Restaurant tipping
 

The absolute worst restaurant service I have experienced was in the Bahamas where tip is automatically included in every bill. You could sit down and wait 20 minutes for someone to talk to you, 40 minutes for your food, 30 minutes for the check, etc. Hideous service everywhere except tiny native restaurants in the banking district where it was just really sloooow.

In Paris, tipping is considered insulting, more than perhaps leaving the change on a bill, and the service was always exemplary. That said, we tipped ridiculous amounts on the bill because the service was always so great, and we are ugly americans.

Even(uncouth)Odds

Restaurant tipping
 

In Washington, D.C., an enterprising DMV employee undertook a comparable system. He had people place $8 in a cardboard box to get copies of their driving records, when teh actual fee was $7. And the cardboard box was not the district's cash-strapped substitute for a lock-box.

On a related note, a friend went into the district DMV to renew a license (or something). The clerk admired her Cross pen (or some other not bic-cheap brand), "that's a nice pen," and proceeded to take it when my friend set the pen down on the counter. Friend commented "oh, where did my pen go?" DMV clerk said something like "here it is, sure would be nice to have a pen like this." Friend, fearing her license would turn up void when next pulled over, did not object.

I'm all for market-based economies, but not quite ready to apply the model to government services.

Restaurant tipping
 

You are so right about the Bahamas. It was absolutely infuriating. It's one of the reasons I won't go back.

Restaurant tipping
 

I guess I am just naive. I used to be a cashier in the days before scanners and baggers and the like and we had to manually ring shit up and then run down and bag it. I did a good job because I believed that was the deal. Excusing shitty job performance because of lower pay is why we have all of these morons running around. They should be taught to have respect for themselves, their customers and their employer. Remember, the schlep making $5.15 today may be your secretary someday and continue to excuse her own poor performance because what you see as a fair salary is viewed by her as too low. Just about everyone feels they are underpaid and if that is an accepted excuse for poor performance this place is in trouble. I have had a lot of shitty jobs (including shoveling horseshit) in my life and often they came with shitty pay but I did them all the best I could because, above everything else, I could not have respected myself if I was not doing my best.

ThrashersFan

Restaurant tipping
 

Yeah, once one gets out of law school, most people pony up at least their share. That's what made this no-more-dinners friend particularly egregious. He had money, he just never had money with him sufficient to pay his fair share of hte bill. Nearly everyone else now is happy, or has sufficient pride, to want to show that they can afford to pay their share fully, and that they're so flush that they can, in fact, not even bother to break the amount down below the ATM-standard $20 amount.

Survivor
 

Oh, none of you did anything wrong, I just wanted to make sure no one spoiled the show for me, since I would then be forced to cry like a little baby because my life is so pitiful that I cry if someone tells me who won a reality TV show that I am interested in.

Survivor
 

Then definitely stay away from MSNBC for awhile. I made the mistake of booting up the computer before I watched my Tivo'd Survivor show, and when the home page came up I was just pissed that they ruined it for me. Watched it anyway, but it's just not the same when you already know the results. The anticipation is the whole point of the show - without that it sucks.

survivor and 90210
 

I am fucking pissed. WHy on earth did CBS move its finale to Sunday when people like me who dont watch tv on a daily basis and certainly not CBS would have no idea that it was on? I dont even really remember the commercials saying it was on sunday when I watched thurs (not that i pay attention to commercials). How did anyone know it was on who actually do other things besides watch tv every night and all day on weekends? You watch the show all season then miss the end? How is this a good programming idea? Then I get stupid People Magazines email to me which announces the winner so even if they rerun it it is ruined.

And how was I supposed to know the 90210 reunion was on if I dont watch tv every day and only watch fox on tues and wed for AI? Like I am supposed to rememnver for five days? This I am not so upset about, but had it been melrose, I would have been pissed.

Fuck tv programmers. isnt tv viewing about consistency and the habitual tendencies of the couch potato? Why am I supposed to make an effort to know that my thurs show is on sunday? fucking bullshit.

Restaurant tipping
 

Wait a second. You get paid for the time you spend here? I don't care how little it is, that's a windfall.

TM

Restaurant tipping
 

Argh, yes, this annoys the pants off of me.

I have one friend who (i) is vegan and (ii) likes good wine. When calculating her share of the tab, she invariably (a) insists that we just split the whole tab, since "everyone pays their own" never works, (b) excludes from the total all items including meat or dairy, and sometimes other stuff that she doesn't like much, because she couldn't share those, (c) excludes all drinks that anyone ordered other than the wine, which she orders "for the table," even when dinning with Mormons, (d) divides by the total number of people, (e) pays that + 15% and (f) calculates everyone else's share by dividing the remainder by the total number - 1 and adding 15%. I never, never go out with her other than 1 on 1 anymore (where I can force a "pay your own" policy). I'm pretty liberal with the "buy a round, cover the bill, someone will catch you up later" thing. I can take abuse of the system by reason of poverty, bad luck, any number of reasons. But I CANNOT tolerate abuse in the guise of assuring "fairness."

The only way to deal with these vultures is to cut them off - either mandate before the shindig that the bill is being split straight, or stop socializing with them in groups where it can be split.

Restaurant tipping
 

I should be so lucky to get paid for working with the asses of horses and the crap that seeps from the holes.



ThrashersFan

Restaurant tipping
 

How can she began to rationalize a step (b), (let alone steps c, d, and e), in light of step a?

Either you pay your own or you split evenly. Did she miss B_R_C training day?

Restaurant tipping
 

I'll give you a dollar to either shorten the length of most of your posts or break your posts up from one long paragraph of repetitive rant to lots of smaller ones.

TM

survivor and 90210
 

Jesus, don't even get me started on programmers. I don't follow much that's on TV, but I can still rant a good long time about (i) moving Angel all over hell and gone, from Tuesday to Sunday to Monday to Wednesday and whatever, and (ii) the whole "stop and start" shit with series - I mean, just pick a time and run the fuckers through solid, don't run the first 5, then 4 weeks of reruns of the first 4, then run 3, then rerun those 3 (whoops, where's no. 5? dunno), etc. Drives me fucking bonkers.

I need a TiVo. Bad. (Baaaad.)

Restaurant tipping
 

You say this as if it's a systemic problem. Is it? If so, is bad service specific to restaurants, or services there generally?

I have never been, but am looking for an analogue to Hawaii (which is fantastic, but from the East Coast is simply too freakin' far away.) That leaves the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, etc. From what I gather, the Bahamas is a mixed bag.