Restaurant tipping
 

Ah, the tip jar. When the hell did that whole concept become so beloved by the service sector? Where you get a glare if your loose change ends up back in your wallet instead of in the tip jar. For pouring a cup of coffee or handing over a bag of take out or putting a scone in a bag? Should I be tipping my dry-cleaner? Do I need to leave the change from my magazine purchase at the newspaper stand? Is sacking my groceries a tip-worthy task? (Actually, these days, I go through the check yourself out lines at the grocery, so I don't actually interact with people there.)

What makes pouring me a drink different from putting my books in the plastic bag in such a way that they don't get dented? Or leaving purchased clothing on the hangers so my pants don't get wrinkled? What about those Victoria's Secret gals, who wrap my underwear in pretty tissue paper? All of those things are going over and above, too.

I'm thinking about putting a tip jar on my desk, so when I give a really good opinion, instead of my run of the mill opinions, my clients can appropriately tip me. I think that 20% would be great.

Restaurant tipping
 

I usually tip 20+% on the subtotal, rounding up. I agree with the notion that cheaper meals which require the same work from waitstaff as a more expensive meal merit larger tips.

We have a 5% tax rate in my locale and 18% was a freaking pain to calculate for my addled, somewhat wine-soaked brain. I was also trying to be sure I wasn't stiffing my friend since she was fronting me.

I agree with Thrashers Fan's objection that after paying for the meal, the restaurant owner is effectively inflicting em's monetary obligation to em's employees on the diners. What's next, making me pay a portion of the overhead for the time I sat at the table too?

Restaurant tipping
 

Back in the day, there was a very senior part at the firm who used to split the check when he took colleagues to his club and calculated into each bill a percentage of his monthly dues.

I was surprised he could sit comfortably with balls that large.

Restaurant tipping
 

But you see, I don't get that. Aren't you just supposed to do a good job? Why should I have to motivate you with money out of my pocket when you are already getting paid to do the job? I was raised to do the best I could no matter what the job.

Where does it stop? Should a lawyer get tipped for doing an extra-special good job on a case or something? And, in my humble opinion, it has gotten to the point where tipping is simply expected. I don't know about you, but I just don't feel like I have an option unless I don't plan on eating there again (I figure that of they remember me for big tips, which they do, they would also remember if I did not tip at all). We have all been guilted into tipping by those "he only makes $2.34 an hour" stories. The only winner here is the owner. He doesn't have to pay a decent wage while I am forced to tip you in an effort to bring up your paltry wage. The waiter is screwed because he believes that he is making a killing in tips and while I know that some people at the right places do it probably isn't much above minimum wage for most people when you add the tips in. Think about it this way, we have all lamented about how a lawyer's big salary looks different when you divide it by the high hours worked -- same thing with the waiter if he makes $2.00 and hour and gets $25 in tips during his 8 hour shift because he is excited about the $25 when it really only brought him up to $5.00 an hour for his time. I know that tips are normally higher but you also have to take into account the elaborate splitting process that goes on in the kitchen so when you leave a $20 tip for the cute waitress she may only see $5 or $10. In the end, the waiter is getting jipped and the customer who already paid for the meal is getting gouged by the owner who gets to skirt the minimum wage laws.

ThrashersFan

Restaurant tipping
 

I'm surprised he didn't find the other three chairs at teh table empty and available to hold his balls pretty quickly. One split check with a pro rata dues assessment and that's my last meal with him.

I have friends with whom I now refuse to eat out because each meal ended up with the friend somehow calculating em's meal cost to be approximately 1 penny more than the price of the entree, without any acknowledgment of tax, tip, or beverage. That was, if em bothered to bring enough cash to pay in the first place.

I don't mind cheap friends; I'm just not going to subsidize them.

A Simple Life
 

So will Ms/ Richie be bringing her herion stash with her or will she have to find the big Ozarks drug ring once she gets there?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/nrichie1.html
(spree - Smoking Gun story about Nicole Richie's drug arrest problems)

n(not seeing the family resemblance)cs

Restaurant tipping
 

You read my mind. Except for the part about victoria's secret, I just hang out there, I never buy stuff because I am no perv. I have been in my local coffee shop/bookstore a lot because if I have a lot of work to do, I would rather go there with a redweld than sit in my office or take it home. But why do I need to tip the guy who gives me coffee but not the girl at the other register who rings up my book purchase. It's not like s/he put sugar in it and mixed it up and brought it to my table and bussed it off afterwards. I did most of the work. I should be tipping me--oh wait that doesn't work. Anyway, say no to tip jars. Otherwise this will never end.

Restaurant tipping
 

What is it with these fucking morons anyway. I go through the regular line but I always sack my own groceries because they are idiots. They throw two things into a shitty little plastic bag and then chuck it into my cart. Fuck that. I want paper and I want 'em packed heavy so I can fit everything in the trunk (convertibles don't leave much trunk space). And I want all of my frozen stuff in one bag and all the fucking soap and other non-food items kept apart from the food. Is that so difficult? Can't you put all of the produce in one bag? Why don't they train these dumb asshounds? The checkers at my store know me and always tell the bagger (what a fucking job, huh?) that I will do my own and then you would think the little prick would offer to at least unload my cart while I bag but NOOOOOOOO I end up running back and forth. Fucking little shits. And then they offer to walk me out to my car. Why, so you can jack me for a $5 tip for watching me put my groceries in the trunk? I swear there is a national conspiracy to drive me fucking crazy. I know what you people are up to and it ain't gonna work. Assclowns.

ThrashersFan

Restaurant tipping
 

I won't eat with the subsidizers either. They really piss me off. Cheap friends are annoying, but there is one that eat with fairly regularly who calculates his share of tips down to the penny. The only reason I tolerate it is that he is a CPA so I don't think he can really help himself. I round up, but I don't care if he doesn't.

Restaurant tipping
 

I think I was raised that way too, but it didn't really sink in. The fact is that for me the prospect of cash is an excellent motivator. Pavlovian or something.

And I did ok in the bar business (thanks to decent min. wage laws in the province of Ontario, as well as good owners of the bar, being able to keep all my tips, and always-packed bars). If you annualized how much I made there, I made more than I did my first year practicing law. It was a good way to pay for school and before that, to pay for travel and subsidizing the other parts of my life. But I see your point - it is not like that for everyone, and the tips are deceptive.

Restaurant tipping
 

For a comparison to a non-tipping environment where service is everything - in other words, to see what fixed rates do for personal service employees - look at your drivers license centers. Don't you wish that those slugs had to live on tips? Don't you think you might get out of there in less than an hour if they did?

As to putting a tip jar on your own desk - the job that you do is easily ratable by your employer - it's not a situation where only you know if the client walks away happy or not. And, the grocery bagger has a limited capacity to make or break your day - if they're a little slow, or gruff, or just plain ugly, you still walk out with what you came for - groceries. When eating a meal in a restaurant, it's more than just food - it's being waited on. I like it that I have the power to reward (or not) good service.

Restaurant tipping
 

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind tipping for a good job because I appreciate it when somebody runs their ass of rather than being the typical "I hate my fucking job" waiter. My problem is with the owner and what he is getting away with. I think the waiter should make a decent wage and, if I am so inclined, I can reward him for excellent service rather than trying to make up for his cheap-ass boss.

ThrashersFan

edited to add: What a racket. The owner acts like you are paying him for only the food and the table but it is your responsbility to pay a little extra to make sure that his employees don't spit in your food next time you come in.

Restaurant tipping
 

Heh, one of the great cultural faux pas of my lifetime was grocery shopping in the UK. I got in the line, the girl rang up my groceries, and there was an awkward moment where we looked at each other with the exact same "why the fuck isn't she bagging anything" expressions on our faces. It took me a second to realize that I was the asshole that was screwing up the system.

Restaurant tipping
 

My SO and I were just discussing this and realized that we have not had this problem in a while; we are lucky enough now that any friends with whom we dine out are of the overcompensating variety. Surely it's a matter of self-selection. Now everyone throws excess money on the table and refuses to take any back, so that the person responsible for the bill has the choice of either vastly overtipping (usually not warranted, unfortunately), pocketing the surplus (how unseemly) or forcing small amounts of cash on every person at the table (what we do).

These antics remind me of how my mother and her relatives used to do this silly money dance at the end of every extended visit. My aunt (or uncle or grandmother) would offer my mother money, my mom would refuse, my aunt would not-so-surreptitiously put it in my mom's pocket, my mother would take it out and stick it back in my aunt's pocket, my aunt would seem to give up and then give the money to me and order me to put it in my mother's wallet when she wasn't looking, my mother would catch on take the money and give it to my cousin with the same instructions, and on and on. The goal was to effect the last transfer before the visitors boarded the plane (this was in the day when you could accompany folks to the gate at JFK) . My brother and I are now carrying on this nutty family tradition.

Restaurant tipping
 

What the fuck do people expect for $5.15 an hour? That bullshit about "all work has dignity so each person should work incredibly hard to do the best that can possibly be done" is a luxury argument by people whose work actually has dignity. Pay more, you get more qualified people. Pay less, and you get what you pay for. I mean, we're a bunch of fucking lawyers and for whatever obscene amount some of us make we still screw around for x minutes a day on a chat board talking about the size of JLo's latest ass. I've worked for truly lousy wages and still done my best--but when we're talking about 50 year olds bagging groceries we may not be getting the cream of the intellectual crop here. They'll earn $10 an hour when we start agreeing to pay $5 for an orange, and then we'll get people who don't suck. Jesus.