Here is sorta my final word (though you know it won't be):

We live in a culture where it's customary, but nobody is forcing you. I work with a higher percentage of young females (Wooo!) and homos than most business. Not exactly the most intimidating folks around. Are you going to bars where all the servers are Hells Angels?
I don't want a union or some guaranteed wage; I am confident enough in what I do to wing it on tips.
I didn't make the rules, and nobody needs to go to a bar or restaurant.
When did everyone turn into Panzer.....

I generally tip 20% unless the service was shitty.

One time, in an almost empty burger bar, I had a horrible meal with a friend of mine. It was horrible mostly because of the shitty service we got from our waitress who would walk right past us and ignore us waving at her when we had empty beer glasses. Then it took 20 minutes to get our final check after we asked for it. My friend paid with a credit card and she got a tip of exactly $0.01.

I openly encourage people to tip poorly if the service was poor.
I've done this often with cabbies and I've filed complaints with the company for bad service.
Did you go back? Probably not. That's the thang. You never ever ever have to give that place another dime of your money. ever.

I used to work keeping beer in stock in a bottle shop till about 3AM. I got paid normal wages and we had a tip jar. Often I would walk out of that place with 60-80 bucks in tips a night because people thought we were doing a great job running the shop and keeping the beer they liked cold (steezo mentioned having to settle for warm beer from a store in the drinking thread, this would never happen at my shop). This is an example of people tipping because they were purely happy with their service. No other bottle shop in town had a tip jar. I like the jar system because it's there but nobody expects you to use it in a retail type place. You don't feel like an asshole if you don't tip when you buy your 40oz. of rotgut.

To me tipping because you are grateful makes sense, like dropping a coin in the tip jar when you get a well made coffee. I think it's lame that there is some kind of customary 15-20% that you have to add to your bill beyond what your bill is in order not to seem like a dick. Not saying I don't tip. Just saying I do not appreciate the situation the public is in in relation to servers "oh, they live off tips, they don't get paid like we do".

I'm all for paying a simple hourly rate, and not prohibiting employees from accepting gratuities.

Tipping should be based entirely on good service and never because it is expected. That servers are not paid a proper wage shames people into feeling like they NEED to leave extra money for food and drink that already has a huge markup.

Yes, of course don't eat out if you can't afford to do it. Makes sense. But I cannot see why an appropriate tip cannot be added into food prices to begin.

I've never heard a server complain of making LESS than minimum wage per hour (though I don't disagree that it could happen). But I also think minimum wage is bullshit (as in way too low in relations to work/hazards involved) for a lot of jobs that offer it.

I don't suppose I can change it but I would rather shit be more expensive to reflect paying waitstaff. And if places start to go under too bad, business need to adapt to thrive and by adapt I do not mean that the expect tip amount here being 20% instead of 10% is what I am talking about.

Say I buy a 3 dollar beer. I am EXPECTED to drop another dollar for that as a tip. 33% extra for shitty beer? Why not just charge 3.50 and not me feel like I am giving away money for someone to twist a cap and hand me a bottle and a napkin.

@Gia, I can foresee some comment about paying for atmosphere, for being in the place. That fits right in with my model. Classy joints can be as expensive as they can afford to be.

Every restaurant will either have willing employees, or not. That part is not something the customers should be worrying about.

I'm pretty sure we went back. Just not on her shift. The thing that bothered us was that it was 2pm in the afternoon and we were the only normal people in the whole place. Everyone else was a career alcoholic hanging at the bar giving slurry-speeched rants.

We were professional looking guys in our mid 20's who clearly had at least a bit of money and we got the worst service in the whole place. It's like we were practically shouting, "Hi! We'd like to spend more money on beer and such!" And we just got ignored. Like it was on purpose. That's the thing that gets to a customer. Dealing with the flighty, capricious whims of an irrational server.

I tip 20% as standard. If the service is exceptional, I'll tip up to 40% and make sure to let management know. If the service is truly bad, I'll just leave spare change on the table. Leaving no tip makes you look like a cheap bastard; leaving insultingly little lets them know that you truly believe they're shitty at their job.

That goes back to what i posted earlier with the penny or whatever. Why the fuck would you go out of your way to pull some shit like that? To make some sort of "point"? Nobody got dragged in by force from the street to come sit down and eat.

Usually about 20%, sometimes more. If I sit down at happy hour and get a half priced app and a couple beers and it comes to $12, I'll leave a twenty. If the waiter waitress is especially helpful, then more. If I am sitting around waiting too long for a drink, or something with the order gets really fucked up, I have no problem stiffing them. I go by the train of thought that shitty servers shouldn't get pity tips. They should go home at night and say, "I can't live off this I need a different job."

If I am not running a tab, then I'll tip a dollar with every beer I get. Bartenders at some of the dumps I go into are amazed by that.

If I am in a very crowded bar, I'll tip the bartender a 5 or a 10, and tell him if he sees me, "I'll be needing one of these" as I let him see my beer again and the tip. Then I'll tip a dollar a drink again. I do the same my first drink at weddings/events.

Tow truck drivers, $5 for a lock out or a jump, $10 for a short tow, $20 for a long one.

Garbage guys, $20 a piece at X-Mas.

Delivery guys (furniture or electronics), $10 each

Strippers, $1 at a time. Old or nasty, I'll give her a $5 and tell her not to come near me again.

Valet parking, free-$5, if it costs-$1

Hotel Staff, one night, smoking room $5, if I get stuck in a non smoking $20, so they don't report that I smoked in it.

Friend that loans me a dollar amount over $500- 10%

Thank god I haven't had to tip a priest yet.

Just remembered, Butcher Shop, a $20 in the tip jar at X-Mas.

I'm confused. Maybe because I've been drinking. Are you complaining that we left a small tip? Because you yourself posted, "I openly encourage people to tip poorly if the service was poor. "

no not at all! if the service was shitballs, tip accordingly you drunken alaskan!
I have just had the situation where some anus thought he was being a G for tossing a penny on the table or some shit (this was an occasional occurence with the drunk jocks/bitches i served on the overnight diner shifts). Why would someone actually make an effort to belittle somebody at work? Fucking petty. I also had a regular for years ( a business owner) who never ever ever tipped me . Or anyone when id see him out. He also had the habit of blowing his nose and leaving it on the table for one of us 'little people' to pick up. Great, you've made your point, asshole. You're the MLK of the no tip crowd. He also tried to arm bar my boss into getting more and more freebies with his running group ("or we'll take our business elsewhere") until she couldnt take it any more. The pub down the street wound up telling him to go fuck himself eventually when he did it there.
You seem to be confused a lot lately , Steeeeeeez(not judging!)

I'm a little confused tonight in general, so I'm not taking anything personal.

Anyway, have you ever witnessed what I complained about? A server actively walking past customers who are trying to get her attention and ignoring them? This has happened any number of times to me. If it just happens once, I would assume she's just beusy and is trying to serve people in order of how long they've been waiting. If it happens to you all night, I don't see a problem with leaving a shitty tip and going home mad. I've never personally left a seriously shitty tip, but I don't blame my friend for leaving a penny in that instance.

I valet park a lot when out of town and I've often wondered about this. Do you leave $5 when you drop the car off and then another $5 when you pick it up later? Or just one or the other?

Aside from my own brethren:
Cabbies/limo drivers. Especially when they have facilitated i n getting drugs or whores for us or taken us to a poker spot or after hours.
Doormen at clubs when in a strange city and there's a huge line (I'm ok here, it's my city).
Tattooers. But this can sometimes be in gear like books or collectibles.
Strippers.
Escorts that work for an agency but are cool.
Hotel staff.
The coffee shop guys, as i am a dick about how i like my cappucino.
The dealer at the poker table when i take down a hand.

When I get the car.

Forgot about cabbies, as I don't take a cab often. If I am on vacation and do take one, usually I'll hand the guy a $10 and shake him down for info or help w/ something. I start with meth or acid, then work my way down to weed and what the good bars and strip clubs are. One time I just had the cabbie drive me around the block 2x while I asked him about shit. And if the cabbie lets me spark up a doobie, that gets him an extra fiver.

I like this jondra because it could be pronounced as "boozy."

yeah, steez i've seen it. Could be they don't like 'your kind'. Plenty of places i get the high hat for being sleeved out or ignored because im not italian/viet/ a regular etc. But like ANY profession, incompetent people get hired. Relative? Big tits? Fucking the boss? Who knows. Go into any cel phone place here and it's a bunch of brown people standing around texting and gossiping. But like i said, they already know they're getting paid , so why would they fucking give a shit about a middle aged guy who looks like a gay Aryan Brotherhood member?

That's what you think of yourself? You need to work on your self-image. Like maybe buy a fancy hat. Or a nice suit. Or wear something colorful (but not in a gay way).

ha i like teh snappy clothes and wear them often. But i'm also covered in tattoos and have a hairstyle similar to your avatar, so if i am rocking the dickies that day i may look like a convict.

You also have a thing for shoes, no? How many pairs you have right now?

about 30? man that's fucking gay. sorry....

I was going to throw out 17, but thought it would be way under, you probably got that many in the latest purchase thread. I also thought if I went too high, you wouldn't answer.

Don't worry though, twinkle toes, I got a fool proof fag test for ya:

You like to eat pussy?

Well that settles that. If you fully love the vagina, you enjoy eating it. If not, well then you are probably a top in waiting.

Goes the other way too. I think if a chick doesn't fully embrace the dick and enjoy it in her mouth, then she doesn't really like guys, just trained her self to tolerate them so she doesn't have to be a dyke.

P.S. There is one potential flaw in the question. If the desire to give oral waned in conjunction with a significant other turning into a disgusting pig, male or female, then that is understandable.

I seem to recall an episode of the Soprano's where they were wondering if one of the guys was a queer. Their criteria for thinking he was gay was that he loved to eat pussy. I think it was about Uncle Junior going down on his girlfriend.

They didn't think he was a fag, they just thought it wasn't very manly to eat pussy. Junior's girlfriend was at the beauty shop and bragging that he ate pussy better than any man she had been with. Naturally the rumor got out. All of the men did it, but no one was willing to admit it. Junior dumped her for talking.

No, there was defnintiley some gayness insinuated. I found a quote of the dialog:

Bobbi Sanfillipo: Why the big secret?
Corrado 'Junior' Soprano: About what?
Bobbi Sanfillipo: Oral sex. What's so terrible about pleasing a woman?
Corrado 'Junior' Soprano: You always have to talk about everything.
Bobbi Sanfillipo: Well, I wanna know why.
Corrado 'Junior' Soprano: It's complicated.
Bobbi Sanfillipo: Yeah, but why?
Corrado 'Junior' Soprano: Why? Because they think if you suck pussy you'll suck anything.
Bobbi Sanfillipo: Oh, you're kidding.
Corrado 'Junior' Soprano: It's a sign of weakness and possibly a sign that you're a finook.
Bobbi Sanfillipo: [chuckles] A fag? That's ridiculous. How would the two even translate?
Corrado 'Junior' Soprano: What are ya gonna do? I mean, I don't make the rules.

haha i love the term "finocchio". I worked for filthy italians and it was a term that was used liberally.

Tipping service is a cultural standard that has been in existence since before most of us were born. Traditionally, waiters and bartenders were paid nothing. So let's not pretend that tipping is a new thing. A tip isn't a reward. It's compensation for services rendered.

Another way of looking at tipping is as a sort of commission. Any waiter or waitress who consistently cleans up on tips would probably do just as well in a sales position somewhere else.

Some people think that you shouldn't tip at all if your service was bad. The server would have to do something pretty vile for me to just completely revoke the tip. I mean like spitting in my face, calling me -you know what-, etc. You should always start at 15% and then increase from there.

Tipping is just part of the meal, think of it that way.

Tipping should be part of the bill, not something. It works just fine in other countries where servers actually get paid properly.

Sure it's customary, but times change.

It's not called gratuity because it's required. It's called that because you are grateful above and beyond what you expected.

If they just changed the name to "restaurant service tax" and tacked it on the bill I would be cool with that.

I find old people who don't take inflation and economic change into account when tipping pretty lulzy. My girl's a massage therapist, and the expected tip on that shit is usually about $15-20 beans. She said every single elderly person that she rubbed down left her a goddamn fiver.


@Jerkules-

Is tipping a delivery driver that isn't bringing you yummy pizza customary, or are you just cool like that?

fartz, maybe she should just charge what she expects to get instead of leaving that up in the air?

I like tipping for outstanding service as a matter of choice, but it should not be expected.

She works for a massage business that charges flat rates based on time. So, she's basically like a server, only she serves up relaxing muscle therapy, instead of drinks. She gets paid a certain amount from the company for each massage performed. But like tatooing, it's one of the few businesses where the tips are expected to be substantial. She gets about 15-20 in tips per massage on average, sometimes 40, sometimes 50, sometimes nothing.

But old people seem to always tip five bucks, regardless of wealth. That post was more of my continuing war on the elderly than it was to contribute anything profound to Tatty's solid thread.

<Insert-Standard-Comment-About-Happy-Endings>


(P.S. I'm just foolin', fartz. You're my man!)

She's talked jokingly about happy endings, as business in that field isn't going to well for her presently. Girl can take a Rocco-style facefuck, has D-cup titties, and can work the ass like Phoenix Marie, so I'm thinking she could probably quadruple her tips if she indeed went this direction. She has a table, Tri, and she's white, so keep holding out hope.

I know tattoo artists who are super happy to receive a batch of home made cookies as a tip.

But if you are doing something that demands a flat rate based on time tipping as a custom seems pointless. Just charge more.

Plumbers and locksmiths charge flat rates per time. And often for travel time. Why can't that work for everything else. Prices are what they are up front.

You aren't socially expected to tip a person who keeps your basement from flooding but you are expected to tip others?

I will. I know there is a girl like this out there for me.

Tri, you don't bother me, but I refuse to stink up a good thread from Tatty. So let's quit here, yes?

Yes, I believe it is customary. It is subjective though. If 2 guys are dropping a dryer in my driveway, that I'm going to move inside and hookup myself, I'll only juice em a 5 each. If they bring something and make it "turn key" then I do the 10.

I juice the cable guy a fiver if he has to come out for something too. Last time he went back up on the pole and fiddled with some wires to get me a little quicker internet connection. Another time the guy gave me about 30 feet of coax in case I wanted to change how I had shit hooked up.

I usually don't juice business owners. If I have a construction guy or plow guy come out and it's him and a helper, I'll offer coffee or a drink, but they are already making profit. I pay them in cash, so they can consider that their tip.

"You aren't socially expected to tip a person who keeps your basement from flooding but you are expected to tip others?"




yep. we can get into all the reasons etc. for this, but we are prolly not gonna find common ground.

^^ What he said. Honestly that is my biggest problem with tipping. The biggest among many. My own thinking, different experiences as a kid being out with my folks, an old Donahue show, death threats from a pizza guy on a KISS newsgroup of all places. That certain occupations are expected to be tipped, but others working as hard or harder for the same or less money can go pound sand.

And you're right. We won't find common ground. And the subject digs a little too deep into folks here that I...well, respect might not be the word cuz I doubt that exists much here...but people whose feelings I don't want to hurt. So I'll agree to disagree and lower my sword.

I'm sorry to anyone I offended. That really wasn't the intent.

Lol no biggie. There are some valid points and counterpoints.
The 'real job' thang kinda set me sideways. Funnily enough, the debit argument started with a guy on FB who was at a bar and was 'outraged' that they didn't have debit. When i pointed out the downsides , he responded with the ol' "that's why you work in a bar and will never own one". Classy.
At the end of the day, you are free to do as you wish.
Ha ha KISS newsgroup death threats. From a pizza guy. Was it like the muzzies freaking out about the Mohammed (peace be upon is pedo ass) cartoons?

I find it interesting how active people got about the topic of tipping.

What is -you know what-?

It went downhill really fast. Basically, a guy was bitching that he delivered a pie to Gene Simmons' house and didn't get a tip. I said it was voluntary and sort of thought it was a bit much to get riled up over not getting something someone gives voluntarily. I was the worst thing since Hitler right from the git go. People were saying that I deserve to have my food spit in. I told the original poster that it wasn't my fault that in the best economy in 50 years they couldn't get a higher paying gig while waiting for their to hit. Well, not only was he going to make sure I never bought any of his albums when they hit, but that he would kill me. The peanut gallery jumped in and the next thing you know, WHAM! I was dead. It really was adorable.

hahahahaha. Just to clarify: not everyone in the service biz is just filling a slot until they get that acting gig/record contract. Some of us dig it. I've always said that people who bring a shoddy work ethic to the job won't be any better off when they get a (cough) real job.
And one last thing: a shitty, bad-attitude hungover day for me can affect my bottom line. I know I have to be on point to get paid (and even then I'll get foreigners and idiots). A server getting a fixed hourly rate will still get the same amount even if they fucking phone it in. Just my 2 cents....

I thought it was funny that I threw the band thing out as kind of a throwaway line and sure as shit, the doof matches the stereotype.

I delivered pizzas while I was in college. I can tell you from experience that sober rich people and drunk fraternity members are the worst tippers.

Who were the best tippers?

Typically blue collar and middle class people. They had enough money to tip, weren't saving it to rush out to buy a case of Keystone Light before the liquor stores closed (see drunk frat boy above), and knew they weren't changing my world with a 50 cent tip (see rich people above). Businesses also tended to tip pretty well especially if they were stuck at their workplace for lunch and their choice was an empty vending machine save for an apple and two packets of microwave popcorn or a pie.

I tipped last month $0.04 because the cashier gave me change and I was wearing knit gloves and did not felt like taking them off so I could put change in the wallet, so I put $0.04 in the tip cup. If I did not had the gloves on then I would never tip that money.

No date tonight Al? Are the Russian Baths open late on Fridays? Can't you go there, flaunt your back hair and gawk at hotties?

Just cleaning my bathtub and waiting for the chemicals to settle down and react, so I got some time for XPT postings, but then I gotta take a bath and go to bed, because at 7am I gotta be out of the door.

Not that I want to be accused of aiding in the Panzerization of America but




And no this was not me or anyone I know.

That person can check the cc statement later. I bet they charged it anyway. Sucks to be a cheap ass.

^^^ Bet they didn't charge it for over $21.91 though, so it worked out OK.