Are you a good tipper?
Here in the USA I tipp above the expected 20% yet I hate this tipping culture. It is not fair neither to the staff nor to the customer.
This.
I agree! I've always felt that way. The only one who really profits is the employer, who gets away with paying below-minimum wages and has the customer make up the difference with tips.
Additionally, if I go to a diner and order a $5 sandwich, 20% is just $1, but if I go to a fancy restaurant and order a $50 entree, 20% is $10. Did the diner waitress spend any less time on me? Did she treat me any less courteously? Yet she gets shafted while the fancy restaurant waiter made significantly more. I figure it's incumbent upon the eatery to charge enough for meals to pay staff a living wage so tipping is unnecessary and discouraged. Everything now is way too subjective, and the ones making out like bandits are the restaurant owners.
I pride myself on tipping well. I worked a second job at Olive Garden as a waiter in training for 4 gruelling days in the 90s. I gained a whole new respect for service industry employees during that time. That said, they deserve a living wage and it is criminal that they depend on tips as part of their salary.
Yes, because I know that I could never do a server's job.
I tip fast food people. I tip well. I share it with the person I eat out at at a dine-in restaurant. If I go to a fast food place for a drink, I tip.
Some fast food workers are required to decline tips. Depends on the owner's policies.
@GinaMaria I'm not supposed to get them either. I have to hide it my boss says.
At least the unofficial policy allows you to accept them. At my first job, accepting tips was a firing offense.
@GinaMaria My bosses tease me and say I have to split it with the store. My last tip was $1.
My wife worked as a waitress when we were first married, so I always tip well. At LEAST 20% and more if they did their job well, but especially if they were very sociable and genuinely friendly. My wife was like that and people loved her. She still is, in her work with the public in the medical field, and people love her there too. That is something I was never very good at, and it is pleasure to see her easily intereact with strangers, whether at work or in Wal-Mart! We are complete opposites in may ways!
I worked in a hospital as an RN for 21 years plus many years in sub acute rehab and nursing homes. You have to be sociable, people are very nervous about outcomes, pain etc. You'll never make if you don't have personality .
Being a good tipper gets you added bonuses when you are a regular at anywhere.
Converse is also true.
Example being a church group each ordering a cup of coffee and sitting in the booth 3hrs expecting constant attention and a bottomless cup and each leaving a dime.
Apparently not, as we got thrown out of an American bar last time I was there for not tipping enough. But then I had it explained to me that waiters in America don't get enough salary to live on, so rely on tips. Seems to me they need to raise the minimum wage. I don't like tipping - it smacks of "them & us" - pay them a decent wage and just tip if you get exceptional service.
Nope.
I'm Australian.
why do they have tip jars at pubs in Sydney? are they for the unsuspecting americans? just wondering - they had one in just about every bar i went to.
@SeeCanU Worth a try innit.
They have tip jars everywhere, but the tips are not meant to be the basis of the wait staffs' incomes.
Pretty much every one says they're "good" tippers, with or without qualifications. The REAL question is how people define a good tip? 18%? 20%? 22? 25? 30? 50??
A lot of it
Servers who work hard and care about their customers deserve good tips.
I do not understand why we the consummer should have to feel pressured to tip, it is almost like retailers want us to compensate their payments to employee's, that is bullshit. The employer should pay their staff properly, leaving a tip should be at the discretion of the consumer, as a reward for a job well done or if the server went above and beyon the call of duty.
Since I work in the service industry, I tip reasonably well as a matter of habit. For example, I got subpar service one night at a restaurant with my 13-year-old (at the time) son. We were one of two tables seated in the restaurant, so it was FAR from busy. I tipped about 20% and he asked me why I tipped so LITTLE. (I love that he pays attention to these things!)
My explanation: "While she was very nice and friendly and mostly took good care of us, we had to wait a LONG time for things and especially, it took 20 minutes to get our check. If we had been in a hurry, I would have been livid."
Typically it might have been closer to 50%
yes and no, a tip is supposed 2 imply that the recipient did a good job. if say a server did a decent job of getting our orders right, kept up with refills on water and was polite, but the joint was busy and service was slow. i don't think that the server should get no tip just because the place was busy, its not their fault, but they basically did what was expected of them and not much more, so i don't think they earned a huge tip either. a 15% to 20% tip is appropriate. if he/she was rude,they should expect less. but honestly with me, it could be something as simple as they wrote a silly note on the bill, or they gave my kid a compliment. just some little thing 2 show they are a bit extra, then i like 2 show them i appreciate them with a nice tip