Are you a bad tipper?

[ernest]

No tip = restaurants are too expensive

 

[esquire.]

Random thoughts:

A restaurant depends on a certain turnover. If you're taking up space at the table, then this prevents another customer in that spot. If this is a fine restaurant where it is customary to dawdle and linger after dinner, then the tip should also be higher to reflect this.

People are miscalculating how much the waiter keeps from the tip. The waiter also shares part of it with the busboy and others.

Tokyo Slim:
Keep on rocking the free world. Just wondering, why not simply work more hours at Home Depot instead of delivering pizzas? And, if you don't mind, what did you do in high school that's hurting your current job opurtunities. Whatever you did was when you were still a minor, so I don't understand the problem.

Nightowl:
How would a salesman feel if I were to give a tip for a well done job. I'm afraid it might appear condescending. And, there's the problem of giving it. How would you like it to be handled if a customer wanted to show you his appreciation?

Moral dilema:
My mother goes out to lunch with her office colleagues. However, they don't leave a tip so my mother did. Does everybody think this was proper, where she covered for everybody else's tip as well. I understand why she did this, but I think it set up a bad precedent where nobody will ever leave a tip because they will expect her to cover it.

And, I'm dissappointed nobody answered J's question about what to tip at a place like soup plantation where you are responsible for getting your own food, but yet there's a busboy who cleans away the dishes. Should the tip therefore be less than the standard 15%, more like 10%.

 

[globetrotter]

this reminds me of a funny thing that happened to me last year. I met one of my wife's family members, who I had only seen our wedding. He is about 65, the husband of my wife's grandfather's niece - that is considered close family in the colombian jewish comunity. nice enough guy, relativly successful, very comfortable.

anyway, when we met, he shook my hand and left me a "tip" - $60 folded up in his hand the same way I might tip a maitre d. he said something like "please get something for your son from me". I was pretty austonded, a little offended but very amused. I have never been "tipped" before.

 

[lawyermarkk]

yes, i probably am. i just don't like servers. i mean, seriously, they're really entittled and just expecting to get some money from me by dropping off some rolls, filling up my soda, and so forth. they ond't do anything. maybe i'm a snob. i don't know. but most of them just bug. although, last night, i felt bad at a bbq joint leaving a pretty small tip. next time i go back, i'll leave a more generous one.

 

[Fabienne]

this reminds me of a funny thing that happened to me last year. I met one of my wife's family members, who I had only seen our wedding. He is about 65, the husband of my wife's grandfather's niece - that is considered close family in the colombian jewish comunity. nice enough guy, relativly successful, very comfortable. anyway, when we met, he shook my hand and left me a "tip" - $60 folded up in his hand the same way I might tip a maitre d. he said something like "please get something for your son from me". I was pretty austonded, a little offended but very amused. I have never been "tipped" before.

I've had similar experiences in my family in France, and it's usually older family members. You typically are expected to protest, which makes the person insist and feel even better about winning the "argument".

 

[LA Guy]

You assume that those who have money or "earn it" and "achieve financial success" do it solely on their own merits. Conversely, those who hold your view also (and this is the nasty side of a meritocracy) believe that those who haven't any money, haven't any because they haven't "worked hard". So it's the fault of the poor that they are poor.
Your argument would seem to allow (and even to argue that it's right) that the poor are poor and the rich are rich. It's a very pernicious middle-class, pull 'em up by their bootstraps argument. The idea that some stock-jobber on Wall Street (and I used to be one of them) or some guy who owns a chain of dry cleaners or pizza parlors is more deserving of material wealth than a woman on welfare who is raising four children, a janitor cleaning a building, a police officer, or anyone else is not something I agree with.

I don't know, why don't you read your last full sentence that I cited. Do I have to parse out the convolluted and contradictory statement (and it's suppositions) for you, or can you figure it out on your own?

I don't like talking about money, I get a creepy feeling of bad taste: but I'll be blunt: I grew up with a lot of money. I also made (and make) a fair amount of my own. And yet, I was told as a young man, and I still believe it today: when you see a street person shuffling down the sidewalk, never think you are better than he is. Know that, there but for the grace of God go I. The idea that you think it's okay that some people aren't entitled to a living wage is beyond the pale. It's so wrong I don't know what to say. It's also a fairly common thought in Bush's America though, isn't it? In fact, it's not even Bush, as I'd wager it's a common American sentiment that transcends a specific party and a specific time. But it's heartless and it's disgusting. Your argument on the whole has been predicated on many pernicious fallacies. One of them is that one person's success is achieved at the expense of others. And you are actually right that this is the way it works. But you are wrong to think it necessary or good.

Horace, thank you for expressing this opinion. I would have, but had not desire to be dismissed as a (poor and thus) bitter academic. Your post articulated more succinctly and eloquently my sentiments than I could have. Maybe I will take you up on that offer to visit the Andover Shop with you after all. I'd like to extend the same invitation to us to visit Gary Drinkwater, just past Porter Square, for coffee and a chat. As someone who has a healthy regard for traditional American dress, I think that you will enjoy his take on it.

 

[j]

Moral dilema: My mother goes out to lunch with her office colleagues. However, they don't leave a tip so my mother did. Does everybody think this was proper, where she covered for everybody else's tip as well. I understand why she did this, but I think it set up a bad precedent where nobody will ever leave a tip because they will expect her to cover it. And, I'm dissappointed nobody answered J's question about what to tip at a place like soup plantation where you are responsible for getting your own food, but yet there's a busboy who cleans away the dishes. Should the tip therefore be less than the standard 15%, more like 10%.

If they were good people, it would make them feel bad about not leaving a tip. If they do it again, that should be the last time she goes out with them, if feasible. I don't have office 'colleagues' so I don't know what it would be like really, but if it were my friends I would call them on it politely. As to the cafeteria with bus service, I sometimes leave a dollar on the table, but it is always awkward. Some places, you don't want to leave money lying around, so it seems no tip is necessary. It's just a ball of confusion. And to the living wage argument, there are good economic reasons why every job should not (cannot) pay a 'living wage'. Ideally, it would work out that way. But there is not enough wealth without serious socialistic restructuring to make it possible. There are people who can live just fine and work a non-living-wage job. These are kids still under their parents' care and e.g. wives of a 'sole breadwinner' type husband (or husbands of wives, whatever). Paying these jobs less than a living wage is not unfair if society works the way it is supposed to, i.e. in Leave it to Beaver. Slight sarcasm, but you get what I mean. Just as crappy clothes in childhood build character in children, crappy conditions with the promise of better life promote innovation in society.

 

[drizzt3117]

I won't tip at a place like Soup Plantation or a buffet in general unless I get exceptional service or have special requests. Typically I will leave a few dollars at a place with drink service but where you get your own food.

 

[esquire.]

Like J, I end up tipping a dollar at places like Soup Plantation. It probably is slightly less than 10%. I figure if somebody is filling your drink and taking away your drinks, then they are doing something similar to a real waiter, and should be tipped for that. Not as much as what a real waiter does, so I don't tip as much as I would in a real restaurant.

When I was little and even more immature, I would try to talk my parents out of leaving a generous tip. I'm glad they didn't listen to me. I'm still a cheap bastard- I always just get water. But, leaving a tip is so engrained, I don't even think much about it anymore. If they do a really poor job, then I'm not going to give them the 15%. But, they'd have to do something really bad like totally ignoring me or getting the order wrong. Something like not getting my water refilled right away isn't that big of a deal to me. I'm low maintenance, and understand that these waiters are busy with other customers.

How much would you tip somebody like nightowl if he went out of his way to do an exceptional job. I'm afraid a dollar tip would be condescending, and so it might be better not to give one. But, then, I don't want to give a 5 dollar tip for something that its not expected either.