# Encouraging Greed
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [September 17, 2012, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948 "2012-09-17T06:17:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/1 "2012-09-17T06:17:06Z")
From another thread:
> [@How are hotel maids compensated?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-hotel-maids-compensated/634767/26):
>
> Tipping in hotels is the convention, whether you are a slob or not.
I REALLY, REALLY hate ignorant statements like this.
I have never tipped in a motel. (It’s motel, not hotel.) My parents have never tipped in a motel. My grandparents never tipped in a motel. Nobody that I know has ever tipped in a motel to my knowledge.
People like you are ignorant, stupid, and greedy, and you encourage greed. It’s people like you that make mailmen, barbers, and everybody else under the sun go around with out-stretched hands begging for a tip (AKA undeserved handout). [Note–I exempt waiters and waitresses from this statement–tipping them is traditional. The others aren’t.]
You are very lucky that stupidity is not a crime, because if it were, you would be tortured to death as punishment.
**CookingWithGas,** you are a worthless, ignorant, filthy, stinking pile of garbage, pus, and vomit. I hope that you have bad luck and worse things for the rest of your life.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/2 "2012-09-17T06:22:40Z")
You see tipping as being about the greed of workers; I see it as an excuse for employers to pay their workers poorly and make them hope the customers throw them enough scraps to make up for it.
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### Author:  [@Oliveritaly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oliveritaly)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/3 "2012-09-17T06:36:36Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> From another thread:
>
> I REALLY, REALLY hate ignorant statements like this.
>
> I have never tipped in a motel. (It’s motel, not hotel.) My parents have never tipped in a motel. My grandparents never tipped in a motel. Nobody that I know has ever tipped in a motel to my knowledge.
>
> People like you are ignorant, stupid, and greedy, and you encourage greed. It’s people like you that make mailmen, barbers, and everybody else under the sun go around with out-stretched hands begging for a tip (AKA undeserved handout). [Note–I exempt waiters and waitresses from this statement–tipping them is traditional. The others aren’t.]
>
> You are very lucky that stupidity is not a crime, because if it were, you would be tortured to death as punishment.
> **CookingWithGas,** you are a worthless, ignorant, filthy, stinking pile of garbage, pus, and vomit. I hope that you have bad luck and worse things for the rest of your life.
Jesus fuck dude, switch to decaf. So don’t fucking tip for fuck’s sake. Yeah at a motel I don’t leave a tip but at some hotels I stay at for work, I do, because as Cooking put it, it’s conventional. Any chance you can provide a link to this ‘outrage?’
And as Dir pointed out, it has nothing to do with the workers and everything to do with the employers. I live in Germany but I am an America. Tipping is almost non-existent here … there’s a reason for that.
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### Author:  [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/4 "2012-09-17T09:08:05Z")
Wasn’t it the greed of the working class that got us into the recession and prevents the new dawn of ages?
I’m sure we’d usher in a new age of prosperity with the right tweaks here and there: cut social security, switch medicaid to vouchers, criminalise asking for tips, yearly decimation of the impoverished.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/5 "2012-09-17T09:15:42Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> People like you are ignorant, stupid, and greedy, and you encourage greed. It’s people like you that make mailmen, barbers, and everybody else under the sun go around with out-stretched hands begging for a tip (AKA undeserved handout). [Note–I exempt waiters and waitresses from this statement–tipping them is traditional. The others aren’t.]
The custom of tipping hotel/motel chambermaids (and bellhops, hairdressers, delivery people, train sleeping-car attendants, and various other folks) may not be **universal** , but there’s no denying that it’s **traditional** in American society and many other places. Just look up any etiquette guide on tipping while traveling, and you’ll see plenty of evidence for that.
Like it or not, the custom of tipping has a long history and traditionally applies to many more types of servicepeople than just servers in restaurants. I don’t blame you if you dislike the tipping system, and if you want to take a stand on principle that you won’t tip outside restaurants because you disapprove of it, it’s no skin off my nose.
But you are mistaken if you think that somebody else is being “ignorant” or “stupid” just because they know that it’s usual to tip chambermaids and you don’t.
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/6 "2012-09-17T12:04:04Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> From another thread:
>
> I REALLY, REALLY hate ignorant statements like this.
>
> I have never tipped in a motel. (It’s motel, not hotel.) My parents have never tipped in a motel. My grandparents never tipped in a motel. Nobody that I know has ever tipped in a motel to my knowledge.
>
> People like you are ignorant, stupid, and greedy, and you encourage greed. It’s people like you that make mailmen, barbers, and everybody else under the sun go around with out-stretched hands begging for a tip (AKA undeserved handout). [Note–I exempt waiters and waitresses from this statement–tipping them is traditional. The others aren’t.]
>
> You are very lucky that stupidity is not a crime, because if it were, you would be tortured to death as punishment.
> **CookingWithGas,** you are a worthless, ignorant, filthy, stinking pile of garbage, pus, and vomit. I hope that you have bad luck and worse things for the rest of your life.
Well, that escalated quickly.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/7 "2012-09-17T12:15:10Z")
> [@Smeghead](#):
>
> Well, that escalated quickly.
Whatdoyouwannabet the OP has a screed written out longhand entitled **My Tipping Manifesto**?
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### Author:  [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/8 "2012-09-17T12:28:10Z")
I don’t believe that tipping hotel maids is as common as some people think: [link](http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-24/travel/hotel.housekeeping.tipping_1_housekeeping-manager-hotel-guests-emily-post-institute?_s=PM:TRAVEL).
> [@](#):
>
> Survey data shows that about 30% of U.S. hotel guests leave tips for hotel housekeepers, according to Michael Lynn, a professor at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration.
If you believe it is your moral obligation to tip workers who have jobs way down there on the service totem pole, have at it. But this is one type of tip that certainly does not seem unusual at all if it isn’t given, and seems truly optional in practice.
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/9 "2012-09-17T12:32:51Z")
Lots of people don’t give up their seat on public transit for the elderly or infirm, either, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not good manners to do so.
**Flyer** : Did a hotel housekeeper run over your dog with a vacuum cleaner and then ask for a tip? Christ on a pogostick, man.
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/10 "2012-09-17T12:38:29Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> I REALLY, REALLY hate ignorant statements like this.
>
> I have never tipped in a motel. (It’s motel, not hotel.)
What exactly does the last sentence mean? Are you unaware that “motel” is a portmanteau word coined in the early 1900s from “motor hotel”, or do you refuse to stay anywhere that terms itself a “hotel” lest those ungrateful maids put on airs above their station?
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/11 "2012-09-17T12:57:03Z")
Wow.
Yes, you are supposed to tip, whether it’s a hotel, motel, or bed and breakfast. Calling other people ignorant because you are cheap is seriously asinine. You are not impressing anyone.
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### Author:  [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/12 "2012-09-17T12:57:57Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#):
>
> What exactly does the last sentence mean? Are you unaware that “motel” is a portmanteau word coined in the early 1900s from “motor hotel”, or do you refuse to stay anywhere that terms itself a “hotel” lest those ungrateful maids put on airs above their station?
It means that the person hates ignorant statements by making plenty of them his/herself. It also means that the last sentence of the OP is really self-loathing that s/he knows about him/herself but cannot yet admit, so s/he finds a flimsy excuse to accuse another of it.
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### Author:  [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/13 "2012-09-17T13:18:45Z")
I’d be willing to guess that if I did a survey of everyone I know, less than 10% would even realize that you’re supposed to tip the hotel maids. I certainly never heard of it until the last 10 years or so, and I tend to be a pretty good tipper (at least in restaurants, which is the only place I go with any regularity where tipping is normal.)
And how are people supposed to know? Some hotels have special envelopes in the room for leaving tips, but the majority don’t. Heck, nowadays, it’s hard to find a piece of paper and a pen in the room so if you DID want to leave a tip, you could let housekeeping know this was for them, and not a random couple of bucks you left on the dresser.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/14 "2012-09-17T13:21:38Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#):
>
> Wasn’t it the greed of the working class that got us into the recession and prevents the new dawn of ages?
It’s the greed of immigrant hotel chambermaids that’s causing the recession. I hate it when they clean toilets and then drive off in their fancy cars wearing their fancy jewelry. Didn’t Bernie Madoff use to work for an Hispanic chambermaid?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/15 "2012-09-17T13:29:33Z")
> [@Flyer](#):
>
> **CookingWithGas,** you are a worthless, ignorant, filthy, stinking pile of garbage, pus, and vomit. I hope that you have bad luck and worse things for the rest of your life.
Well, **Mr. Pink** , I guess that’s a step above “Hush up”!
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### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/16 "2012-09-17T13:37:31Z")
Tip or don’t tip. I can promise, no one cares, as much as you seem to.
No need to justify. Just do what you feel, and let everyone else, do as they feel.
See? No need to get worked up, at all. Your room will still be cleaned and vac, I promise. Hold your head up high, you’ve done nothing wrong.
(In fact, you’ve done something, no one gives a shit about.)
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/17 "2012-09-17T13:41:08Z")
Conclusion: **Flyer** is a slob, among other things.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/18 "2012-09-17T13:45:52Z")
> [@Athena](#):
>
> And how are people supposed to know? Some hotels have special envelopes in the room for leaving tips, but the majority don’t. Heck, nowadays, it’s hard to find a piece of paper and a pen in the room so if you DID want to leave a tip, you could let housekeeping know this was for them, and not a random couple of bucks you left on the dresser.
Common knowledge?
In the last year I stayed in six different hotels. Every single one had that envelope.
Are non-tipping hotel guests really in the habit of leaving a random couple of bucks on the dresser? Do chambermaids really not know that it was left for them?
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### Author:  [@Oliveritaly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oliveritaly)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/19 "2012-09-17T13:47:54Z")
I can’t remember specifically which ones but I’m fairly certain I remember a few that included an envelope specifically designed for tipping the maid service in the hotel.
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### Author:  [@LeeshaJoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LeeshaJoy)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encouraging-greed/634948/20 "2012-09-17T14:42:22Z")
As someone who’s spent the last seven years working as a hotel housekeeper, I cordially invite the OP to kiss my ass.
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