Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Correction: You can't tip a cow.
Tipping is stupid
- Thread starter Tekee
- Start date
Correction: You can't tip a cow.
fugazi
King
Showing your gratitude is never stupid, but having to fake gratitude when there at times is none is stupid. That being said I always tip when the service is good, even if it ain't necessary in Holland.
Kozmos
Jew Detective
The American concept of tipping always eluded me. You already have a job. Why expect extra money from customers?
PiMan
Deity
By coincidence, a local newspaper had an article in its travel section on tipping just recently:
http://www.theage.com.au/travel/tra...ette-cold-hard-cash-splash-20090910-fiyh.html
http://www.theage.com.au/travel/tra...ette-cold-hard-cash-splash-20090910-fiyh.html
Tipping etiquette: cold, hard cash splash
September 13, 2009
Top service at a price ... to hang with the cool crowd at Aspen, Colorado, will cost you.
Tipping etiquette reveals the gulf between Australian and American attitudes, writes Rachael Oakes-Ash.
The coat-check girl in the ski resort of Aspen earns an average $US400 ($475) a night in tips. Clearly I'm in the wrong career. "It's best to tip her around $US5," says my host. Forgive me for not knowing you needed a master's in physics to hang up a coat. From where I'm sitting, which incidentally is on my coat so as not to have to tip, $US5 is $6, which is enough for a vodka and tonic, a glass of sauvignon blanc or a beer. I don't even know the girl's name and I am sure as hell not buying her a drink.
Coat-checking is a lucrative industry for those happy to work a season pawing the furs of Aspen's elite. One Aussie girl we met had already paid off her $US9000 debt and was now working for spending money.
I am a firm believer when travelling that you must embrace the local culture, but this tipping malarkey just reeks of double standards. The theory is coat-check girls are not officially on the payroll and don't receive a wage, relying purely on tips.
The US minimum hourly wage isn't enough for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Officially it's $US7.28 an hour in Colorado but for those in jobs with tips the federal minimum is less than a coffee at $US2.13 an hour.
While their citizens were up in arms about slave labour in the Nike factories of China not that long ago, it would appear something similar is happening here. Apparently it's up to me, the customer, to provide the wages of the staff in the establishment in which I am dining, in the First World county in which I am visiting. Go figure.
Complimentary just doesn't exist in this part of the world. The "complimentary" hotel shuttle is far from it when you're expected to tip your driver for depositing you at the restaurant door. A typical day in a luxury ski resort starts with a hotel pick-up from the airport for $US5, check-in and help from a porter for $US1 a bag, then hitting the slopes.
If you have a private instructor for the day you tip them minimum 10 per cent, return to the hotel, tip the ski valet for storing your skis, head to apres, tip for drinks, hand over your coat, dine, tip again and so on.
Sure, you can choose not to tip, but don't expect any service. The rule of thumb is tip big on day one and those folk will look after you for the rest of your stay, without the need to tip so heavily every day. Even with bad service, Americans still tip. While dining at a restaurant with good food but service with major attitude, we were informed by our American host that the waiter would certainly be receiving a lesser tip. We said, "Why tip at all? He's been outrageously rude." Our host couldn't do it. She just said that to tip 10 per cent in a town where 20 per cent is normal is a slap enough in the face.
My Australian attitude is not welcomed by a town that traditionally provides one of the highest service standard levels in international ski resorts. Alongside Beaver Creek, Telluride and Steamboat, Colorado resorts are known for their impeccable attention to detail when it comes to skiers' comfort on the hill. Where else in the world can you get complimentary muesli bars and hot apple cider served by smiling mountain hosts at the top of the lifts midmorning, and freshly baked chocolate cookies at the end of the day? However, we ran two separate tabs one night in a popular town bar: one by my friend, a Colorado native based in Denver, and one by me. When it came to settling the bill I had an automatic 18 per cent gratuity charge, he had none. When I asked the bar tender about this, he replied, "I heard your accent. Australians don't tip." After a debate I was destined to lose, he informed me the local newspaper, The Aspen Times, ran a story on April Fool's Day a few years ago with the headline "Australian tips 12.5 per cent".
Tipping time can be awkward in a country where to discuss it openly is considered bad manners. I always get it wrong and it causes great anxiety. Do I hand over the money openly, or do I slip it to him in an underhanded way? And, after all this tipping of hotel staff, do I have to tip again when I settle my accommodation bill? Yes, if you want and yes again.
Half the time it's not that we don't want to tip, it's just that Australians don't know when to tip or how much and that's what gives us a bad reputation.
It's best to arrive prepared with a budget for tipping and a knowledge of when is appropriate. Always make sure you have plenty of $1 bills; if you don't tipping is still so de rigueur you can ask your porter to break a $20 for you.
Some places, such as day spas, offer envelopes in which to place your tip for the massage that's just cost you a mortgage payment.
Tip taxis, bar staff, waiters, porters, coat-check girls indeed most folk that provide a service in a hotel. Tip your ski instructor, or at least buy him lunch. No need to tip the lifties or the ticket sales staff, but do tip the guy who waxes and services your skis. Do tip drivers, whether taxi or shuttle, but not the bus driver.
Don't let tipping ruin your holiday. I became obsessed by the etiquette of tipping and trying to get my head around the cultural difference. I came to the conclusion that I will never get it or understand it and I won't change it, either. Why complain in a town that truly does offer the best service in the world, gratuity not included.
azzaman333
meh
My friend, who had a job as a waiter, always loved serving the American customers because they tip, ending in a nice bonus at the end of the night.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Because it has somehow become legal to drastically lower peoples' wages based on the assumption that they will get cash tips. Most waiters and bartenders only make $3.08 and hour or so, when minimum wage is somewhere around $7.50. This is because on a regular shift, if a waiter or bartender receives an average of 15% of their sales in tips (which is the normal accepted tip percentage for a check), then, divided hour by hour, they can make as much as $9-$15 per hour, more at especially busy shifts and locations.
Personally, I liked the way the Russians did it when I was there: the tip was added onto the check as a sort of "tax," and you simply paid the amount on the check. When the waiter finished the transaction, the amount of the check not used to pay the cost of the food eaten was their tip. It usually came out to about the same amount, 15% or so.
I told you the easy way to fix this. Apply the same minimum wage to waiters/etc as it applies to everyone else.woody60707 said:
It's important financially as well; 40% of all tips are not reported to the federal government as wages for taxation - yes, waiters are tax evaders, and ought to be treated like the scum they are.
So I think I'll reduce all of my tips by 40% so that they won't steal the government's money.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
I do not tip for jobs I can easily do myself, unless it's a very fine woman.
I would still tip even if waiters and bartenders and such were getting minimum wage or above. In San Francisco (not sure about the rest of the state) waiters and bartenders still get minimum wage, which here is around $9.00 I think, and they get tips, so waiting tables or bartending at a nice place is actually a pretty damn good job around here. I have no qualms with that. I raise my eyebrows in suspicion at people questioning whether someone waiting tables or bartending "deserves" to make a lot of money. Oh right, because you get to decide who does and doesn't "deserve" to get good money? (The cost of living here is also astronomical so it makes sense, and this is also why I tip 20% standard.)
A few people (including that silly article) are talking about "well why should I pay them when the owner should be paying them??" Well one, customers are always paying the salaries of employees in any business, it's just in a restaurant that relationship is more direct; and 2) Because the waiter or the service person or the bartender is working for you. They are employed by the owner, sure, but the important part of their work if servicing you, the customer. They make their living off you, the customer, so the customer should pay be the one paying them. It's more efficient if you ask me, and it gives them an incentive for above average service. If I get shoddy service I can complain to the owner, sure. Big deal. Not leaving a good tip is a much better and effective way of showing displeasure if you ask me, and vice versa.
And yes, nothing is more dreaded than a group of Europeans or Australians or some other group of cheapskates coming into a bar or a restaurant. I know they're reading their lonely planet or other guidebook and its telling them to tip, but they're still not tipping, probably utilizing the same cheapskate logic of others in this thread (such as the whiny Australian in that silly article) to legitimize their cheapskatedness.
A few people (including that silly article) are talking about "well why should I pay them when the owner should be paying them??" Well one, customers are always paying the salaries of employees in any business, it's just in a restaurant that relationship is more direct; and 2) Because the waiter or the service person or the bartender is working for you. They are employed by the owner, sure, but the important part of their work if servicing you, the customer. They make their living off you, the customer, so the customer should pay be the one paying them. It's more efficient if you ask me, and it gives them an incentive for above average service. If I get shoddy service I can complain to the owner, sure. Big deal. Not leaving a good tip is a much better and effective way of showing displeasure if you ask me, and vice versa.
And yes, nothing is more dreaded than a group of Europeans or Australians or some other group of cheapskates coming into a bar or a restaurant. I know they're reading their lonely planet or other guidebook and its telling them to tip, but they're still not tipping, probably utilizing the same cheapskate logic of others in this thread (such as the whiny Australian in that silly article) to legitimize their cheapskatedness.
How are we to know the server just doesn't write off a 10% tip as people being cheap rather than them being poor servers?
Mise
isle of lucy
What's so abhorrent about expecting waiting staff to, you know, do their job? 
Yeah, sure, if I'm being a jerk and changing my order, or doing something a bit cheeky like asking for another plate to split the pizza/pasta/whatever, I'll give a decent tip to the server for the extra effort they took to accommodate me. But for christ's sake, whatever happened to people actually doing their job?
Yeah, sure, if I'm being a jerk and changing my order, or doing something a bit cheeky like asking for another plate to split the pizza/pasta/whatever, I'll give a decent tip to the server for the extra effort they took to accommodate me. But for christ's sake, whatever happened to people actually doing their job?
I'm not as concerned with their own awareness of their failings as much as I am with my own payment for their performance. I'll probably just leave 15% for bad service anyway, what they're not getting is a good tip. That's how I look at it anyway.
I take this as an admission that the tipping social protocol doesn't reinforce or incentivize good service.
Thanks to the cheapskates.
I think it does incentivize good service. It may not discourage bad service if I still tip customarily regardless (barring the waiter, I don't know, punching me in the face), but if you recognize good service with a good tip, people remember that.
Yeah, not the elephants that tip 15% no matter what...
Sure, cheapskates may contribute to the problem on the low side but the problem is that the flow of information from the size of the tip is lacking. A server doesn't know why they get a tip of a certain amount and any lowball tips can be attributed to cheapskates while consistent highball tips are taken for granted.
This is why I support leaving messages on the sales receipt.
What if the standard for an average tip was inflated to 20%?
A generally tip on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being roughly 5% and 5 being roughly 25%. The 1's and 5's, though rare, already know what I think about their performance before they see the tip. The 2's and 4's should know, though I am not as explicit. Most receive something between 15% and 20% from me with no real feedback.
I'm a delivery guy, and 50% of my earnings comes from tips.
I work till after 4 AM sometimes, and I work hard. Without the tips, the job would not be worth it at all. The people I know tip well get their food first
I tip generously, and I get good service.
Tipping is also important in crowded bars. You're not going to get a drink if you don't tip, but if you tip well and the bartender knows you, often you'll be helped immediately.
I work till after 4 AM sometimes, and I work hard. Without the tips, the job would not be worth it at all. The people I know tip well get their food first
I tip generously, and I get good service.
Tipping is also important in crowded bars. You're not going to get a drink if you don't tip, but if you tip well and the bartender knows you, often you'll be helped immediately.
Similar threads
