I went to America on holiday 2 years ago and was amazed to find you guys tip the people who pour your pints. WHY??? We NEVER do this in UK. Do they get paid crap wages or something?
I use it to grease the wheels a bit. I always tip a buck on every beer, and voila! the 3rd one is always on the house. This works everywhere I’ve gone in the world btw.
It certainly does grease the wheels to tip, with the obvious benefits of comp drinks as well as (in a small place) bartender recognition the next time you go there. I tip because they’re performing a service for me, and I show my appreciation accordingly when said service is executed in a timely, precise, and friendly manner. And yes, wages can be crap, and tips make up for it.
Why do you never tip in the UK?
NK, what can we say? It’s custom.
In fact, bartenders often make crap wages. Tipping is ingrained in American culture to the extent that a barroom proprietor fully expects that tipping will provided the bulk of a bartender’s pay.
<shrug>
It’s just the way we do it here in the States. Surely, that doesn’t make it somehow incorrect, does it?
Also, in real-life situations with American bartenders, tipping will get you far more prompt and reliable service. Not to mention the occasional free drink.
My sister used to be a bartender. If she didn’t get tips she’d make crap money.
I think it’s bad for you to tip. It lets the bar owner get away with paying lower wages.
Do you tip the person that serves you at the supermarket? Tipping is bad imho.
Tipping is showing gratitude for good, prompt service and for greasing the wheels as brondicon and World Eater stated. Tipping doesn’t make employers pay lower wages either. Employers know that their waitstaff have lots of untaxed cash income. I don’t know the math but there’s a minimum in tips that must be declared on taxes. The rest the government doesn’t see.
In regards to tipping the person who serves you at the supermarket, if a bagger helped me carry my groceries out to the car I’d give them a buck or two. I’m not going to tip the cashier because the cashier isn’t doing me a service, just rendering a transaction which would be akin to tipping an ATM.
You’re just a skinflint.
Yea, in a way tipping sucks, as ingrained as it is in the US it does allow bar and restaurant owners to pay their employees less than the established minimum wage. But it’s the carrot and stick of capitalism, crappy servers get stiffed and customers that stiff decent servers get crap. There is a balance, even if it’s not always equitable.
The person at the supermarket is not in a “service industry,” under which I would place such employees as waitstaff, cab drivers, and barstaff. Tipping is an incentive for those people in service industries to perform their jobs well, which mostly means satisfying the customer from whom they receive their tips. Tipping, again, is also a way to express thanks for a job well done, or not done, as the case may be.
Oh am I? In that case so is the entire population of UK. A bartender pours me a pint. That’s all they do. Fuck the tip, if they want a tip they can polish my shoes or something. Or they could get a better job that pays more.
How hard is it to pour a fucking pint???
Po-ta-to, Pa-tah-toe
Your bar staff earn decent wages and don’t expect tips, great.
Ours earn crap wages and do expect tips, same-same.
Either way, they make a living. If you’re going to get wigged-out over cultural differences, I think you could find some better choices.
Actually, I agree that as long as tipped personell consider their tips as part of the pay, the owner can get away with paying them lower wages. And I think the owner should have the responsibility of paying the employees not the customer.
However, I have worked as a waiter and as a bartender, and I can tell you, tippping pays off.
It is expected and it is worth it.
Yes but if the owner had to pay the bartenders moree they would charge you more for the drinks. I would rather pay the extra buck directly to the bartender. Besides bartenders here do more than just pour pints, we mix drinks to. This is a skill that take time learn. You need to do this quickly and correctly while people are yelling at you from all directions. Now if someone get me my drink quickly, it tastes right and they are freindly. I give them more than someone who misses on of those criteria. It makes better bartenders if they know the better they are the more money they make. I also tip more because I tend bar also. 
It is not a requirment that you tip, you will stil get service. Just understand that that the person that does tip will get better service.
Why don’t we tip supermarket people, well some people do, I worked in a supermarket also and I got a couple tips. but normally no because it is not a skilled position. Besides people just want to get in and out of a grocery store. People want to stay in a bar, if giving the person behind the bar, a couple extra bucks to make your stay more enjoyable then I think it is a good idea.
Do you tip the people that serve your food when you go to a restaurant?
etgaw1
Niobium Knight, what’s your problem, anyway? Did you come looking for an answer or to pick a fight?
In the US, people tip bartenders.
In the UK, they don’t.
This is what we in civilized society call “local customs.”
That’s all there is to it.
Sorry, but a supermarket assistant who is able to tell me where the pepper corns are when I’m in a hurry deserves more of a tip than some dumbo behind a bar pouring pints for a living.
That’s fine in the UK, because that’s the way it works there. What pissed me though is when UKers (or others for that matter) come to the US and don’t tip. My best friend has been bartending for the same chain for over 19 years. Her wages? $2.13 an hour.
So if you don’t tip in the UK, that’s fine. It’s different here. I’ll add a note that most of the UKers at the English pub that I hang out at here DO tip. But there are a few that are just cheap bastards. UK custom does not equal US custom.
The prevalence of tipping in certain industries is really just a different wage structure than a non-tipping industry. Bartenders and waitstaff in particular have their wages based in large part on tip income. They earn a very low hourly wage, expecting it to be augmented via tip.
There are some benefits to this, one being an incentive for the server to be friendly and attentive. Also, when the bar is busy, the bartender has to work harder, but also earns more as a result. The bartender also has an incentive to give good service, to get more return business.
The staff isn’t getting “screwed” by the owners, they know exactly how everything works beforehand. The patrons aren’t getting “screwed” because they know that tipping is expected, and factor that into their restaurant/bar choices.
Anybody who doesn’t tip a bartender or waitress (in the US, at least) because they ‘don’t believe in it’, is just a jerk. Those tips are needed for the server to make a decent wage, if they provide good service, you should tip.
I like tipping because it is an easy way for me to express my gratitude for excellent service, and my irritation with poor service.
Your friend is a fool for accepting a job with $2.13 an hour wages. That is fucking unbelievable, the employer should be strung up for that.
Dont blame the UK people - we’re not used to tipping for that kind of thing and believe me it’s hard to get into the habbit of it.
Yes, but not to tip doesn’t stop the bar owner from doing so.
Trust us-just tip. Don’t take it out on the bar tender or the waiter or waitress. It isn’t something they have control of, and you’d only be hurting them.