If tipping less than 50% is your idea of “cheap”, I’d say you were doing those guys a service by dumping them before you bankrupted them.
Seattle.
I go regularly to a nice dirt-cheap Vietnamese pho place where dinner for two is about $10. Sit down service. We usually tip $1 plus leftover pocket change (ends up about 15-20% TYPICALLY), and this is seen as completely normal. If we tipped $5 on a $10 meal, the manager would probably think we were trying to bribe better service and would get insulted. This may be a cultural difference though.
It’s no trouble to learn and understand the unwritten rules for any one tipping situation. Where the complexity comes in is that there’s dozens of them, each with their own rules, not to mention those situations that you had no idea were tipping situations.
For instance, I’ve been tipping hairdressers for eons (although there was a time I didn’t know I was supposed to tip them either), but my wife mentioned to me several months back that I always forgot to tip the shampoo girl. I wasn’t forgetting; I had no idea I was supposed to tip the shampoo girl separately. It wouldn’t have occured to me any more than it would have to leave a separate tip for the person who buses my table, on top of my tip to the waiter. But apparently I was supposed to be tipping her separately. Now I tip her a buck.
But I often wonder, when and how was I supposed to learn all these rules? I mean, here I am, past fifty and still trying to get the hang of them. Pizza deliverers, skycaps, hairdressers, shampoo girls, cab drivers, hotel maids, waiters (different rules for table service and buffet, apparently, though I can’t see why), bartenders, parking valets…the list goes on and on. And in most of those situations, I’ve got only a vague idea of what’s an appropriate tip. I know that any tip that doesn’t at least add up to money you can fold is insultingly small, regardless of the situation and the size of the purchase (if any). But that’s about the only solid across-the-board rule I can think of.
In case you missed the news while you were out surfing or getting stoned, we got both indoor plumbing and computers out here, and the SDMB just flies now that I got a new 1200-baud modem for my Apple ///. Someday, we even expect to have them newfangled cellular phones.
Just for the record, I’m not “from” Montana. I live in Montana.
I’ll do you one better than how I “would” tip and tell you how I did tip: The bill was $9.95, and I left $12.00, so the tip was just a hair over 20%.
Indeed. According to Wikipedia, we’re even supposed to tip karaoke DJs and mechanical bull operators. I’ve never ridden a mechanical bull, but I have sung karaoke, and I’ve never seen anyone leave a tip. I assume the DJs get paid by the bar, because they attract customers who buy drinks and food… and in any case, they’re not providing a personal service, they’re mainly just queuing up songs in Winamp and passing microphones around. WTF?
I agree that the peripheral tipping situations are staggeringly complex, and a lot of those, I think, have to do with people being entrepeneurs and trying to invent customs where no such customs exist. If you don’t tip your mechanical bull operator, I’m the last one who’s gonna knock you for it.
But the alarming proliferation of tipping in other situations shouldn’t affect the central tipping situation in American culture: we can’t say that, because shampoo girls are demanding tips, we ought not tip the waitress.
Daniel