It may be a load of crap, but it is also they way things work. You don’t have to tip, it isn’t the law, but if you ever show you face in that restaurant again, you can bet you are going to get REALLY crappy service. You may not think it’s fair, but that’s the way it is.
But that sort of takes away the whole concept of tipping. That makes it a mandatory service charge. In which case it should go on the bill, like it does in some countries/some restaurants.
By the way - does anyone here ever add a tip to a credit card receipt? I’ve only done that if I didn’t have change, and I hate doing it, because I am sure many employees never get that money.
At our restuarant we still get the tip. We treat it like the person gave us a bigger bill and take the money out of the register for exmaple:
The bill is : $20.00
Tip on card is written: $3.00
Total: $23.00
Into register is: $20.00 out of $23.00
Change: $3.00
We take the change out of the register and stick it in the tip jar. Does that make sense?
Ex-pizza deliverey guy here to clear things up:
Pizza delivery (in the state of FL, but i’m sure this is country-wide) is a non tip wage job. This means they make at least minimum wage + tips. I used to work about 35 hours a week (enough for full time FL taxes, but not for the extra $$$ 40 hours would have gotten me). The wages + tips would usuallycome to about $300-$350 a week for me, and I was one of the better drivers (i.e. fast). There were NO tax deductions, and it could be very dangerous (I went around armed - shh don’t tell anyone 
) In fact the only tax break many tip wage people make is not claiming all of their tips they made… not that I or anyone I knew would do that :rolleyes: All the wear and tear on your car is yours to pay for, as well as the gas. However, you don’t have a manager up your ass all night and you can listen to what you want. Also - having a Pizza company logo plastered all over your car is almost a license to speed.
And as far as do I tip or not? Yes. Ridiculously well and all the time. I don’t go out unless I can tip. For those of you who don’t tip - don’t expect good service next time around, 'nuff said. Take a hint from the mob movies and tip everyone. Giving people money means buying a short slice of their happiness. Want those box seats at the baseball game? it’s the third inning and no one has sat in them yet? Walk down there with a $10 in your hand and show the usher your ticket while shaking his hand. Grease palms. It’s fun.
I’m out!
You are not supposed to tip cows. The rest is at your discretion according to the vibe.
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I’m sitting here reading through this thread, finally getting an understanding of the whole American tipping thing.
FWIW, I’m happy Australia doesn’t operate this way. The whole process doesn’t work for me. (probably because I’m not accustomed to it)
As far as I’m concerned, a) employers should pay their employees better and b) if I get really good service, I do round up the bill anyway and I’ll go back to that particular store again and again.
I would feel that employees were only being nice to me because they thought I have money to tip, which is a creepy-sleazy feeling. I also think if you are employed in a service industry, your job entails giving good service, regardless of any extra benefits that may come your way.
There’s my Aussie two cents, which is of course worth so much less than an American two cents
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OK, I’ve got my tipping routine down at the restaurant, the barber, etc. The only place I get uncomfortable is at a bar. If I am running a tab it’s no problem, but sometimes I go drink by drink. I hate leaving change (more on this in a second) so I usually leave a dollar on the first one, don’t tip the second, leave a dollar on the third, etc. Thoughts on this from bartenders or those who know them well?
Also, a friend of mine told me that leaving silver at a restaurant is not really appreciated. I think that’s crap, but she goes out to eat a lot more often than I do, so maybe she knows something I don’t. Waiters/waitresses?
I’m glad the Aussies have started to wise up
And that’s what this whole argument will boil down to: Customs.
It’s your job to serve people their meals and drinks if you are a waitress/waiter (hence called a server). You get paid half of minimum wage by your emplyer to do this. Is it customary for a server to be polite, smile, treat you well, etc. They’re not getting paid for that, it’s what they do in hopes you will return the pleasantry with a tip.
As a patron, all your are obliged to do is pay for your meal. But it is a custom in this country that if you liked your service, you enjoyed the food, your drink was refilled before you could ask that you give a little bit more - the tip.
Now in most restaurants i’ve been in if the service is bad you can usually go home without even paying for the meal. If the service was just there, you can get away with not tipping. Hell, they didn’t do anything to deserve the tip, why give’em one? However if you go to a restaurant, get a great server who treats you like royalty and you shaft them with no tip, or letting them “keep the change” you can be assured the next time you go in there you are probably not going to see any of the waitstaff treating you well. Unless you hit them on the opposite shift of what you went last time.
My whole point is you can choose whatever excuse you want as to why you’re stingy/greedy/whatnot, but no one cares.
Sorry.
Some of clients ask this questiona dn it often fel weird. I’m a masage therapist. On accasion, after a first session with a client, the client will ask “I’m not sure of the rules, am I supposed to tip?” How awkward.
I explain that in a spa environment, tipping is absolutley expected. Our office is more geared toward medical massage, and it is not necessary. Some people choose to tip 10-20% and that is fine - never a requirement.
I figure if someone is paying $70 for my service, they shouldn’t have to put out much more! I get a decent chunk of that and am fine with non-tippers.
I do find it odd that some jobs are expected to be tipped.
I do always tip waitstaff. Always tip the food delivery folks. I see these servers and deliverers again, and I appreciate that. The delivery folks are always quite good to me, lol.
I wouldn’t have thought of tipping a tattoo artist, but now I probably would if the situation came up.
When you say silver, do you mean quarters, dimes, and nickels? I,personally, don’t mind if you leave me change. I usually just change my tips in the register for bigger bills at the end of the night anyways. I am not a lazy person so it doesn’t bother me. I don’t really know how other servers feel about that though.
When I got my tattoo the artist told me not to tip her - it was a really small tattoo I designed myself that took her less than 10 minutes to do, but the shop had a $35 minimum. She said that she would have charged me no more than $20 for it if she had a choice. My friend got the impression that she was flirting with me so that might have had something to do with it.
I worked as a waitress for about three months before the place I worked closed down. I personally never want to work a job based on tips again. I have no idea what problem anyone had with me, but I was stiffed so many times that it made my stomach turn in knots. People are cheap. I’m a young, attractive, pleasant and professional person and I always try to do my best at my jobs. When I was a waitress I busted my butt to get those people whatever they wanted, when they wanted it, and I often stood at the expo actually watching the cooks prepare the food when I could – just to make sure it was right. And you have no idea how discouraging and frustrating that is when you do your very best and consistently get a 10% tip (if you’re lucky). Even worse was when I happened by the table as they were leaving, and they smiled and told me goodbye, and thank-you, and left me like two dollars on a $40 bill. What did I do to these people? I don’t know. Some people don’t honestly know that waitstaff don’t make minimum wage. I guess some are just insensitive. I got some really great tips but they were far and few between – maybe two or three a week. And you can bet we remembered return customers who regularly stiffed us. We never did anything to their food for “revenge” or anything like that, but we certainly didn’t go out of our way for them.
Tipping is an expected custom and waiting tables is not easy, especially when you’re busy. If you can’t afford to tip properly, you really shouldn’t go out to eat. But if you must, then at least apologize to the waiter, nicely, in advance, and explain you’re on a limited budget. Or something. I would rather have known these people could not afford to help me (which I’m sure wasn’t the case, though – you could see the parking lot out the windows), than having them smile at me and sincerely wish me goodbye while I developed serious stress-related health problems from constantly working for what seemed like next to nothing. I made about $80/month from my employer.
I don’t buy the “I can’t afford it line,” either. If you really can’t afford it, you should be at home eating ramen noodles, or not at all, like I’ve had to do in the past. Poor people don’t eat in expensive restaurants. Sometimes cheap and/or insensitive people do, though.
Sorry, I’m bitter. Ranting is over.
I work in a custom picture framing shop now, which is what I like to do. Since there’s only two framers I end up doing a good chunk of our business (we also sell art supplies and stuff). Many times I’ve had people so happy with their pictures/my work that they gave me a tip. Usually it’s $5-10, and let me tell you – that is the best thing ever. I never expect it and so it’s always a surprise; I usually just spend it on something I normally wouldn’t (like lunch out) and I think of it that way – as that person just bought me lunch because they were happy I took extra care (really though no more than with anyone else’s art 
) with their piece.
I like thinking of it as buying me coffee or lunch better than thinking of just handing over extra money. Seems more friendly and appreciative to me…
BTW, once two priests gave me $10.00 for helping them frame up some things for their church. I wonder if the churchgoers know their priests go around handing the plate-money to darkly clothed little Godless heathens in dog collars.
A LOT of people don’t realize that waitpersons don’t make minimum wage. I don’t think I was fully aware of the fact until I was 19 when I read a poster about minimum wage down at the employment office - and it said that the employer was to compensate the employee when their wages + tips did not add up to minimum wage, so I assumed that if a waitress had a bad day and didn’t get many tips, they still got paid what they would have got working for minimum wage.
Australia does operate this way, at least in Sydney and in bars and restaurants. When I worked in a bar we often got tips, and they really helped boost the meagre pay-packet.
I always tip in restaurants. I know a lot of Australians who used to work in bars/cafes/restaurants - as student jobs or actual jobs or whatever - and tipping was the accepted norm. It made a big, big difference to paying the bills or not.
And I always tip taxis, at the very least round up the fare and let them keep the change.
Where in Australia do you live? It’s a huge country, so customs may well vary.
Umm … so when I gave the waiter a $50 for a $24 meal and said “keep the change”, that was bad? Is “keep the change” the wrong way to tip? 'Cause that’s how I always do it - I don’t like to leave the money sitting on the table and walk out the door hoping the waiter/waitress gets it before some enterprising jerk walks past and snaps it up (I’ve seen it happen before…)
re: pizza delivery drivers, it really depends on the place they work as to how they get paid. I used to manage a Papa John’s, and all of our drivers made around $6.00/hr plus tips plus between $0.55 - $1.10 “mileage” per delivery run. That was to help them pay for the upkeep on their car. If they wore a magnetic car topper lit up they got $1.10 and if they wore it but not lit up they got $0.75 and if they didn’t wear one at all they got $0.55 per run. shrugs The longest-tenured delivery driver in our district made $60,000/yr (presumably after taxes, though I’m certain he didn’t report the tips themselves) and worked during the slow day shift (though he usually stayed until 7 p.m. to get 8 hours in) … so there was very little potential for danger and he made a ton of money. The area he delivered for wasn’t even a demographically rich area - it included several trailor parks and some low-income housing, though there were the upscale housing complexes as well, I would say average income of the people living in the area was $35,000/yr or so. shrugs
Personally I always tip when I go out to eat or when I have food delivered, unless the restaurant is a fast-food type where I carry the food and bus my own table. I usually try to tip around 20%. The way I figure it … this person is being paid an hourly wage to serve me, yes, but if I wasn’t too lazy to cook my own food the server would still be getting paid, only have less work to do, so I am causing the server to do more work by showing up and being lazy. I have an incredible amount of patience and bad service doesn’t bother me - I only notice it if it’s phenominally bad service (people seated 20 minutes after me get their food first, my food comes cold or comes with an error that doesn’t get satisfactorily handled, etc.), in which case I leave the bare minimum 10% tip and fill out a dreaded comment card. I don’t think I’ve ever not tipped at a restaurant, I just feel guilty knowing that they’re only getting paid $2 - $3/hr and they have to put up with rude, belligerent customers all day. I do what I can to make their day a little easier Obviously if it’s impressive service I am a big tipper - the guy who received the $26 tip was just phenomenal and I wished I could have taken him home with me to serve my dinner there too, he did a better job than I could have done!
I don’t really partake of any other services mentioned in this thread, although when my Australian and I went to NYC, the first time we were in a cab he tipped the guy $1 on a $12 fare - apparently it isn’t custom in Australia to tip much on cabs and he was kind of caught unawares when he was paying. The cabbie looked pissed. On our cab fare back to the train station I paid, and I tipped $5 on a $12 fare, and the cabbie seemed much happier.
One thing I don’t understand - and I am speaking as a foreigner here - is that many people say we shoudl tip because it is the only way people in those jobs can get a decent income as they don’t make minimum wage.
How is this possible? Isn’t the whole concept of the minimum wage that it is the minimum your employer should pay you? As far as I can tell, it appears that the employer calculates a certain amount of the wage coming from tips and hence pays less than minimum wage. This I just don’t buy, quite simply the minimum wage is beign ignored. As someone else pointed out, it is not the law it is just a custom.
Here in Sweden I almost never tip. Maybe in a restaurant IF I get good service. Nobody else, especially not taxi drivers, the Stockholm variety of which seeming to be the most expensive in the world. Back home in Britain I sometimes tipped others (hairdresser etc) depending on quality of service. When I visited the US I was somewhat in shock when barmen seemed to want tips. But after everythign was explained to me by a friend I understood, so when in the US I tip like soemone from the US. As we say in Britain, “When in ROme, do as the Romans do”.
Getting back, more or less, to the original topic…I sometimes go to a restaurant that has strolling musicians one night a week. I enjoy these musicians and usually tip for the first song, and they will come back to me two or three more times during the evening and refuse more tips. What constitutes a decent tip for these guys? Always three of them, they’ll play requests if they know the song, and even though I don’t like most country music, I like these guys. They will laugh and joke and chat for a bit, just to make sure that the diner is having a pleasant experience. I think that they add a lot of enjoyment to my meal. For reference, this restaurant is a little family-owned Mexican place, and most lunches cost around $5-7, and most dinners are under $13, excluding beverages.
I don’t tip in places like Starbucks, unless the server had to go out and personally hunt down and kill the coffee beans, roast them, decaffeinate them, grind them, and THEN serve me. However, I don’t go to such places more than a couple of times a year. If I had someone who knew JUST how I like my coffee, and made it for me, then yes, I’d probably tip that person. If Starbucks and its like paid subminimum wages, like restaurants, then I’d either tip or forgo that shop.
I have a couple of servers (in real restaurants) who know precisely what drink I want, and how I want it (not too much ice, WITH a straw and extra lemon), and they bring it to me almost as soon as I sit down, and these servers get tipped an extra buck each time they wait on me, on top of the “normal” tip that they’d receive. An extra buck isn’t going to break me, and it certainly lets the servers know that I appreciate the service. Sure, I say please and thank you…but that doesn’t pay their bills.
If you can’t afford to tip, then don’t eat in places where tipping is expected. Seriously. You are just stealing from the server.
I currently live on the Central Coast (about an hour north of Sydney) but have lived and worked most of my life in Sydney.
I never catch taxis, so I’m not going to comment on that, however if I did, I would probably round up the fare, if he took a direct route.
Regarding restaurants and bars, I have worked as a waitress for six months and as bar staff for a year. The wages are low, but since they are in no way related to earning half the minimum wage (as in USA) I don’t think you can say that Australia operates this way.
Yes, people tip in Australia, but it is not an expected way of life, as in America. It is something that is done to show appreciation for great service, not out of guilt because the server is not earning enough as wages.
The state and federal minimum wage laws exempt a number of occupations, specifically food service (ie, waiters, waitresses, busboys, etc.). Why? Because its customary in the US to tip around 15% when you are served at a restaurant, and the gov’t knows this.