Tipping 10% of the bill seems a lot to me

[ElderAve]

I'm prepared to be flamed but let me explain my logic.

Now DC are grown up, when we go out to dinner we are usually 4 adults. We don't do it very often but like somewhere "nice" so when we do, two courses plus drinks probably cost £150-£200. We'll be in the restaurant say 2 hours and the waiter will typically have 5/6 other tables (?).

That's an awfully good hourly rate if everyone leaves 10%.

Would you leave £20 on a £200 bill for 4 people? If not what is a fair/reasonable amount to leave?

TBH I'd rather remove the service charge (unless I specifically know that it is shared amongst the staff) and add my own tip. I asked recently (I think it was Giraffe at Heathrow) if staff get a share of the service charge - the waiter basically refused to answer or meet my eye. So I asked for service charge to be removed and said I would leave a cash tip and he said they were;t allow to accept cash tips. Which annoyed me even more. I don't know if that is common but I know I would prefer to reward good/excellent service on my own terms.

I am really surprised at the number of people on the thread who don’t or rarely tip in restaurants. I would be absolutely mortified to leave without tipping. I actually like it when the tip is added on to the bill as then I don’t have to work it out and also it’s easier in a group.
Hairdressers and taxis on the other hand I find a minefield. I always feel I ought to tip but never know how much. It makes me so anxious I rarely get taxis for this reason. Hairdressers after much trial and error I don’t tip but it makes me really uncomfortable not to - it just makes me equally uncomfortable tipping.

But why are you mortified not to tip?

I don't tip at all ever they get a wage it's there job and choice to be a waiter

There's nothing flashy about leaving £20 for a £200 meal. If you don't, you are suggesting that there was an issue with the food or service. (And that you are tight).

If the food and service was all ok, leave 10%, rounded up. More if service was fantastic for any reason. So any meal £160-£200 gets £20.

You seem to be setting the bar extremely low as to what customers should be able to expect and what waiting staff should be able to deliver. Maybe it’s just semantics, but if I went somewhere and the food and service was simply ‘OK’, I wouldn’t feel duty-bound to reward this mediocrity with extra money – I wouldn’t actually go back there again. If the food and service are fantastic, I likely would tip, according to the unjustifiable ridiculous ‘tradition’. However, I would expect the reward for providing fantastic food/goods and service for any business would be that people would keep returning and the business and everybody’s jobs would remain very secure.

In fact, it might be a radical idea, but if a business does boom as a direct result of the staff’s proud work ethic and dedication, the boss could always use some of the increased profits to raise everybody’s wages.

The checkout workers in Sainsbury's are probably on minimum wage and, if I go to their till instead of using the self-service one, they are unquestionably providing me with additional service. Often, they’re very friendly too and do their job very well. I wonder if they’re all insulted and wondering why they upset me, grumbling at how tight I am - when they tell me the total for my shopping and that’s exactly what I pay them, without adding 10-20% or at least telling them to keep the change.

If you can afford £200 for a meal you can afford £20 tip. I am a waitress and share my tips with the rest of the staff. Take home £2-4 a shift if lucky. A few pence and a sincere thank you are worth gold. I fetch and carry and clear up baby sick and all sorts.

How can you possibly only take home £2-4 a shift if the law forces your employer to pay you at least NMW? Your wage is exactly that - pay for doing the job. It isn't just a retainer fee for turning up.

Yes, there are unpleasant things to have to clean up (and parents who make no effort to clean up their own baby's sick and leave it for you to do are disgusting), but nursery workers have to clean up baby poo on a frequent daily basis.

Many carers, on shockingly low wages (often less than NMW when you account for the travel costs they incur) as well as dealing with all of the unpleasant bodily waste, also often get shouted and sworn at and threatened. I presume that, if a customer did that in your restaurant, your manager would get involved and probably call the police. At the very least, they would be banned from ever returning. As a carer, you'd be told that it's just a normal part of your job - and you'd be expected to turn up again the next day and the next and the next to serve this person again and again. If you're unwilling to do so, your only option is to quit the job.

I just can't get over the fact that tipping is seen as the norm and that people are considered tight and expected to mortified if they don't give extra money to other adults who are doing a paid job.

Surely it's quite a condescending thing to do, isn't it? Like giving a 3yo child 50p for some sweeties because she was such a kind helpful girl, helping Grandad by bringing his slippers.

Or a relic of the deeply unpleasant past, when people from wealthy backgrounds would slip a small amount to the poor people they were exploiting with appalling working conditions and dreadfully low wages, as a stick to beat them with if they didn't show express gratitude for being kept off the streets by some 'benevolent' taskmaster. Make sure they know their place and are in no doubt as to who is the boss.

The latter might make slightly more sense at the Ivy or Claridge's, where the diners undoubtedly are much wealthier than the people serving them, but when a cleaner is taking her family out to the Harvester for a long-saved-up-for meal to celebrate a milestone birthday, just why?

but why are you mortified not to tip
I suppose because I see it as the normal thing (until now!) and not to do it is sending a message about the awfulness of the service? For me it would be like taking something without saying thank you or, I don’t know, putting the phone down without saying goodbye.

So it's just because of conditioning.
Servers have to give good service. It's apart of their job. It's not an added extra you have to pay for.
If they don't they lose their job. Their employer pays them at least NMW. So they are on the same level as a lot of people.

I'm currently on holiday in America and the automatically added tip for everything - meals, drinks, Lyft, etc - is 18%. With an option to add more.

10% back home feels quite cheap compared to when we come here, though back home we only really tip for meals. We never too when ordering a drink at a bar, and in taxis we just round up, for example.

Virtually everything we as humans do is because of “conditioning”. If you don’t want to tip, don’t.

I'm currently on holiday in America and the automatically added tip for everything - meals, drinks, Lyft, etc - is 18%. With an option to add more.

Now that really is having their cake and eating it. So they're saying:

1. This is the price we will charge you if you order this food, as stated on the menu;
2. It isn't really, as we want to get away with displaying untrue prices and paying ridiculously low wages in the hope that you will top them up;
3. Therefore, because of this, we expect you to pay an additional 18% on top, which we will refer to as a 'tip', but in reality, it's all but legally mandatory and will be socially enforced by the tradition that you must tip, so you will either pay it or be made to look deeply ashamed, socially awkward, nasty and/or stupid;
4. Ooh, don't forget that it's customary to tip as well - you'll want to add a tip to the price of your meal and, erm, the big tip you've already been practically forced to give, won't you? We're sure you will - you wouldn't want to look tight or poor or cause offence, would you....?

Isn't there at least one country - maybe Japan? - where tipping is considered to be a gross insult?

We had read that but actually when we visited this summer we did see tipping in restaurants - people just leaving some Yen on the table as they left, but not added to the bill and not handed over in cash. So maybe things are changing there too.

1. This is the price we will charge you if you order this food, as stated on the menu;

In America the price you see if never what you pay anyway. They add tax on afterwards, be it in shops, restaurants, wherever. You never really know how much something is as the outset!

I definitely tip. £150 isn't a huge bill for a decent meal and I think how you are treated is also a really important part of the experience. I'll tip regardless but I may tip more if the service has been great

What's 'lyft'? Was it just a typo or is it yet another 'service' to be charged for?

If you did mean the lift/elevator: I know you're expected to tip random people for (in the nicest possible way) getting in your way by doing a pointless non-favour in the US, such as opening a door or lurking in the lift expecting money for simply pressing a button; but surely they don't monitor how many times you've used the lift and charge you for each 'trip', do they?! And if they're adding an automatic percentage, does that mean they actually have a fee for customers using their lifts - and then charge an extra tip on top of that?!?! I'm baffled but fascinated!

I'm in Canada and tipping is absolutely expected. The card machines here are usually pre-programmed with 15%, 18% and 20% options so you just select one when you're putting in your card details. If you tipped 10% they would think you'd had major issues with the service. A lot of restaurants will automatically add an 15-18% service charge for groups of 6+. You just factor it into the cost of eating out.

I've always tipped in the UK as well, usually between 10 and 15% depending on the food, service etc.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll Lyft is like Uber

In America the price you see if never what you pay anyway. They add tax on afterwards, be it in shops, restaurants, wherever. You never really know how much something is as the outset!

That's annoying enough, I'm sure, but at least that's mandated by law, non-negotiable and can be accounted for in advance. You and the establishment have completed your transaction and then the taxman steps in and takes his share on top of that.

It just makes no sense whatsoever to me for the price of the supplied goods (exclusive of taxes) to be advertised at an artificially low price. If you want people to pay $120 for something, just show the price as $120 - what on earth is the point in claiming that it can be had for $100 but then virtually enforcing the payment of an additional $20? If you're doing that, claiming that the extra is needed because your staff earn so little, just pay them more, charge the full price that you expect for the food and then make it clear to your customers that this is the actual total price that you pay us before the addition of any standard applicable taxes, which are completely beyond our control.

Ideally, I'd prefer the tax to be included and shown in the total cost to the customer, as it (usually) is in the UK. I don't really care how much of what I pay you goes to your suppliers, your staff, your overheads, your profits, the taxman, that's your responsibility as a business owner - just tell me how much money I need to give you to legally buy the goods or services from you; but I assume this isn't actually legally an option in the US?

Lyft is like Uber

Ah, thanks - I guessed it was probably just me being out of touch! I've never used an Uber, but at least I've heard of them!

However, further to my incorrect surmisings, is it really standard to have to keep paying people to open a door, press a button or to do a 3-second job that you could easily have done for yourself - and one which, if you are disabled and unable to do yourself, I would hope would just be quickly done without fanfare to help you as a simple courtesy?

I definitely tip. £150 isn't a huge bill for a decent meal

Maybe not to you, but it's getting on for three days' pay (after tax and other work-related expenses) for somebody on minimum wage. They've saved up and budgeted to treat their family for a special occasion - why should they have to spend an extra 2-3 hours' pay to 'finalise' the purchase of what they've already bought - to boost the pay of somebody earning the same as them?

Tradition is tradition, but an extra 2+ hours' worth of scrubbing toilets or dealing with doubly incontinent patients (or whatever your NMW job is) is a very expensive and unpalatable tradition.

I definitely tip. £150 isn't a huge bill for a decent meal

Seriously??? I think £150 is a lot for one meal. It certainly a lot if you're on minimum wage, and to then be expected to further top up other minimum wage workers wages. I find it all very odd.

I tend to unless service is awful or poor. I generally do nothing of 10 percent rounded.

I can see both sides nowadays where there is a national minimum wage that is increasing well and most people are paid that. I can understand why people being paid that themselves wouldnt be able to afford to do so. I dont think theres any need in this country to feel obliged to.

I know it's far too ingrained to stop now, but it's a great shame that restaurant meals can't be priced according to the amount that it is hoped you will actually pay for them, which will allow for a fair wage for the staff, and then none of the tipping awkwardness.

Ideally, it would be seen as ridiculous as picking up £22 of shopping from the supermarket, giving the assistant £25 and telling her/him "There's a little extra for you."

It's a pointless anachronism from the times before there was a national minimum wage and maybe people's livelihoods depended on what they could impress people to give over and above the basic very lowly-paid duties - plus, it was probably a time when restaurants were only ever affordable by the rich. At any rate, there's no justifiable place for it in a country where waiting staff are guaranteed at least NMW and many of their customers are also on no more than NMW.

However, absolutely nobody in the restaurant/hospitality trade is now going to stand up and say "You know how you're socially conditioned to feel you should randomly give us extra money? Well, we really don't want you to do that any more!" Even if a restaurant did raise their prices specifically in order to pay a significantly higher wage to their staff, I can't see them hurrying to turn down any extra money that people still want/feel compelled to offer.

When I've really appreciated the waiting service, I've made a point of getting the name of the waiting staff and writing a letter to their manager, detailing the great service. It takes longer, takes some actual thought and when I've returned, the waiting staff know, so it does feed back.

One of the breakfast waiting staff in a hotel told me that she'd had a considerable bonus as a result. Not from me, from her boss. Meant so much more.

I don't have a problem with those who don't tip - or those that do. It's the tippers who think they're somehow superior to follow, lemming-like, what is an outdated convention and utterly unfair to those who earn the same amount but in different professions.