About eating out and tipping

[Normalisavariantofcrazy]

I've just endured a meal with the inlaws and fil insisted on rounding the bill up - not to the nearest £10 but to the nearest £20 before splitting it out evenly between us all.

The meal was a set price the only thing that varied it was the drinks.

DH and I only had enough money for our share of the bill (tight month) and yet FIL would not accept this and nearly started a row saying we should pay the extra as it was for a tip, the service was shit tbh and didn't deserve one.

AIBU to be angry with FIL for insisting we spend more money than we had budgeted for a)because he got pissed as a fart and most of the bill was his drinks and b) for him rounding it up without asking

How do you deal with group meals and splitting the bill? This has really upset me as I'm now utterly skint

I hate tipping culture. Being from the US, I was glad there wasn't such a big tipping culture when I moved here. Now it appears to have followed us.

Well, i commented on this thread a day or two ago. Today I saw it was still active so spoke to a friend whose dd waitresses in a local restaurant just like I did years and years ago.

When I waitressed the wage was the lowest of the low - the tips were necessary to make it worth while and were unofficially factored into the wage of the job and with both combined it still paid less than the local factory.

My friend tells me that her dd gets the minimum wage plus tips (which are pooled and paid out with the wages) and this equates to around an average of £11 or £12 per hour (she is early 20s). Not a great wage but pretty good for doing a few shifts around the day job. Sometimes they get really good tips a few more times in a week (50 or 60 pounds) and that increases the average to more.

I still think tipping was originally brought about for the jobs which paid very badly such as the young waiter, the young trainee hair washer etc because their wages were so poor pre nmw. Now because of the nmw, any job where tips are good becomes pretty well paid if averaged out (more than most of us realise I reckon - I know posties can get a lot at Christmas as do refuse drivers).

I am pretty sure that most restauraneurs would prefer people to eat out and not tip (if it is a treat that they can ill afford and the tip makes it seem undoable) rather than have a night in. A lot of pubs, clubs, restaurants, hotels, hairdressers etc have suffered in the recession and just need people to use them. The reality is that they will be paying at least the nmw which is considered reasonable and they charge enough to make a profit from the food and so a tip is not the be all and end all. Customers ARE the be all and end all - without them they fold.

expatinscotland I had no idea you were American.

Nah expat, it's always been here. just depends on the person. I think actually, people used to tip more often-used to be more common to tip binmen, taxi drivers and hairdressers I think. My Grandpa always tipped everyone as I recall.

I wish waiting on was elevated to the profession it is in France. Interesting that someone equated it to "a similar level of job to retail and cleaning" earlier. After living in France for a bit that's not how I see it

I think I agree KatnipEvergreen, if I've interpreted you properly.

But it's not just France. For most London waiters I know it's their career and they take it very seriously and many of them have worked all over the world.

Other waiters and barmen I've met in Italy and Spain don't want to move from their home countries, but it is a well-respected job there. I guess it is in France or other places that I don't go to much.

It's not the same as something you do to earn a bit of extra cash, or in my case, as a social life because my two best friends had just settled down and I was looking for new mates behind the bar of a club that valued attractive amateurs over people who knew how to pour a drink.

Maybe that's the kind of place I go to now. And I appreciate it. But I also appreciate someone in Pizza Express and will leave them a bit.

I can't take seriously people justifying not leaving tips by claiming they used to be a waiter for a couple of years and didn't get any and didn't expect them. Really?

And as for those people saying they reward only excellent service: do you also hold up score cards like in dance shows?

I can't take seriously people justifying not leaving tips by claiming they used to be a waiter for a couple of years and didn't get any and didn't expect them. Really?

Yes, really. Why can't you take that seriously? In what way is reflecting on one's own experience and using it to inform an opinion not valid? And I think people are telling the truth about having waited tables, not 'claiming' to have done so. I know I am.

And as for those people saying they reward only excellent service: do you also hold up score cards like in dance shows?

No. And why do you keep talking about this in exaggerated terms: 'dance shows'; 'tap dance'?

I can't take seriously people justifying not leaving tips by claiming they used to be a waiter for a couple of years and didn't get any and didn't expect them. Really? Uhm, yes? Can't stand people like this that try to just make out we all MUST be lying. Why on earth would I expect a tip?! I got paid minimum wage, if I got a tip it was nice, if I didn't well boo hoo, some might not have that extra 10% to tip and to be frank, it's none of my fucking business.

expatinscotland is from the US????????

That is easily the most shocking and interesting thing on this whole thread. On all of MN tonight, I bet and

I was a barperson. I was competent; more than competent in fact, considering some of the people I worked with who couldn't add up and used to run the dishwasher on cold so they could get away early, which was disgusting.

I gave good service and would always turn down 'and one for yourself, love' because that wasn't why I was working there and it wasn't my career.

But if it was, I'd have taken the tip and either pocketed it or stuck it in the jar.

But I cannot pretend that I was a professional waiter and I've noticed only one or two people here who are.

They've said they like tips and disapprove of people who don't leave them. I'm going to go with what they said.

The people I really disliked as a waitress were people you ran around after all night - invariably larger groups who tend to be more demanding. Particularly those who got really drunk and lairy, waving their arms about so you could hardly get round them to set the food down. Then they'd basically empty their wallet of small change as a tip.

I didn't mind people leaving a couple of pound coins, even if it wasn't 10%.

I knew she was American! I want to say Mexican American?? Or am I thinking of someone else? I never normally remember anything like that though

Why would it make a difference to someone tipping whether you were long- or short-term, limited? What was the point of not taking tips just because it wasn't your career?

I don't get what your problem is with people who are not long-term/professional waiters, or who used to wait tables/work at bars and don't now. And how are you so sure which people on here are professionals, anyway?

And the opinion that 'they like tips and disapprove of people who don't leave them' might not apply to all professional waiters. It might be the personal opinion of a couple of people on here.

If I heard waiting staff at a restaurant discussing tips and who they approved of and didn't, I'd think a lot less of the place. That's not professional or decent behaviour IMO.

Really, wankwings?

I have friends who are professional waiters and cooks who definitely discuss tips and how to divvy them up.

As a customer it concerns me too.

At an extremely high end restaurant I left £20 on the table because of good food and good service.

The manager, not the waiter, slipped it in his pocket while smoothly chatting me up.

That was three years ago. I'm never going to go in there again. I hope the staff go somewhere else.

Do you understand my tipping policy now and why if people don't adhere it it I won't go back there? Probably not.

Went out for tea tonight. DP paid. No too. Recalling this thread I mentioned it to him. His response was he'd tip for exceptional service but not normal service. They're paid to do their job already and he barely earns more ph.

Maybe tipping of everyone is something for the well off?

No too = no tip

I said discussing tips and customers 'at a restaurant' e.g. if, as a customer, they discussed it within earshot of customers. Obviously people talk about that sort of thing outside work. Although I never did, personally.

I didn't mention people talking about how to divvy tips up, either. I don't care about that.

I don't understand from your last post what your tipping policy is; therefore I also don't understand how people adhere to it or don't. I'm not being deliberately obtuse. I don't get how your example of a manager pocketing a whole tip is relevant to what I thought was the main discussion: to tip or not, how much, and what exactly warrants a tip.

The snarky little 'Probably not' at the end is unpleasant and unwarranted. It makes me feel as though you think I'm stupid, but I'm just trying to understand your points so we can discuss.

Tipping the binman...20k a year job ++++

and some got 500 per xmas!

I'm surprised that binpeople are allowed to accept tips, considering that they are public sector workers and this is normally a big no no.

OK, doing the bins can be a bit dirty, but considering that just about everyone has wheelie bins these days, its a piece of piss compared to how it used to be.

refuse men - £20k!!!! And the rest .... !

They get a lot more than that here. A LOT more.

I went on the bins for a while. Christmas was goooooodd!!!!! But that was back in the days where you could sell stuff on that was left out as well.

Its a bit stricter now - but pays better!

And its not a piece of piss - a lot of refuse men/women hate the plastic bins - it takes longer, is more complicated if over full etc. Picking up a bag and throwing it in the back of the lorry was fast, easy and usually fine.

Its quite a hard job - the older workers struggle a bit as the youngsters want to rush round to finish early (and go onto their second job in the afternoon!!). Its cold and you need to be fit.

There's another forum that I frequent that had a thread that included a worldwide guide to tipping.

Most countries had two or three lines. The UK needed a whole essay to explain the situation:-

www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/738653-foreign-tipping-guide-country-region.html

Those who tip for exceptional or above and beyond service what sort of things would mean you left a tip?

Offering a sympathetic smile and kindly offering to push your pushchair to the table because your tantrumming 2 year old was refusing to follow you? Chatting to your toddler trying to distract them, offering balloons, colouring sheets. Getting replacement colouring sheets when she ripped the first one to shreds and replacement balloons when she popped them on the wooden beams?

Fussing over children. Asking names/ages/commenting on their drawings/what they liked doing/making special ice creams with sprinkles and flakes that didn't come as standard. Saying how well behaved, patient, polite, well mannered they were?

Offering to split your bill into 2 bills so you could take advantage of 2 separate offers that can't be used in conjunction with one another?

Informing you of a way to order your meal differently that will result in getting the same items but in a cheaper way?

These were all things I witnessed when out for a meal yesterday that I thought were excellent service but none of those tables left a tip.

I always tip (generally) UNLESS very bad service, partly out of habit and partly as I know wait people can get less salaries generally than rest of us.

But if you don't have the money don't do it and ignore PIL comments.

nappyaddict, yes, certainly any of those things, and also general warmth, chatting and being attentive without being intrusive; anything that I felt was above and beyond 'just doing the job'.

It's very sad that none of the people you describe left a tip. I hope the waiting staff have other customers who are more appreciative.

I'm not entirely sure that a waiter should be tipped, since tu do get NMW. And a lot of the time the only interaction you have is they take your order and bring your drinks and food.

That said, I do tip. And would leave 20% if the waiter had been oarticually helpful or if we had been hard work eg large group.

I think that this attitude is a luxury, and if I was renting NMW myself I sure as fuck wouldn't be tipping a waiter!