Stingy restaurant behaviour has given me the ick

[HazelSchmazel]

This afternoon, I went on a second date with a guy I met on Tinder. Wasn't too sure after the first date, but I thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

We had a nice meal and the bill was in the region of £50. When it was time to pay, I placed £30 (cash) in the middle of the table on the basis of £25 for my share and a £5 tip (our shares of food and drink were pretty much 50/50). He then proffered my £30 to the waiter, together with his credit card and said 'put £20 on my card'. So the poor waiting staff get no tip and my £5 effectively goes into his pocket!!! Uuuurgh - instant ick!

I should have said something, but I just wanted to get the fuck away from the knuckle dragger asap! Plus I was temporarily deaf from the thunderclap of my fanny slamming shut.

Now snuggled up with my cat, a bar of chocolate and am planning a Netflix binge, together with a future life of celibacy. Bliss!

Anyone else with a story of financially induced ick?

… they don’t though, they get more, because it’s customary to tip waiting staff. If you would like a job that gets you tips on top of your wage, get a waiting job in a nice restaurant. Provide excellent service and you will receive great tips.
Can you see what I’m getting at here?

It isn’t normal to tip in food places in the uk in my experience, or in the experience of many other posters on the thread.

Clearly there isn’t one set ‘normal’ when it comes to tipping- it must vary by region or culture or class or something.

A lot of my friends just wouldn’t be going out of they had to add 10% to the cost- it’s a rare treat for many people as it is.

Why would it be customary? Why do waiting staff deserve extra money but shop workers don’t? It’s such a weird belief.

I tip for service, usually for things I can’t currently afford (restaurants, hair etc) but agree with pps the nmw needs to be enough to live on comfortably without the govt letting employers like Tesco pay staff peanuts

I imagine it is to encourage exemplary service. It’s not quite the same as shop workers unless the shop worker is looking after you for an hour or two. I also didn’t invent the fact that it’s customary…
You can tip shop workers if you want. Nobody’s stopping you. A friend used to work in a luxury goods store, and they shut the store one evening so that someone wealthy could shop alone. She served him for an hour or two and he tipped her £10k!

I would've spoken up at the time, told the server I was paying half the bill and the balance of my £25 was a tip for service. I wouldn't have accepted him saying put £20 on my card when that didn't even cover his share of the food.

I accidentally got back together with an old flame once - big mistake.
We went for a meal after work that happened to be in the week of his birthday. Not agreed as a birthday meal. Not specified as me treating him. He proceeded to order the most expensive steak on the menu.
When the bill came, he simply didn’t get out his wallet. When I produced mine, he said “awww thanks so much for getting this, yay, happy birthday me”.
Triple shudder - meanness, the baby talk, adult man expecting special treatment for a whole “birthday week”

In the UK, it is both normal to tip and normal not to. Most of my friends and family pay the bill, or if fully in cash, then rounded up. I don't want to be tipped by an equal. I think it's an odd practice for a waitperson in a pub to be tipped by a careworker or factory worker.

I couldn't not tell him OP.

This is good:

PyongyangKipperbang · Today 19:55
Dont ghost.

think of it as doing him a favour. "I dont want to see you again. The fact is that I left my half of the bill and a tip, you took the waiters tip to pay part of your half of the bill. That is very stingy and deeply unattractive, I suggest you think about that on future dates."

I expect people to do a decent job of whatever their job is- be that waitress or GP.

The idea that waiting staff won’t do a decent job unless they get given extra money is actually quite insulting- the ones I know provide good service because that is their job and they are reasonable people like anyone else.

Haha, love the 'fanny snapping shut' part.
Yeah, the fact it seemed like he was probably delighted to have profiteered a fiver?!
I'd have said, in front of the waiter, 'no, a fiver of that is my tip for our lovely waiter. Are you not leaving him a tip?' gawd. Why do they do it?

This thread has really been derailed by the posters manically tipping, giving absolutely no thought to the fact that many people in the UK are on NMW - the same as waiting staff - and that tipping isn't a requirement here. It is in the states but, we are not in the states.

It's tone deaf for them to keep banging on about it, leave them with their 'icks'. It's partly why the service here generally isn't good, too many lady bountiful types with their shrapnel change. I tip really well but for excellent, not mediocre, service.

I imagine OP has long dusted off her hands and purse from this one now.

Its not immoral to tip—and its for damn sure not some kind of worker’s solidarity not to tip. Waistaff in the US don’t get minimum wage and are essentially on comission. They are taxed on their tips and tips are often stolen by management. In addition often wait staff don’t get to work a full time job but only pick up shifts so even if they were paid minimum wage (which they are not in the US) they likely would not be making the same salary as a full time employee.

We were discussing the UK, where waiting staff are on at least NMW.

Many NMW workers are on zero hours contracts or part time contracts (for instance dinner ladies, office cleaners or delivery drivers).

If these people want to tip waiting staff who earn the same as them than that’s lovely- but it’s unreasonable to expect them to or to describe them as tight if they don’t.

I’m not so sure that the wage of the workers being the same has anything to do with it?

Lots of things cost more than my hourly wage—such as hair cuts, massages, catering at a party, musicians that I might hire. Yet these things all get tipped (at least in the US).

If I can’t afford the service plus the tip I don’t take it.

P.S. There will be no future dates with me.

my Nan would say ‘tighter than a ducks arse’

Did you reply yet?

It sounds as if you're in the US, pikkumyy77 so you're comparing apples with oranges as it's not the same situation in the UK. We have national minimum wage here and many people are paid this and no more. There is zero sense in someone on this wage having to tip another person also on this wage by dint of them being waiting staff.

It's all well and good to say that if you can't afford the tip then you don't have the service but that's your situation (in the US) and it's not relevant here. Anybody suggesting that someone shouldn't go out to eat because they can't afford a tip would rightly get thought of as a dick - and ignored.

The answer to not tipping isn't to not go out altogether - that is the route to getting businesses closed down (in the UK).

It's quite confusing when American posters refer to and extrapolate their own practices on a UK scenario.

Oh my goodness, really sounds like he was hoping you'd pay the whole bill! Well rid

We aren’t talking about the US.

Tipping doesn’t have the same cultural position in the UK.

Its not considered necessary to give extra money on top of what you have been charged here- its fine to consider that whatever service you are buying has been charged at the rate the provider is happy to receive.

The parity in income is relevant because paying over the price voluntarily implies you have extra money-which many people don’t- so why would anyone who has the same income as you expect you to give them money on top of what you have earned?

Not yet - still dithering!!!

My extook me out for 2 coffees during our 4 years together. One was at macdonalds. Fuck he was mean.

I worked as a waitress for a long time. Doing a good job is how you keep your job and earn your wage. Doing an exemplary job, going the extra mile, is how you earn your tips.

No, he’s a fucking tight arse who is too mean to tip or pay his share.

Why are so many people having conniptions over a tenner?

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he wasn't thinking about a tip (could be several reasons for that, not all of them bad) and he just did the maths. Not in a miserly way. Just saw the bill was 50 quid, she put down 30 quid so there was 20 quid left to put down.

This is possible. And there are too many people on here expecting the man to pay for everything. One is too many.

If the guy is, indeed, miserly then sod him. But it might not be the case. Just think about it.