Tipping question re: services

In My Humble Opinion
1

I know this can be a sore subject here, and I’m hoping this won’t go the way of the pit.
Last year, I got a gift certificate for a local spa, and went a few weeks ago to get a massage. It was well worth it, great service and just what I needed after a stressful holiday.

The massage cost me $80 for an hour.

My question is, should I have tipped? (I didn’t; though I kind of realized when I was paying that maybe I should have. I had only brought the gift certificate, though, and didn’t have cash on me).

The conundrum I am in is as follows:

For food service, I know that wait staff are paid below minimum wage, and that the only way their wage is livable (or much higher than livable) is when customers tip them. I have no problem with this, and a bad tip from me is around 15%, knowing that I’m expected to make up part of their pay.

In this case, though, I spent $80 on a professional service. In that case, I really feel like they should charge what they expect to make, with a tip being a welcome surprise, but not an expected part of income.

An analogy: I’m a musician, and I don’t accept gigs at private parties and low ball a price and then expect to get tipped at the end. I tell them what I cost, and am perfectly happy to walk away with the amount of money in my pocket we agreed upon.

I admit that I don’t know what the guy earned from my $80, but I assume it was at least half (maybe I’m really off-base on this?). I know other folks in business for themselves who charge 50-60 dollars for an hour. Regardless, at $80, I can assume that the guy working on me was making decent pay. I also feel like, with a price that high, I can forgo the confusion of whether or not to tip or how much.

Part of my experience (that I’m paying for) is to not have to be confused about how much that experience costs. If you need to make an extra $5 an hour, then charge $85.

And really, I think that’s the most important part for me. I really don’t like feeling confused or unsure about what a service provider expects to be paid. I thought that that was what advertised prices were all about.

And I’m not saying that the massage wasn’t worth $85, or $90, or whatever. But, I don’t feel like it’s my job as a customer to decide what to pay. If you price it at $80, then that’s what it’s worth, and I don’t think I should be expected to pay extra because you did your job well; that assumes that the advertised price is for shitty service, and if a customer expects it to be done right then he or she should pay more. (I understand that this line of argument could apply to waitstaff, but I really don’t want to go down that road here).

So, thoughts?

2

Tipping at a spa is considered normal from my understanding. 15-20% seens to be standard.

3

I second Antinor01’s opinion. I always tip at the spa, even if I’m just getting my eyebrows waxed.

Speaking of which, I’m starting to look like a yeti…

4

I understand tipping to be the norm for these kinds of services as well (massages, facials, nails, hair, etc).

5

Yes, tipping is customary for spa services. Just like you’d tip your hairstylist or manicurist, you should tip your massage therapist. A lot of times, the person giving the service is renting a space from someone else that’s taking a cut of the earnings, so in a way, it’s almost like waitstaff. For example, your massage therapist was employed by the spa. You know SHE’S not getting the entire 80 bucks you’re being charged.

6

You tip at spas.

If the person you were seeing was an independent person with her own office, especially if they were providing a medical rather than a spa environment, the question would be more open, but as you’ve described it, you should have tipped.

7

The last time I got a massage, there was a discreet little envelope on the bureau in the room where I received my massage…and I forget exactly how they put it, but there was something written on it that made it clear that this was where you put the masseuse’s tip.

From what I understand, tipping them is SOP.

Mine was a relative bargain–$45 for an hour–and I tipped $10.

8

I totally agree with you. That’s why I rarely use services that require tipping. I bought a massage chair so I need never tip a masseuse. I eat at home or at fast-food joints and thus don’t tip waitresses. I don’t drink alcohol, so no bartender tips from me. Buying a Flow-bee means I never need to tip a hair stylist. But then again, I also use recorded music so I don’t pay or tip musicians either. Sorry.

9

Right. And I’d think that $80 was a hell of a lot to charge per hour, even for an independent contractor.

If it’s customary, then it’s customary, but I’d question why, particularly since for folks who own their own shops (like the guy who cuts my hair) or rent a chair/space, they set their own fees.

I just hate the feeling that someone told me what they wanted to be paid, and then would be upset that I paid them what they asked for.

To be clear, I’m not arguing against tipping per se, it’s more that I’m arguing that a business should charge what they expect to get, and not expect the customer to round out the amount with an ambiguous amount. I mean, how would I know that I was supposed to pay a tip, and how would I know what would be an acceptable amount? What is the justification for not spelling it out before I agree to pay for the service?

10

For massage you tip unless it’s at a Doctor’s office (like a Chiropractor).

11

Well, a related question then; how do you know when to tip and how much?

In a restaurant, not only is there a place on the credit card receipt specifically for the tip, but the menu typically says something about adding a gratuity automatically for large parties. Whether or not someone has a moral objection to leaving a tip, at least the expectation is explicit.

When I got my massage (or when I get my hair cut), there’s no line for tip on my receipt, and nowhere on any sign in the place does it say anything about suggested tip.

If it’s expected, why be coy about it, or pretend like it’s not expected? It seems rude to the customer, IMHO.

12

Traditionally, one does not tip the owner of a hair salon or the owner of any other business – because they do set their own fees and they do get all the money.

Most people who rent a chair/space are not entitled to set their own fees, but have to work with the fee structure the shop already has in place.

13

I work at a spa. You’re supposed to tip unless you’re being served by the owner. But I pretty much agree with the OP’s attitude on tipping. Why not just put the extra money in the overall price?

14

This is my position on it, too. I’ll go with the waitstaff tipping situation because it’s been here so long it’s tradition but I’d like to see others simply charge what they expect to get paid for their services and let tipping disappear. It’s like a hidden tax. Plus, it would seem to me that if one wishes to be seen as a professional (just like the massage therapist at the chiro’s office wants to be seen) it would be better not to accept tips. I once heard a woman argue it was because the spa personnel provided a personal, intimate service. Well, I am a nursing student and you better believe I provide some seriously personal and intimate services, but wouldn’t dream of accepting a tip (no one ever offers, though, so it’s not much of an issue. Easy to reject what one has not been offered!)

15

We tried to buy gifts or gift cards for the nurses at the home where my uncle lived until he died, but were told that the only acceptable thing was to bring gift baskets of food or similar items that everyone on the staff could share.

We didn’t really think of it as ‘tipping’ since nurses are, as you say, professionals (and at least where this took place, unionized, which helps the whole pay thing) but we did want to offer them our thanks for being kind to a relative in his final years.

Tipping, as a custom, does pretty much suck. But it extends beyond waitresses to pretty much all non-professional, personal services, and most of those people are paid with the idea that they’ll get tips in mind. I’d love to see a no-tipping revolution happen and take the whole practice away, but it can’t be started by people stiffing their service providers – there are too many people to organize, and it would be too damaging to the people who live on tips in the interim. It would have to be the service providers banding together to up their prices to a level they can live with and eschewing tips.

16

Easy:

[ul]
[li]Waitstaff[/li][li]People providing intimate, personal services that involve things like touching you or learning your secrets (in the case of doormen, etc.) [/li][li]People providing services in your home[/li][li]People providing simple services that you could easily do yourself, but choose not to (housekeeping, shoe-shining, car washers, porters, etc.)[/li][li]People providing services at parties (this is kind of an extension of the “in your home” part even if it’s not really your home)[/li][li]Tour guides[/li][/ul]

Why?
[ul]
[li]It fosters loyalty. A maid or a doorman or something knows an awful lot about you and maybe has a lot of access to your stuff. You want them to be on your side. You are giving these people a lot of trust and you need to have a person and direct way of dealing with this. The reason why you pay for this is that you want their loyalty to be to you, not to the company they are hired under. Tipping is the reason why, for example, it’s common for wait staff to go against company policy and bring you extra pats of butter.[/li][li]It gives you the right not to feel bad when asking someone to do something that is icky, outlandish or whatever. There are some things- like having someone clean our personal toilets- that generally you would never ask somebody to do. And when you do ask someone to do it, it feels a little weird and uncomfortable in that “respects fellow humans” part of your heart (which is why nurses, for example, arn’t included. Their work is automatically respected). But when you tip, it kind of makes that feel okay, [/li][li]It allows people in relatively unskilled positions to make enough money to feed their families. These are THE ONLY non-professional service positions that are not at or near minimum wage, and if tipping was abolished, they would fall to minimum wage pretty much immediately. [/li][li]It acknowledges that by doing some things for you, it frees you up to do the work that makes you money. So while they arn’t directly doing the high powered money making work you are doing, they are the ones who let that work be done. So they get their cut. [/li][/ul]

It’s not the most straightforward system in the world. But remember that while Americans may talk about how much they value good customer service, they will almost never pay for it- which accounts for the crappy customer service in almost all non-tipped positions. Companies simply won’t pay the wages that will attract the good workers. So if you value good customer service, and you wish that people providing this good customer service make a living wage, you’d put up with tipping as an imperfect system but the best one out there.

17

Back when I didn’t feel guilty spending money on massages ;), I used to frequent a day spa that had a “gratuity included” policy for services. (FWIW, I started going there because I liked that idea - less confusion and all - and because even with the added gratuity, their prices were lower than several other places in town.)

One day I got an EXCEPTIONAL massage from a lovely lady named Nadine. I was so in love with her when I left that I asked (for the first time) as I paid at the desk what percentage tip she’d be receiving. My idea was to add extra $$$ to bump up her tip a few percentage points; so, say if she were getting 10%, I’d add enough to bump her tip up to 15%, if she were getting 15%, I’d bump it up to 20%, etc.

Turned out she was getting 5%.

FIVE PERCENT!!!

So from then on, whenever I went there, I made sure to tip somewhere between 15% and 20% for services. I probably screwed up the whole system, but if you ask me, there’s a reason I never got the same manicurist/facialist/massage therapist twice - the turnover was probably sky high! Also, I’ve told a few friends who go to the same spa about the 5% practice, because I feel certain that most people who go there just assume that the gratuity that’s “included” is higher than that.

18

Re a couple items on your list and your follow-up comments-

The doormen in my building are part of a building staff of 15. Some of these people I almost never see (because of my schedule and the shifts they work). They are unionized and so are not paid below minimum wage, like waitstaff are. So essentially, I should tip all these people (and in the process, shell out half as much money on them at Christmas than I do on my own family) to keep them from messing around with my stuff out of vengeance? That’s screwed up, sorry.

And what about people like plumbers, etc. who make a very fine living wage, thank you? I think you’re painting with too broad a brush here.

19

I had a facial yesterday at the Aveda Institute. It’s a training school, so it was incredibly cheap- $40 for a service that lasted an hour and a half- almost too long, really. It was awesome. I tipped $8.

20

Jean Gray-

I’ve never lived anyplace with a doorman, so I guess I don’t really know how that is supposed to work. The idea isn’t that he’s gonna trash your house if you don’t pay him off, but more that he’ll keep an extra eye out for you, and maybe turn a blind eye if you are doing things you might want him to turn a blind eye on. Like if he sees someone walking out with something that looks like your living room furniture, he’ll question them. Or he won’t mention to your wife about the female visitors you had over the weekend. If arn’t doing anything that you’d appreciate their discretion with, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. For such a big staff and you making no special demands on them, you might get away with a plate of cookies and a nice note, or ordering pizza for them one night. Dunno.

In a perfect world, everyone would be completely professional and do their job to the best of their ability even if all they got out of it was a warm feeling in their hearts. In reality, people are smart animals and will be loyal and hardworking towards the people who pay them.

Plumbers come into your house, and touch your toilet. They get tipped. I don’t think they get tipped when going to commercial establishments, but pretty much anyone who steps into your home gets a tip. I expect that if doctors still did house calls, we’d probably tip them too.