It only really crossed my mind to do so when there was one of those embarrassing silences just after we'd completed the paperwork, where he was looking at me in what I construed as an expectant fashion.
I didn't, btw
|
IN that case - I wouldnt. Expectant fashion = out of luck in my book.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
I always tip at my local resteraunt. Most of the waitresses are young locals or from Eastern europe. Guess they won't be in the supertax bracket then. Service is always superb, they always go the extra mile.
I won't tip any other service providers.
A friend is a Postie - in the Christmas season he pulls in between £300 and £500 in tips. He is badly paid for the work he does and is a nice bloke so I guess he deserves it.
|
|
I hope (not expect) to be tipped when I drive someone to the airport. Am I better off than the people I drive? Hard to say as I live in a very affluent area.
|
As a point of principal, I very rarely tip anyone, no-one tips me in my job. Why should a taxi driver get a tip for blasting the horn outside my house and then taking me to where I want to go. Thats what the fair is for? And I have heard too many horror stories from the catering industry to know what happens with these tips, or doesn't especially if you put them on your bill.
Recently when I was staying in a very large posh hotel in London, I was dismayed by the amount of tipping and "enforced" situations, like the hotel insisiting in carrying my solitary bag up to the room etc.
I have no problem with receiving good service, and I may be looking at things too deeply, but every one of their "service" staff appeared foreign to me, almost as if the hotel were deliberately trying to say that we Brits were better than these foreigners.
Nice facilities etc but give me a bog standard Travel Lodge any day - I don't need someone employed to open the door of the gents for me!!
|
Well i think alot of the posts just confirm that we Brits are really stressy when it comes to tipping,embaressed,unsure,and not confident to show a small reward as thanks.
A couple of quid goes a long way,especially if you want repeat service.
Try it with the service reception next time you want a job booking in,or a 'quick look'or some 'tech advice'.
As for my binmen,a few fags,cigars,or baccy,that really does work wonders.
|
Perhaps this web site will help
www.tipping.org/TopPage.shtml
As a matter of course I'd always tip a valet parking attendant in the US.....
|
Perhaps this web site will help www.tipping.org/TopPage.shtml
Oh good god, how tragic.
I only tip out of feeling I have too, and I don't like feeling like a Scrooge. I don't get tipped for doing my job, I get this thing called a wage. I imagine they do too. If it's not enough, bully for them. Get another job.
|
Although, to add on: (This can be merged, oh wielders of the Edit button ;-)
I did tip the Peugeot techy who got my locking wheel nuts off within ten minutes, on Christmas Eve! No way I'd begrudge that. And I contact Peugeot to let them know how impressed I was.
|
|
It's never occured to me to tip an RAC bloke. Homestart will always get the offer of a cuppa of course and the best favour I can probably do him is not stand around looking over his shoulder making "helpful" comments, just let him get on with his job.
As for those hotels/bar toilets where there's some poor bloke employed to hand you a towel or tell you where the hand basin is when you're stood next to it in return for a tip...well....a commercial transaction with a stranger in a public toilet is not really on my list of ingredients of a proper night out.
|
As for those hotels/bar toilets where there's some poor bloke employed to hand you a towel or tell you where the hand basin is when you're stood next to it in return for a tip...well....a commercial transaction with a stranger in a public toilet is not really on my list of ingredients of a proper night out.
AAAARGH! Someone pass me my Valium, stat!
|
|
Here's a tip - don't eat yellow snow.
Seriously though, the whole tipping business in the USA is a complicated pain. You have to tip the guy who drives you from the airport, the porter who takes your bags up to your room, the doorman who holds the door open and then if you ask for anything to be brought up to your room the person who brings it. During the day you have to tip for meals, drink at bars and taxi rides.
Every tip on a different "unofficial" percentage that you have to work out!
In the UK much simpler - at restaurants 10% if good service, binmen a four pack at Xmas and the postman a fiver if it's the same guy every day.
|
I thought you tipped 20% at good restaurants?
|
Here's a tip - don't eat yellow snow.
Quite right- don't go where the huskies go.
Americans are at least less uncomfortable with tipping. 15% being the norm in a restaurant, much less than 10% and there's a good chance they'll ask you what was wrong with the service.
|
In the UK much simpler - at restaurants 10% if good service
Unfortunately, some waiters don't understand that "if".
At a meal in an expensive restaurant for a friend's birthday, we had real difficulty getting the waiter's attention, and when we did it still took ages to get any food, requiring more reminders each time. Meanwhile, the other tables were getting great service. Dunno what the issue was, maybe just we weren't regulars.
When we paid the bill, the waiter snootily said "service is not included". We replied in unison "so we noticed".
|
|
maybe you gave them vibes at your table and they were frightened to serve you in case they didnt come up to "your standard"?
|
maybe you gave them vibes at your table and they were frightened to serve you in case they didnt come up to "your standard"?
;P
I doubt it -- we even had to wait to get seated. It was a quie night, the boss was away, and the staff were spending their time with some friends.
|
To quote part of Smokie's message at the top of the page:-
"Who else might you tip, in a motoring context?" {please note the bold bit as a hint!}
DD.
|
I wouldn't tip an RAC man, but I'm practically forced to tip my hairdresser. Blatantly lined up next to the till are a row of mugs each with the name of one of the girls on it. (Yes, I admit to going to a ladies hairdresser ~ there isn't a decent gents hairdresser for miles around.)
--
L\'escargot.
|
Don't worry about going to Ladies hair dressers me to....Only chance i get to flirt with younger ladies. Starting to hone my skills of becoming a dirty old man!
Did complain about the lack of car mags was looked at as though i was off a other planet
|
|
Xileno's wallet is always firmly closed, whether motoring related or not.
|
|
Tipping is almost unknown here in Australia and a very good thing too. I cannot remember the last time I felt a tip was required or expected either in a motoring context or any other.
|
I have tipped a breakdown guy once, because he didn't have to go the way I suggested in order to drop us off before dropping my car off. The super MOntegos' gearbox innards had made a break for freedom on the M1 @ J34 by Sheff. He picked us up & the car. I ideally wanted to be dropped off at a friends' in Cov, then the car to be conveyed back to my home address in Basingstoke. Except that the car would have to go to South Mimms first for some reason and Coventry wasn't really on the way.
Anyway, he did it and I felt that it was worth tipping him for sorting it all out.
But it's the only time I have felt that it was worthwhile.
just my little bit
cheers,
Stu
|
I tried to tip a breakdown recovery man once. He had been persuaded by a friend to turn out for the job, on Christmas Eve, but hadn't been told it would take him 3 hours, and then he'd have to get home again, late at night.
He did the job well and with no complaint, so I offered him £10, which he refused.
I don't normally tip, but special effort deserves special reward, I think.
|
|
In 1983 in Ndjamena, Chad, cheapest and most available hire vehicle was a 50cc moped. Mine got its belts in a twist one day somewhere near the French Embassy. While I was looking at it in mingled puzzlement and disgust a passer-by in immaculate white robe and skullcap rolled his sleeves up and in about three minutes righted the thing with his bare hands. When I thanked him and asked if I could give him anything he refused in a dignified, sober manner. After all he knew the vagaries of these scooters and I didn't. Virtue, he somehow implied without saying anything, is its own reward. Ordinary Muslims often have this rather old-fashioned but refreshing attitude.
|
What I really object to is fly-tipping.
|
Absolutely.
When my clutch cable snapped the recovery guy took me to a nearby spares shop for a replacement,then lay in the wet road and fitted it.I was pleased as it was less hassle than being recovered and having to sort it myself so I bunged him a couple of quid for a drink.I was less pleased when I discovered he had done away with the lever boot.
|
|
Not sure if it still applies, but 15 years ago AA men used to pay income tax on expected gratuities.
|
I have tipped AA patrolmen before, usually to the value of a couple of quid.
Have I been tipped as part of my job?
At the moment, occasionally I get asked to "keep the change" if the client fells I've gone over and above the call of duty. Having said that I do try to go out of my way to help all my customers at least once. If they're not appreciative or I find them difficult then I may treat them as a lower priority next time. If they're good to deal with and pleasent, then next time they're a high priority again.
When I used to work for Herts Rent-a-Car at Heathrow in 86 (when they had their compound within the airport confines) my job was to ferry customers between the terminals and check in.
I was told to give a high standard of service by helping with luggage. The americans tipped more than the rest. The Japanese hardly tipped at all, but this was due to their culture as tipping is or was very rare, only when you've kept staff up at a hotel bar until 3 in the morning. The brits were reasonable as you'd expect. Women tipped a lot less than men, Business and No 1 customers NEVER tipped.
Occasionally customers asked what the accepted practice was. My response was usually along the lines of "It is at your discreasion sir, I am paid an hourly rate and I always try to look after the customers as part of my job". When asked the amount I told them that should they be willing to make a gesture then the amount most often given is £1.
|
I do a fair mileage, and have consequently picked up a number of bullet holes in the windscreen: Seems that it is a standard line in patter after the guy has fixed the chip, that he has saved you a fifty quid insurance excess payment, which you would have had to have paid, if you had needed a new screen.
The illusion is further enhanced by his sucking of air throughout the operation, explaining that it's touch and go whether the screen cracks or not as he pumps in the resin.
Does anyone ever tip these guys, and do the screens ever crack?
|
|
|
|
