Tipping
A friend and I were at a bar the other day talking about our tipping policies. Here's how I think about tipping:
Here in Canada, tipping is expected in certain circumstances: restaurants, etc. However, unlike some places, people don't usually work solely for tips. Tips serve to augment a base salary (which is often minimal, I expect).
First of all, I consider tipping completely optional based on the quality of service. I never feel obliged to leave a tip if the service or product is substandard. That said, I usually don't tip less for slightly poor service. There's a cutoff somewhere: either I tip or not.
I modify that slightly in that I tend to tip to my own convenience, too, especially at places that I frequent. If the bill comes to $19.00 and all I have is $20s, then it's a buck for tip, no matter how good the service is. By the time it comes to pay the bill, I want to be out of there, and getting change to leave a tip always seems to take too much time.
However, having said all that, I like to think that I tip reasonably generously most of the time. I'd rather tip too much than too little. I think 10-15% is a fine tip, 20% is over the top for me. I also much prefer to tip in cash rather than on a credit card. Adding a tip to a credit card bill just feels awkward to me, even more so now that in some places the amount of each transaction needs to be authorized. The discussion of this topic originally started when the friend I was with tried to pay a bill with a credit card and the hand-held terminal asked him if he wanted to add a gratuity to the bill. He wanted to, but then was advised by the terminal that he needed to inform the server of the amount so they could add it. That's just horrible design. I don't want to discuss the tip with the server. That just doesn't seem right.
Here in Canada, tipping is expected in certain circumstances: restaurants, etc. However, unlike some places, people don't usually work solely for tips. Tips serve to augment a base salary (which is often minimal, I expect).
First of all, I consider tipping completely optional based on the quality of service. I never feel obliged to leave a tip if the service or product is substandard. That said, I usually don't tip less for slightly poor service. There's a cutoff somewhere: either I tip or not.
I modify that slightly in that I tend to tip to my own convenience, too, especially at places that I frequent. If the bill comes to $19.00 and all I have is $20s, then it's a buck for tip, no matter how good the service is. By the time it comes to pay the bill, I want to be out of there, and getting change to leave a tip always seems to take too much time.
However, having said all that, I like to think that I tip reasonably generously most of the time. I'd rather tip too much than too little. I think 10-15% is a fine tip, 20% is over the top for me. I also much prefer to tip in cash rather than on a credit card. Adding a tip to a credit card bill just feels awkward to me, even more so now that in some places the amount of each transaction needs to be authorized. The discussion of this topic originally started when the friend I was with tried to pay a bill with a credit card and the hand-held terminal asked him if he wanted to add a gratuity to the bill. He wanted to, but then was advised by the terminal that he needed to inform the server of the amount so they could add it. That's just horrible design. I don't want to discuss the tip with the server. That just doesn't seem right.
posted by Brent at 4:11 PM
1 Comments:
I guess it depends on your point of view. In my opinion, servers shouldn't "go out of their way" to give me good service. Good service is something that I expect all the time -- a basic requirement of the job. For exceptional service I'd happily bust another twenty, or maybe just hand over the whole thing.
You're right that poor terminal design is ultimately unfair to the servers, but you seem to have misunderstood what I said which is that I prefer to tip in cash in order to avoid such problems.
Thanks for your comments.
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