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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Tipping is not the done thing.

546 replies

Lyndaishistory · 10/08/2018 20:01

You are not expected to tip in the UK! I'm not sure why some people think otherwise.
I would only tip if service was above and beyond but it is not an expectation and I wouldn't "cave" if it was crap service.

Husband and I had a rubbish meal at a well known resturant chain for our anniversary. I complained at the time but nothing was done about it.
Left husband to pay the bill and he tipped them. Bloody hell, I want my fiver back!
Seriously considering LTB over this.

OP posts:
Everyoneiswingingit · 13/08/2018 11:56

Do you tip the checkout person at Tesco? What about the cinema staff?Old fashioned and shouldn't be encouraged imo.

user1457017537 · 13/08/2018 13:59

Well I’ve just been out and there was a 12.5% service charge added. So I suppose we will all be paying in the future just not as a “tip”. It was discretionary but apart from one occasion I have never asked for it to be removed. I think service today was perfunctory but I can’t really be bothered to make a point.

LoveInTokyo · 13/08/2018 15:38

In the UK they get paid minimum wage, just the same as shop assistants, hairdressers, bartenders

I tip hairdressers and sometimes bartenders too.

Retail is an easier job and you're unlikely to be working antisocial hours for minimum wage. If it was just minimum wage and no tips I'd work in a shop over a restaurant any day.

Original poster
Lyndaishistory · 13/08/2018 16:33

Retail is an easier job

I wouldn't assume one job is easier than the other.

OP posts:
BarbaraofSevillle · 13/08/2018 16:37

I wonder if the people who work in 24 hour supermarkets agree that they aren't working anti social hours? Or those who are there for 5 am starts to the Next Sale on Boxing Day?

At least supermarket checkout staff get to sit down all day, but ergonomically, shifting all those sacks of cat litter, multipacks of coke, mineral water etc while seated must play havoc with the back, shoulders and arms, so it's probably far from easy and I bet there isn't a checkout operator in the land who doesn't have upper limb disorders.

LoveInTokyo · 13/08/2018 16:39

I wonder if the people who work in 24 hour supermarkets agree that they aren't working anti social hours?

You don't get minimum wage for night shifts.

OliviaStabler · 13/08/2018 17:26

Retail is an easier job and you're unlikely to be working antisocial hours for minimum wage.

I've done both and you are very much incorrect.

LoveInTokyo · 13/08/2018 17:32

I've done both too. No comparison.

Original poster
Lyndaishistory · 13/08/2018 19:26

Retail is an easier job and you're unlikely to be working antisocial hours for minimum wage. If it was just minimum wage and no tips I'd work in a shop over a restaurant any day.

I've done both too. No comparison.

So why suggest that there is?

OP posts:
Janni01 · 13/08/2018 20:55

What about care, minimum wage, working with vulnerable people, have to wash and care for them etc and get minimum wage, no tips

KERALA1 · 14/08/2018 22:35

Fgs why still banging on comparing care workers, shop assistants and waiters? Waiting staff traditionally get tips at the end of the meal. You can dispute the rights and wrongs of that but in our culture that's just how it is. Picking apart why other jobs don't receive tips is irrelevant and pointless its neither here nor there comparing apples and oranges. Why are any jobs paid more than others? Why is my friend in advertising paid more than a nurse? None of it stands up to examination does it? Cultural expectation for many of us is that waiters are tipped what else is there to say?!

Janni01 · 14/08/2018 22:56

Why do they get tips? What's the actual reason you tip? Why is it expected?

People say they're poorly paid, well so is every other single minimum wage worker.

They work really hard, as do many other workers and theybdont get tipped.

They provide a really personal service, so do carers etc and they don't get tipped.

That's why I'm comparing them, the reasons given for tipping should really mean that every other nmw worker should get tips but they don't. Why is that?

KERALA1 · 14/08/2018 23:31

I didn't say those reasons are why people tip. It is customary for many of us to tip waiters. Why do you say please and thank you, why do you stand up when a new person joins a group, why do you wait until everyone else is served before starting to eat. I can't explain any of those but I was brought up to understand that is how to behave and tipping when in a restaurant is in that category to me so what someone else gets paid for doing a different job entirely is utterly irrelevant.

Janni01 · 14/08/2018 23:52

And onwas brought up to do all them except tip. And again why is it that we're bright up that way? All others show respect and are kind decent things to do.

But why is giving someone a top up to there wage ok for one group of people but jot another?

KERALA1 · 15/08/2018 06:14

Because it is seen as polite, customary and culturally acceptable for many of us. As above no one can explain exactly the precise.reason "why" things become a cultural norm they just are for many of us. Why do women wear skirts? Weird weird thing to be so exercised about.

BrewDoggy · 15/08/2018 07:03

I usually tip unless the service is extremely awful. However, I'll tip if I want to. I won't tip if I want to. Some superior people here who force others to tip or look down on people who can't afford to tip, you're a pain in the ass. Who the fuck care what you think anyway? Sneer at the next table if you want but I'll do what I believe is right.

sweetsomethings · 15/08/2018 19:29

Retail workers don’t work unsocial hours don’t make me laugh . Getting up at 2am on Boxing Day to work the sales yes that’s totally sociable. Or working till midnight in the big retail parks . Isn’t that the same time as most restaurants close? Same hours .

XingMing · 16/08/2018 21:53

As a student, on a holiday job, I worked as a waitress in Debenhams for the summer. From 9.00 until the store closed. If it rained we were full all day and sold out of everything, including toast one day (it was a damp summer that year). There was no dishwasher (that was me). Mostly customers were lovely. Some left a few pennies, some (a few I love) left 50p. I got several job offers, selling stuff (cars mostly). And now, I always tip, because on those tips I went on a very cheap holiday with my mum, boyfriend and great aunt. It was a great holiday, but not the stuff that would get FB likes now. Still memorable.

KERALA1 · 17/08/2018 10:21

My student job was at Spud U Like. As a new starter I got the worst job (chopping onions) and my lunch break was at 4pm. Happy days!

CSIblonde · 17/08/2018 12:07

Tipping is definitely a thing in the UK. I tip when I can afford to. I still remember look on pizza boys face when I gave him a £5tip (I had v good job at time). He looked so young & so worn down/tired, but his face just lit up & he couldn't thank me enough. I was really touched. I don't feel uncomfortable tipping now. (used to worry re amount etc)

OliviaStabler · 17/08/2018 12:20

Spud U Like

There's a blast from the past!

user1457017537 · 17/08/2018 14:02

CSIBlonde it’s nice to do that isn’t it. Sometimes you know it makes all the difference.

swanlife · 17/08/2018 14:34

Working as a waitress this holiday (Saving money for uni to avoid having to take out too much debt. A science degree from a good uni. Not a Micky mouse one thanks 😉). Tipping isn't obligatory and I don't wish ill to anyone who doesn't but it does of course help us out (money is money) and we really appreciate it. The customers I do get a bit frustrated at are the customers who go off menue with bizarre requests (making you run back and forth to the kitchen multiple times ) order drinks with multiple steps (to be done the Exact way they say) and then sit there for three hours when we're clearly full and have people waiting to be seated. Then don't tip. We're the ones that get shouted at when there's no room. Not the slow eating demanding customers!

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 17/08/2018 16:33

Why would tipping make any difference to that, swanlife? If a customer sits for three hours then you can't seat anybody else - regardless. Slow eaters - ditto. Whether they tip or not?

What's it to do with you, exactly?

The more posts I see on this thread about tipping and the entitlement that some people feel towards it really makes me feel uncomfortable in the way that some seem to feel that a 'tip' makes everything acceptable when it clearly isn't. Either something is wrong or it isn't - money won't (and shouldn't) make that 'ok', should it?

As waiting staff, you're limited by what you can earn. That's no different to many other jobs - your salary is your salary. Not just your post but all the others too - nothing you've said suggests anything 'over and above', you're doing your job and getting paid for it. Just as the rest of us do.

The fact that you have an outdated convention that obligates some people to tip you for doing your paid job doesn't mean that it's going to carry on forever and the sooner it dies out, the better. Your (general) employers should be improving working conditions where they need improving. If they charge more to customers directly and openly, then I'd be happier about that - they'd make waiting staff's lives better so win/win.

Buswankeress · 17/08/2018 20:06

@Lyinwitchinthewardrobe

Your post there has me all sorts of conflicted Grin

Why would tipping make any difference to that, swanlife? If a customer sits for three hours then you can't seat anybody else - regardless. Slow eaters - ditto. Whether they tip or not?

What's it to do with you, exactly?

Well, the front line waiting staff are the ones that get the hassle when there's no table, or when a table was vacated 3.6 seconds before and someone is complaining it's not been cleared and they want to sit there because you haven't had time to walk to the table from the other side of the restaurant and don't apparate...... And then the customers who ignore the wait to be seated sign, jump on the only free table and raise merry hell when you point out the bloody obvious reserved sign and there's no where else to sit..... So it does have a lot to do with the waiting staff because we deal with that, and often it'll get personal too.

That said, I think you're absolutely right that tipping does not excuse behaving like a twat. As I've said in previous posts, I'd rather someone was polite and reasonable but left no tip than downright rude and left a large tip - feels like they're paying to treat me like shit which doesn't sit right at all.

they charge more to customers directly and openly, then I'd be happier about that - they'd make waiting staff's lives better so win/win.

Only it won't go to the waiting staff in the majority of cases, I agree with doing it openly and honestly but I don't think it'd work like that to be honest, I think it'd get swallowed by the establishment.

You're also right I think about not expecting tips or relying on them - I don't, they are massively appreciated when they are given, but I budget with my wage not wage and tips.

I don't think anyone should feel pressed into giving a tip, regardless of the level of service given.

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