Ask Tim: Tipping the Scales at 20 Percent
This week's question comes from Kate Antoniades of Gaithersburg, who asks:
"I always like to tip servers at least 20 percent, but lately I've been hearing that '20 percent is the new 15 percent.' Is this true, or maybe just a high-end restaurant thing?"
This is a tricky question because of the way the American restaurant industry has positioned wait service: These employees, often expected to understand every nuance of the kitchen and every bottle of wine on the menu, must meet every diner's goddamn unspoken expectations at every table. That's a heavy burden, and if they don't succeed to your satisfaction, you stiff 'em. That's the way the merit system works for servers in this country. They must perform for their cash, organ-grinder monkeys right at your table.
But the issue is more complex than that. The fact is that the cost of living keeps rising for all of us—I believe my gas bill this winter came with a ransom note—and by the fact that tips often have to be split with busboys, bartenders, and runners. While you have the right to stiff your waiter or waitress for poor service, you should also consider the ethical side of this monetary exchange (or lack thereof). Each dollar you withhold is one less for these people to live off. Does your employer stiff you every time you spend the afternoon reading The Onion online or surfing for porn?
My position is this: I always give 20 percent. I give more when the service is great.
I also put this question to two veteran restaurateurs—Ashok Bajaj, owner of a number of restaurants in the District including Rasika, The Oval Room, and Ardeo; and Manuel Iguina, owner of Mio and former GM at Café Atlántico and Restaurant Nora.
Bajaj: "The answer is 'yes'...20 percent is the new 15 percent. I think it started about five or six years ago—I'm just speaking from my memory—after the Internet boom when everything was going well. Everyone was looking for better service...So then it sort of became the norm. People were tipping between 15 and 20 percent, and gradually, the word gets around and 20 percent is the new tip. And that's exactly what it is."
But with the average check price going up, I ask Bajaj, isn't the 20 percent tip a double whammy on the diner's pocketbook? "Everything has changed, Tim," Bajaj says. "I tell you if you really want to look at the economics of this...You could get a decent apartment for $800; now it's $1,400 for a one-bedroom...Salmon [used to] be $3.95; now it's $8.50. So everything's relative. With inflation, everything's gone up."
Iguina has a slightly different take on the 20-percent threshold: "That is a tough question. I'm a 20 percent tipper, if not more, if I'm blown away by somebody. But let me give you something that happened to me the other day. I went to this place, and I didn't get any kind of service that I wanted, and they put an 18-percent tip on the check and it was a party of four...I was a little bit upset about it, because I think the gratuity should be optional for service."
"If I do an average in my restaurant here for tips," he continues, "it is 20 percent minimum. So unofficially or not set in stone, people are tipping that amount. It makes me very happy because the waiters, they make good money. They earn their money, and [if] they get their 20 percentage, they're going to be happy working here...But it should always be optional. There should not be a minimum or a maximum."
At the same time, Iguina admits that he always leaves at least 15 percent, no matter how bad the service is, because he knows that servers "live on tips."
To submit a question to Ask Tim, just e-mail me at asktim@washingtoncitypaper.com. To download this week's Young & Hungry podcast, click here.
11:51 am
I never tip less than 20% unless the waitperson or bartender physically assaults me.
12:14 pm
i waited tables for a good while, and i tip below 15% if the service sucks. but to qualify as crappy service, you need to REALLY be terrible. i mean like leaving the table for 25 minutes after first dropping food off and not checking to make sure things are ok, or having a crappy attitude. i know this is how these people make a living, but they are in the service industry. if you're not willing to serve, than tough luck, you don't get paid. expecting a 15% tip minimum when you're surly is not a good argument with me.
12:34 pm
IMGoph,
That's reasonable. I've gone out with friends who refuse to tip or tip way below 15% if their experience isn't "perfect". So if the cooks take too long preparing your food, the server is fucked. Waited too long for more water? Oh well, good luck on $2/hour.
One occasion, we had a new server waiting our table. I was prepared for less than perfect service because the kid was totally new to serving, but one guy insisted on a shitty tip.
So yeah, tip below 15% if the server hits or insults you.
12:47 pm
I'm always surprised when I get a surly bartender--and there's lots of 'em around here! Chip-on-the-shoulder hipster types. I've worked at a few bars and it was never difficult to be friendly. No tips for jerks.
12:55 pm
I tip in the 15-20% (or more) range depending on the service, but this guy Bajaj has a disingenuous argument: "Salmon [used to] be $3.95; now it’s $8.50. " That is meaningless -- your 15% tip would more than double along with the price. That's how percentages work. What might have to catch up to inflation someday is the casual tip, like, $1 per drink at a bar.
1:02 pm
Waiter hit it just right above. I think too many of these still living in the 15% world have expectations of service not keeping with earthbound reality. Decent attentive service is worth 20%. Anything over and above I personally give a bit more.
Assholes bartender or waiters? Sure punish them if it's severe, but as long as they're actually serving you, pay (tip) 'em.
1:49 pm
I beg to differ: Never tipster a hipster for one can be a trickster.
1:52 pm
Yes, the customer is always an asshole.
But this analogy seems imperfect: "Does your employer stiff you every time you spend the afternoon reading The Onion online or surfing for porn?" No--but if you were caught doing either while you were supposed to be in a meeting with a client, you'd probably have more to worry about than a 5% difference in your paycheck.
1:53 pm
I tend to tip a higher percentage on a smaller check or when I don't order expensive drinks. Coffee and bagel? 30% $40 bottle of wine that pushes a dinner check way up? Nah, sorry. It's not that much more work for the server than if they open a bottle of water. Maybe less 'cause they don't have to grab ice and/or a lime.
2:00 pm
What I don't understand is why 15% used to be seen as perfectly acceptable, but is now somehow inadequate.
Has something changed in the restaurant industry to suggest that servers are inherently more knowledgable, attentive, etc. than they used to be? Are restaurants paying their employees less, leaving the customer to make up the difference, and then failing to communicate that? Or were we just short-changing our servers for the entirety of the time before the new 20% standard set in?
Waiters have always had to "perform for their cash," and it used to be that their cash was understood to be 15% for decent service and more for those who deserved it. What is it that entitles them to a baseline of 20% now?
I don't feel like this post adequately answered that question, and I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why the 15% I've been tipping all these years is suddenly an insult instead of an acknowledgement of decent service.
2:27 pm
I can't agree more: As the average check price is going up, so is, mathematically speaking, the percentage. Therefore, 15% should remaon an adequate compensation to offset the inflation.
Unless the server is a hipster that is. In which case 0% should do the trick.
2:29 pm
Some folks say:
I only tip the LORD 10%...Why should I tip you more?
I say:
I normally tip 20%
But some of you servers are real dickheads...
2:53 pm
The no-tip punishment is only for severe cases of rudeness. A small amount of extra kindness and I'll tip way above 20 percent.
4:52 pm
Arthur Delaney Says:
"I’m always surprised when I get a surly bartender–and there’s lots of ‘em around here! Chip-on-the-shoulder hipster types. I’ve worked at a few bars and it was never difficult to be friendly. No tips for jerks."
This fucking kills me. I swear, some people expect bartenders - especially "hipster" types; this sounds like goddamn LNS - to fawn all over them for a simple beer. Jesus Christ, they're getting you a drink. As long as they get it and don't, like, throw it at your head, give them a dollar. End of story. They're busy and they deal with assholes all night. They don't have to ask you about your problems when the bar is 3-deep. Cheers was a TV show, people.
I don't think you should condone random rude behavior from servers, of course, but I think its really your perception of "hipster" bartenders that leads you to think they're surly because they don't have the time - or energy, maybe; who knows - to pamper your whiny little butt. Is it because they work at a place that's considered cool, and you feel inadequate being there? And you think cool=rude, when really they're just being kind of neutral?
People constantly stiff bartenders for fine, fast, efficient service. I see it all the time. It's absolutley maddening and I guarantee it's half because people don't understand the pay scale of tipped employees and half because people want FULL SERVICE, PLEASE because they are IMPORTANT and ENTITLED.
And JoeHoya:
What is it that entitles them to a baseline of 20% now?
As mentioned in the post, cost of living increases. Servers make about $2.50 an hour. You do the math. Tip, you cheap bastard. If you can afford to go out to eat, you can afford to tip!
I sense a lot of hating on the poor folks who serve your rude asses for a living. What's up with that?
5:16 pm
It's because I feel inadequate.
5:47 pm
I'm not hating at all, K...though you seem to be a bit riled up for no good reason.
My original question still stands: Why is 15% no longer good enough? If the cost of living is increasing, that means the cost of meals at restaurants is increasing. And if a meal that cost me $20 now costs me $30, that means the tip I leave my server has automatically gone up from $3 to $4.50 even if it stays at 15%.
Were we just being "cheap bastards" for the years and years when 15% was seen as an average tip? Or are we being pushed to 20% for some other reason?
All I'm looking for is an answer to that simple question. Don't call me a cheap bastard just because I want to know. I didn't say anything rude in my post, nor did I say anything to disparage "the poor folks who serve" my rude ass for a living.
But thanks all the same, K.
6:06 pm
I think it's not that 15% is not now longer good enough, I don't ever think it ever really was (certainly for the past 10-15 years).
Based on my time in service and the attendant turnover I witnessed, a rise in the base "pay" is required to keep any sort of quality in the ranks of servers. The rise in all living costs has greatly outpaced any trickle down to servers that comes from the percentage rise passed on to the consumer in the form of higher tabs. Some of the complaints about quality of service can be linked to the amount of money that servers make.
I will note that there is plenty of crappy service around and not just in the hospitality trade. Try calling any utility on the phone tonight.
Apropos of nothing really, anyone who has ever worked in service knows there is nothing that will make you hate humanity as much as waiting tables or slinging drinks. We live in a particularly bad area in that respect (northern hospitality/southern efficiency). I defy anyone who decries the 20% to walk a mile (which you'll do several of in a night) in a servers shoes.
6:58 pm
I just saw this topic, and got here as soon as I could to weigh in. I feel really, really strongly about tipping being completely and utterly out of control these days.
Last month, I went with my wife to get a fish and chips dinner at an unamed pub in DC. In any case, the waiter was fine, but there was a kid screaming his head off like a cannonball being fired from a cannon. Completely awful. My deliciously delightful dinner was, sadly, spoiled by this occurrance. I asked the waiter, "Please, please shut this kid up. It's harming my experience."
But he didn't. And I, therefore, was forced to show a token of my displeasure in the reflection of a smaller tip. I cannot stand screaming children, and therefore left several shiny new nickels as a tip. (This was actually a pretty decent percentage, as the meal was $26.51.)
But no, that wasn't the only "tip". I had a gum wrapper in my pocket, and I wrote on there, as a "tip": Please keep children away from the premises! Seriously. They harm an otherwise delightful dining experience.
Thoughts? I felt pretty good, like I was finally able to articulate what I have been holding back all of these years. Children do not belong in restaurants!
7:18 pm
You screwed a waiter -- a waiter, not the maitre d', not a manager, not the owner -- out of his tip because he didn't stop a nearby child from screaming? What'd you want him to do, smother the kid with the tablecloth? Would that have been worth 25%?
$26.51 does not buy you a child assassin -- nor does it buy you monastic silence. You were not at Citronelle, but at a pub, a venue where people puke on each other and yell about politics and curse and root for soccer teams. While you could have asked the parents to quiet the kid down, they had as much a right to be there with their squalling future AA member as you did with your massive entitlement complex.
8:24 pm
Really, Uri. Your post is not unlike a ripping fart that would disturb the nostrils.
While former waitress' message is a ripple of birdsong delightful to one's ears.
9:20 pm
Hate me for saying it, but being a waitperson at Citronelle, Komi, or where ever should pay well. 17.5% (to split the difference of 9 $200 tables is a hair north of $300. And that is cash.
Being a barkeep at a nightclub should pay well, too. A dollar on each drink per night, and that'd *easily* be $500. Again, cash.
Sorry if I'm not moved by the pleas of poverty.
But if you're working some lame dive bar or middling diner, well, you need to step up. "cause I ain't gonna do it for you.
8:41 am
"Entitlement complex"?
Where's that coming from? Just because I want to sit down and partake in the pleasures of a meal, alone, with quiet, joined by my wife and several friends, doesn't mean I need to hear screaming children during the course of my main course. Please!
And it's not entitlement. It's respect, and deservedly so. I work hard, and that means that I get to choose where my money goes. Is it not?
9:55 am
Uri is either taking the piss or he's an asshat. Maybe both. In either case he is right about choosing where his money goes. I suggest his own kitchen where he will get the most value for his dollar and all the peace he can stand.
10:06 am
"I work hard, and I get to choose where my money goes. And when I pay to see a screaming infant butchered in front of me, that means an infant gets butchered in front of me, dammit!"
10:20 am
EXCUSE ME?
What the hell is you're problem Kelly? I'm just trying to share my dining experience, and have a dialogue about something. Why don't you try being vegatarian, huh? restricted to TWO items on a pub menu, salad or fish and chips. Not only do I barely get any items to choose from, but I have to deal with some crying toddler. "OH BY THE WAY, automatically pay me more money than the total cost of the food."
Please. This is what's wrong with the world today. You're supposed to automaticaly give people things.
10:46 am
You went to a place that has no vegetarian options when you're a vegetarian. You went to a place that's known for being noisy when you wanted peace and quiet. NONE of these issues were your server's fault. You made bad choices about where to dine, and then, feeling dissatisfied, failed to acknowledge your own bad choices and instead chose to blame (and stiff) the server who put up with you and the screaming baby at the next table. Nice!
Come back soon to gripe about the lack of a decent sports bar at Citronelle, or the failure of Ri-Ra to produce a decent malai kofta!
10:49 am
Why have 2 vegetarian items on a menu if it's a meat eating place?? Why have a system of "tipping" when you AUTOMATICALLY NEED TO GIVE MONEY!? Explain THAT to me before you blaim the victim for making bad decisions. You know what? The waiter made a bad decision, too, by allowing this to take place.
11:09 am
Uri might be on to something. I think many folks on both sides of the issue would be fine with removing the tipping system but that would mean the base cost of your meal would rise by 15-20 non negotiable percent.
I still think Uri is taking the piss.
11:13 am
15-20 non negotiable percent? According to you all, it's non negotiable right now!
11:18 am
15% is non-negotiable unless the waiter drools in your soup or provides really, really poor service. It's part of the social contract when you enter a restaurant. If you don't like it, stay home, where the vegetarian options are unlimited and you can smother your own children when they whine.
11:31 am
Uri, your awful hairdo displays you in such a disadvantage. Piss off already.
Now, Kelly is a poster with sense and taste.
And so is the ex-waitress.
11:40 am
Also, what do you guys think about mis-prepared food? I once had bacon bits in a fish and chips dinner when I repeatably specified that I was vegetarian.
Lemme guess: I'm supposed to tip, non-negotiably? Get out of town. You can excercise your right to tip as high as you want, and I have the right to excercise my right not to tip a full 15%.
11:40 am
Personable insults aren't necessary, Ernest.
11:55 am
In your personable case, Uri, they are.
11:57 am
No, they aren't. Asshole.
I hope you all realize what you're doing: Giving a hard time to a frequent restaurant patron because you think more money should be guaranteed as a tip.
I have the choice to do as I please.
11:58 am
Ernest's insults are never personable, Uri. But in this case, they seem entirely deserved.
12:03 pm
I certainly hope this "blame the victim" mentality doesn't carry over in how you all treat other fellow human beings.
12:04 pm
count me in on giving a hard time to a frequent restaurant patron who's under-tipping! restaurants will survive without your business; they can fill the tables with people who understand that dining out comes with a rule: be a mensch and tip your server decently.
also, I just have to say that "vegetarians" who eat fish (which are not vegetables last time I checked) and then freak out about bacon bits (when many brands of bacon bit are actually vegan) are a personal pet peeve of mine.
12:05 pm
Help! I'm a victim! I'm the victim of a screaming baby!
Please kill it before it strikes again and ruins my dinny-din!
12:07 pm
A Personal Pet Peeve?
Well at least I'm doing something, by being vegetarian. Sorry that, to you, fish isn't vegan. To some of us people that are trying to make a positive change in the world, it is.
And you know else? It's FAR from my problem if I don't realize that BACON BITS are actually vegan.
12:13 pm
being an omnivore is great. being a vegetarian is great. being a lacto-ovo vegetarian is great. being a vegan is great.
being a vegetarian who eats fish (or, as I've heard many times, "I'm a vegetarian but I still eat chicken/pork/beef/squid/squirrel") is called something else: Not being a vegetarian.
and no matter how much of a positive change you're trying to make, fish is not vegan. look it up!
12:13 pm
Hey Uri--when did fish become a vegetable?
You're not a vegetarian. I don't even care that you call yourself a veg, but it's hard for me to be sympathetic about your lack of dining options when I'm hard-pressed to think of a restaurant that dosen't have seafood of some sort. Shit, even McDonald's has a fish option.
And servers are under NO OBLIGAITON to tell parents to shut their kids up. If kids are running around and being unruly, throwing things--yes, maybe they should say something.
But with crying? What good would it have done? That's the thing about crying kids--not much you can do to stop them.
I understand that it's annoying to some and that maybe the parents should've taken the tike outside to calm down (which is what I would've done) but that none of that has anything to do with your server.
12:18 pm
OF COURSE they're under no obligation to tell their kids to shut up. Just like I'm under NO OBLIGATION to tip a full 15% if I feel that a screaming child is getting in the way of my pleasurable dining experience. Why is that so hard to understand?
I don't NEED to tip! I would never, ever NOT tip, I just have the right to choose my discretion and leave a small one as a token of my disappreciation of something.
Think of the future: if people are having their experiences lessened by screaming children, then in the future, perhaps because of my smaller tip, the waiter will think twice about it next time: next time he will consider telling this child to please be quiet.
12:33 pm
I agree that it's your right not to tip--even though I think it's an asshole move. And I also AGREE that screaming kids at dinner are annoying, but I think what everyone is trying to say it--THOSE TWO THINGS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER!
If you want to stiff a waiter for crappy service, or because they looked at you wrong or because his/her shirt wasn't tucked in--go ahead, be a dick. There's not much I can say, but I get it.
But not tipping because of a screaming child is like not tipping a server because you got stuck in traffic on your way to the restaurant. Or your girlfriend threw a drink in your face during the meal. It just doesn't make any sense.
12:37 pm
Does getting stuck in traffic affect your dining experience? Does it make an otherwise vegetarian meal NOT VEGETARIAN?
My thoughts exactly.
12:42 pm
Why is it entrained in American culture not to compensate adequately wait staff (or at least there is no attempt to) for their cost of living, unlike other industries? Why don't restaurants (and I mean ALL restaurants as an industry, not differentiating between competing businesses in the same field) incorporate labour costs into the prices they charge their customers, like most other retail establishments? After all, the restaurant factors in the cost of the farmer, the miller, the processing factory worker, the truck driver, the cargo ship captain, the accountant and the tax collector into the price of your $15 plate of pasta, why not the $3 extra for the person who brings it the 20 feet or so from the kitchen to your table?
For the consumer who is regularly tipping 15-20%, it makes little difference to the bottom line - in fact, it may make the transaction simpler, as there is less maths to figure out at the end of the meal (if only sales tax was also incorporated, that would make life as convenient as, say, the UK). Speaking of the UK, it is standard practice for restaurants to include a 10% tip on EVERY bill, so they might as well include that directly in the price.
12:51 pm
Oh... Now I understand. He should have told the child to be quiet. How could we all have been so silly?
1:08 pm
Uri, I'm revising my opinion about the bacon thing slightly: If you told your waiter that you wanted fish and chips but specified that you were a vegetarian and asked about other meat content, and he still brought you a bacon-scattered fish, I would agree that warrants a slight reduction in the tip (unless the restaurant actually took it off your bill entirely, in which case I would err on the side of niceness and tip the waiter anyway). If, however, you just ordered the fish and chips and it happened to have bacon on it, then no ire is warranted and no tip reduction justified.
But as for the crying child thing, I still think you're wrong, especially in a pub environment where noise is to be expected. I know that if I -- as a waitress -- had confronted a guest about their crying baby, I would have been in trouble with management. A waiter can offer potential comforts to the child but he can't ask the diners to leave. That's not his role, and it's not your role to punish him for it.
And bacon or no bacon, leaving several shiny nickels on a tab of over $25 is just obnoxious.
1:12 pm
Now for another question:
Do you guys tip at Starbucks? What about the cup in the front for tips? I find that obnoxious. I once tried to take a handful of coins out of there to help pay for a Grande, cause I thought it was like a penny jar. They got pretty upset with me and asked me to leave.
2:28 pm
Now for another question:
What if the kid was retarded? Should Uri still ask the server to shut him up?
3:24 pm
Franklin, you still here? I wish you had no breathing technique, you tedious asswipe with zero brain cells. GET LOST!
3:36 pm
Oh please. No sooner will I get lost that will the non-vegan bacon bits get lost from a plate of fish and chips of mine, resulting in a tip less than 15%. You get lost, looser.
3:40 pm
Ernest, how dare you insult Franklin? What if HE is retarded?! You'll apologize for your impertinence or you’ll quit the office instanter!
Incidentally, the trousers you sport so proudly went out of fashion circa 1992.
3:47 pm
Was that YOU in "Ernest Goes to Camp"?
3:54 pm
The debate of children in restaurants is never ending. (See food sites like egullet) I for one believe in exposing children to better restaurants as otherwise the future generation will only be familiar with KFC and Burger King. My kids have dined everywhere from Babbo to WD50 with no behavior problems. Ultimately it is the parents responsibility to handle their own children's behavior in all public places. In restaurants if that means getting up and taking the child outside then so be it. Myself crying babies don't bother me at all as I believe it's their world as much as mine. Others feel different and I respect that. But point the finger at the parent not the server.
On a side note let me also state the risk involved in disciplining others children. I would never let my child get to that point but regardless. If a stranger butted his nose in my business a loss tip would be his least concern.
4:11 pm
Sure. And I appreciate that response, clearly.
But what happens when parents don't take charge, and don't take "no" for an answer? Sure we're talking about restaurants here, but what if it's on a plane? What about a movie theater? Is it the parents job to shut the kid up in a movie theater, disturbing hundreds of patrons that want to, quietly, watch a movie in piece?
No, I think people pretty much would want a theater worker to get involved.
But sadly, that is what it's like going to the movies these days.
4:33 pm
If ever put in a situation where I was that annoyed I likely would approach the parent and express my discomfit. The legalities and rights issues facing business's these days are often a area where they wish to avoid.
Also remember we often don't know what is truly going on in our neighbors backyard. Many children and adults for that matter have disorders that cannot be easily controlled. Which goes back to the parent knowing their child and the appropriate environment they can expose them too.
4:35 pm
Another question I have:
If your taking a friend to dinner, and they know you're picking up the tab (like for a "thank you" for somebody helping you with a graphic design website for your band), is it appropriate to ask them not to order meat, or you won't pay for it?
I had to do this, and I felt pretty uncomfortable, but just had to say it straight up to them. Do you know?
I feel like if somebody orders something like that, against your previous wishes, if you only have a certain amount of money, you might have to work something else out, which, unfortunately might involve the tip in some way...
4:48 pm
I must admit Franklin you do raise some eyebrow raising questions. LOL
I assume I would not offer the invitation to I was financially able to pay for whatever they wished to order.
5:05 pm
At least your nice about them, Lol. (Or Robert R.)
That's true. I should think a head, better...
5:07 pm
Dear Uri,
We've been wondering what your major malfunction is. The entire office is intrigued. Ernest even bets his bottom dollar you're a rare idiot. Could you please help us resolve this issue?
Thanks.
5:17 pm
Thanks Franklin, I approach each day trying to be a better man then the day before. Sometimes I succeed sometimes I don't.
5:23 pm
Dear Sir,
Sorry I ruined your fine dining experience, but your self entitled attitude that you are so quick to point out in other people ruined mine first as soon as you walked in the door. This coupled with the fact that my parents thought it would be a better idea to take me to a casual pub rather than Black Salt pretty much ruined my second birthday. I hope you are happy.
PS I'm two years old and I know that fish is not a vegetarian choice!
5:35 pm
Robert R, I think Uri's question is about his vegetarianism (his "vegetarianism," I should say) rather than his ability to pay for meat. Namely, can you ask someone to dinner and then tell them to follow your own moral eating code?
For example, if Uri asked me to dinner, and after becoming irritated with the crying baby nearby, reached over and strangled it and asked the kitchen to grill it up, would I be compelled to accept the plate they offered me?
5:38 pm
20% is the new 15%- pick a restaurant whose menu prices won't make you balk at paying 20 and you won't have a problem. If you can't afford 20% or it pisses you off, eat someplace cheaper. Otherwise you're going to pick apart a server's performance based on whether or not you want to part with the cash, not on how they actually did. And that kinda makes you a jerk.
I don't mind tipping well because I don't go out that much, don't have a car, and don't live an expensive lifestyle. I don't mind taking cabs or tipping the drivers because i usually bike. And maybe it's because I'm poorer than a lot of people in this town that I don't expect to go out, be treated well by someone who is making even less money than me, and not be generous. Who is self entitled here? If you can't afford to go out, then don't. But don't take it out on other people who are just trying to make a living too- without the benefits of health insurance and a steady paycheck.
7:51 pm
Hey folks;
Just a reminder. When you have a legit question, you don't have to beat your fellow bloggers over the head with it. You can send it to asktim@washingtoncitypaper.com.
-Tim
8:38 pm
I don't really understand how, with ethics of any sort, that you can go out and not just tolerate somebody partaking in what youre against, but actually PAY for their habit!
and you all make fun of me. uch! this is seriously, seriously rediculous.
8:46 pm
I keep reading "Tim Carman" and "Tom Sietsema" pops into my head. Sorry.
11:35 am
What pisses me off are the restaurants who stick on the 18-20% on the bill regardless AND THEY HAVE BASED IT ON THE TOTAL AFTER TAX. THIS IS WRONG WRONG WRONG ! YOU TIP ACCORDING TO PRE-TAX TOTAL. May not make much difference at a bargain rest. but it DOES at an expense-account place esp, in DC where tax is 10%.
That said, I tip at 15% straight - pre-tax of course - except at buffet places where I tip around 12% pre-tax. But to save a little money, I often order carry-out instead, or stick with the self-serve places, and I don't drop coins in the now-ubiquitious tip cups...
1:28 pm
Oh I totally agree. I pay more attention to that stuff though, that the averaged layman. ANY tip that's added automatically, regardless of whether its 18%-20%, 15%-20%, or even a measley 5%:
I will argue this, and not pay when you automatically force me to. It's a huge pet peeve and I hate it.