I spent some time on Friday surfing my company’s Internet connection to learn about tipping.
I would point out, to my co-workers and higher-ups who read this site, that this is the very, very first time I have ever surfed the web on company time. Furthermore, not only do I never, ever do this in the normal course of a work day, but our company has the absolute lowest number of employees, on a percentage basis, who surf the web on company time. This is because I hold a sermon every alternate Tuesday in the break room entitled “Why You Should Not Surf the Web on Company Time.” Co-workers, and especially higher-ups, you are invited to attend this sermon the next time I give it. I believe you will be impressed with my fire and passion.
So anyway, I was trying to learn about tipping because I was having some furniture delivered to my place this weekend and I wondered if I should tip the guys. But the Internet wasn’t any help. The problem is, tipping sites are highly conservative. They always suggest tipping more than you actually should, apparently because the authors are worried about offending someone. They say things like:
“Always tip people who pass you on the street without punching you.”
“Tip your food servers 30% after tax, and offer to give them a bite of your dessert.”
“Tip your bartenders one half the cost of your drink and clean the bar counter with your tongue.”
I had decided to tip the furniture guys regardless, but as the time drew near, I started getting all Steve Buscemi. I realized that I had actually paid a delivery charge for the furniture, so what was up with splashing out more money? Even though that was a contract between myself and a major corporation and didn’t extend to the proletariat, so what? When you don’t tip pizza guys, the next time you order from that place your large pepperoni comes complete with a severed hand. But you’re not likely to have to deal with the same furniture guys twice.
But then the guys came and I watched them and I realized something: they were carrying very large objects up two flights of stairs and doing it in record time. Suddenly my building felt very insecure. Two locked doors and an elevator code didn’t mean jack to guys who could juggle the contents of a living room without working up a sweat.
I tipped them with the warmth and gladness of a Julie Andrews song.
and your stairs were alive with the sound of ... tipping?
Coming as you do from the world headquarters of cow-tipping, I am not surprised.
tips for deliverers
Oops. tips for deliverers
I recently found out from a professional ettiquette specialist that you’re not supposed to tip at a non-cash bar. Now I feel so gauche.
Oh YOU ARE SO supposed to tip at a non-cash bar. If you don’t I hope you enjoy your spit-drinks.
-From an ex-bartender who has worked through WAAAAYYY too many horrible open bar weddings/birthdays/bar mitzvahs
this sermon you give on alternate Tuesdays, that is held during lunchtime I presume? you should consider taking that show on the road. though i guarantee you that my org wouldn’t need you because we too don’t surf while at work. even if it’s work related. we save that for our personal time. that’s how dedicated *we* are.
i totally agree, definitely tip at a non-cash bar!
The one time i hired movers the company sent me one guy who had just gotten out of jail and another guy who knew “people all up in this hood”. Needless to say it was a hysterical day. I became quite chummy with them out of fear and tipped them huge! The upside is that I was guaranteed protection and they’d “hook me up” (with what i’m not sure). I moved again within the year.
When in doubt tip. If you can’t afford it don’t go out.
In regards to the non-cash bar thing: I stayed at a hotel once with a non-cash “happy hour” in the lobby. I tipped a dollar for every drink. The first one was basically grape juice; a few tips later, it was pure vodka. Tipping works.
I always think of Steve Martin in My Blue Heaven. He tipped everybody. I always tip everybody, too. Even the sackers at the grocery store. I live in a town where there still exists a gas station that pumps the gas for you. I tip those guys double in the winter. I go by the philosophy if it looks like a shit job, it probably is a shit job and it probably pays shit, too.
Ah, now… here is the problem with ettiquette ca. 2005: no one knows what to do and when. For the record, I have always tipped at a non-cash bar, and cash bars and any bars. Now I find out from an ettiquette professional that I am not supposed to. So do I follow the rules so I don’t appear déclasse or do I follow the current social climate (tip people who don’t punch you in the face) but seem like a hayseed to those who know better?
I’m disappointed. I thought this was going to be about cows.
i suppose “don’t eat yellow snow” didn’t work too well as a tip?
The lovely Adrianne is as eloquent, “If you don’t I hope you enjoy your spit-drinks” as she is intelligent. Bartenders serve a valiant and noble cause, thus should always be generously rewarded… more so when you get to suck back frozen strawberry margaritas on someone else’s tab… God save bartenders…
Always tip the movers. It’s just the rule.
How about a dog groomer? Do you tip them? I’d say they deserve it more than a human groomer. And I tip them.
as part of my job, I pay for a lot of these cash-bars, valet service, dinner service, etc. and part of the contract always includes service fees AND gratuities on top—generous ones, I might add—and I always HATE when the valet/bartender/waiter hints to the guests about tips… I have seen valets who seriously walk 50 feet to get the cars, who I have already paid still hold out their hand. HATE!!
That whole ettiquette thing is weird. If you tip in England they really get offended. They don’t understand why we do it. There is probably a big difference in wait staff salaries too. Here we rely on tips.
Which Julie Andrews song? Come on, give me a clue… “The hills are alive”? “Do, Re, Mi”? Too many options.
well, i’ve never read ww’s blog, but just by looking i can tell yours is better. his attention span is just way too long.
According to Kathy’s link I’m supposed to tip for freaking carryout? You gotta be kidding me.
i just returned from a business trip in new orleans and ordered room service. they charged a mandatory 18% gratuity and a $2.00 service charge on top of the cost of the meal, but the person who brought the food still held out her hand, wanting a tip. so i’m confused. where did that 18% go? where’s the link for that? i’d like a sermon on that please & thank you.
It is typical for room service, whether here or abroad, to tack on that stupid mandatory gratuity plus a service charge. Personally, I think that’s enough, and, if someone wants a tip on top of that, he/she must have performed some spectacular feat to be so commended.
That rarely, if ever, being the case, I never let the room service guy guilt me into a tip. If he doesn’t like his wages, he can get a job elsewhere, as far as I’m concerned. So long as I have to answer the door to greet him (and why is it maids get master keys for room, but no other staff?), he is serving the room, not me personally. Bring me some coffee, two sugars, no milk, directly to my bedside, and then we’ll reconsider.
In South Africa recently, at a posh hotel, the doorbell rang incessently, like something from “Noises Off,” and always it was another staff person. I considered his/her interruption a sign that I should, in the U.S. at least, where there must be some legal recourse, find some lawyer who can explain how a gratuity can be mandatory. It is indeed an oxymoron.
One more thing: you can tip less in places that have a Value Added Tax mixed in as a component of your cost, since if you give standard U.S. tips, you have then tipped on all the taxes—some 30% to 40%, depending on the country, and that is not how we play here.