Tips

• Phunkie wrote on 2010-09-05 07:27
  My sister and I got into an excellent discussion on tipping. We wondered, should it be frowned upon not to tip someone like a waiter, for example?
  
  Tipping someone is a great act of kindness and perhaps even a "good job!" or a pat on the back for someone who does well at his or her job. However, some places do include the tip in your bill. Shouldn't things like that be completely optional? A mandatory tip just turns me off. It goes from being an act of kindness to just being part of the bill.
  
  I once went to a Chinese buffet with my Dad and we didn't noticed that there was a 15% tip required. You know, people usually leave a 10%. Well, the Chinese waiter started fussing over the tip and I thought, wow, isn't this silly?
  
  Also, one other time, I had BBQ with a bunch of friends and our waiter was horrible. We didn't leave her a great tip and she was complaining about it. My friend honestly told her that we weren't satisfied with the service and that weren't gonna leave her a good tip.
  
  Tips, tips, tips.
  
  I only tip waiters and my barber, maybe sometimes taxi drivers. But what sets them apart from every other worker out there? Why do we tip only them?
  
  Just wanna read some opinions on tips. Should it be mandatory, optional or frowned upon when not done? And who do you tip?
• mewball wrote on 2010-09-05 07:29
  opinionary totally. If they do a good job they get a good tip. Mandatory tip is ok at some places because some people are just mean and refuse to tip even if the waiter was amazing.
• Rose wrote on 2010-09-05 07:32
  i'll tip you, beasty boy ;D
• Chillax wrote on 2010-09-05 08:30
  Mandatory tip is usually included for parties of 8+, because waiters/waitresses are doing more work than they normally would for a smaller party, while sometimes receiving a disproportionally small tip. However, I don't run into mandatory tip very much, except in Vegas.
  
  I tip ~15% just because it's the standard and because waiters in general rely on a good tip to bring home the money. If their service just sucks, I'll pay them less than the standard so they can understand that they did a ****ty job, but enough that they won't hold me up when I'm trying to get the hell out of the restaurant.
  
  The most probable reason the tip was mandatory in that Chinese buffet is because some Asians don't tip at all, and others are just plain stingy.
• Drifter wrote on 2010-09-05 13:52
  Well, I used to be a busboy...so let me clarify.
  
  In some restaurants (like the one I worked at) Tips are the only way the waiters actually get paid.
  Busboys usually get paid around 3.25 an hour, and the rest is totally dependent on tips.
  As for waiters, the pay per hour is less than that, so usually leaving no tip is like a slap in the face to them.
  I usually try to tip at least the suggested amount, but depending if they did a good job or not either raises or lowers the tip.
  
  Anyways, what I'm trying to get across is that I've known waiters who have to work two jobs because people in this town don't exactly know to tip correctly, or assume that a tip is entirely optional (while in some cases it totally is) :(
  
  Another thing, I usually tip whoever provides service to me, like pizza delivery people, and bellhops.
• Moppy wrote on 2010-09-05 14:27
  I usually tip only waiters, drivers and barbers. And I don't bother with the percent crap, usually I just give them somewhere between 5-20 dollars depending on the service and how much initial service costed.
• Osayidan wrote on 2010-09-05 20:02
  I don't go to restaurants unless invited (free food), so no clue about that. Taxi drivers rip you off big-time anyways so I never tip them unless they carried luggage or something which is never. My barber works solo and owns the place so tipping him is rather pointless, his salary is the profits of the business.
  
  So I only really tip food delivery people, I don't go by any kind of standard I just usually let them keep the change.
• Kueh wrote on 2010-09-05 20:32
  I don't know why, but Osay's post made me laugh really hard.
  
  /ontopic
  
  Tips shouldn't be mandatory, since it's a tip. But people who don't tip are jerkers.
• Shirayuki wrote on 2010-09-05 20:37
  Usually I just give them the change as the tip xD If I don't get any change though, or a crappy amount of change, I find a 5 or something and give it as the tip ;D
• Zid wrote on 2010-09-05 21:07
  It's both ways. You can have jerkfaces as waiters, and jerkfaces as customers.
  
  Still, a tip is called a tip because it's optional, even if the workload is harder. A waiter's job sucks though, if you ever did it. Putting up with people and having low pay is not worth it in my opinion, no matter how easy it is to become a waiter.
  
  I try to tip with change or 5 dollars, on delivery/all kinds of waiters. But I usually avoid restaurants that have waiter services, or delivery; I pick up all my items and food by myself.
• Yogurticecream wrote on 2010-09-07 02:48
  Tipping is not the norm over here, and tipping is totally optional. Mostly only foreigners visiting the country give tips. There might be a service charge (mandatory) but it is capped at like 10% or so.
  
  But that might also explain the sucky services given here by a lot of service staff.
• Justified wrote on 2010-09-07 02:59
  As already said, most jobs that involve tips are pretty dependent on tips to make a decent salary. Although you could say that the amount tipped is debatable. It's not more work for a waiter to bring out a $14 steak compared to a $7 hamburger, so why is your total bill used to decide the tip?
  
  Personally, I'm a softie (when hobos/etc ask me for money I usually end up giving them some or feeling really bad for the next hour, I try to hide from them when I'm out alone e.e) so I pretty much hover around the 15-20% mark. I only go lower (5-10%) when they're bad enough to cause an inconvenience. Unless they're really really terrible, I don't see any reason not to leave just like $1-3. That's like skipping a soda at the vending machine.
  
  
  Also I've grown up always thinking tip was 15% (double the tax). I don't know where people get this 10% from...
• Rose wrote on 2010-09-07 12:07
  I don't tip people, they tip me.
• Beepuke wrote on 2010-09-07 15:48
  I think tipping is the courteous thing to do. Unless their service is absolutely ****. I went to a Chinese restaurant once where the waiters forgot about our order, ate their own lunch and made us wait 30 minutes before asking us to repeat what our orders were. AND we were the only customers there! We left like a dollar for all of five or six people and then they got mad at us, lawl.
  
  I don't really like it when tipping is mandatory either, especially in a city where tipping is the norm. Are they really that afraid people are going to jipp the waiters, so they make an act of courtesy mandatory? What really gets my goat is when restaurants try to extort two tips out of you. It boggles my mind when buffets try to add on a 15% mandatory "service" fee and try to tell you that you need to tip on top of that. zzzzz only paying one of those, and why do you need to tip at buffets anyway, when you're basically serving yourself?
  
  uh but yeah, despite my rant, I usually leave a fairly generous tip. 15-20% of the bill, rounded up to the nearest dollar or fivedollar mark depending on service.
• Rose wrote on 2010-09-08 09:48
  **** that, Phunkie, take me out to dinner one day, we'll see if those bastards get a tip off me >:l