We’ve had many, many threads on tipping with attitudes ranging from “You’re an evil toad if you don’t tip!” to people more on the Mr. Pink from Reservoir Dogs side.
But have any of you ever had someone (waiter, hair stylist, etc.) actually ask for a bigger tip or criticize you for not tipping enough? It happened to me a few months ago at a place where I get waxed. I was told I needed to tip a few more dollars and was so dumbfounded that I just obeyed. I ended up changing places because I felt that I didn’t really want that kind of rudeness, especially from a place that was sort of a hole in the wall.
Ha! I just had an incident like this with a delivery guy.
I ordered Chinese food from the place across the street from my office.* The guy delivers the food – $16 – and I tell him to keep the $20. “Five dollars!” he says. “Huh?” I said. Apparently, the four dollars he received for walking across the street didn’t suit him and wanted an additional dollar. Which he didn’t receive.
*Me not having the gumption to walk 100 feet in nice weather to pick up my own food and avoid the tip issue entirely is another issue…
I think once eons ago a waitress at a diner ran up to us as we were leaving saying “you forgot a tip!” So, it turns out she wanted the truth. So I said “You had the worst service I’ve ever had in my life. You went for a cigarette while our food was ready, you forgot to fill water glasses and you forgot my side of ranch dressing the entire meal after being asked 3 times. It would probably be better if you tipped me for having to deal with you.”
For the first time in the 8 years I’ve been paying for my salon visits, I didn’t tip yesterday for a wax. The girl was AWFUL. She re-waxed areas multiple times and still left massive chunks of hair on my upper lip. Luckily, I had a great haircut afterwards, which totally merited a large tip.
I’m a 15-30% tipper depending on the quality of service, averaging just over 20%, but the flipside is I have no problem leaving a nothing or next to nothing tip if someone is shitty. Luckily I’ve only had to do that a handful of times.
ETA: The Merchandise, why didn’t you ask for your $4 back? I certainly would have.
One time a few years back me and my then SO and two other couples went to dinner at a newly opened place in a newly urban renewal’d part of town. The service was mediocre, the food was definitely trying too hard, and the prices were a bit north of what we’d been expecting. I’ll be the first to admit what we tipped wasn’t quite what we should have, but it was literally all we had on us (all being broke-ass college students or recent grads). After we left, our server followed us out and HANDED US OUR TIP BACK, saying that if that was all we could afford to tip, then we needed it more than he did.
Well, if he was given a twenty on an item that cost $16, then he would have gotten four bucks. I interpreted the “Five dollars!” as him wanting even more.
About 50 years ago I ate at a restaurant in New Orleans, whose name I forget, which was famous because if the waiter did not like the size of the tip you left he walked behind you as you left the restaurant and when you got to the sidewalk he threw the tip in the street. Everyone who ate there knew this and you can imagine how humiliated you would be when everyone in the restaurant stopped eating and watched you walking through the restaurant as your waiter followed you to the street.
Hard to believe that this happened too often, unless the wait-staff were all independently wealthy Southern Gentry and just worked there for the chance to attempt to humiliate random patrons…
Does he go out of his way to make change before throwing it into the street? Also, I think I’d be pretty happy because even if I got humiliated, at least I got my money back. I’d also go out of my way to laugh at the guy if he was throwing away his own tip. I mean, how stupid is that?
Same thing with Khadaji on this one, tip well never had an issue.
I don’t know though if someone who cuts hair, waxes, does nails, etc, is entitled to a tip like a waiter/waitress is. The latter depends on tips to earn a decent wage while waxers and hairdressers do not.
Am glad you went somewhere else Freudian, shouldn’t have to tolerate that kind of treatment.
Long time ago, in a chinese restaurant in Brooklyn Heights, I left a five on the table and left the restaurant (after paying the bill) and the waiter ran out onto the street after me, saying loudly “You no leave tip!” I re-entered the restaurant, plucked the five off the table, showed it to him put it in my pocket, and told him “NOW I no leave tip.”
I can’t understand why wait staff are not trained not to do this. If someone steals from a retailer, the front line staff are NOT supposed to say anything to the person (for fear of a slander lawsuit) or apprehend them (for fear of them being shanked). I took a work comp claim for a waitress who ran out to the parking lot to yell at a non-tipper, and he ran her over with his car.
I had the very worst meal of my life at a tiny Chinese restaurant in NYC about 20 years ago. The service was bad, the food was almost refrigerator-cold, and when I sent it back, it came back just as cold. They were lucky that I even paid the check.
I was literally chased down the street by the waiter, who was yelling, “You no leave tip! You no leave tip!” I just told him why and jumped in a cab.
It’s never happened to me. I usually get okay service and I am careful to tip well (being someone who works for tips myself). I’ve seen/heard it happen to other people many times. My manager at one job got into it with quite a few customers who habitually tipped little or nothing - told them not to come back if they weren’t participating in the tipping system.
My BF has a great story wherein he left no tip at all for a hugely douchy waiter, who followed him and his then girlfriend out of the restaurant and to their car screaming at them about being stiffed. When they got in the car and started to drive away (it was hot, windows were down) Crazy Waiter jumped at my BF, got one arm inside the car and started punching BF in the face with the other hand until he accelerated the car enough that Crazy Waiter was forced to let go.
The one time it happened was when we were invited as guests to a dinner in a restaurant. As we left, the waiter came rushing up and asked – rather agitatedly – “Was something wrong with the service?” We were confused and said, “No.”
Turns out the people paying for it had either forgotten the tip, or were putting it on a credit card or on their account. We knew nothing about it.