So over in this Pit Thread Chowder had trouble getting a knife and fork at a chinese restaurant, and subsequently didn’t leave a tip. While it wasn’t the thrust of the pitting, several people jumped in and said it is never OK to not leave a tip.
Why Not?
I’ll preface this with the statement, just in case, that there is no culture of tipping in Australia, so my experience with tipping is derived from a sum lifelong total of 7 weeks holidays in the US, and what I read here and around the place.
I understood that you left a tip essentially to reward good service, or at a minimum to acknowldge acceptable service.
If you had to have a stand up argument just to get a knife & fork, (one would think not a particluarly onerous request), wouldn’t that justify a “No Tip for you”? In my mind it would.
If that is not enough - how bad would it have to get before you would not leave a tip?
My word, GreedySmurf, you couldn’t start a thread about politics, religion, capital punishment, gun control or the war, could you? You had to pick a controversial subject.
IMHO, you have to screw up pretty badly to receive a zero tip. Personally, I wouldn’t deny a waiter a tip for merely implementing his boss’s stupid anti-fork policy, but I might have a word with the manager about it. (I am not chopstick-challenged, but I prefer our barbarian western cutlery if I can get it.)
In the US (and I believe also parts of Canada?) “tipped employees,” which are servers, bartenders, and probably strippers, don’t have to make real minimum wage, since the expectation is that they will make up the rest in their tips. For example, I only make about $3 an hour, while the real min. wage in VT is almost $7/hr. I never see a paycheck. Ever. The only money I get is from tips, and my meager pay isn’t even enough to cover the taxes and benefits I have to pay for, so at the end of the year, almost every full-time tipped employee ends up owing taxes.
However, the law does require that if a server doesn’t make the equivalent of min. wage, his/her employer has to make up the difference, but that is based on their weekly or monthly pay, not an “hour to hour” basis.
Having not read the thread in question, I don’t know the specifics, like how nice of a place it was, how heated the argument for silverware was, etc…but it takes a lot for me to never leave a tip. The closest was once I left below 5% because the food took almost 40 minutes, and not once in that time did the girl come by to let us know it would be a while, or get us refills on our drinks. She also never stopped by after we had our meals until we were done. Piss poor service. reads Pit thread.
Well, it seems chowder is in England, where tipping is more like Australia, so him not leaving a tip ios more like an American leaving 5%-10%, which might have been justified. I mean, it’s really not that big a deal to bring someone a knife and fork for their meal, but it also depends on the “level” of the place. If it’s four-star Chinese cuisine, with an actual chef, I would imagine it’s more insulting to ask for a K&F, but if it’s just one step above Chinese take-away, then who cares?
I usually tip… more correctly I seldom do NOT tip.
I am in edmonton, Alberta canada, and we have an employment shortage here. Because of that, serbice positions are very hard to fill, and one often encounters poorly trained, badly motivated staff in food/retail establishment.
On the other hand, we are rich. (Minimum wage is “set” at $7 or so an hour, but I don’t know of any Jobs that pay less than $11 (Local Macdonalds pays $12.50).
So I pay a minimum tip of 15% for any place that has real plates. Unless I get treated with active rudeness. In which case I pay the exact amount on the bioll, leave and never return. (Side note- I did walk out on a place once in which the waiter called my wife fat -quote"A woman her size won’t exactly starve if your meal is 10 minutes late." - this was after a 20 ,imute wait).
What I do, though is tip “large” for great service. I left a $12 tip this morning for breakfast (3 people, buffet style) as our coffee cups were never empty, special requests were met with a smile and a “Right away!”, and the food was ample, yummy and the ambiance was comfortable.
that tip was about 25% of bill, and I am a reg at that place. A couple of extra bucks on the bill, to get great service, a great table and great food is worth it in this town.
Here in the US we have two kinds of restaurants…those that don’t expect tips and those that do. E.g. IIRC McDonald’s actually has a policy that you can’t tip. Other places are different.
I think it used to be that a general rule was that if you could use a credit card, it was highfalutin enough to merit considering a tip. But many (most? all?) fast food places accept credit cards now, so that’s little use.
If service is poor, my tip reflects it. If service was decent, I routinely go 15%. One place that I usually do not tip is at buffets or cafeteria-style places, since nobody’s bringing me the food. Some might counter that people tip because the food was excellent, but I think that should be reflected in the price of the meal.
Oh, I always leave a tip. If the service is so bad that I think that no tip is warranted, then I leave two pennies. That way, the server KNOWS that I didn’t forget to tip, and also knows just what I think the service was worth.
I almost always tip, but sometimes I’ve left very small tips for very poor service. My sister and some friends once left tips of a penny apiece for an actively rude, incompetent waiter, who then made sure to meet them at the door on the way out to sarcastically say, “Thank you so much,” to which my sister replied, “Oh, you’re so welcome.”
Where Im from tipping isnt a big thing at all. My parents always did it but there was no set amount (eg like 10%) it was usually just whatever change they had left after they had paid the bill. Most restaurants Ive been to if yo read the small print the service charge is already on the bill. I find this sneeky and I hate being forced in such a way to pay for a service that I may or may not like. Im usually a sucker and tip at these places anyway as I feel bad (why? I do not know!) and I dont want to look like a cheepo for not leaving a tip.
I’ve done that on occasion. I tend to tip quite generously, between 25 and 30% or so. I don’t have high expectations-- just a filled glass, condiments, an occasional “do you need anything?” and updates on where the food is if it’s taking a while.
15% is my absolute minimum tip for “adequate service.”
If the service is so awful that I feel no tip is warranted, I try to explain why. If I feel like doing so wouldn’t do any good, I just leave a penny.
One UK union has started a Fair Tips Campaign which is trying to force all employers to pay the minimum wage and not have part of a worker’s pay made up by tips. This practice is quite common (and legal) but it’s surprising how many employers use this method. These include Harvey Nichols and Pizza Express. Both “high end” establishments.
Tipping is nothing like as widespread and structured in the UK as it is in the US, and we have the service to prove it Chowder’s refusal to leave a tip due to the waiter being a tit would be completely standard and acceptable behaviour. I’ve eaten with plenty of people here in Scotland who tip next to nothing even when the service was great.
Generally speaking, my baseline tipping is 15%. It goes up or down depending on service. (Except, if I go to a cafe in town for breakfast, I’ll leave a buck and whatever change, as it’s only about $4 for the bill.) I’ve very seldom left a really small tip, though a couple times I’ve done the $0.02 thing that Lynn Bodoni mentioned. In the events described in chowder’s post, I believe the correct response to “I’d like a knife and fork” is “yes, sir” or “yes, ma’am”, as the case may be. One refusal gets a reduced tip. I would have gotten up and walked out after the waiter’s 2nd or 3rd refusal.
I’ve been lucky, though. It’s been very rare for me to encounter such abysmal service. The last time I walked out of a restaurant was about 25 years ago. (I was delighted when they went out of business a month after I walked. I’d told the manager that night they wouldn’t last if they couldn’t figure out how to treat customers right.)
That’s OK if the the waiter is being paid a decent wage and not having to rely on tips. If through no fault of his own, ( i.e. because of bad management or cock-ups in the kitchen) you don’t get a decent meal then it’s him who will suffer.
If the service is adequate, I tip 15%. Good to excellent service and I’ll leave 20-30%. If the service is crap and it’s definitely the server’s fault and not the kitchen’s, they get nada. Why should I tip someone who is not doing their job properly?
In Chowder’s case, I would have walked out after the second refusal to give me cutlery. If I was dining with someone who refused to do that, I would have stayed and not tipped.
As an aside, my parents are bad tippers - I think it has to do with their age. (My dad still thinks jeans - or dungarees as he calls them - cost $5.) If they take me to dinner, I always insist on leaving the tip.
I’d dispute that. The tipping culture has arrived here. It’s still small, but it’s growing.
It used to be traditional in Australian taxis to round the fare up to the next dollar (or maybe the next five dollar multiple these days), but the old timey cabbies would also round it down for the customer if the fare was just over a logical multiple. I haven’t seen this latter thing for years though - probably because cabbies are all dirt poor these days.
I won’t genrally tip in a pub, but if I’ve ordered a large round, I might toss a couple of silver coins into the tip jar if there is one (often there isn’t). I’d also only do this once per evening. Many of the restaurants here these days are doing that bullshit of returning your change on a little tray hint hint. I’ll leave loose silver on there if the service has been adequate, gold coins as well if it has been good, or I won’t hesitate to take every last cent if it has been poor.
After much searching, I finally found an old style barber shop, and the bloke there is always standing alone in his shop when I walk in, and he gives me a great haircut, then only charges me $15 for it! So I give him a $20 note and refuse the change. He always argues about it, too. Nice old bloke. That’s probably the biggest tip I’ll give as a percentage of the price of the service, because I think the haircut is worth $20, and the old boy is living in the past with regards to prices.
If someone brings my food to my table, it’s a tipping situation. I will lower the amount the server gets if the service is sub-par, and outright rudeness will get you zero tip. The knife and fork thing…jeeeez…I wouldn’t want to take it out on the server, but the owner must be out of his mind to think everyone can manipulate chopsticks. I know I can’t.
