While working at a theme park I was offered a $20 tip for giving a private tour to a family of 4 while on my lunch break (No, they didn’t know this was my lunchbreak, and no, they weren’t aware that this wasn’t part of my job, and probably against the rules) This involved me taking them onto a couple of rides without waiting, entertaining them, and just showing them a good time for half an hour. In this instance I couldn’t turn down the tip as the father had snuck it into a handshake and I felt he really wanted to tip me, and wasn’t just tipping as a means of something I should expect for the private tour, so I accepted it.
I had done those private tours with guests on numerous occasions for my lunchbreaks, and that was the only time I accepted a tip. It’s a huge no-no to accept tips from the position I held. I don’t care about the tips though, as I just love to entertain people. Gaining side money isn’t my motivation.
I don’t disagree with tipping a cabbie, but the medallion loan is part of the cost of doing business and is part of the fare you’re already paying. That’s like saying tip any business that has to pay rent. As the article says, if they can afford to take out a loan…
My rule of thumb. You’re standing behind a counter all day? No tip. If you bring stuff to my table? Tip.
I don’t go to Starbucks (a teabag and a cup of lukewarm water does not a cup of tea make), but blame that place for this trend of tipping reasonably well-paid counter help. I’m a generous tipper of cab drivers and waitstaff, but if you’re doing basically the same job as someone at McDonalds, no tip for you.
This is a fantastic post, and to me sums up perfectly exactly why tipping is both so good and sucks so much when it is “mandatory”.
You did something because you enjoyed it and wanted to make the family feel good, without caring for reward - this made the family feel really fantastic and was something they wanted to reward. So the tip was in every sense of the word a symbol of gratitude on their part.
Well done to you!
Again for tipping of wait staff I feel it would work better if the tip was part of the bill, and customers were free to leave a token (or more) for those they felt went above and beyond, with truly bad service being bought to the attention of management, and then management dealing with it as they saw fit.
‘Should I tip?’ and ‘How much should I tip?’ seem to cause a lot of consternation among people – it comes up in threads here all the time. There are customers that will not frequent a place of business just because they don’t know if they should tip or not. A sign saying ‘Please don’t tip’ answers the question clearly and unambiguously.
There is a restaurant I go to for lunch that has a no-tipping sign (stated lightheartedly). It is a semi-serve restaurant – one where you order up front, but a server brings your food. Without the sign, some people might feel obligated to tip (or might happily tip) and this will drive the cost of their meal up significantly. The tips don’t directly help the company and the employees are already getting paid non-tip wages. If some customers ‘accidentally’ tip, then the restaurant might lose business because these customers are paying more than necessary.
There is a small restaurant chain here in the Charlotte area that, despite being essentially fast food, does table service, drink refills, the whole waitress experience.
I must confess that sometimes I choose to get lunch to go and eat it in my car so I will not have to deal with the tipping thing.
Sure, but so is the tip. I’m just saying you can’t look at the meter and say “$9 to take me 50 blocks [~2.5 miles]? That’s a sweet deal for the driver; a tip would be extraneous.” Their overhead is a lot higher than what most people imagine.