Tipping Dog Groomer?

[k9bfriender]

@MandaJo

It makes sense if Bob the bar owner is worth more than you (prosperous business owner), and you are tipping him a fiver like he’s a servant.

I wonder if that’s something that has changed as well, that being a small business owner meant that you were worth more than your clientele.

Most of the business owners I know are not any better off, as far as personal finances, than most of their peers who work for someone else, nor their clients.

Most of my clients drive cars that probably cost more than my house, I’ll take a fiver from them, thanks!

All being a business owner means now is having debt and obligations that would make your patrons faint from shock. All the numbers involved are bigger than your personal finances, but what I actually get to take from it isn’t really all that much, especially for the hours I put in and the personal financial liability and risk that I accepted.

[mordecaiB]

@MandaJo

There’s an old rule that tipping is for employees, not owners: if the owner of a bar serves your drink, it’s insulting to offer a tip: owner is of equal status.

In NY, if I stopped tipping owners I could cut my tipping expenses considerably. What they do with the tips afterwards, I don’t know. The only time I maybe wouldn’t tip the owner is if they were an actual friend of mine, as in we hang out together outside of work. There are a lot of places where I am on a first name basis with the owner and I always tip them.

[TriPolar]

@MandaJo

I think you guys are misreading the OP. They are specifically asking if the protocol is different when someone is the owner. There’s an old rule that tipping is for employees, not owners: if the owner of a bar serves your drink, it’s insulting to offer a tip: owner is of equal status.

It’s a very old rule that has mostly dropped away, I think. And was always hard to apply to owner operators of things like salon stations. And at my groomers, at least, tips are pooled, anyway.

I don’t pay attention to that anymore. It’s a concept from days past, that never made sense to me. When I get my hair cut by the barber that owns the shop he’ll get the same tip as any of the other barbers (assuming the same quality hair cut). I don’t see a good reason to do it differently.

[MandaJo]

Guys, I’m not defending the rule, I’m just explaining it.

[Melbourne]

I asked (in my own thread), when did it cease to be an insult to offer a tip to a White person (as my reading shows it to have been), and nobody knew. I imagine that it was gradual, depending on area and industry, and never universal, but it was there, and then it was gone.

[Kimstu]

@TriPolar

I don’t pay attention to that anymore. It’s a concept from days past, that never made sense to me. When I get my hair cut by the barber that owns the shop he’ll get the same tip as any of the other barbers (assuming the same quality hair cut).

AFAICT the underlying idea was that the business owner is working for profits, not a wage, and has control of the pricing. So it’s unnecessary, and maybe even a bit of an insult to the owner, to treat them like a mere wage-earning employee, even if they’re sometimes performing the same services as employees.

Also, the employee is getting the same wage whether you buy an expensive service or a cheap one. But the owner is getting more profit from a more expensive purchase. So for the owner to expect both the profit due to an owner and a tip due to an employee can come across as a little bit greedy.

Again, though, that’s just explaining the rationale for the original existence for the rule AIUI. I agree that nowadays it’s less common for the rule to be followed or expected, and I think it’s more convenient just to tip the same amount for the same service irrespective of who’s providing it.