If you know that, and you understand that tipping is an accepted custom in the US then you shouldn’t have a problem.
I understand that Europe has different customs, but honestly to say you never tip makes you seem like very selfish person, the kind most of us here would not like to associate with.
Something being an accepted custom doesn’t make it law. I wouldn’t tip in the US any more than here. If that’s selfish, well, I guess I am.
I support, volunteer for and donate to the causes I really care about. I’m just not willing to make every social ill my personal responsibility to fix.
The only scenario I can imagine I would ever tip would be if I ate out with a friend who believed in it. I don’t have any such friends in travel distance, but if I visited a few in the US, I’d tip to spare them the embarassment/shame/guilt or whatever it is you guys feel about not tipping. It’d be for my friend’s benefit though, not the waiter’s.
You’ve made your points very clear by now, Sevencl. If you want to further discuss the merits of not tipping, feel free to in Great Debates.
Let’s end the hijack of it in this thread, however (this goes to everyone).
Weeeell, that depends on the state. Minnesota, for example requires that servers be paid minimum wage plus tips. The takeaway here is that it’s good to be a server in MN.
Not continuing the hijack, just acknowledging the cleverness of this post. Went over Sevencl’s head, though.
A Republican and a Democrat are talking about tipping wait staff.
The Republican says, “I always leave a generous tip and tell them, ‘Be sure and vote Republican!’”
The Democrat says, “I leave no tip and tell them, ‘Be sure and vote Republican!’”
The OP sounds like a real-life version of this joke, except the Republican is cluelessly doing the Democrat’s work.
Cheap pricks are always looking for a reason not to tip. I promise this person never tipped generously, if at all. These types are very easy to spot, they’re the ones spewing every possible tangential rationalization they can dream up, to everyone within ear shot, why they don’t/won’t/can’t/ shouldn’t have to - tip.
Tip or don’t tip, just shut up about it. No one cares, (not even the waitstaff )what their lame justification is, and they’re not convincing anyone. All they’re doing is pointing out that they’re one of those. They should do everyone a huge favour, especially themselves, and just don’t leave a tip, and leave it at that.
A perfect way to get the waiter to agree with your position. It’s sure to make him understand the great sacrifice you are making and there’s absolutely no chance that this will make him eager to become Democrat for the rest of his life.
Agreed. It just plain looks fake. I can almost guarantee this never happened.
It does smell of troll. But I suppose there could be >0 dickweeds who would do just this.
If I was going to leave one of those notes it would be something like, “The person I was eating with had a gun under the table and was threatening to shoot me if I left a tip. I’m so sorry!”
You should amend that to,
then take a picture of it and put it on facebook. It’d spread like wildfire and millions of threads like these will be created and huffpo and lefty blobs would be slobering all over it and hell it might even make the TV news.
I’m an Internet retailer and we sent out an email blast to our customers featuring new products the Thursday after the election. We received three replies blaming Obama’s reelection for their inability to spend money on luxuries. The tone was precisely that of the note in the OP. I looked up the customers and they were all one-time, small order value customers who hadn’t placed an order in years. In other words, they were blaming Obama for a behavior change they had already made years before anybody even knew who Obama was. The authenticity of the tipping note is totally plausible and was likely left by someone who rarely tipped anyway.
Although I am new, this got a big and hearty “HA!” from me. 
If this photo is real, the dude’s (or dudette’s) a total twatwaffle. I think that he/she might expect extra spittle in their next drink.
I’m not saying that this is definitely fake, but it appears that it would be relatively easy to fake. By the way, on the outside chance that this IS a fake, would all those on here bashing conservatives be ready to take it back and apologize since if it IS fake then it obviously was obviously done to make right wingers look bad, and it would seem that the left wingers would be the ones trying to make the conservatives look bad. I’m just asking.
Is there now to be some blanket rule that in recreational outrage OP’s it is verboten to challenge whether the incident described was in fact outrageous? Are there now certain topics (such as tipping) where the board consensus is so powerful that challenging it is not permitted? The last time I saw that sort of modding I was on Conservapedia.
I wasn’t talking about debating if the OP really happened or not or if it’s legit. I was talking about the hijack that started from Sevencl’s posts, which was about another thing entirely (whether a person should tip at all).
If you have any further questions, please feel free to open a topic in About This Message Board.
I understood what you were talking about.
I waited tables and barbacked 20 years ago. I was unemployed for over two years recently, and guess what? I still tipped. I worked freelance, collected some unemployment, but I still didn’t tip less than 20%. My local bar and restaurants hook me with freebies without me asking.
I seriously doubt that note is real, since it’s so neatly written, but if it’s real, the guy that does shit like this isn’t familiar with the Regular Customer + Good Tip = Fringe Benefits custom. Same type of people tip a valet a 20 for some reason.
Yes, absolutely, the way it is done in civilized countries where workers have rights (and, wow, even things like unions, with some actual power), and so are not at the mercy of assholes, and where customers are not made to feel like assholes if they don’t happen to be fully up to date with the local customs and their latest variants. (And when did it go up from 15% to 20%, because I never got the memo until I read about it on here? Thank og I am now out of America and no longer have to keep track of this shit.)