I boycott places with tip jars.

[Tenar]

@ruadh

Good God. They’re usually the last people I tip. Most of them make far too much money already.

Due to my habit of buying crap cars and not maintaining them, I periodically find myself without transportation, necessitating a cab ride. (Fortunately, I live quite close to my job.)

I do tip cabbies, usually. (I was always under the impression that they had to pay big $$ to lease their cabs and needed the tips to cover the nut. Maybe it’s different in the U.K.) However, when I get in a cab with some idiot who drives 50 mph down my dead end residential street after I’ve repeatedly asked him not to because most of the people in my neighborhood have free-range cats (and a number of them are three-legged and slow moving due to a bad litter one cat had) he’s likely to find himself getting a much smaller tip. (I would stiff guys like that completely, but I live alone, and they know where I live. Call me paranoid.) My favorite was the idiot who did this and had a big sign in his cab that said “We live on our tips.” Well, you have a choice – drive too fast and dangerously in hopes of increasing your volume business, or get a tip. I also had one who made all kinds of stupid jokes after I told him to avoid runnning over the kitties, but I suspected that he was mentally ill.

Sorry for the hijack, but those guys drive me CRAZY!!!

I won over a really crabby waitress by overtipping her for a couple of YEARS (I usually give her $2.00 on a $6.00 breakfast check because I figure she doesn’t get as much $$ working breakfast). Now she keeps those teabags a comin’.

I don’t like tip jars because they’re too much like an outstretched palm. Nonetheless, they fail to send me into paroxysms of fear and indecision. I just ignore them. (I particularly hate tip jars in places where the OWNER is the one doing the serving.)

[racinchikki]

This is probably a stupid question, but what’s a skycap? Every time I’ve flown I’ve had to hoist my bags around by myself; no airline employee has ever offered to help me or even been apparently available for such a purpose. Checked luggage got dropped off at the counter when I checked in at the gate, and my carry-ons had to be stowed by me personally.

[ruadh]

@Tenar

(I was always under the impression that they had to pay big $$ to lease their cabs and needed the tips to cover the nut. Maybe it’s different in the U.K.)

I wouldn’t know. I don’t live in the U.K.

[Una_Persson]

@racinchikki

This is probably a stupid question, but what’s a skycap? Every time I’ve flown I’ve had to hoist my bags around by myself; no airline employee has ever offered to help me or even been apparently available for such a purpose. Checked luggage got dropped off at the counter when I checked in at the gate, and my carry-ons had to be stowed by me personally.

I’ve found that some airports don’t have them. Others had them but they were a casualty of 9/11 where cars were no longer allowed to drop off people directly outside the front door. Even the ones that do still have them you often have to search for them.

Typically, a large airline will have a stand out front where the drive is and if you park directly there, someone can help you unload and sometimes (depending on the airport) can even check your heavy bags for you right at the curb.

I’ve never used one. My policy is - if I can’t move it myself, I’m carrying too much. However, they’re very useful for elderly/infirm travelers, or those that just don’t want to slug their luggage around.