Tipping for personal services

I’ve heard that cows should be tipped 50 degrees, but that may be udder nonsense.

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@aetris @walarney Cow tipping.
/wootstalker https://shirt.woot.com/offers/cow-tipping

Cow Tipping
Price: $19.00
Condition: New

@lichme With Groupons you’re supposed to tip on the actual cost of the service rather than the Groupon amounts. But that can be pretty huge. For example, this massage is supposedly $50 regular price, but it’s $20 on Groupon. So a 20% tip on the regular price is a 50% tip on what I’m paying for the service. Also I often feel like the “regular price” is often exaggerated to make Groupon look like a great deal.

Charge what you need to to cover wages, so I don’t have to deal with it.

@lichme Not gonna happen anytime soon. 18 states are still going by the $2.13 minimum wage for tipped employees set back in 1991. 30 states are under $4 hour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_States

@narfcake However, most (if not all) states require companies to bring any employee wage to (normal) minimum wage if their wage+tips come in at under minimum wage. Even if you decide to tip 0%, and everybody else does as well, that employee will still make at least regular minimum wage.

@lichme @moondrake If I buy a Groupon for something that will require tipping, I always look at the normal prices a company charges so I know what to base my tip off. They may ‘actually’ charge $30 or $40 for that service that Groupon says is $50. Personally, I do tend to tip a little extra on things where I’m saving a lot of money. I have easy hair to cut so I go to a Great Clips. Every fall they offer a card where you can purchase prepaid cuts. Instead of the normal $16, they’re $10 each and I buy enough for a year’s worth of cuts. If I paid $16 I would most likely just give them a $20 and tell them to keep the change. As it is, I swipe the card and tip the stylist $5. They always seem happy and I still save 25% off my total cost each time.

@lichme Correct … if they’re fully abiding by the law.

@lichme @narfcake During my sole stint at a service job when I worked at a pizza chain as a waitress, it was made manifestly clear to us that we were expected to report that we were receiving tips adequate to the minimum wage. If not we wouldn’t have jobs, and they’d use the poor tips as evidence of poor work. None of us actually made up the difference, especially those who got stuck working the lunch buffet. People often don’t tip on the buffet, yet servers still have to work those hours pouring drinks, bussing tables, and in our case doing food prep and washing dishes.

@moondrake @narfcake I get it, and it happens pretty frequently. Speak up and lose your job, or don’t and lose your wages. That’s part of the reason why the system is so messed up. My advice to somebody in that situation would be to file a complaint with the Department of Labor (or equivalent). Not sure if you can do it anonymously or not. Even though most places are employment at-will, firing somebody for retaliation is a big no-no. That doesn’t mean that they can’t find a BS reason to fire you after the fact, but it makes it a lot harder.

I also understand that not everybody has the option to go somewhere else and some people desperately need the work, but I wouldn’t want to work somewhere with these shady practices.

@Seeds Curious as to how much, if at all, you tip when service is sub par/terrible.

@lichme In a restaurant? Now I don’t do this often, but when I do, usually about 15%, rounded down- lower than that and I start to feel bad. I have to admit last weekend I tipped the waiter 10%, but he was seriously the worst waiter I’ve ever had. I also wrote down his name so I could request not to be sat in his section every time I go there in the future.

@Seeds 15% for below average service, and 10% to the absolute worst server you’ve ever had?

I can’t fathom voluntarily giving somebody my money who not only didn’t make my night more enjoyable, but quite possibly made it worse. By leaving a tip of that size, I wonder if he was even aware that he did a crappy job.

Not saying you did anything wrong, just saying I don’t get it.

@lichme shrug I still pay for the food even if it wasn’t up to my expectations (much more common than bad service in my experience), why wouldn’t I pay for the time of the person who delivered it to me?

As a former waiter I can tell you when I got a $4 tip on a $45 bill I knew the person wasn’t happy.

@lichme @Seeds

I can’t fathom voluntarily giving somebody my money who not only didn’t make my night more enjoyable, but quite possibly made it worse

If the person is making base under $3 or whatever an hour (a near absolute given around here), I’m going to tip any service that achieved anything close to net positive overall.

If the service were so bad that I would not tip, then the service was so bad I’m talking to management about it.

And I am loathe to complain in these situations. I simply hope someone was having an unusually terrible day.

I would just tip low. Below 15% perhaps, like @seeds.

@f00l @Seeds

Just 30 mins ago, I ordered takeout. My food wasn’t ready, but I paid for it. I left a tip, on a to go order. My order was wrong. Two of the items I clearly ordered and had read back to me, weren’t the right items. Sat at the front while the chef re-made the wrong items, while my other food sat there. And yet, the person whose job it was to verify my order, already got a tip.

10%-15% on bad service on a $30 order isn’t much out of pocket. 10%-15% for bad service at somewhere like a steakhouse can easily be $15+, for one table, and they should be handling multiple tables.

I understand the sentiment and the reasoning behind tipping in those situations, I just think that the percentage structure is stupid.

@f00l @lichme Oh, for takeout I tip much lower. I just don’t see it as anywhere near the same commitment. For delivery it’s more or less a flat rate for me depending on the distance- 5 bucks minimum though.

I’m happy to leave a high percentage based tip at an expensive restaurant- I expect exceptional service when I go to one, and I’ve always received it. If I’m paying 100+ for a meal for two, I won’t go somewhere if the food and service aren’t always great.

@elimanningface
I don’t know where you live.

Here in TX, waitpeople and pizza delivery people and the like make well under $3 an hour before tips.

I’m not going to let them serve me at that pay rate. So I tip. My tip does vary a bit for poor service or truly excellent service. Basically around 20% for the most part.

I don’t go to expensive places often. So I’m not faced with tipping 20% on an expensive meal.

@elimanningface Do you ever eat at the same place more than once or twice? Waitstaff typically remember people like that.

If you’re that cheap, why not eat at home or go to a fast food joint?

@elimanningface
In California, they can’t be paid less than I think 25 cents under minimum wage (that might not be right anymore)

I also don’t like the percentage thing. The waitstaff in an unscale restaurant usually has only a few tables and lavishes attention yes, but in that dive that tastes so good, they work their asses off and usually have 2-4 times the number of tables. This makes service sometimes slower, and less lavish and people want to give them less, when I think they deserve more.

I applaud those places that have raised salaries and say no tipping but wonder if it really makes the difference? And men still tend to tip higher to hot younger women.

@Cerridwyn From a 2015 article: “California treats its servers differently than most states in the Union: it is one of seven states that pays tipped employees the state minimum wage, $9 per hour, instead of the absurdly low federal minimum of $2.13 for tipped employees.”

@f00l, @seeds, @Cerridwyn - I should have clarified, I usually tip but the idea of doing so is bothersome. I understand some people rely on tips as income and in some areas, tipping allows employers to pay less than minimum wage however it doesn’t change how I feel about paying them. It’s kind of like paying taxes, I’d prefer not to pay them but I do so without complaint because I understand and agree with their purpose. Please don’t infer anything more about how I feel on the topic beyond the words I’ve written. Trust me, I am not that deep.

Also, again, I am cheap. I don’t like to part with money for anything.

@therealjrn LOL, I ended up not going, as when they finally texted me back about 5 hours after I requested the appointment they didn’t have any availability till next week. But I’d decided to take two $5 bills, and give one for sure and maybe the second depending on how happy I was with the service. That would have been 10% of the posted price/25% of the paid price, or 20% of the posted price/50% of the paid price depending.

Instead I went to the gym and took a long, hot shower and went to bed early. Helped some.

@simssj Totally agree with this, incentivising laziness. It is so hard to regulate if people are actually turning in all tips too so it is unfair on that end also.

@simssj @thewynner Hated it when I was a waiter, but it does tend to be good for customers when it’s particularly busy- you’re much faster to cover something in another section when you’re pooling tips.

@simssj Yup! When one of my daughter’s was in Jr High they started putting her (them) in group projects and reports, etc. My daughter had the highest grades in her entire class. They put her with D students. Guess who had to do ALL the work or have her grade come down? I went to the school and had a conniption fit. After a little ado… they took her out of it. They try to tell us it will compel the lazier ones… ha!!!

@thewynner IMHO, money given beforehand isn’t a tip, it’s a bribe.

@moondrake @thewynner I’ve heard that tips is an acronym for “To Insure Prompt Service.” In that case, tips should be given first.

@therealjrn tip isnt an acronym, that phrase came later, like Ford does not stand for Fix or Repair Daily (something they picked up in the 70s when their quailty had issues), nor is golf the result of Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.
i agree i’d like to see tips abolished as a practice especially when used to lower paid wages. i waited in the 90s and occassionally came up short (i worked hard but could not get it right: forgot to check drinks for refills, forgot things even though i wrote them down, …). Even though we had to enter our tips in the system, i dont recall management making up any difference. And like others noted, some abuse the system. Plus I think sometimes waitstaff get shorted tips if the food quality is poor, but that is management (supply quality) or kitchen’s fault, and their pay isnt lowered.

@therealjrn @thewynner I thinks that would be TEPS, To Ensure Prompt Service. Insuring prompt service would be paying someone else to give you money if you didn’t get it.

@moondrake Doh!

@baqui63 great insight! Totally do the same thing at weddings. So many people simply don’t tip in that instance so they are glad to mix you some strong drinks.

@LordSalem It is fun to feel superior to others. “I have extra money to give you even though I already paid for the goods and services. Yes. Yes. Take this extra $10 and buy some Glen socks or something, peasant. Now, on to the next thing to throw money at.”
/giphy making it rain

… the employer must make up the difference to get them to whatever the minimum wage in that state is.

@MrMark That’s the law, and what happens in theory. The reality, OTOH …

@MrMark that is how it is in most if not all states. But who deserves to work at even minimum wage? Last i checked it was around $9/hour. No one working a 40 work week can survive off that.

Income inequality is a topic for another thread though

@MrMark @thewynner Some reading material:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-minimum-wage-movement-is-leaving-tipped-workers-behind/

@Shrdlu just to be clear legally they are suppose to claim 100% of their tips.

The “new” law makes the tax fraud many in the food service business commit less severe.