Tipping again, non food

But, um ... that's Canadian $, right? In which case I'd say ... I have no idea whether that's nice or not. Given my guess at the exchange rate, though, it seems perfectly sensible.

So it was decided that that word would be "disco." So if I saw a guy with a perm and a pink headband, I wouldn't have to make a sexual reference and say, "That is so gay," but would instead say, "That's pretty disco."

My hairdresser charges £25, so I buy her a morning coffee or Aqua Libra and give her the change, about £3.50, from the leftover fiver I have because I've brought £30 into the salon. She then 'does' my eyebrows. Her other clients (Goldie, Fran Healey, UK Garage people, blah blah) have a lot more money than I do and I've been going to her for nearly a decade, so when I can't afford a big tip Verity doesn't mind (she does Fashion Week styling so her life is really glam).

Tipping in Britain is 10 per cent for waiters, etc. Bartenders' ettiquette isn't the same as in North America, you tend to let them keep the change if it's between £1 and £1.50 on a round of drinks, but not always. Food delivery (as in pizza or Chinese) earns the delivery person £1, or to the nearest note if you're spending over £15 on the food. Baristas or anyone with a TIPS jar on their counter get loose change.

People who don't get tips: really late deliverers. Minicab drivers, unless they're driving for my favourite, reliable car service. Dry cleaners.

You do? I've never done this in my life. Am I some kind of wanker?

Who is probably the person who most needs it.

Which I believeis logical.

My little sister waitresses and her customers are nice folks she's known since she was a kid. She can pull down $200 a night in tips and seems to spend the LOT on Hilfiger-wear.

Your assumption that I don't really do fast food is correct (unless I'm slumming in Minneapolis and my mum wants Taco Bell or Wendy's). Exceptions: the Filet O'Fish and KFC. In America, they do the best mashed potatoes with this strangely addictive yet completely synthetic gravy and corn on the cob, which is the only way I will eat sweetcorn. In fact, when I was home for a funeral and so upset I didn't eat for a week (which is to say, EXTREMELY depressed) they coaxed me back on solids with a family-sized bucket.

No tips for fast food folks, they don't do table service and the establishments are designed with getting you in and out in five minutes in mind. Fact.

"I can just go and get it myself for that much"

xp- first time!

Why do most black people DON'T tip?

So there you go, people!

Order your groceries online!

Having said that, grocery chains here that deliver if you order online wont accept cash. They have these mega cool mobile EFTPOS thingies, or they take credit. Great idea, I often get my heavy grocery home delivered nowadays.

This tipping thing for EVERYTHING baffles me - are you guys not simply charging/being paid enough for the actual work in the first place?

There is a little store beneath the building where I work. They sell candy, beverages, magazines, lottery tickets, and tobacco products. On the counter there is a jar bearing the legend "TIPPING IS NOT A CRIME". I don't mean to be a dick about this, but what is the minimum effort for which I am required to reward you with a gratuity? If I buy a magazine, I BRING IT TO YOU and pay for it. So what am I tipping for? Am I to assume that you are the individual who keeps this little establishment so adequately stocked? Is it for your customer service? And if so, why are you on the phone all the time and barely acknowledging me?

-- .ada.m. (adamr...), January 18th, 2005.

I think a waiter does more work than a delivery guy to deserve 20% of the food bill. I used to tip the delivery guy the same as waiters too, until I realized that in a way, that's stiffing the waiters.

I've mentioned this before, but there was a serious undercurrent of racism in every restaurant I worked at (and all the ones I knew people at). It wasn't what I think of as KKK-style racism, and it generally disappeared outside of working hours, but a number of waiters absolutely dreaded waiting on black families (they also hated waiting on the elderly, groups of middle-aged women, etc. - but there weren't games and code associated with those), purely because they were convinced they'd get shitty tips.

xpost

Sorry PP, I forgot this wasn't the noise board.

When in foreign countries I often feel a bit weird about the whole tipping business, because I'm not so used to it...

Sorry PP, I forgot this wasn't the noise board.

I still read every post on that thing. Racist Pizza Guy, I didn't need another person to hate!

Depends on the restaurant. At most, credit cards tips are subtracted from the amount of cash the server has to turn in at the end of the night.

I don't think either of those sound right. Ideally, the server should be getting the whole tip (from cash or CC) from which they tip the bus staff, kitchen staff, host/ess, etc. So they shouldn't be keeping the whole thing but yeah, it would be weird if they weren't getting anything from the credit card. I thought leaving the tip on the CC was a pretty standard thing by now.

xpost

Wait, why not? I mean I never stiff someone on a tip but why is it bad to leave both copies of the receipt? Sorry if this is a dumb question. I recently started leaving those behind because I realized I they were just filling up my pockets until I get home and throw them in the trash.

Tracer, could you not charge the tip to work?

stencil I think think rye is stretching it. Maybe some adana or kofti.

Kristen I'm charged upwards of $140AUD for a hair cut/colour. Thats excessively more than many other salons around where I am, but I go to this one because theyre really good. My theory is I'm paying a premium for that already in my charges, so why tip?

Having said that, if you tried to tip a hair stylist in Aus, you'd get a hella funny look. Tips are done in restaurants if you want to, and there's tip jars on the counter of cafes, and thats about it. I'll sometimes tip cab drivers because I know they make sod all money. But to me tipping is a thank you for good service - it is NOT (or at least shouldnt be) a part of their living wage. Raise their wages and the cost of the food/service you provide if it isnt enough!

You would never tip shop assistants here, or someone at say, starbucks or anything, it just isnt something we do, people are paid alright already (we have minimum wage laws and things, dont they have them in the US?)

I'm a server in a restaurant and, while I'm always hearing complaints from other servers about ethnic groups, personally I've never noticed any distinction in the tipping tendencies of black people, Indians, Hispanics, etc. And I'm not just being Mr. Politically Correct. I really don't know where those tipping stereotypes come from.

Actually I sorta take that back. My absolute, no-question least favorite table to wait on are actually those of white teenagers. And the more high maintenance and obnoxious they are, the worse tippers they are (if they tip at all - this group has stiffed me more than any other). Asian teens on the other hand are usually pretty good about tipping. So, while I'm white, I guess that's where I'm racist, if you want to call it that.

I think waiting tables has made me more sexist than racist. My second least favorite table to wait on are groups of women and especially women older than, say, mid-30s (ethnicity irrelevant). Not only are women are more likely to be bad tippers than men, but they also tend to camp out at your table for a longer than average time. They get very absorbed in conversation.

Sometimes this isn't an altogether bad thing. If you're having an off night, many groups of women are very low-maintenance tables, which can be nice. They're so busy talking that some of them don't even notice that their glass of ice tea has needed a refill for about 5 minutes.

But this isn't germane to the subject of the thread.

According to The Original Tipping Page, the standard tip for a hairdresser is 15%. As with waiters, this tip can go up to 20%, according to the Emily Post Institute via CNN. If several people work on your hair, you should give 10% to the person who sets your hair, and then divide 10% between everyone else. The person who washes your hair gets a buck or two. Most sources agree -- you don't tip salon owners unless they actually do your hair.

I hate you. As a former delivery person myself, let me be the first to tell you (and everyone else): IT IS NOT OUR FAULT*.

If it's a busy night and there's only two drivers working, that means that there's a back-up of orders which means that it will take longer to get you your fucking pizza. The REAL culprits are the stupid girls that answer the phone and say your pizza will be there in 30 min when, in fact, the real answer is 1 hour. Whenever I was working on a night like that I was the delivery boy nazi and made it clear in no uncertain terms that the phone girls were to give extreme over-estimates w/r/t delivery time. That being said, the few times I got bitched at for being late were the few times I felt 100% righteous in reaming customers right back. So satisfying.

*sometimes it is our fault: the stoner kids I worked with would queue up 8 orders at a time sometimes and be gone for hour(s) at a stretch, which meant that the last person got a cold, late pizza.

How 'bout we compromise, since I'm hungry. I'll tip you 20% for my cold pizza if you throw in extra coupons and maybe not charge me 50¢ for garlic butter next time I ask.

I feel bad because the other I tipped the woman who cuts my hair only $5 on a $35 cut, because my brain was thinking "just round up." It's just shy of 15%, but she deserved much more for both a great haircut and great conversation.

(Oh, and make sure it's the right sofa! Those fuckers at Ikea brought me the wrong model, and I'm really glad I noticed before they drove away.)

Previously, the wealthy were almost always aristocrats (or their bankers) and those who served them were almost always under their own direct control or that of their host. Rather than bribe them, they could have a servant horsewhipped whenever they chose. This simple system changed under pressures from both the Industrial and the French revolutions. Grand hotels grew up. New money sprouted. Democratizing influences strengthened. Bribes became the safer strategy.

To a wealthy person, tossing around some extra money to ensure their various whims and desires would be heeded promptly was just good sense. When you were rolling in money the sums involved in tipping were a pittance and what it bought you was a continuance of the luxury you expected at home. A bargain.

First the middle class aped this custom, then those who wished to appear middle class, then those who weren't quite sure what was polite. Eventually, it became the time-encrusted, unquestioned custom. Except it is far more entrenched in places where the old money was most commmon and the class differences most pronounced: Europe and the larger cities of the USA's eastern seaboard.

Relatively poor people tipping people who are actually wealthier than they are is a shitty custom. When both parties are of roughly equal class status, then it's a push - kind of like everyone trying to earn their living by doing each other's laundry. It still only really makes sense in relationship between the owning class and their happenstance servants.

UPS guys should get a holiday tip, I think.

you totally have to tip furniture delivery people.

The UPS guy is too quick to tip. I left cookies out for him in the week before xmas when we were getting lots of packages.

I tip our newspaper boy, who is 12 or 13, pretty generously apparently ($1/week for daily delivery) - his mom called me the first time I paid him, checking to see if I meant to pay him that much. We also get the Sunday NYT delivered, but that's billed direct. At xmas, I left out two cards, one for the regular paperboy and one for whoever was delivering the Times. Both cards disappeared with the delivery of the local paper, but there was no NYT out there. I was non-plussed, but figured I'd wait 'til a decent hour to figure out what was up. An hour later, somebody was rustling around on the porch. They'd returned the second card, with a note - the same boy delivers the NYT, and his parents made him return the second tip :) The Times was running late that day.

huh!

WTF?? Firstly, I didnt know you were supposed to tip parking attendants (valets, yes; the guy in the box, no).
Secondly, $100 to each employee? In a 100 car garage (which would be pretty smallish) each employee gets $10,000 every december??

can someone answer the great hotel question? i've never figured this out.

I tend to tip 10 - 15 % in restaurants and the hairdressers (and usually that's for the lassie who washes my hair, not the well-paid stylist), and taxi drivers usually get their fare rounded up a bit. But that's it. This whole tipping bar-staff thing you Americans have going on is madness!

(nice gift would be appreciated if it were me doing the helpful friend thing. Perhaps ask if you could give them some cash towards the cost of food and fuel? Chances are they'll say no, which is when you go "I thought you'd say that so I bought you this to say thanks". This is what happens when I let people stay anyway)

i tipped $25/per guy for delivery last time i used a pack-up and deliver moving service, and i made them coffee.

For servers, parties of middle aged white women are the worst to wait on. I used to call it "hate your own gender day" when faced with those groups, back in my serving days.
Water, water, water, water.
Separate checks.

I got a $100.00 tip on a $60.00 tab from a black couple who were so delighted that I didn't racially profile them. They were African; visiting professors from Nigeria. We chatted about their impressions of America. Apparently, I impressed them.

Credit card tips automatically go into what you claim for tax purposes - most servers claim 50% of their actual "take", but anything on a CC has to be claimed. So, leaving cash helps the server.

I tip the gas station attendant at the full serve station, but I also make him check my oil.

I think a nice tip, plus coffee or any other beverage, is appropriate for anyone who is doing manual labor for you.

I recently did a brief stint waiting tables again, and was surprised by how much people are toeing the line with tips. I "profiled" certain tables, and was shocked to see a 20% tip! I was filling in at a pizza place, so it was lots of families...and sometimes, what with the kids and the general chaos, parents can forget how hard you are working to keep the table from imploding. *Note to parents: Bring your own sippy cups! It saves the environment, decreases spillage, and makes servers happy. I'll work with you - sugar free soda, free refills, chocolate milk - if you just help me avoid the spilling of a drink held by a child who is too young to even reach the straw.*

Have I covered every subject on this thread yet?

Oh, bartenders should be tipped $1 per drink, but the fourth drink should be free.
Hairdressers and florists....
I have to go to another thread and compose my thoughts.

Is bung like tipping? It sounds so harsh!
Would I rather be tipped or bunged? Hmmm...
Etymologists to thread! (Or are those the bug people?)

Maybe we should have an ILX tipping ratio. 25 cents (or p) for every good post. Beth Parker would be able to retire!
Ned Raggett would be able to host the ultimate FAP!

Michael Jones mother would be a big hit in any big city.
"Disarming Mum "mugs" Would Be Muggers"
Mrs. Jones says she wanted to help, that's all. Much to her surprise, she was rewarded with a "Thank-You" by a would-be purse snatcher when she handed him some money.

2 false assumptions: (1) there's logic behind paying people such low wages and (2) people tip because they feel compelled to compensate for these low wages.

For servers, parties of middle aged white women are the worst to wait on. I used to call it "hate your own gender day" when faced with those groups, back in my serving days.
Water, water, water, water.
Separate checks.
Sometimes really awesome, if you're a young guy. Flirting for tips or being treated like a son/grandson.

I have never seen such racism as I encountered among waiters in regard to black families in every restaurant I worked at or knew anyone at.

Theoretically, you could just raise prices to make up for the difference, but consumers would rebel because they're cheap bastards.

Aimurchie incredibly OTM upthread. Painfully so.

do you guys (gals) give holiday tips to your stylists?

I do. He has been cutting my hair for years and does nice things like free bang trims and such. Also he is getting way popular and I don't want him to forget the little people on his way to DC hair stardom.

Fifty bucks in a holiday card, dropped off this time of year. Thanks for reminding me.

I am never going back to my stylist after my last haircut in September. Unfortunately, I'm too poor to go to another one. So no tip.

Tipping is not a city in China: a sign that may be seen attached to tip jars on the counters of many business establishments in the USA.

i guess i don't get the rationale. i tip the people who work in my building at the holidays, but they don't get tips during the year like my stylist, the total of which adds up to a similar amount.

Christmas tips is one of 19+ reasons I am jealous of my sister-in-law the stylist. "Oh, yeah, that gorgeous ornament is from a client who also gave me $300." *cries*

I'm wondering about giving my postman a Christmas tip. My parents used to do it when I was a kid (along with the milkman and the paperboy), so the idea occurred to me now that I'm settled in my own flat. With the number of (record-style) parcels I get, I think he might be a good guy to keep sweet.

I rarely actually *see* the postperson and therefore am not sure exactly how I would execute tippage.

i got a nice bottle of wine for my stylist.

My parents also used to tip the milkman and the binmen at christmas but I have no milkman and I have no feelings of good cheer towards my waste operatives.

Yeah, no way are the bin men getting anything more from me than a higher than usual volume of rubbish this Christmas.

I was thinking of giving the postie a tenner, keeping it near the door in a ready prepared card for the next time I happen to see him. We'll see how flush I'm feeling next week.

My wife wants ILX girls' opinion on tipping your hairdresser, when they rent their chair in a salon, and charge you $80 for a cut. Necessary? Unnecessary?

Unfortunately very necessary. My rule is: if the hairdresser doesn't own the establishment, you must tip. If it's the owner doing your hair (probably not that common in a major city), I think they're already getting their cut of whatever you're paying, but otherwise...cough it up. Ugh. Sorry.

Oh, totally, totally necessary. I wld tip $10 but I don't know if that's too much or not enough (if I was getting just the haircut).

I know my sis-in-law works at a joint like that and I think the chair fee is something like $50 a day (I could be wrong here).

Yeah that was what I thought.

I personally don't even know if I tip the woman who cuts my hair or not, I don't know how much she charges, I've given here anywhere from $40 to $50 for a cut every six weeks for the past several years. Sometimes when I give her $50 she asks me if I want change (I say no). I think I've graduated to the "pay me what you can afford" range because I've gone to her for so long. My wife has a different person cut her hair all the time (mainly because she can't find anyone who she feels does a good job) so she doesn't get this luxury.

Of course if she thinks they've done a lousy job I don't think she should tip at all.

They're independent contractors and file taxes as such, too, fwiw.

Plus if you do tip well, you get kickbacks of one sort or another in the future.

that is if you go back there. unfortunately she's been going to a place near our house and they actively discourage you from going to the same hairdresser over and over for some reason.

Like this is probably uncommon, but I tipped my last one regularly well enough that she signed me up under her name so I could buy products at cost at the local fancypants salon-supply place.

I'm so scared to find a new stylist here that I've just been cutting my own hair.

akm, why do they do that, do you know? that's weird.

well that place people don't rent chairs, actually, and she did feel obliged to tip there, despite the fact that she rarely if ever felt like she got a decent cut (this is a fairly fancy bay area salon as well). I'm not sure what the purpose of their philosophy is, although I don know that, aside from "senior stylists" (who charge...like, $200 for a cut), they have an apprenticeship-training program where stylists graduate up, and they like to spread the clients around for this reason, so that all junior stylists are always busy.

I was wondering this the other day - do Britishers tip their hairdresser? I used to cut my own hair for years because the once/twice a year I'd try getting it cut professionally, they never listened to what I wanted and I ended up having to 'correct' it myself. But the last time I went to a salon the girl did a really good job so I've actually been back to her (specifically) every time. I kind of think it's good to give her repeat business rather than a few quid one time - besides, she keeps giving me vouchers and loyalty schemes to get money off, so I don't know how I'd go about it, paying on card and stuff. (Haircut is pretty pricey, over £30).

It's a 'family owned' chain with loads of branches locally, so no idea if they rent the space.

how much do i tip the curbside check-in dudes at the airport?

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/summer_tipping/

people who tip servers with religious tracts deserve to die

$2 for the skycaps? Everyone I've seen has tipped $5-10/bag.

OK so I have a Quiddities/Larry David-esque tipping question

With my Sunday New York Times yesterday I received a christmas card from my newspaper delivery person (Denise, as it happens). I'm not happy with my service. 2 weekends ago was the first and only time I have received the three editions of the NT that I pay for. I think I've seen denise and her delivery method consists of hurling the papers from the window of her chrysler voyager. I'm not sure our paper is getting stolen, once, when I had the misfortune to lock myself out early on a sunday morning I saw no sign of the mysterious denise.

The dilemma is, if I tip in line with the service I have received, i.e. nothing, will the service get worse?

(also postmen, how much?)

it might get worse but you still shouldn't do it

The one time I won $600 at Vegas Kewadin, I was happy to do the big-shot thing and give my waitress a twenty. She'd been bringing me free drinks for an hour-and-a-half, after all.

Man, one of my local supermarkets just remodelled and as part of their new image, it's now part of the bagboys' job descriptions to push your cart out to your car with you and load your car ... but they aren't allowed to accept tips! It's really awkward.

It's only awkward if they're hanging around after loading yr car for a handshake or a snog or something.

http://avatars.jurko.net/uploads/avatar_22602.gif It's the long walk to the car with these guys silently pushing my cart alongside me that grates. The company's transparent aim is for me to feel like some sort of upper-class person getting the royal treatment, which isn't really how I like to feel about things. Maybe it's my hang-up. I dunno.