Shut yo’ mouth! 
Although often tempted, I never had the nerve to do this. My sister was once out with some friends at a pretty fancy restaurant. Unfortunately, they had a lazy, surly waiter who kept them waiting a long time for cold food - and got their orders wrong, too. So they each put down a penny. The waiter made sure to meet them at the door on their way out and say, “Thank you so much,” to which they responded with matching sarcasm, “Oh, you’re so welcome!”
One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons has a cross-looking restaurant patron eating at his table, with a small sign next to a dish with some coins in it. The sign says, “Your tip so far.”
Is it true that most waitrons would prefer a cash tip to having it noted on the customer’s credit-card bill?
In some areas of Europe, the waitstaff are paid well enough that tipping is considered an insult because you’re implying that you have to give them more because they’re not making enough money from their employer. It’d be like dropping some change into their cup of coffee and assuming they were homeless or poor.
A tip is never expected and any waiter who acts like it is gets nothing from me (I think that’s happened three times in my life so far).
But as for the idea that the slacker would get paid just as much as the hustler, I somehow doubt it. In this hypothetical situation a meal at an Applebee’s type retaurant is no longer $6-12. Now it’s $7-15. And all other restaurants would go up similarly.
So if people are paying “more money” with no chance to show the waiter what kind of wage their service is worth, there will be more complaints to the manager. And if the manager is forced to give away too much free food for crappy service, said slacker will be out of a job.
I’ve done it twice in the past 6 months. Before that, I’d never had real reason to do so - my service was always at least adequate.
But for those waiters - no, this particular black person doesn’t tip when she’s treated like utter crap at a restaurant.
Normally, I tip between 20% & 25%.
Several years ago I left a handful of pennies in the ash tray as a tip for a particularly rude waitress. In retrospect, that was pretty damned passive aggressive. If I was that upset, I just should have complained to her manager about the service.
Fine, build it into the price so you have to tip 15% whether your service is good or bad. You’re just guaranteeing that the employee no longer has to care. That’s a much better system. :rolleyes:
Management is lip service. They tell customers what you want they hear. I’ve seen many employees disciplined for violation of rules or company policy but not ONCE because of a customer complaint. In the industry customer complaints are considered the standard cost of doing business, not a gauge of performance.
Why can’t waiters be held to the same standards as employees in other industries? I don’t work hard because patrons will tip me for answering their reference question, I work hard because if I don’t my ass will be fired.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Sometimes it is actually just a matter of being a bit surprised by this and trying to explain to U.S. tourist “um, that’s really very kind of you but you do not have to tip shop staff (for instance)”, really so as to help the visitor person avoid feeling odd in any similar situation the following day/week. When, of course, tourist person is merely trying to be a good and polite customer. Oh ye gods, the whole thing is a confusing muddle. 
I’d probably find myself tipping incorrectly were I to visit the U.S.A. - simply out of confusion and trying to work out what the norms were. Nah, actually, I would simply come onto the boards and ask here first, I think. 
I now wonder whether there is any similar meme in Britain about any group that tips badly or not at all or unusually much.
(And WHY does one always tip hairdressers, considering what scary and powerful and dangerous people they are?)
Main Entry:
1com·mis·sion
<snip>6: a fee paid to an agent or employee for transacting a piece of business or performing a service; especially : a percentage of the money received from a total paid to the agent responsible for the business
- I generally pay about $8 for a burger and fries at a casual dining place, so it’s $10 with tip. Isn’t that about what Fuddruckers charges? Regardless, I still think that the psychology of paying up front will be more than made up for when the tab ends up being what you expected it to, and not 20% more. YMMV.
It pretty much works out to be the same. CC tips aren’t shared or reduced or anything. If you put down $5 on the CC it’s the same as giving me a $5 bill, as far as how much money I make goes. The only difference is that the system knows the CC tips, so in theory I can lie about how much cash tips I make to cheat the IRS, but not with the CC tips. I honestly don’t care, but I do know other servers who only report about 50% of their cash tips so they pay less taxes.
Ah, the eternal debate on tipping.
While many may hate tipping here in the States, it will not change. There just isn’t enough of a ground swell to change the status quo. For those trying to be defiant (and I don’t recall anyone in this tread doing that, but have seen it in others), quit it. You just look like an ass, not a revolutionary.
I can’t speak to AA tipping, but using my wife’s extended family as a proxy (both in observed practice and conversations), SE Asians tend to be poor tippers if they were raised there. From what I can see, those who were born and raised here in the States assimilate well. YMMV, small sample size, and all that.
I wonder how much of the prejudice is a self-fulling prophecy. ‘Oh, I’ve got a table of [old ladies, black people], I’m going to slack on this one.’ I’ve got a healthy appetite for foie gras and fine wines but have gotten pretty screwed while dining out with girlfriends only (and my SO still gets handed the wine list).
The most ridiculous waiting stories I’ve heard are about religious families who leave Jack Chick tracts instead of tips. They should be dragged out into the street and shot.
Some think that Canadians and AA’s are synonyms for cheap tippers:
“When I worked in restaurants more than ten years ago in Florida, I heard the term ‘Canadian’ applied to African-Americans. It was explained to me that it was because both are stereotyped as being bad tippers.”
I find that groups of people with a shared bill will under-estimate: “Lemme see, a burger and fries is 6 bucks and coke… here’s a ten, gimme two back” In fact, the burger and fries is 6.49, the coke 1.99, tax and tip on top make it about 10.50
Look, why must this tipping thing be so mysterious and confusing. I personally, don’t understand it…leave a fin or two for yourserver, be generous… shoot for 15%… that’s ten percent plus half as much… add more if you are satisfied.
Poor tippers are a sign of a niggardly disposition.
But it gets more confusing than that: I have different guidelines if it’s a buffet, or a cafeteria-type place, and in both those cases it matters if the server refills my drink and checks on me or just busses. Then there is delivery and take-out. And tipping cups at coffee shops. I can see how it’d be confusing to someone not used to tipping.
During my undergrad years in the mid-to-late 1980s, I used to deliver pizza. I hate to say this, but the “blacks don’t tip” meme was true, at least when it came to pizza delivery.
For a month, I kept track of the ethnicity of the person I delivered to, along with their tip. Whites and Asians generally tipped around a dollar. The average tip from a black customer was 15 cents. Average, because only one out of every ten or so even bothered to tip.
The explanation I heard then was that blacks were just beginning to enter the middle class en masse, and were previously never in the position to take advantage of a service where tipping was involved. It just wasn’t a part of their culture. Sure enough, most restaurants in Buffalo’s inner city black neighborhoods were carry-out and fast food joints; there were very few sit-down restaurants, and almost no delivery.
Still, I noticed other strange tipping trends. Students at the University at Buffalo tipped way more generously than those at Daemen College; supposedly this was because there was a much larger percentage of students from NYC and downstate New York among the crowd at UB, and in “The City” people tip for everything. Asians tipped well, while Asian Indians tipped poorly.
I think some of the stereotyping surrounding tipping has a lot to do with what you’re exposed to.
As a kid, we rarely ate out at restaurants, unless you count the NCO Club on base, where I don’t think you tip. In any case I wasn’t paying attention. I later sacked groceries for military personnel on base, so I personally will be as generous as possible when tipping if the service is adequate. I usually don’t like to be bothered, but it’s nice if I can flag down the waitstaff if I need something.
I admit I never tip at a hotel. Frankly, I never heard of this until I shared a hotel room with a friend for a conference. For me, it’s waiters, cab drivers, anyone who delivers food to your home, and that’s about it. I also don’t tip for small orders at a place like Sonic. I mean, I pay $2.50 for a burger, you come out and hand it to me, and I’m supposed to give you money for that?
Um, you really haven’t thought #1 through too carefully, have you.
I know that I really enjoy being upsold at lunch.
I have 30 year old nephew that has worked in the service industry forever. He has worked as a waiter, server, and bartender in many locations around the U.S.
He is currently in Utah doing a very lucrative gig at the Sundance film festival and usually lives in San Diego.
Anyhoo, since he is my expert on the subject, I phoned him and asked if there is any group of people that as a rule tip poorly.
His said without a doubt Europeans, as a group, are the worst tippers.
Take it for what its worth.