the sandbox guide to tipping demographics

God, I should only tip 10%

We now have people sitting on toilets in some city pubs giving out hand towels and cheap aftershave and staring meaningfully at their saucers of loose change.

Least favorite part of seeing shows at "upscale" venues here... fucking cocoa butter smell in the lav.

Labor and employment lawyers are awesome tippers!
Social justice types = good tippers
Current/former servers = good tippers unless they receive bad service in which case they are ruthless.

Also, in flagrant violation of laws posted right there in the back of the cab, every cab driver in Chicago constantly talks on a cell phone while driving. But that's clearly another thread.

place on christie and grand totally not fancy but has a bathroom attendant wtf

But I am (almost) a labor and employment lawyer, a social justice type, AND a former server/low wage worker so I'm pretty much a giant bleeding heart when it comes to tipping. Except I won't counter tip if all the person did was ring up my order and hand me change. I think counter tipping is becoming a way for employers to weasel out of paying their employees more money (but you make tips!!!) and I disapprove of this trend toward the private ordering of wages.

Pardon me, but WHAT THE CHRISTING FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT? I'm Canadian, as is Thermo Thinwall.

Ailsa, feel the love. It was more of a "huh?" than anything else.

I know!!!

(hugglez all round)

xpost

Which moving company was it? We used Starving Artists movers and they were smelly and clumsy but honest and hard working.

question: are you always supposed to tip $1 per drink? like for a $2-3 beer? or is that for fancy drinks? or are beers $1 and fancy drinks more? (just curious. i do it because it's an easy rule to go by. also, note that i do not live in ny.)

Trust me, we filed complaints with everyone we could find. Talked to my cousin thats a lawyer, and he said that the company pretty much covered their asses enough that fighting it wouldn't result in much. We'd have to go after the crew themselves, but with the high turnover we'd never find them again. Sucked big time. It was E-Z Movers, you see their big pink trucks all over the place.

When it comes to drink tipping, I usually tip two or three for the first beer and then usually a buck every other one if its the same bartender.

Just kidding. I think the rise in prescription medicine for "anxiety/depression" is directly related to tipping. It's impossible to leave the house without agonising over what, and where, and when, to tip.
The tip cup phenomena is just...awful.
"Tipping is not a city in China!"
um, well, since we're in Massachusetts I guess I don't have to care.
I tip everyone, all of the time. especially the gas station attendents who pump the gas. But I also make them check the oil.
i am a little bit obnoxious when it comes to restaurant tipping. Having been a server, I tip 20% all the time. You have to really piss me off -basically pour hot coffee on my lap - to get a 15% tip.
I also live in a small town - so tipping is obligatory, since I will see these people again. Sometimes, at a party. or at a bar. Also, i'm getting to the age where my friends kids are serving the coffee and donuts.
Thankfully, not serving the drinks!
I figure, since I'm going to tip, why not get the most bang for my buck? Which means..."you, server, need to have a random conversation with me because I am paying you to do so." It's cheaper than a shrink!
Plus, they have to be nice to you.
Unlike shrinks.
But sometimes I don't even want to leave the house because I am calculating all of the tips that might happen.

Normally I tip 10-15% for a meal.

this is terrible. 10% is considered a BAD tip. it's considered pretty much the minimum for poor service. 15% is like a "C" tip. i hope you realize that wait staff curse you out behind your back. if you are a regular of any restaurants, whenever the wait staff sees you come in, they argue over trying to get someone else to serve you. if the restaurant gets remotely busy, a server will know to ignore you and give better service to their other customers.

you should know this.

anyways, let that be a lesson to you Americans. too many people seriously do think 10% is an acceptable tip.

if your meal is less than $10, or really cheap, TIP MORE THAN 20%. 20% IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE TIP ANYMORE. if you leave your server $1.50, they don't give a fuck what percent that is. it's still a dollar fifty. they still have to serve you a hundred more times just to pay their electricity bill that month. most servers do not get paid by their restaurants, the money only goes towards taxes, so YOU are the SOLE person paying their monthly bills. a dollar fifty isn't going to cut it. get ready to get poor service if you become known for this.

(xx post)

But yeah, back on topic, hm very much OTM.

I found when I was waiting tables in college, that college kids were generally GREAT tippers because they knew what it was like to work a shit job for shit pay. Also, if you are even a semi-cute guy, you can make tons from the groups of high school girls that go out to eat. High school boys though? You might as well be working for free.

jbr, yeah, it's definitely true that groups of "ladies" are bad news. of course not always, but frequently enough so that servers develop aversions.

but also, don't be too quick to assume the worst about your server. too many people think their servers are nefarious evildoers who at the first sign of WHATEVER will choose to ignore you the entire evening. in my years of serving, i've seen that happen only a couple times. almost every time something like that happens, there's something else behind the scenes. who knows what's going in the kitchen? the manager giving the server some kind of shit? another table being ridiculously needy and hogging attention? something wrong with the computer system?

the other day i had a table of about twenty people who all wanted separate checks. UGH. do they realize it takes like 5 minutes to even print that many checks? then, as i was ringing them all up (BIG SURPRISE -- this was a Church group) one woman's credit card was declined. when i tried to return it to her and delicately let her know that her ass is broke, she was all, "OH, I THOUGHT THAT ONE WOULD DECLINE! I JUST WANTED TO TEST IT AND MAKE SURE!" thanks you fucking bitch, it's not like i have other customers waiting on stuff. please, let me ring up your friends twenty separate credit cards plus a few extras just to test and make sure they are still maxed out. thanks! the rest of my customers appreciate it!

Tonight went to happy hour with friend and we tipped as if full price on happy hour drinks and snacks. Server got $8 on $28 check.

Clearly you don't have much experience waiting on the French, Dutch, German or Brits. Oh and Canadians! They are the ones that'll sneak up on you: no strong accent--except the French-Canadians--and then at the end of the meal--BLAM! You get a credit card with the dreaded maple leaf.

I will always give each group of people consistent service because while I might suspect that a German or Black person might tip me poorly, I would only be guaranteeing that by favoring others who fit the good-tipping demographic.

Not true at all! I delivered pizza for one of the big US chains when I was in college, and found that rather than a percentage, people tend to tip a specific dollar amount. Say the order was $20, you'd most likely get $2 from it. A lot of people don't tip at all, specifically Born-Again Christians (though I now have a good collection of Chick tracts), poor whites, poor blacks, realtors, and office managers (when delivering to offices). It's different being alone with someone on their turf—they can be as rude as they'd like and there's no societal pressure on them to make themselves look good. You guys in restaurants had it easy. Five dollar tips were considered good. We would also have to pay for our own gas and car maintenance. For each delivery we took, we got $.50 for gas, which in many cases wouldn't cover the distance there and back. To make up for this , we'd try to take more than one delivery at a time, if they're both going in the same direction and ordered at the same time. Oh, and if the cook fucks up, I have to make a second delivery FOR FREE (though if you're charming, you can turn a second-trip into a $5 tip). On a typical Saturday night, I'd make ~$75 for about 30 deliveries, putting about 105 miles on my car (but it's stop-and-go driving, so I was getting the low end of my Camry's fuel economy) so minus $12 for gas. And people ordered more and tipped less in bad weather. Fight nights and Bowl games were good, though.

While my single best tip ($50 for a $12 order) came from an older black lady who lived in a rough apartment complex), the best tippers tended to be single working mothers, liberals, fat people, and former servers/drivers. Drunk/stoned people were a mixed bag. I quickly learned the bartender trick: never carry coins or any bill larger than a one (if the bill is $15, and they hand you a twenty, you're more likely to see something back if you don't give them a $5).

Also, and I've mentioned this on a previous Mickey-complaining-about-tips thread, as a delivery driver I have had my car run off the road and into a guardrail, I have been mugged at gunpoint ($65 worth of tips gone), bitten by dogs, and threatened by more people who meant it than you could imagine.

urgent tipping question: some guys are coming in an hour to clean and fix the gutters on our roof. $260 for the job. should we tip and if so how much??

― nice catch cuauhtemoc blanco niño (dayo), Tuesday, December 27, 2011 7:51 AM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark

count the leaves at the end give them a dollar for every gold leaf and take one away for every silver leaf and if the difference is more than fifty send them hang-gliding

a++

aye, it's good hang-gliding weather this time of year, it's true

Good joke, that

tipper rarely

Bring nationalism into it, that'll surely help

xp you went a long way for that one