It is kind of like how, if a company was trying to tackle health care in the United States, they might attempt to build a system which reconciles many different hospital systems across the country. In other countries, with Universal Single Payer healthcare, this might not be interesting, but in the context of the United States, a system like this could have huge implications.
The market itself is inseparable from what makes a venture like this interesting. It is interesting precisely because of where it is located.
But now, tips are given with cards, and a record is kept of how much, and where it goes, and it is recorded!
So be wary, because you can be 100% sure they are taxable, and if you get audited...
It is tax evasion, but it was commonplace.
Edit: and while per the other replies many people don't claim (all of) their cash tips, you are supposed to claim them as income.
This would earn you the reputation of being especially expensive, even if customers aren't actually paying you more.
When did coffee shops in the US start asking for tips? It most be a relatively thing. Never saw tips asked for at coffee shops when visiting until the ipad checkout thing (square?) appeared. Is it a nationwide thing now or just confined to certain regions (coastal metro areas?)?
It took the form of a tip jar. It was my main source of gas money when a barista.
Tipping at nicer coffee places (i.e. where they offer espresso-based drinks to order) has been a thing for a very, very long time. I can't recall ever not seeing a tip jar and have been going to places like that for probably 25 years, although if you told me the expectation was stronger nowadays that wouldn't surprise me.
The low end places (Tim Horton's up here, I guess Dunkin Donuts would be the comparison), don't expect tips or put out jars / enable them on their terminals, but Tim Horton's has always had a charity jar at the counter anyway so I would think most people would prefer that one.
The Pulp Fiction shake quote always comes to mind for me:
Vincent: "I gotta know what a five dollar shake tastes like"
The same simple credit card machines are used at Qdoba, but there they ask for a tip, even when coming in to get a bowl and doing takeout. Not unreasonable, but the difference in experience and expectation is pretty wild: coffee sometimes takes as long as it does to put a burrito bowl together, yet one expects a tip and one does not.
Order, pay, pickup, done. No tip expected (though nobody stops you).
One of the first things I remember as a kid in the 1970s was reading the "no tipping" sign at Dunkin's and asking my parents about it. So it has been a policy there for a long, long time.
(Funny they put a Dunkin's in on my side of town a few years ago, I don't know how many people know the supermarket across the street makes better donuts, which is truly unusual.)
We had a Starbucks in Collegetown which went to only taking mobile orders during the pandemic which meant I pretty much quit drinking coffee there. Not long after Starbucks closed the location to bust the union that was forming there. In my mind that area is a "coffee desert", I mean you can get coffee but so far as I can tell the best coffee is at 7-11 and everything else is much worse.
Well, context is important. Right? If someone opened a "tips required" coffee shop in Japan, it could be something to watch and learn from.
I don't generally have a problem with tipping. Still, I would much rather people get paid well, with whatever that cost might be reflected in the price of what you are buying. If, on the other hand, tipping is on the ticket and it is used as an evaluation of the service being provided, the field should be blank by default.
I have tipped way over 15% lots of times. Every time a device tries to force a higher percentage on me, I reduce it because the pattern annoys me.
It is always interesting to travel to places like Japan, where tipping at a restaurant can be offensive.
Not for a long time. It would likely fold within weeks.
I very much appreciate being able to amble into a coffee shop, order a coffee from a human being (perhaps doing my best in a foreign language I'm not all that proficient in), and paying cash should I so desire. Like you can in most coffee shops around the world.
This dynamic has played out time and again in Seattle, where business owners tried to switch to a "no tipping" model with a 20% mandatory service charge but ultimately had to relent because employees were not keen on earning less money.
But I know many sit-down restaurants have tried to institute a no-tip policy, but both employees and customers hate it. I would hate it. I like giving tips. I wouldn't go to a restaurant where tipping was not allowed.
Plus, the restaurant has to raise their prices up by 20% anyways, because they now have to pay their wait staff more. The customer pays anyways. So it's a stupid thing not to have tipping. You're not going to save any money at all as the customer. It's impossible to save money.
Furthermore, I know waitstaff that make a considerable amount of money from tips. Like, $300-$400 per shift and more. That's about $80,000 to $105,000 per year. So the food prices are going to have to go up substantially to cover what that person made with tips. The reason that many wait staff make so much is that they have "regulars" who tip them well because they develop a relationship and a repore that goes beyond just simple waiting on a random customer.
People say they want the price that's on the menu, but come on - you know there's going to be a tip, if the menu says it is $20, then it is $23, you can do this in your head or on your mobile phone. You know exactly what the price will be unless you failed 2nd grade math. Why on earth would anyone care if the price said $20 or $23 on the menu, if in either case you pay $23? It's ridiculous in the extreme. Unless someone is an extreme pedantic martinet.
more realistically, unless they are capable of finding another job that will pay as much they’ll just end up earning less without tips.
Then again, I am not in favor of say Amazon workers being exploited with very poorly paid jobs and conditions for their source of income over the long term. (Thomas Sowell gives some good arguments against minimum wage - I am on the fence and it boils down to "it depends").
Massively against them if they aren't paid like any normal job. If the intern is doing actual productive work(and let's not kid ourselves - they are most of the time), then they should be paid like any other employee.
The only exception I can see is companies that have training programmes with vocational schools, where you go and work somewhere for say 2 years training to be a carpenter or a plumber or electrician or whatever - then it's no different than being at school and learning. But I'd wager than 99% of internships are not like that, they are just a very cheap way to get unpaid(or poorly paid) labour under the pretense of "giving young people work experience". It's nonsense.
I am in agreement that apprenticeships seem to be a good thing that we should reintroduce. Working in IT, real world experience seems to count at least as much as anything I learned on university. The only times I have needed to implement a sort algorithm is for interviews.
That's fine then. I specifically mean internships which either don't pay anything or which pay some token amount like $100 a week for fuel expenses. If they pay a minimum wage then well, they are basic level entry jobs, that's fine.
If you are an intern in a railroad you can move cars around the yard all day: you can move them to a loading dock, or to make up a larger set for a train, but at the end of the day you must move them back. However if any of those cars are moved to the dock are loaded/unloaded, or the larger train they just made leaves the yard, then they did useful work and must be paid for that.
I mean yes, but like you yourself acknowledged - that's a completely meaningless law. No intern is going to report this, because young people are just happy to have a job, no one wants to destroy their career right at the start. I myself was in that exact same position when I started - as an intern, my contract specifically said I can't be doing any productive work. Of course I did anyway. And I'm sure it still happens in every industry, because.....why wouldn't it. That's why I think unpaid internships just shouldn't be a thing at all, anywhere, unless linked to vocational schools that oversee them as a training programme.
All unpaid internships should have regular independent auditors because, as you say, interns are unlikely to report abuse of the law.
But what they found in restaurants that had the no-tip policy is that all of their really great staff found better paying jobs easily, and the shitty employees, or new employees, would be the ones that stayed. And the new employees would leave as soon as they were trained up, so all that was left at the no-tip restaurants were the shittiest of the shitty employees. This is what I read from a study on this exact situation of no-tip restaurants and the effect it had.
Im also assuming that a lot of waiters dont pay taxes on the tips (at least when they are paid in cash), which would probably account for some of the difference in income between salary and tips. Here in the EU (most of the countries) at least we have good healthcare and education that is payed from those taxes, so you dont need to pay a 1k private insurance on a waiters salary.
> Hi, my name is Bobby, I am gonna be your server today. Blah blah blah blah...
It always comes across as angling for tip money. Waiters here don't usually introduce themselves by name and you generally have less interaction unless of course you start conversing. I prefer the lack of expectation if the and waiter does a good job, then I am more than happy to tip a little. I am in Catalonia where tipping isn't a big thing. Not sure if it's because of the Catalan reputation for being tight with money, or having read Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia", it is related to when tipping was banned and the city was run by anarchists.
In America we like to call people by their name, not their title, especially for a service role. Otherwise it comes off as very classist and elitist. Someone calling out "Waiter!" would come off as a bit of an asshole, to be honest.
I’m terrible with names, though.
But if they are busy, then I'll do an "Excuse me" really nicely and just loud enough so they can hear - not too loudly, and they will nod and that usually is it, and I know it to mean that they will get to me as soon as they can, they acknowledged me. And if it is super busy, I'm cool if it takes a little longer than usual. It happens. If I'm in a hurry, I'd go to McDonalds. Not really, I hate it, but that's the idea.
In Argentina I revert to "chico"/"chica" but ...is that offensive? Hah.
You want to use standard and customary forms of communcation, though. You can be a little friendlier, or a little more formal, but it's never good to stray too far if meeting or talking to a person the first time.
However, if you get a bead on the person and their personality, you can adjust your style to theirs is best.
Everyone in business is "fake." Your auto repair person, the person at Best Buy, people at the clothing store. Of course people are "fake."
However, they are people, too. I am always SUPER SUPER nice to people who are "fake" to me in restaurants or clothing stores or wherever, and they so much appreciate it that 95% of them actually are NOT fake nice to me anymore. As I wrote elsewhere, many times I got a desserts "on the house" at restaurants when I go out in groups, because I make it so enjoyable for the wait staff.
Of COURSE it is angling for tip money. I have walked out without paying a tip for crappy service. I paid zero.
I know wait staff is "fake" nice because they want tips, but if I'm genuinely nice to them then they are "real" nice. And if you are a regular at a restaurant, and tip well, everyone will know you and you will be treated as royalty. And you usually get the same server, who knows your kids names, where you work, and actually they care about you, but yeah, the customer knows the waiter or waitress does not work for free, of course. Neither does the customer.
And, we are all fake to people who give us money. We are ALL fake to our bosses. Nobody will go to their boss and be all, "Hey you fucking moron, another stupid fucking idea you have." Even if that is what one truly thinks. We all have different masks for different occasions.
In Europe, and Catalonia maybe, tipping is not expected, so it is not the culture. If I was there, I would not tip.
But again, the whole argument is ridiculous. If the meal is $30 (or euros), and a 15% tip is $4.50, then you pay $35 (I round up). If no tipping was allowed, the restaurant raises the price to $35. It's the same exact thing. Except if you get a REAL bad waitstaff, you pay $30, because that is what the tip is for. And bad service is if they are jerks, not if they spill a glass of wine on you, which sucks but is an honest mistake that can happen to any of us. I know a waitress who did that and she knew the customer well and bought him a nice shirt for the next time he came back.
But again, you pay the exact same price either way. So not sure why people have so much vitriole against it. And, so many Americans LOVE the custom of tipping. A lot of people go back to the same restaurants and love supporting a waiter or waitress that treat them well. I love paying tips, I usually don't pay less than 25%.
I've never been in the US, but just thinking about having to pay more then what was written and knowing that due to not having a lot of money, I could get in trouble, gives me anxiety...
When I lived in France and spent time in Germany, I always tipped a lot just to make a statement... but I understand that the waiters there are actually paid by the restaurants, so it's not necessary.
Second, even if it DID happen, that is the fantastically rare situation, that is extremely bizzare. You can read here and everywhere that this is not how it is done, so you don't make a judgement based on one single time, especially when no one else ever has had that experience.
I've left restaurants many times without paying a tip because of exceptionally poor service, it's never happened to me. I've never heard it happening to anyone.
Yeah, totally 100% do not believe you. Sorry, man. I just don't. Again, unless that server was actually and really truly mentally ill, and not using the term colloquially.
Not a legal expert, but that looks very much illegal.
It's the same as strippers. Better, because strippers often have to pay to dance.
For me, living in Texas, I would assume the final price is 10% more than the sticker price calculation. When I was buying groceries, this generally meant I was always "under" my estimate because most food isn't taxable in Texas. But I was never surprised by the final total at the register. At restaurants I assumed 20-25% depending on what the numbers were.
Now that I live in Europe, I don't even notice. They tell me the total, I pay. End of story.
The point is that it's not included on the label as the price I pay at the register.
The thing is, you DON'T have to tip. I have walked out of restaurants before without tipping when I got super shitty service. You can pay 5% or 10% or 15% or 20% or 25%.
And the thing is that here in the USA, everyone LOVES tipping. Customers, good nice customers, love tipping. Usually it is the whiny bitchy horrible customers that don't like tipping, and if there was not tipping, they would be whiny bitchy horrible customers anyways. This much I know to be true.
If you don't have a lot of money, just go and be honest and tell the wait staff that. Be honest. I mean, don't be going and ordering $800 worth of food and say you don't have a lot of money because that would be horrible thing. But if you have a very little money, just apologize and say you'd love to but can't.
Also, these days you can go online and see exactly how much the food is, and add on the tip. Just see what you want, add 15%, and you know. This is not difficult. It won't get you in trouble if you take an extra 30 seconds to look up the menu on line, right? And ffs, if you order $30 dinner, and the tip is $4.50 and you don't have enough money to cover it, why on earth would you go out to a restaurant in the first place? Stay at home and make a nice pasta dinner that is just as good as a restaurant and pay $1 or $1.50. Or euros, I think the exchange rate is pretty close to one-to-one. If you go out to a restaurant and go broke over $4.50, your issues are a lot deeper and worse than not having $4.50 tip. Like, you should see a professional therapist about why you would blow the tiny bit of money that you do have on a $30 meal when you can spend $1 and eat at home.
However, while you don't like it, a vast majority of Americans DO like it. I like it. The staff like it. Management likes it.
I guess the solution is that if someone doesn't like tipping, they should never ever go out to restaurants here in the USA. That would take care of it instantly for you.
But again, as I said, you will pay the exact same or more if tipping is included in the price! The exact same or more.
The thing is that if you don't want to leave a tip, don't. It's so easy. Just don't. Most wait staff would rather a dinner party leave without paying the tip rather than have whining - who wouldn't?
I've never had staff get angry with me and I've been going to restaurants probably longer than you've been alive. So I don't know where you're getting this from, unless you are lying for effect, to falsely bolster your case.
I've never had entitle person ever. I've always had fantastic relationships with the wait staff. Because THEY WANT to give you a great experience so that they can get a nice juicy tip. It's not fake on their side, any more than a Disney worker or auto repair shop owner is nice to their customers.
I've had such a good time with some wait staff, that they give me free desserts. I remember once my reputation for getting free desserts got around to a group of friends I occasionally hung out with. We were at the restaurant and said that it was bullshit and to do it right at that restaurant. I did. The waiter gave me a free dessert. Which are restaurants' main money makers.
Waiters are required to pay taxes on tips, but you are right, if they are in cash, well, they can break the law, but that's the same exact thing as if someone doesn't come to a complete stop at a stop sign. Anyone can break the law.
And as I also said, a LOT of restaurants, even high-end restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco have tried no tips. But it was a disaster in almost all cases. Their wait staff would quit all the time, because a good wait staff person can make fantastically more money in tips. If a restaurant pays $25/hour (good luck on that) the wait staff would be paid $50K/year, but a good waiter can make $100K+ on tips. So the wait staff quit the no-tipping restaurants and move to a better, for them, restaurant.
But really, you are paying the exact same, or more, if it is all included in one bill with no break out. And by breaking out healthcare costs, you will actually pay less money for the meal than all included.
As far as healthcare and education being free in EU, that is irrelevant.
As a tourist to the US, it just seemed silly. The random sales tax percentage, the tip or no tip (calculated pre or post sales tax?) situation.
And due to the tipping thing, I had to carry cash, which I hadn’t done in 20+ years.
It felt like going back in time a very long way.
Ask for what you want, I’ll decide if I’ll pay it and I’ll come back if I liked the service.
Maybe they aren’t supposed to be tipped, as we never got the hang of it and blundered about trying to avoid causing offended.
I think people also know non Americans aren't going to get it right. If they're the type of person to get offended over that, I wouldn't spend my time worrying about their opinion of me
> It felt like going back in time a very long way.
I live in North America and tip for alot of things. Never paid cash. Not sure why you felt like you had to but can always tip on visa the rest of us do.
Random sales tax on stuff for example is separate. This is not the fault of the business. The way USA government works is that sales tax is set by the county. There are 3,142 counties and county equivalents. Each charging their own tax amount.
Let's say you are a big store like Target with stores across the USA. They want to charge $25 for a pair of shoes. How do they advertise? They take out advertising all across the USA, and charge $25 for the shoes. Well, how do you put in the correct amount on the newspaper or website advertisement? You put it in the newspaper for $27.50 because one county charges 10% sales tax. But the next county over has a 7% sales tax. The correct price is $26.75. But that newspaper is delivered into multiple counties, in the same exact newspaper, so there is no possible way for target to put the correct price. It's literally impossible. So what they do is say the shoes are $25, and you pay the difference to the county as an extra. Because the business can do fuck all about it. In European countries, they probably have the same exact sales tax everywhere, so it is ok to do it that way. But Target isn't going to get the entire USA to change the tax code of 3,142 different tax jurisdictions. Good luck on that one.
For tipping, you don't have to carry cash at all. I never do. They have an extra line on the receipt to add the tip. I just round it and don't do it exactly, because it is easier and faster that way.
You want me to ask for what I want? Ok. I want to tell you the price of the meal and you pay a 15% tip. That is what I want. And I don't want anyone whining about it. If one wants to whine, just stay at home and cook a home-cooked meal. Everyone wins.
And, as I stated elsewhere, it is usually the people that are most vocal against tips that are the most pain in the butt customers anyways; even if there were not tips, they would still be the worst customers. Maybe not you, but most like that always have something more to complain about.
Dear Europe: You do lots of stupid shit as well.
Next, why do _some_ waitstaff make a lot of tips, and not others. You don't acknowledge how in almost every biased way possible tipping promotes some people, and punishes others.
Lastly, I personally find tipping and therefore your slightly aggressive defense of it, kinda gross? It's a power-trip at the end of the day to control someone else's actions with your money. Sure, that's life, but with tipping it's so blunt.
You are making a fair point that most people can't math.
On the other hand, people who can't do very simple math have bigger problems to worry about than tips.
>Next, why do _some_ waitstaff make a lot of tips, and not others. You don't acknowledge how in almost every biased way possible tipping promotes some people, and punishes others.
At least in theory, the point of tipping is to reward good staff and punish bad staff. The whole point of tipping is to create an income gap, with the hope that staff will be incentivized to be "good" staff so they make more money and be on the better side of the gap.
It's not unlike good employees getting paid better than bad employees, the only difference is that the incentives come from your customers rather than your employer.
>Lastly, I personally find tipping and therefore your slightly aggressive defense of it, kinda gross? It's a power-trip at the end of the day to control someone else's actions with your money. Sure, that's life, but with tipping it's so blunt.
Even without tips we are all going to engage in "controlling someone else's actions with money". That fancy restaurant that just billed you 3 or maybe even 4-digits? That money is so the staff are incentivized to treat you like nobility, among other luxuries you just enjoyed.
It's actually exactly like that. In the feral world of New York City wait staff, where people only live on tips and there is no base income, the income gap is extraordinary in the same shift in the same restaurant. And it's only slightly based on looks, or how "cute" someone is. It's almost entirely based on their skill and ability to serve the customer well. I could walk out with $250 a night and another waiter would walk with $350. He was simply faster, more clever and better at serving and charming the customers. I was a bad waiter. Of course, the prettiest women among us might walk out with $450, so I guess if someone really wants to complain about life being unfair, they could. But those girls needed to stockpile cash then while they were young. As an old man, a waiter can still make the same.
And yes, I can back this up: https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2023/01/p717_12-22...
$15/hr ain't exactly a living wage either, nor does it justify losing a table for an hour on four people who don't leave a tip. The difference between $15/hr in New York City now and $0/hr in 2002 is basically nil.
Waiters make their money from tips. If you ever work in the service industry in America, and serve them their breakfast, you'll understand why.
I have trouble finding the information on my phone but I'm pretty sure this was illegal federally since at least the '90s.
I'm not saying you're wrong.
There is skill and talent involved. We have all had shitty waitstaff wait on us, and great people, too. The great people get a better tip, even if they are uglier, or walk with a limp and have a hunch back like Quisimoto. In another post, I listed dozens of ways that one staff person can make more than another by using different techniques.
So if a meal is $48.75, then 10% is $4.88. Round it up to $5. Half of $5 is $2.50. $5 plus $2.50 is $7.50 tip. then add that onto the total of the $48.75 but I round the $7.50 up to $8 and so $48.75 and $8 is $56.75. Super easy to do in one's head in less than 30 seconds.
If lunch is $38.64, then 10% is $3.86. Round it up to $4. Half of $4 is $2, so $4 + $2 is $6 tip. Total is $38.64 + $6 or $44.64. Thirty seconds to calculate it.
You do rounding to make it easy - you don't do all the decimal points exactly, that sucks to do it that way. Rounding is close enough, and you round up.
.
Some waitstaff are better than others. They are more social. They develop regulars. That's where the real money is made. You get regulars. There are other tricks, too. Not all of them work every time for every person, but it is a statistics game.
Like if a waitress wears a flower in her hair, can make up to 17% more tips. Some people know how to upsell for a higher total bill and make more tips because of the percentage. If you draw a smily face on the bill, you will get a bigger tip. Studies have shown if you can entertain people when appropriate (unobrusively - you have to guage the situation), that can increase tips by 7%. If you have regulars, give them freebies - fucking EVERYONE loves a freebie. A study showed that if you give a weather forecast on the bill, the tip is an average of 22.2% vs 18% if they didn't - so when giving the bill you write "The weather is supposed to be great tomorrow, have a great day!" If you use your customer's name, you will get a bigger tip. Giving a gift increases tips - even giving a candy cane during christmas or candy corn during halloween, etc. Other ways: Squat down to talk to customers, smile a lot, write "thank you" on the bill. Read your customers. Learn what your boss wants so you get the better shifts more often. Get better customers and get them to come back to you and ask for you. Basically create an environment that predisposes customers to be generous.
Did this answer your question about why some make better tips?
>Lastly, I personally find tipping and therefore your slightly aggressive defense of it, kinda gross?
That's ok. None of us can please everyone. I'm positive someone finds things that you think or want as gross, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I very much am strongly supporting tipping, I think it is great.
>It's a power-trip at the end of the day to control someone else's actions with your money. Sure, that's life, but with tipping it's so blunt.
Eh. It's blunt everywhere. We all knuckle under to our stupid bosses we've all had in life because of money. And the thing is, that multiple studies have been made for waitstaff and they all WANT to be controlled if they make more money. Wait staff in the USA love tips, and they love the thought that if they give great service, that their tips can be larger - it gives them motivation. This is not me saying this, it's what the wait staff wants. They love it. Not every single waiter/waitress. People who suck at interpersonal communication probably hate it, of course. That would be logical. But it is a personal job, so they should find another job, quite frankly. And in general, customers don't look at it as a power trip, at all. Some do, but the vast majority do not. I don't. I'm not imperious, snapping my fingers for service, and ordering people around. That is just bad manners and an ill-mannered person who would do this even if there was no tipping. Because that is how people are.
Sounds like a false dichotomy. Why is the only other option still an imposed cost on the customer? Wouldn't it be nice if the bad servers just got fired like any other profession and the good servers got a bonus or something from the business owner?
Maybe people shouldn't "aspire" to be cafe baristas and chain restaurant wait staff. There are plenty of students and elderly that could handle the job and also handle the minimum wage. There's no reason those jobs should be lucrative, unless the business owners (rightly) realize those staff are the face of their operations, but in that case, again, the business owner should "invest" in their higher salaries to hopefully bring in business. None of this should be imposed on customers. Just my opinion.
It is my understanding that in the US, you're not paid minimum wage. Waiters are paid mostly by tips.
Some may have no wage! Tips only.
Where I live, this is illegal, and I suspect in Europe too, and this is where the lack of understanding comes from.
Now, coffee shops? People behind counters are not waiters, so I am unsure of wage issues, in the US.
By trying to eliminate tipping, you are working against the interest of waiters since they naturally want to maximize their income. You may not like tipping but it is economically optimal in many contexts. Businesses need to compete for employees and tipping maximizes employee income relative to revenue.
Where I live, most of the bartenders and waiters I know personally earn on the order of $80k/year if they do it full-time, and not at high-end establishments. Not an ostentatious lifestyle but definitely middle class.
It's a grey pattern to offer your product at 1 rate but implicitly you impose an additional 12-20% . Just pay them more, and charge more for the product, the end result is the same from the consumer. If the workers are no longer satisfied, there are other sales and marketing jobs that offer real salaries plus bonuses/commissions as mentioned above.
There is not an infinite supply of students who have the time to do that job. Our son worked at a coffee shop. Until the manager started pressuring him to work more hours than he had time for.
Some people think other people's jobs are bullshit. And then you end up with a shortage of competent workers. Every job should be lucrative.
It's really not common in much of Europe at least for people to actually discourage tipping (though they may seek to refuse what they perceive as exorbitant tips).
That's the key point.
Like just the other month I was in this resort with my family and first night we checked in we went for diner - waiter was very polite, entertained my one year old and gave us tips about the area. We didn't have cash on us so we put it on the room and signed the receipt. Next day he was still professional but not as much effort - then I left a tip for both dinners and suddenly it's back to chat mode, parting drink on the house, please do come back, etc.
As a personal anecdote - when I visited America on a business trip we went to a restaurant where the staff was literally rude to us, the food order was not what we ordered and massively late, and yet our hosts insisted on leaving a 10% tip because
1) low tip will show them they have done a poor job(?!?!?!?!?!)
2) we would look like jerks for not tipping(their explanation).
So basically my takeaway is - if you have to tip even when your experience is poor, or you risk "looking like a jerk", then it's not really optional.
the irony!
Tipping is mostly expected when there is a lot of service involved in the meal. This means either fine-dining, or Meyhanes where you spend 3-5 hours drinking heavily (Raki/Ouzo) and eating mezes & fish.
I think the tipping culture you're talking about is "Bakshish" which is really more of a bribe than a tip. It doesn't exist much in Turkiye anymore (unless you're an Arab or Syrian refugee, their experience is far different than others). Bakshish is still very prevalent throughout the lower Balkans, Serbia and most Islamic nations I've visited and worked in, except for KSA and UAE (they'll kill you for that shit.)
Definitely more of a bribe, and common in a lot of the world, in the countries mentioned but plenty of others, esp. the African ones I worked in; different names but same idea.
A "cost of doing business, and we appreciate the opportunity" gesture. Prove that you're serious, and that you want an actual result.
An Egyptian friend, once warned his friends about me: "Now he's American. When he says 2pm he means 2pm, and when he says we have to leave at 8, that means we have to leave at 8. This is why Americans are rich. They respect schedules, and care more abut business than friends or family."
Tip jars are perhaps a more recent phenomenon, but they are now almost ubiquitous in all places that serve anything, event at a counter or to go - including club bars, coffee shops, even many fast food places.
I take this as local employees stating their entitlement to nickel and dime tourists as much as possible.
:(
I do understand the specific of the US situation, I’ve leave there since the last decade. In a very touristy city to boot, so a large part of my social network rely on tips.
But the lack of awareness from our US friends to understand that they are the exception, not the norm in that particular regard is a bit disconcerting.
. You are the first person served, every time you walk in, no matter how crowded the bar is.
. You are poured the extra liquor that a bartender is allowed to "spill"
. When you bring your date to the restaurant next time, you are treated very well.
It is true that in America, these things are lost because everyone is expected to tip. But this is the true point of tipping a good waiter or bartender, to show your appreciation and also to be remembered.
I had the chance to move around a lot and my social alcoholism made my spend lot of time in seedy places where someone pour out booze.
In all those places, paying more money is just bad taste.
A way to get what you describe is ( in my personal experience )
- smile
- be young and / or attractive
- being visibly in distress
- being polite and patient in the face of another rude customer
- make some jokes, not in English but in the language people speak where you are
- have a dog / a kid
- show that you have some humors and are not an asshole.
With all due respect, paying more and displaying extra wealth is a good way to be classified in the easy to dupe category. In some language due to post WW2 wealth, some folks say “an American” like “do you think I’m American or what ?”
But if you have established communication with your waiter / bartender / blackjack dealer, and you leave them some extra, it is much more appreciated outside the US. Especially if they see you more than a couple times. Whether you are young and attractive or not, although of course that helps.
Does losing $5,000 alone on a blackjack table in Prague because you're depressed, and then smiling and tipping your dealer constitute visible distress? I can't say it's always a financially wise strategy.
I just spend a few minute refining my thoughts on tipping outside the US : I would say it has to do with a relationship with money and the power emanating from it.
Tipping is not expected in most places; and doing it anyway clearly signal that you have some disposable wealth. You can afford to pay even more than the agreed upon price.
There is some “bling” and nouveau-riche aspect to it that will leave people a weird feeling.
For instance : Are you trying to bribe them? Do you think they are too poor to function without your patronage? Are the price/money here just a joke to you?
And then, it become your edge. You are the guy or gal that pay extra. As opposed to be the funny/sexy/mysterious/resourceful person. AKA : El gringo, l’américain, l’americano. ( I’m one of you now, so I can say it :p )
Being seen that way might be a way to attract the wrong kind of company.
I don’t know about casino and hazard games, my passion always has been the dives and the likes.
But you do say something important about establishing contact first.
That’s a great difference in my book.
I still maintain that waving money around FIRST won’t help on the long run. Establishing rapport and discretely paying extra might, sometime, with some people. But being nice and aware of your environment might do just the same.
I'm 42. I've lived in a lot of countries. I freaked out and fled America for twelve years after I wrote a novel about a rock band assassinating Dick Cheney during the start of the second Iraq war, and had my server attacked by military sites and my apartment broken into and police going through my trash can. In other countries, I probably, once in awhile, was mistaken for someone who tried to be nouveau-riche because I tipped too much...but I'm basically a working-class guy and I don't think most people thought of me that way if they got to know me. Maybe I am guilty of carrying over the American service industry mentality -- usually people who work/worked as waiters, bartenders or taxi drivers in America tip much more than other people, because we understand how difficult the job is. But of course, you are not trying to buy love with money ... you only show respect. If it is a situation where I feel that someone won't understand it (for example, in some place I've never been before in Vietnam), just the amount of tip that shows the right respect is better than some crazy American-size tip. Hopefully this makes sense. I should stop drinking and go eat. It's been a pleasure to talk ;)
[edit] PS: I really enjoyed this term "social alcoholism". Did you ever go to Granada?
I live in New Orleans those days, social alcoholism is a lifestyle there! I haven't been in Spain in a solid decade. I miss traveling and living in europe. It's so pleasant.
To get back to the subject at hand, I think you gave enough context so I can understand your point. Thanks! It looks that the key is being ex-service industry, and now that you stated it... I do see that behavior of "service-industry hardcore solidarity thought tips" in friends here.
> usually people who work/worked as waiters, bartenders or taxi drivers in America tip much more than other people, because we understand how difficult the job is. But of course, you are not trying to buy love with money.
And I can sense the likability oozing out your messages.
I quit my waiting job in New York around 2004-5, took a train to New Orleans, started playing piano with a band, got a job as a busboy at Brennan's for a solid 2 weeks before losing all my money on poker and drinking myself almost to death... I found myself on Canal Street one morning at 5am, broke, and called my sister from a payphone to buy me a bus ticket to LA. Six months later the house I'd been staying in was destroyed by Katrina...
Is it time to try again? I've always loved that city. I don't think I have the self-control.
I can assure you that an American tip here will give you a weird look and get you to be treated like a tourist which is not something you wish.
How is this detected by the state?
I think the issue in your approach is the transactional aspect of it.
“I payed more, now be more nice to me”
At their core, people don’t want to be owned this way.
[edit] also, although I'm not service industry anymore, many of my friends are; so it's pretty understood that no one likes an asshole who just thinks they can "buy" someone with tips. That wasn't the point. Tips are necessary because I really do appreciate what servers are doing.
dang being super chill by letting it be.
Instead of asking $5 for a coffee they ask for $4. Then you have to pay tax, which for absolutely ZERO reason is not included in the price. You're at about $4.40. Then you tip and end up at anywhere between $5 and $5.50 in actual money you spent on your "$4" coffee.