Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

To not tip (in the UK?)

104 replies

makemineachardonnay · 31/08/2012 17:52

I've just been reading the tipping in America thread with interest, and it got me thinking about tips here in the UK.
Do you tip? I don't. Even if I think the service was lovely. They're getting paid to do their job, and if the argument is that they don't get paid much so it tops up their wages, then surely that's their employers fault - they should pay them more.
Which they're never going to do, are they, if the customers are going to pay their staff for them.
Eating out is a lot of money to people at the moment (well, it is here anyway!) so to have to pay out even more is sometimes hard.
As for hairdressers?! It wouldn't even occur to me. They get paid for the job they do.
Surely I'm not the only one who doesn't tip?
Never posted an AIBU so don't be too mean.

OP posts:

NasalCrayon · 31/08/2012 18:04

I hate it when the tip is automatically included in the bill, do the staff get that money or does the restaurant?

minikimmi · 31/08/2012 18:04

Remember that minimum wage is VERY low for the under 21 age group, and the service industry is rammed with workers who aren't yet 21.

Nancy66 · 31/08/2012 18:05

Nasal - you don't have to pay service charge.
It usually goes to the 'house' not the server. So if you want to tip it's best to leave cash.

Pekka · 31/08/2012 18:06

We tip in restaurants and taxis. When I was a waitress I found tips embarrassing, I didn't expect to receive them. I didn't like my job so I felt like I never really gave a service to be proud of :)

wherearemysocks · 31/08/2012 18:07

I agree with Welsh actually, I may not go so far as to calling you a cunt , but it is very tight to just decide not to tip.

The service industry is very tough and very low paid, its hard work physically, long hours and you have to put up with some very rude people.

I would love to pay my staff more, but just can't afford to, I manage a bar and restaurant that is part of a chain and so we have very tight controls. Our customers are mainly bankers and traders and are all on very good salaries, they run up tabs on company credit cards that you know they are expensing as they make sure they get a receipt for it and very very few of them ever tip. They are literally getting a free lunch and lots of free drink, and can't even manage to tip a couple of quid to the staff who are on little more than minimum wage and living and paying rent, travel etc in London.

TraineeBabyCatcher · 31/08/2012 18:08

I don't tip unless they have gone out of their way to be helpful or kind.

I didn't tip the midwife for doing her job, or the postman or the lady in Tesco. Everyone gets paid to do a job, we have a minimum wage for a reason.

Imo when you accept a job you accept the wage, you shouldnt have to expect to live off tips and include that in what you expect your income to be.

Nancy66 · 31/08/2012 18:10

wherearemysocks - when a customer leaves a service charge at your establishment does that get passed on to staff?

tittytittyhanghang · 31/08/2012 18:11

As a rule no. Im in a low paid office job and don't expect a tip from clients so why would I tip someone else (possibly in a low paid job, but equally possibly they get paid slightly more than me) for doing their job.

WelshMaenad · 31/08/2012 18:12

If you can't afford bread, why are you wasting your money eating out in the first place. I tend to assume people having a meal in a restaurant can afford to leave a couple of quid as an acknowledgement of good service.

I waitressed from age 16. I didn't qualify for minimum wage. I chose waitressing because working my ass off to earn tips from nice customers bumped my income up to a wage worth working for. Thankfully not many customers chose to make me suffer for their moral outrage that my employers took advantage of young, cheap labour. Bless them.

AgentZigzag · 31/08/2012 18:12

I think the biggest tip was £20 between four of us, we retrospectively loved that man

He's remembered to this day, the OP would have been forgotten before she got out the door.

wherearemysocks · 31/08/2012 18:14

Nancy we don't charge a service charge, and when tips are put on a credit card they are always passed on to staff, though it is through thier payslip so they get taxed on it.

piedaterre · 31/08/2012 18:14

I tip in restaurants so long as the service is up to snuff (very rare I don't). I tip cabbies. I don't tip for beauty treatments or hairdressers as they are so expensive I figure they must be reasonably decently remunerated (unlike waiting staff whom I understand generally are not).

IWantAnotherBaby · 31/08/2012 18:15

This is very interesting. I usually tip the hairdresser (£5-10 on a £50 cut because I'm so pathetically grateful when they get my hair looking halfway decent), and in restaurants (up to 10-15%). I don't tip anyone else (except in an unspoken 'keep-the-change' way with taxis and takeaway delivery people, so very little).

Having read all the above, I will be less likely to tip in restaurants in future unless service is superb.

Nancy66 · 31/08/2012 18:16

wherearemysocks - thanks. At least it's passed on, so many establishments don't even do that.

0lympia · 31/08/2012 18:18

gOOD POINT Englishgirl, are we going to end up being made to feel like tightfisted cunts if we don't tip people in shops. Glad to hear from agent zigzag that waitresses don't always think so badly of people.

GrottyPotPlant · 31/08/2012 18:18

Admittedly, it's a decade since I had a restaurant job, but when I did, there was certainly some kind of loophole which meant that waiting staff were paid less than minimum wage, on the grounds that the difference would be made up in tips. We also had tax withheld on the basis of those hypothetical tips.
So I tip religiously, at least 10perecent, more in cheap places in case they are more likely to be penny-pinching the staff like that. Eating out, getting a cab, having a nice haircut are all things which I don't do if I'm broke, they are hardly crucial to life and limb. If the tip is the thing which is going to bankrupt me, I should probably not have gone in the first place...

BellaVita · 31/08/2012 18:19

We always tip.

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos · 31/08/2012 18:21

That's interesting that if you pay by card waiting staff get taxed on their tips. I'd always left tips in cash if I had it so I knew they got it, but I know how much MN hates tax avoidance of any kind, so in future I will pay all tips on cards.

Original poster

makemineachardonnay · 31/08/2012 18:22

Welsh I usually can leave a few quid. I just don't want to. I just don't agree with the whole 'its expected' culture.
Customers shouldn't have to 'bump up the wages to a wage worth working for.'
I'm sure millions of other workers would also wish their wages were bumped up to a reasonable amount too. I'll use the example of some office work, as they are sometimes low paid but just have to put up with it as they don't have any face to face customers to harass get tips from.
Why waitresses, bar staff etc get their money topped up, but not someone with a filing job in a back office somewhere away from the public?
Are they less deserving? They just get paid for their job that they're doing too.

OP posts:

BlingBubbles · 31/08/2012 18:23

I always tip in restaurants, average service gets 10% anything better slightly more.

I also always tip barman, taxi drivers and delivery people ( pizza, Indian etc)

SweetFannyCraddock · 31/08/2012 18:23

I always used to distribute the tips between th pot boys/girls and waiting staff. Managers and chefs didn't get any.

I always tip. I find the "why should I tip, its not my fault they have low paid jobs" attitude snobby.

Original poster

makemineachardonnay · 31/08/2012 18:25

I'm definitely not a snob. Just tight.

OP posts:

MrsRobertDuvallHasRosacea · 31/08/2012 18:25

I do if the service has been good.
Hairdresser £10
Restaurants about £5-10 depending on how many of us there are

I hate it when places add tip on automatically.

Biccietin · 31/08/2012 18:26

I would always tip in a restaurant it seems rude not to. I'd aim for around 10% minimum.
But I wouldn't tip someone for just bringing me a cup of coffee in a cafe.

Until recently I never realised you were ever expected to tip taxi drivers- but say if it was £9 something I wouldn't expect the change from a tenner. I never used to tip hairdressers until recently for the same reason- I didn't realise it was expected.

I tipped very generously when I got my wedding hair done because I LOVED it and thought it was worth more than what they charged me. And I suppose that's it, if you feel a service is worth more than what its costing, then that's a good reason to tip, but I don't like to feel obliged to tip when its nothing special.

I worked behind a bar once and there were sometimes American customers who would tip, I found it strange, I'd only been polite, stood there and poured a drink, not done anything to deserve a tip. Having done bar work myself I would never tip someone for it!

WelshMaenad · 31/08/2012 18:26

When I worked for part of the Mitchells and Butlers chain waiting staff got to keep tips paid via card, through our paycheck. I preferred it, as I didn't pay tax as a student, whereas the manager used to make us hand over 25% of our cash tips to the 'staff taxi' fund, even if you never used staff taxis (I didn't). Pissed me right off.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5