Today we had a workman in the house making a repair on our oven. As he was leaving after having been here approx 45 minutes, my wife offered him $10. He politely declined, saying “That’s not necessary.”
Absolutely floored me! Not sure I can recall any prior instances where I offered a tip and had it declined. How about you?
(Additional weirdness - the final charge was LESS than the estimate! Almost makes up for our frustration at this pretty new oven having chronic problems - leading up to our cooking x-mas meals out on the grill!)
Plenty of places don’t allow their employees to accept tips, and others strongly discourage it. Also, I’ve had folks say to donate the money to a charity they support rather than give it to them.
One of the hats I wear at work is ‘delivery guy’, I always decline a tip. I’ve learned that if they keep insisting it’s easier to just take the money, but as one of the top dogs at a small business I tell them to hold on to it and if they really want to tip, give it to one of my other drivers.
On preview, I see the second post. I want to add that I have no problem with my drivers accepting tips. Sometimes the people we’re delivering to will mention that they feel bad that they can’t/don’t tip because they don’t see the driver (corporate type things so they just don’t run into each other). I always mention that they don’t need to worry, they’re driving our cars, with our gas and our insurance and being paid well. IOW, they don’t need the tip money to live, it’s a fun bonus once in a while though (but it’s not standard in this little sector of the industry).
Definitely not the owner. A repair firm that services various brands of appliances.
Yeah - I didn’t know if the company had a “no tipping” policy. If so, it was not communicated anywhere. I’m often confused - and not thrilled - about the tipping of servicepersons/contractors/delivery persons (other than food).
He said something about “just say nice things if you get a survey.” So we’ll see if we get one. Like car dealers, are all about getting 10s on the post-sale/service surveys. We’re often hesitant to give less than stellar reviews, for fear that our answers will be visible to them should we wish to return for subsequent business.
In that case, probably a no-tipping policy. Not sure why a company would have that, but maybe to prevent competition and discord between employees.
I had a guy come out a fix a flat tire for me a few weeks ago. It was part of my service agreement, so no charge. The guy was very friendly, made a real effort to keep me informed on when he would arrive, did a quick, clean job and so I gave him a $20 (it was Christmas). He took it gladly.
Ah, yes, those ‘anonymous’ surveys. I did one of those back of the receipt surveys for Buffalo Wild Wings once, I did not give them the top rating and one day I went in and the manager (I assume, she didn’t have on a uniform) chewed me out. Needless to say, I don’t go to Buffalo Wild Wings anymore.
I never understood the “don’t tip the owner” thing. I asked the guy who cuts my hair if my tipping him offended him in any way. He laughed. It’s his business, but he loves getting tips.
Tipping is a custom. There are rules that guide the custom, like wearing a hat. Take off your hat when you go indoors, and don’t tip the owner. Although, there are probably some good reasons for it, such as, the owner makes a profit off the whole business, and a tip is assumed to be a comment on the quality of the work-- the owner is usually also a master at the craft, whose work is not supposed to need comment.
I was taught that you don’t tip owners because they set their prices, and presumably set them to achieve an acceptable profit, whereas workers may not have much leverage (if any) when negotiating their wages.
I don’t tip the woman who’s been cutting my hair for around 30 years. I do, however, give her a largish cash gift for Christmas. It may not be quite as much as if I’d been tipping her all year, but tips are taxable income and gifts aren’t, so I figure it’s close enough in the end.
It’s no longer a hard and fast rule - when I was a kid it was considered insulting to offer a tip to the owner of an establishment. But now every hair stylist is a sole proprietor leasing space from a salon. I can never tell who is or is not an “owner.”
I had to make a conscious decision to stop being nervous about it. I tip as unobtrusively as possible in the hope that “owners” will notice only after I’ve left. Basically, I consider it common courtesy to offer them plausible deniability in case business is slow.
I tip my barber, who owns his own shop, but it’s more like: No need to give me change.
But I think it has its roots in class distinctions. If you tip someone, it’s an indication that they are in a class below you. A business owner is going to consider himself to be in “your class”.
I despise the U.S. tipping system, but I am a generous tipper. In my lifetime, only one person has refused an offered tip. It was a hotel shuttle driver who told me he wasn’t allowed to accept tips.
There have been a couple of places where I was served by an owner, who seemed to expect at tip, so I tipped. No one has ever protested or refused. I’d be very impressed by an owner who refused.
When I was working for the cable company, it was our policy not to accept tips. That is, unless we determined that the client would be offended by our refusal, in which case we could, though we were supposed to fill out a report, and it was not certain that we would actually get to keep it. Easier to just refuse a couple bucks than deal with the hassle.
As far as owners not taking tips, I don’t know about htat. The prices are often set by the industry, and the owner follows along. Usually, a salon worker will be on commision, so they get a straight percentage of your bill, plus the tip. The owner needs to pay all the bills, and usually comes up with a much smaller margin than a commissioned employee.
I don’t really see it as a class thing. I’ve been at or below the economic class of the restaurant server that I tipped. If that is the case, then it means that people in low wage jobs shouldn’t be tipping. I don’t think that that is how it is supposed to work.
The internet tells me that 100 years ago tipping in the USA was only for black people, so white people were insulted if tipped. I asked here for any comments, but got none.