass who's trying too hard to be cool serving me my drink.

i like the tab actually. a lot.

Sorry! I'm a Brit, oi don't belong 'ere m'lud. (I went to Yo Sushi today and didn't tip)

that's why i don't drink beer in bars (the price of the beer, not the dollar tip). i know it's silly because it's about the location and not the beer itself, but i'd rather at least order a drink with more ingredients than i have in the fridge at home.

worldwide

Also who tips 40%%??

Doesn't really count but I used to regularly tip 40-50% at lunch and bars - kind of felt like as a 1-top eating a $10.99 crawfish platter I should tip $5 to justify taking up the spot.

(Used to because I never eat lunch at a sit down place anymore and don't drink.)

La Lechera otm.

Yes we are aware that America is not the world. If you are trying to navigate consuming goods and services here (as a lot of us are) it is a salient topic.

Health care is also complicated here, and we are allowed to talk about it! Amazing how this works, if you are not interested in something being discussed here you can scroll past it without being harmed. I have no interest in, say, Daft Punk, but it doesn't bother me that such chat exists.

I bet one guy in Daft Punk is a great tipper but not the other one.
Which genre artists do you think tip the most? I'd say ska, but only by quantity since there's 20 of them at a time.

Also the US exports its culture—so its practice of tipping becomes a world issue.

In Australia, which is anti-tipping country, tipping is on the rise. Not because of some explicit imitation, but because the various payment systems include a tipping page or step as part its process. We're now prompted to tip and have to consciously reject it.

I'm not sure tipping is on the rise in Australia. I'd say most people would tip for dinner in a relatively expensive restaurant, but in all other circumstances it's perfectly acceptable not to tip - and it would be downright weird to tip in a pub/bar as is de rigueur in the US.

Cash is rare enough at my bar that I worked five slammed hours last night and my cash tips were $11.50. Plastic ubiquity works out to my advantage in one way

if cash is so rare and it's good for you that ppl use plastic why the $1.45 transaction surcharge? seems kinda arbitrary and squirrely

Agreed that American tipping practices being fucked up is not an excuse not to tip in the US, seems self-evident to me.

Dunno if I've ever lived in a country that is straight up "anti tipping" tbf, in both Germany and Portugal tipping is a common practice for a job well done and a meal well made, it's just it's a "compliments to the chef" type thing, not an obligatory move that if you don't do it the waitstaff get into financial trouble. I know in Japan and South Korea tipping is frowned upon, which I think is a shame because those are also countries where you are very likely to get amazing food and service. Just let me give you extra money!

Here in London almost every restaurant now has a service charge included, which is pretty handy I admit and I need to get better at inspecting the tab to see if it's there or not because lately I've just been assuming.

I always carry some cash with me for tipping cos I don’t trust that card tips get to where they should.

i don’t know about others’ experiences, but it’s always the nicest people who don’t tip— as if by smiling and being friendly they make up for not tipping me when I am making them their fucking $10 cocktail.

do you get the impression that the same thing happens in reverse, like people who think that by tipping a large amount they're buying their way out of any obligation to be polite to the wait staff?

I've never worked in a bar or restaurant but I used to take inbound calls in a call-centre here in the UK, and I got the impression from the occasional Americans I spoke to that you have wildly different ideas about customer service in the US. It was jarring because the American callers were simultaneously weirdly nice (using the your first name a lot, asking about how your day was going, generally talking to you like you were old pals) and weirdly rude (unselfconsciously barking orders at you, general air of 'do this now' directness that most British callers would shy away from). I think in the UK people find both serving someone and being served by someone an embarrassing experience, so there's an attempt to make it impersonal, both of you implicitly acknowledge that you're not two people having a 'real' conversation, you're playing the roles of customer and employee, and holding back allows your real self to maintain some dignity

$10 cocktail.

in which city are you mixing these very cheap cocktails?

Philadelphia.

And most of them are 9-13$, i was just spitballing

I'd need a liver airlifted to me.

if cash is so rare and it's good for you that ppl use plastic why the $1.45 transaction surcharge? seems kinda arbitrary and squirrely

CC tips benefit me personally, not the business. If everyone magically started using cash, the owners would probably love it. They're passing along fees from their CC processor to the customers.

do you get the impression that the same thing happens in reverse, like people who think that by tipping a large amount they're buying their way out of any obligation to be polite to the wait staff?

They're passing along fees from their CC processor to the customers.

this. same reason that some convenience stores do it (or avoid it by saying "credit card transactions minimum $5 transaction")

In the US if you deposit too much cash in the banks, they will charge you a fee. Probably not near as much as CC processors but coupled with theft/robbery/grossness of handling bills risk and customer tendency to overspend on a card, there's a lot of incentives to go cashless.

Yes. I have no doubt about this. The most contemptuous customers pay extra if they can treat you like shit. This has happened to me since I started doing this sort of work at 16. Age doesn’t matter either, it still happens. I can smell it. It always starts with asking my name and then repeating it until the sound of my own name makes my stomach turn.
― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, July 17, 2023 8:37 AM

OTM. Disheartening on a "good" day, infuriating otherwise.

Yes. I have no doubt about this. The most contemptuous customers pay extra if they can treat you like shit. This has happened to me since I started doing this sort of work at 16. Age doesn’t matter either, it still happens. I can smell it. It always starts with asking my name and then repeating it until the sound of my own name makes my stomach turn.

The restaurant would be called Serves You Right.

Last time I went to this restaurant, they made us all stand up and played the national anthem.

The first entirely cashless business I encountered was a busy upscale cafe in downtown Chicago that I used to get coffee and lunch from when I worked nearby. This was maybe 5 or 6 years ago. It didn't make a difference to me to pay with a card, though I did feel weird that it necessarily excluded less well-to-do people who don't have cards.

as someone who has worked in retail and hospitality for most of their working life, I think it is wild that we leave the responsibility to make earnings reasonable in the hands of people who show themselves to be completely unreasonable

truth bomb

part of the reason I stopped working in restaurant industry is that I was barely scraping by and so I had to appease a bunch of entitled little shits nightly to ensure I could pay for my car that month.

well that and the fact that they laid me off

Going back to the tweet that started this revival.

Yes, it's crazy that the youngest drinkers are closing out each round. Keep in mind that they were quarantined for 12+ months. Do they know that they can safely leave their credit card in the secure hands of the bartender? It's crazy to assume that they'd think (1.) that's a thing to do and (2.) that the bartender would actually prefer to keep their card for them.

I'm trying hard to remember the first time I was asked if I wanted to "start a tab." I was likely using cash exclusively, so it was more a matter of trust on the bartender's part than me having to leave anything valuable with him/her as collateral. By the time I paid my first tab with a credit card, I was familiar with the process.

Imagine the look I'd get from someone born in the 21st Century if I told them that I used to keep my first bank debit card in good standing by making 10 individual purchases each month with it, sometimes by "catching up" at the end of the month with four separate purchases of gum or Lifesavers. Now tell them that they should leave their credit cards, secret three-pinnned security code on the back and everything, with that complete stranger on the other side of the bar.

the last time I was a restaurant employee, the receipts didn't even X out the full credit card number like 99.9% do today. the entire number sitting there on credit card receipts, copies of which were usually left about the restaurant as the customer didn't always take their copy.

at least one co-worker bragged about 'getting revenge' on a bad customer by keeping a receipt and using guy's credit card to send terrible crap to his house, but the probability that any of the shit that guy said being true is less than 1%.

also...my current company, when I started in 2005, was still having customers use their SSN as user IDs, which included saying it over the phone. and sending forms requiring you to write the whole thing on a form.

let me ask any bartenders in here - do you prefer the "keep your card and give back after closing out" method, or the "scan card and give back" method that many bars are gravitating towards? wasn't sure which was easier for bartenders.

I was gonna say, most bars don't hold on to your card these days.

I usually open a tab but I'm also a lightweight and will often close it out without ordering more. Is that considered bad form?

the number of times that i forgot to close out my tab because i was too drunk, and had to go back to the bar the next afternoon to get my card..,,, well one's too many but reader it happened quite a bit

Many bars these days print a copy of the receipt with what you've ordered up to that moment and put it in an empty glass.

yeah a lot around me do that

Scan and hand back is best for all concerned. And extra points if - upon settling up - you get the pleasant exchange of "leave it on the card?" "Yep!"

Not because I ever have reason to change payment methods. But because it just feels kinda nice that they ask.

Maybe there are people who use one card to open a tab but a different one to pay. Maybe some folks like to use a card to open a tab but then settle in cash. I am not one of the but it's nice of servers to provide options.

I take it like the same thing as a hotel asking you for a card but letting you pay with a different one at checkout - the initial card is to verify the person can pay for the goods, but probably legally have tp verify that they also want to use that card to settle up

the number of times that i forgot to close out my tab because i was too drunk, and had to go back to the bar the next afternoon to get my card..,,, well one's too many but reader it happened quite a bit

― Tracer Hand, Monday, July 17, 2023 11:45 AM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I did this at least a handful of times in law school and never before or since.

Going into that bar at 10:30 in the morning, not recognizing anyone. Taking that little plastic recipe box and thumbing through the cards for mine. "ah, look. Pete left his behind too!"

I don’t drink much, so (on the rare occasions I’m in a bar) my tendency is to pay for one drink and tip decently without starting a tab.

But this thread has me thinking if I’m ever in a more than one drink situation - or if somehow I’m buying drinks for other people - a tab is kinda the humane way to go.

a lot of the card conveniences or inconveniences depend on the POS system. we use Square at the bar where I work, and the system for getting the card info saved in the system and having a name associated with it and finding it later is, frankly, super time-consuming and irritating.

most of the young people who come to the bar either pay with Apple Pay or CashApp, which i think is fine. these conveniences don’t have anything to do with how much they tip, ime.

I was just at a bar playing music for several hours. I had a hamburger and there were, I think, four glasses of wine (two for me and two for someone else).

The tab was $1.09. I have no idea how they came up with that - typically I don't have detailed conversations about band tabs. I am glad to get anything comped, of course. But I also wouldn't mind paying full price for food/beverages while also getting paid in normal money for music.

It would certainly make tipping way easier. Sometimes I end up tipping nearly random amounts because I simply don't know what the charges should have been. This time I added $10 because it seemed about right (I am assuming it would have been a $50ish check).

the phrase "NO EGG NO TIP" has popped into my mind a few times since reading it and it always makes me feel slightly delirious, thank you LL :)

haha!! you are very welcome. i feel the same way about it. NO EGG NO TIP will be with me for the long haul.

When my sister was waitressing, if she got massively shorted on a tip by stingy diners, she occasionally followed the worst offenders out the door and told them ‘you forgot your change!’

Is the thing about people writing ‘Jesus loves you’ on the check in lieu of a tip a real thing?

no egg no tip

i strictly roots

guy strictly rude, more like

I’m sure someone wrote Jesus Loves You when I was working in NC but it hasn’t happened elsewhere that I can recall.

Then again I’ve also noticed that my brain erases a lot of these experiences bc 1) not helpful to hold onto them and 2) actively hurtful to dwell on how poorly I’ve been treated.

When my sister was waitressing, if she got massively shorted on a tip by stingy diners, she occasionally followed the worst offenders out the door and told them ‘you forgot your change!’

A waitressing friend of mine once received a one-dollar tip from a particularly obnoxious table. One of the diners accidentally forgot an expensive camera* in the booth.

(* = This was in the 80s. I am speaking of a film camera.)

There were a few pictures left on the roll of film, so my friend used them to take pictures of that precisely one-dollar tip being flushed down the toilet.

When I worked at Applebee's, I had a colleague who received a tip of pennies on a $70 meal (2001 money). She followed the diners out to the parking lot and threw the pennies at their car. She was promptly fired, of course, but the TGIFridays down the street scooped her up the next day.

A wise career move

I am not sure whether my sister hurled pennies at stingy customers in retreat (all signs point to yes) but she upbraided bad customers in the knowledge that her job was totally safe. The owners hated people like that and knew she was an excellent server. This was a neighbourhood place where regulars tipped nearer 25 per cent, with the occasional huge tip from someone affiliated with the Minnesota Vikings.