To think the US tipping culture is completely alien to British people

[Butterflyfluff]

Inspired by a thread about spending money in NYC but it’s what puts me off going to US or Caribbean again.

It seems everything has to be tipped

• All food servers
• Toilet attendants
• Room cleaning each day
• Every drink service, even in an all inclusive hotel
• Meal, even in a buffet where you serve yourself
• Basically anything where someone else is doing something for you

Why is this so ‘expected’?

ComtesseDeSpair - True, but I'm referring to UK MNers telling people in the UK that they 'can't afford' to do or buy something because they only have enough money to pay the actual price of it.

....I see what you mean about my use of the phrase 'common sense', though - that was purely in a UK context and probably not the best phrase to use.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I paid my bookkeeper a bonus this year above her hourly rate because I was really happy with the work she had done for me and I thought she deserved something extra.

She was very happy to accept it.

I've been confusing: my apologies.

First, @ofwarren : no, I don't tip delivery drivers like Amazon. But I do tip for takeaway food delivery, like Deliveroo in the UK or GrubHub in the US.

Second, I deeply regret making the house comment, @Butterflyfluff, because now I'm going to have to explain it and look, as I said, like an absolute dickhead: no, of course I don't tip my hosts if I go to stay somewhere. But if you're invited to a country house for a party and staff looks after you, it's appropriate to tip. It's something my grandmother was very firm on.

As for the person who asked how you reconcile the arguments that you tip in America because the servers need to be paid to the argument that NYC bartenders make pots of money...it depends where? Someone working at a WaffleHouse in rural New Hampshire or a diner in Kansas is probably poor and needs the money. Someone serving at Jean-Georges is probably doing fine.

Anyway, tipping isn't the reason it's expensive to visit America. Yes, you should add 15-20% on top of meals and leave $5-10 on the dresser when you check out of a hotel. But, in comparison, the tax rate on your food will be about 8% rather than the 20% VAT. (Not saying I approve; this is just true.)

It's expensive, at least in the moment, because the pound is absolute shit due to a terrible approach of shock supply-side economics coupled a lack of manufacture due to Brexit that makes the blow impossible to cushion. Oh, and a weird decision to do all this whilst increasing national debt so the population doesn't freeze. That's the reason it's very expensive in America.

Loads of British people come on these threads to claim tipping is alien to our culture and their refusal to take part in it is a stand for human dignity.

(a) it's not and (b) they are tight as a duck's arsehole.

I don’t. If I’m paying £50 just for a haircut (and a bit of styling), I consider myself to have paid for the service. The entire price is for that service. So I don’t understand what the tip is even for, beyond making me feel like some generous lady bountiful helping the poor (which isn’t how I’d feel anyway; I’d just feel weird and award).

If you were a low-paid worker, do you think you’d prefer to queue up at the food bank because your wages didn’t stretch far enough to feed you, or to accept tips from customers to whom you’d provided a good service? I don’t know many who’d choose the former because they’d feel humiliated by Lady Bountiful - which in any case, isn’t how tipping is understood in the US: because it’s an unwritten expectation that a service charge is paid on top of a bill, workers consider it part of a fair exchange and so it doesn’t feel like being tossed a few coins from upon high, which is essentially what making it an unusual expectation does in the UK.

That was me.

We children were not expected to fund or leave the tip but we were shown how to do it and why. Just as our parents taught us decent table manners, how to pack a suitcase, hail a cab and other life skills. We traveled quite a bit.

If I was a low paid worker I’d rather my employer added the % to the cost of whatever product/service I’m providing, and add that to my wages as standard.

And as a low paid worker knowing that they are very unlikely to do that? You’d still prefer a customer not to tip you?

I worked in hospitality years ago and I definitely didn’t find tips humiliating. If a customer had asked me if I’d like a tip or find it humiliating, I’d have responded that a tip would be much appreciated. If you believe it to be the case that tipping is humiliating then when you go out for a meal why don’t you ask your server whether they’d like a tip or feel humiliated by it, and tip or not according to their response?

It’s one thing to say you just don’t like or want to tip. It’s another to dress it up as being for the benefit of the staff that you don’t.

Last time I was in the UK, I happened to have a £50 note and was wondering what to do with it as most places won’t accept them. I was on my own and after a really nice meal, with a great waiter, I said that if he wouldn’t mind giving me change for the £50, I’d give him an American-style tip. You’ve never seen anyone move so fast. It worked out for both of us. 😂

Oh God, the US tipping culture is horrible.

Stressing about accidentally forgetting to tip.
Stressing about how much to actually tip (while wondering silently, "This is supposed to be my leisure time; why am I doing the restaurant's employee payroll admin work for them?")
The embarassment of actually leaving the tip and trying not to notice their eyes darting towards the money, and feeling like Lady Bountiful
Ghastly gushing service from waiters. Leaping over to fill up your glass of water every time you take a sip, making silly sycophantic comments and faking interest in you as a person.
Guilt at the fact that the person serving you is being forced to bounce around like a performing dolphin just to get paid.
Blatant unfairness--people in non customer facing roles don't get tips.

Just increase service costs to cover better wages, please.

"Hotandbothereds
If I was a low paid worker I’d rather my employer added the % to the cost of whatever product/service I’m providing, and add that to my wages as standard."*

And as a low paid worker knowing that they are very unlikely to do that? You’d still prefer a customer not to tip you?*

Sorry posted too soon
But they manage to do this perfectly well in countries that don't have a tipping culture like Japan and someone upthread said Australia too.

Rather than a meal or service being $50 dollars + $10 tip the cost d the meal/service comes to $60. Everyone knows what they're paying and what they're getting paid.
I've certainly never heard of people in Japan or Australia receiving particularly bad service

It’s one thing to say you just don’t like or want to tip. It’s another to dress it up as being for the benefit of the staff that you don’t.

@ComtesseDeSpair quite.

Exactly, everyone knows what the price is, everyone knows what their take home pay is, it’s easiest all round and no need for anything to be a tip.

In that scenario there’s no need for a tip, the total cost is in the bill to the customer and the company pays their employee a proper wage.

From the UK and travelled to New York for a city break with my DH and my parents. We went to an upmarket restaurant which was basically a disaster from the moment we walked in.

Soup was bland, chicken starter arrived undercooked and the drinks server spilled a tray of drinks down my dad's back. Waiting times for the correct items to come out was ridiculous so we cancelled our mains due to such a bad experience. Bill arrives and I pay (there's nothing discounted), it comes to about $48 and I put down a $50 dollar bill and just get up to leave (the two dollars wasn't a tip as such given the experience, but was happy to leave it so we could just leave).

The waiter follows me, and says you've made a mistake, when I ask what he means, he has the cheek to say, you forgot to tip me. Incredulous as 1. His cheek and 2. His cheek in light of the experience we had, I explain to him that the evening has been awful, my father now needs to go back to the hotel and change as he's wet from drinks spilling and we have to find another restaurant to eat given nothing was edible. He then continues to say, BUT THAT'S NOT MY FAULT... You are complaining about the quality of the food and the drink service, not the service I provided. I, in no uncertain terms, told him where to go with his request!

The entitlement to the tip was staggering!!

Tipping is poor etiquette in Japan, but he absence of it doesn’t result in higher wages: hospitality workers, with the exception of those who work in very upmarket places, are still generally minimum wage workers, and you can’t live well on minimum wage in most Japanese cities any more than you can in most UK or US ones. I can’t speak for Australia, I’ve never been, but Australian friends don’t give me the impression that ordinary hospitality workers are particularly well paid. Perhaps some Australian MNers could clarify.

To be honest, I’m not especially bothered whether the price of a dish on the menu in Tokyo is listed at the equivalent of $40 and that’s what I pay; or whether the price of a dish on the menu in San Fran is listed at $30 and I know that a service charge for the benefit of the staff is expected on top of that and it will ultimately cost me about $40 anyway. Either way, I’ve paid $40. I’m pretty basic like that. And because I’ve been told once and have a decent memory, I don’t have the problems other MNers claim to, like forgetting to tip when I’m in the US or having to worry what amount is expected. Call me a genius. What I dislike, is people pretending that not tipping is taking an impassioned stance against low wages which will ultimately benefit said staff because the employer will increase their wages. It isn’t true in the UK, it isn’t true in Japan, and there’s no reason to expect it would suddenly become so in the US if tipping were not expected.

It's just the way things are priced there

Tax and service are always added to the base price

Every shop adds state tax (they vary, but if you base on 10% should be covered)

Restaurant menu prices are for the food ONLY. Service and tax are separate, approx 20% and 10% respectively.
Service charge is not just a 'tip' it is you paying for the order to be taken, food to be plated and delivered, crockery and glasses removed and washed etc.

Look at the menu and add 30% - if you can't afford that, eat somewhere cheaper

Yes it's different to the UK, but that doesn't give people the right to just ignore how it's done - that's their way/culture!

I get if you don't like it, then don't go - but don't go and then moan about it! It's not like it's a secret

Hate the tipping culture in the states and so much false service. Also seems more have started adding a service charge as well

Have to say didn't find any tipping in the Caribbean - been to Barbados, St Maarten and Anguilla.

OK, so I worked all my adult life in the public sector, we were forbidden from taking any gifts from customers.( I agree with that BTW) I did a stressful job with a lot of responsibility because I enjoyed it. I wasn't paid a huge amount, although on the upside, of course, I got a good pension. Many times I went to get my hair cut etc and I thought ' I bet you earn more than me!' as I handed over a tip. Yes, I could have tried to get better paid work, I agree ,but the fact is that I still had to get my hair cut, or my eyebrows threaded etc, and I was having to tip . Why is that the case, when other trades /professions don't? Can someone explain why we do it for some and not others? I didn't tip the heating engineer the other day, but he did get tea whenever he wanted!

@KTKismet

It doesn't sound like great service and absolutely you are within your rights not to tip. But an explanation is due.

And personally, if I had suffered such bad service at an "upmarket" restaurant then I would have asked to talk to the manager and for a change of waiter/waitress long before it got to that stage.

There may be a cultural thing in the respect that UK people might prefer to avoid confrontation and slip off without paying a tip, rather than actually stay and explain why they were so unhappy with the service.

Agree.

Here's an interesting article about what happened when restaurants raised prices and implemented no-tipping policies.

www.eater.com/21398973/restaurant-no-tipping-movement-living-wage-future