I think it should be a law that anyone who intentionally stiffs a waitress/waiter just because they’re too cheap, or “don’t like the system”, should be immediately sentenced to a term of no less than 6 months of being forced to work the graveyard shift at their local Denny’s/IHOP/whatever-crap-24-hours-restaurant-fills-up with-obnoxious-drunks-after-the-bar-closes.
Also, that’s why being a cocktail waitress at a bar > waiting tables in a sit-down restaurant. You stiff me on your first round (which I pay taxes on, regardless of whether or not you tipped me), you can just walk your happy arse to the bar the rest of the night if you’re thirsty.
Oh, and good luck getting that drink once you stiff the bartender too…prolly gonna be a long wait.
Thank you for making my point for me, Cerri. If I were to go to a bar, how the Sam Hill would I be supposed to know that I wasn’t supposed to leave a tip when I left, just like I do at a restaurant??
If you’re working a job that’s supposed to be making my life easier, and instead your entire occupational category adds to the overall level of confusion and stress, well, y’all can just shove it sideways, AFAIAC.
And again, thanks, Cerri, for exactly the same reason as above.
I have no frickin’ idea why I should tip a bartender, when I get my ass out of my seat and walk over to him, so he can make me a drink - a job that a machine could do just as easily - without moving more than a few feet, total. How is this different from the tip jar on the counter at Subway, which makes no sense whatsoever?
I reiterate, the point isn’t the answer to the question. The point is, tipping is all about arcane sets of rules such as this. It shouldn’t be my business to have to be conversant with every such set of rules I might encounter once in a blue moon. And your attitude - that I will by rights receive sucky service if I haven’t taken care to learn the rules of your particular game ahead of time - quite frankly disgusts me.
I always take 15%, and then round up so the total (bill + tip) is an even $ amount. Service that particularly pleases me gets 20%. Service I’m not happy with for some reason gets in the 10-12% neighborhood (but never under). I’ve never had service so bad (that I can recall) that it demanded a stiff. I can’t count how many relatives of mine wait (or have waited) tables for a living, so I’m always careful.
I never leave tips in tip jars when it’s all counter service (unless it’s an establishment I really like; they get the change).
I don’t frequent hotels/taxis/bars/valets, etc. enough to worry about it. A couple $$, always in proportion to everyone else I’m tipping, usually does it.
Hairdresser gets 12-18% (always SuperCuts, so never really adds up).
Well, as someone who eats out a lot, I leave a minimum $2 tip. When I’m alone, my bill typically ranges from $4 to $12, never more than $12. And for people who have waited on me “numerous” times, I leave more. Last night, for example, I ran up a whopping $9 tab and left a $5 tip.
At any sit-down restaurant, I start out planning to tip 20%. Poor service will reduce that amount, although it’s unusual for me to go under 15% and almost unheard of for me to drop below 10%. I’ll go to 25% for really good service.
Buffets, when the waiter brings maybe some beverages, confuse me. I tend to tip 10%.
The tipping situation I really hate: dividing the bill between separate parties. We’ll go out with friends who, when we’re splitting the bill, ask how much we’re planning on tipping. I hate those conversations, because I don’t want to force people to match 20% (even if I think, generally, that they should), and I don’t want to compensate for their 15% tip, which I’m always tempted to do. (I usually don’t,* because I figure commenting on what other people tip is rude. Unless it’s a general discussion like this one.)
I know lots of waiters and restaurants hate separate checks, but honestly, they get a bigger tip out of me.
*On the other hand, I once went to dinner with my wife’s grandmother and three of her friends. They all demanded separate checks, and I could see that they were tipping around 10% or so after being demanding customers and getting good service. I slipped extra money under my plate, even though my wife and I were being treated, because that’s just a nightmare situation.
I abhor the tipping situation here in the States. It annoys me to no end that the burden of paying employees has been shifted from resaurant owners directly to the customer. Personally I would rather pay an extra 15% across the board when I go out to eat, knowing that the wait staff is being paid a fair wage, so that I can reserve tipping as a reward for exceptional service. Faced with the abomination that is the “server wage” I’m really loath to skimp on tips.
Generally this is how I tip:
15% for normal, acceptable service
20% for service that was noticably better than average
25%+ for really outstanding service
10% for bad/slow service
Only twice have I tipped less than 10% in a sit down restaurant, both cases it was with a fistful of small change because of shockingly bad service.
On one occasion I was part of a group that tipped close to 100% one night! There were six of us on a road trip from Anchorge to Vegas a few summers ago. We had stopped at a Denny’s somewhere in Oregon, Astoria I think. Anyway we’d been in the cars for a long time and was kinda late, 9pm or so, so we were really tired and there weren’t a whole of other customers. We had a really awesome waitress, she guessed pretty quickly that we were on a road trip and was pretty talkative with us. We ended up being her last table that night so she sat down at with us and BS’d while we finished desserts 'n stuff. She also let us take her picture for the online scrapbook we were keeping of the trip, which was pretty cool as no other waiter/watiress that we asked later on let us. Under normal circumstances she would’ve received at least 25% easy from this group of friends (all of us good tippers by nature, though most of us, including me, have never worked food service) but that night our brains were so addled from lack of sleep and road weariness that we ended up leaving well over $100 for a tab of only $60 or so. Even though we realized it was a tad excessive no one was willing to pull out a few bucks so we let it stand.
I’ve worked as a maid, a waitress, a busser, and a counter girl (fish and chips place). I tip as much as I can afford to, in general. Especially to maids, because it’s such a horrible job. However, I don’t tip my hairdresser. Probably because I no longer go to the salon, but ask my best friend to cut it for me. She’s good, too.
I work as a dog groomer. I run my own business, and although it does not have many of the same trials and tribulations waitressing has, the chance of being bitten is far greater…not to mention the mass amount of time cleaning up after an overfed/disressed animal, or dealing with a spoiled/indulged/Alpha dog and the like. After a harrowing day of trying to make Fido look like the customer wants (without the benefit of a magic wand, no less!), and after cleaning dog crap out of a cage and having to give the dog another bath and blow dry, to be met with the words “Well, that’s all a part of your job, isn’t it?” can be difficult to reply with a smile and not hope for a tip. Tips are good things…they help build social relations and also help assuage days like that. Yes, the price of a dog groom includes several things, but to be met with indifference after trying to make magic with dog hair tends to lessen one;s enthusiasm. I am fortunate in the fact that my clientele is fairly steady…but there are days when even a three dollar tip has made the difference between slicing everyone to ribbons with my shears, versus realizing that despite the massive war with the dog, things did turn out right after all. I also find that tipping customers are often -repeat- customers, and therefore I make a note in their file and often lower their grooming price the next go-around.
I also try to tip generously, because I put myself in the waitstaff’s place. It’s tough, waiting on people who cannot seem to differentiate between the idea of “servant” and “service”. There have been times when I could not afford to tip as much as I liked (I cannot think of a time when I tipped less than 15%, except the time that I got an entire tray of drinks dumped on my velvet dress—and did not get so much as an -apology!), but I try to make up for that by getting the person’s name, telling their manager what a wonderful job they are doing (the timing was always Murphian! I would get the best waitress/waiter when I could not tip them as much as I wanted to), and when I got the cash, it went into an envelope with that person’s name on it, to be handed over when I saw them next.
It’s hard to wait on people who seem to bristle with the air of “I say frog, Yew better jump, missy…”
I always tip in the fields you mentioned-waiter/waitress, hairdresser, food delivery, bartenders, etc. Even if the service was pretty bad, I usually just reduce a bit from the amount I’d normally leave, rather than leaving absolutely nothing. I’d only skip out with having left nothing if the service had been really exceptionally awful. In fact, I usually over-tip, [usually 15% - 30%, depending] assuming I’m able to. It’s quick, and, cheesy as it sounds, it makes me feel better that I’m helping out the poor guy who had to drop off my pizza/wait my table/cut my hair, usually for minimum wage. I’ve known a lot of people working in that position, and know that usually the money is greatly appreciated.
I overtip nearly every service industry. The only one I tend to keep at a minimum (2-3 bucks, unless he’s HUGELY laden with $50+worth of pizzas) are pizza delivery drivers. Unlike most service people they don’t have to be on their feet most of their shift.
All other service people, especially those that have to do hard physical labor, like waitresses (I’ve so been there), I tip fair for an adequate job, and over tip for anything above that.
Unless a hairstylist butchered my hair, same thing for her.
If I get my hair cut at the local beauty school ($4.50 for a cut), I tip a buck or two. One exception: when I was about 9 months pregnant I went to this place and the girl spent like, 45 minutes thorougly trimming my hair. I think I tipped 100% that day, but the cut was worth it.
If I get it cut at the Chez Snot place ($25), I tip about $5.
The only place I will not tip is at a restaurant where I have to do all the work myself. If I have to get my own drink and my own food, I probably won’t tip although it depends.
At normal restaurants the tip is directly tied to the number of times I get a refill. It’s not that drinking a lot of soda is important to me when I go out, it just shows me that the waiter is paying attention.
If I go to, say, Logan’s, and the bill is $35 and the service is great, I would LIKE to tip $10 but DH won’t let me so it’s usually $5-7.
Well, I had a really nice reply earlier, but my computer had a conniption and now it is gone, gone, GONE!!
But, suffice it to say, I usually tip well, because I believe in “tip karma.” Tipping well usually leads to excellent service, in my experience. Also, being polite to service workers (e.g., addressing them by name, saying “please” and “thank you,” etc.).
Looks like it’s time for another tip for the IT guys …
I’ve been a waitress before and yet I still don’t tend to tip much or at all unless the service has been excellent. This is probably an English thing, but I always saw it as being an extra to my hourly wage rather than a “right”. Of course, getting a tip because I’d been particularly good was appreciated, but otherwise I didn’t see it as being important.