So lets just reinforce the classist expression of superiority by slipping a shiny tuppence into the smock of my chambermaid as she smilingly fetches my soiled bedpan?
Outside of the US, tipping is often viewed as an insult. While working as a grocery bagger once, after helping a quite wealthy person with their bags to their car, I was slipped a dollar. It only made me feel even more like a poor servant, not like I was getting my entitled reward for extra service.
Pathologicaly unable to admit you’re wrong, eh?
Or just still confused about what a collective noun is and digging yourself deeper rather than just saying “whoops”?
But watching you is amusing, in its own way. Keep up the absurdity.
Actually, the government does have a complete list. (I got it while working as a waiter). I might even do some digging, but if I recall correctly it included jobs such as taxi drivers and barbers, because they’re expected to be tipped. As such, Unky Sam wants a piece of the action. And you have to prove that you didn’t get tips, if you’re tyring to avoid losing money out of your own pocket. Without careful kept records, this is often impossible, and like Duffer, you just have to bite the bullet.
Interesting–I knew I’d seen such lists, but I didn’t know the government kept one. Good to know!
Daniel
Well, if we can’t fight each other we can at least fight ignorance 
I can’t seem to find the panphlet that I was given while working as a waiter, but this is a good jumping off point, as is this PDF.
And you can be darn sure that the IRS wants a cut of all the money they’re supposed to make. Heck, there are penalties for not recording your daily tips, in detail.
Ah yes, a variation on the old “denial” game. A sign of a problem is denial so denying you have a problem means you have the problem. This usually pops up in alcoholism threads as opposed to threads about tipping, but here it is. The alternative, of course, is that denying one is wrong means that one is in fact not wrong.
Nope, I know exactly what a collective noun is. I also know how corporate types write memos and I know when someone I’m arguing with has been making the same misinterpretation for the last several days and, rather than acknowledge that he might be even the slightest bit in error, starts railing about non-existent “intellectual dishonesty” and the like.
Watching you has lost its charm. Buh bye.
Hup hup hup! Off that cross! We need to save the wood until winter.
The “denial game” here, is, simply, that you’ve being a 100% jerk and an intellectual coward and you still refuse to simply say “Oops, I was wrong.”
Not because I say you’re wrong, but because you don’t (or you’re pretending you don’t because you’re too much of a pigheaded fool) understand what a collective noun is. Your position is so thoroughly bankrupt that you needed to create a spurious nitpick, post after post, instead of just admitting that the collective noun “the company” can and does refer to its individual employees.
Pathetic.
So you were pretending you didn’t… why?
And you’ve just contradicted yourself. If you really knew what a collective noun was, you’d know that there was no “misrepresantation”, that I was refering to the employees but using a collective noun all along. But you’re a pigheaded coward and a fool and you can’t bring yourself to say “oops, I was wrong.” You, dear fool, are the one who’s been making the same misrepresenation of my posts for days now. Even though I routinely parse it down smaller and smaller, you still pretend that you’re ignorant just so you don’t have to say “oops, I was wrong.” Instead of simply admitting a minor mistake, you feel the need to pretend that I used a collective noun to refer to the company brass ordering food for the company as a whole. But I’ve already pointed out that your blustering on this point is irrational and incoherent, as if the company brass was paying for it, they never would’ve spoken to the employees about tipping.
Like I said, zero intellectual honesty, and a pigheaded asshole jerk to boot.
Cute story, but “goodbye”'s are cheap. For relevance’s sake, your next analogy’d better involve money.
People who value the comfort and simplicity of only being expected to pay an explicitly stated price.
Okay. I was carrying kroner in my pocket.
The money is not the important part of the story, since in the end, you’re going to end up paying the same whether you pay the servers directly (through tips) or indirectly (through the cost of food, which the manager then passes along to the servers). The main difference between the story is that, were the analogy perfect, I would have been neglecting to pay part of the expected cost of goods at the stores, instead of simply neglecting to complete a social ritual
And they’re welcome to live in a country where they get that simplicity. The United States isn’t such a country: here, the tipping system is set up to allow folks to remunerate service directly instead of indirectly.
Daniel
At the risk of being insulting … I’ll be blunt:
Tipping is easy for me – why isn’t it for you?
how’ya do that whole sales tax thing, then? or delivery charges?
Hey it all adds up. Lets say you eat out once a week and tip at least 2$ each time. 52 weeks * 2 = 104. 104 * 20 years = 2080$
Just a thought.
The money part is everything. The controversy isn’t about the final cost, it’s about the ambiguity invovled. It’s alot easier for you to start saying “goodbye” than it is to hand over an extra 20% of the stated bill when the house as a rule never mentions this expectation.
Right, and wouldn’t you find that an unfair expectation for one never stated by those expecting it? How would you feel if, after getting back to they U.S., the sidewalk you walked on every day to go to and from town was a toll sidewalk, and you were expected, without any enforcement or notification, to discreetly leave the equivelant of about $10 to $20, depending on how much you used the sidewalk, next to the curb every day, and that locals are frequently dismayed that tourists like you don’t pay your share up upkeep of the block?
And you criticize my analogies?
Your analogy is absurd.
Daniel
That should read “How would you feel if you found out that, after getting back to the U.S…”
So how come McDonald’s, with no tipping, is so cheap?
Looks like I didn’t slip in my edit in time. Oh well…
Daniel
Because it’s crap?
Could not agree more.
I don’t care how much the store is going to give for State Tax, for electricity, rent, the cleaning lady, the chef, the manager, the hostess, the bus boy, the waiter, the accountant, etc.
Just tell me how much is coming out of my pocket.
You figure out how much of it is going to whom.