When in doubt, overtip – from Excellent Advice for Living
This is close to my heart, since I spent a lot of time in college and after working as a waiter and bartender.
In the US we have a culture of 15-20% of tipping at restaurants. There are also guidelines for people handling your baggage, valets, etc. In the EU/Asia, often tipping isn’t a common thing, but that is changing a bit. I’m less familiar there, so this is my US view.
I like to tip for service, but I also know that many people in restaurants get a very low wage. When I started working as a waiter, I got US$2.01/hour. When I stopped, I was still getting $2.01/hr. In that time, the minimum wage went from $3.35 to $5.25. The reason my wage stayed low is that it was assumed I made tips that raised me to the minimum or higher.
My view is that if I can’t tip, I don’t go out. I tip 15% as the service for someone bringing me food and drinks. Even if the service isn’t great, the person deserves to be paid for their work and they aren’t really getting that from the establishment.
If they do a good job and are pleasant, I usually tip 20%. If they’re great I go higher.
However, if I’m not sure, or maybe I realize I might not be in a good mood or distracted, I overtip. Especially for breakfast service.
It’s a few dollars for me, but it makes a big difference to someone else’s life.
Note: The current post-pandemic world where every counter service place adds tips also annoys me. I think most of these people are being paid minimum wage and I don’t often tip, but I do when people are pleasant. Or I appreciate their being there. I always tip at the airport counters because those people are driving a long way and I really, really appreciate they are open at 6m for my early flights.
I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.
To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.
Voice of the DBA 
I like how you think, very empathetic. there’s a similar problem too. when I’m out with coworkers or a group who want to split the bill I just cover it all. I know they likely won’t tip well and they have no clue how obnoxious it is for the wait staff to itemize 10 bills. complete waste of their time, and it adds a LOT of time for them. Not cool. They still have tables to take care of. some places won’t split bills and then i always grab the bill and say something like “give it to me, I tip more”, which always works.
and like you said, I tip well even if the waitress sucks. the reason is…you don’t really know if she sucks, or if the restaurant just doesn’t hire enough help or if she is trying to also train people, how much food prep she is responsible for in the kitchen, etc.
you just don’t know. I was never a waiter but a little empathy and you can start to see the problems may not be with the person. if the service is THAT bad, I just don’t go back to the restaurant, theory being…they must hire poor people.
last tip…I never carry cash but I when I do I try to tip in cash and I try to do it _discreetly_. 2 reasons: at some places the tips are pooled and I don’t like that. my salary isn’t pooled with my coworkers, why should the tips be different? Pooling, i think, encourages wait staff to be average, since they are getting average tips, instead of being really memorable. lastly, and this is just me and my controversial conspiratorial mindset…anytime I can help someone avoid paying taxes, I do. why should they pay taxes on reported tips and they can just be unreported? But that’s me.
LikeLike