Tip Culture

I deliver lumber for a living. Some customers will throw me a tip, but most don't, and I certainly don't expect it, even when I help them carry the stuff into their shops. (Which I'm not supposed to do, and rarely make an exception.) One of our drivers got a $100 tip last week, for helping unload, which we always do.

Back when I delivered furniture, we got $8 per stop, whether it was a sofa or a bedroom and dining room set (which we assembled for them). Even then, most customers didn't tip, even when gushing about what a great job we did. Most would offer a glass of water...Maybe I should have hung a tip jar around my neck.
 
Runwildboys said:
I deliver lumber for a living. Some customers will throw me a tip, but most don't, and I certainly don't expect it, even when I help them carry the stuff into their shops. (Which I'm not supposed to do, and rarely make an exception.) One of our drivers got a $100 tip last week, for helping unload, which we always do.

Back when I delivered furniture, we got $8 per stop, whether it was a sofa or a bedroom and dining room set (which we assembled for them). Even then, most customers didn't tip, even when gushing about what a great job we did. Most would offer a glass of water...Maybe I should have hung a tip jar around my neck.
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If u r carrying lumber into peoples shops at times then they should be tipping you a minimum of $10 and is it really going to hurt them to throw out a $20 bill for the convenience? As u said you should not even be doing that so that’s a favor by you that has to be recognized!
 
rags747 said:
If u r carrying lumber into peoples shops at times then they should be tipping you a minimum of $10 and is it really going to hurt them to throw out a $20 bill for the convenience? As u said you should not even be doing that so that’s a favor by you that has to be recognized!
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To be honest, when I do it, it's usually to speed things up, because I have other places to be. Sometimes it's because the customer left his wife or daughter to accept the delivery.
 
Doomsday said:
It is beyond out of control. Saw a sign on a restaurant the other day that said if you can't afford a 30% tip you are not welcome.

Long story short, I had no interest in being welcomed and went elsewhere.
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This is insane. Would have probably not just gone elsewhere but walked in and told them loudly that I'm happy to be not wanted in there and then walked elsewhere.
 
Doomsday said:
It is beyond out of control. Saw a sign on a restaurant the other day that said if you can't afford a 30% tip you are not welcome.

Long story short, I had no interest in being welcomed and went elsewhere.
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I miss the days restaurants had to survive on their own. Without relying on their customers to pay their employees. Of course that would mean a lot fewer restaurants, but they were all good. Pay your employees their value, don't worry about the tips. But no, we can't do that.

I use cash in 90% of my transactions, so I don't ever get to see that tip option. The only place I don't use cash is at the grocery store or at a restaurant. I usually tip very good. But if I saw that sign, I wouldn't walk in.

Where I am, if you have a party of 8 or more, they include a 15% tip. I'm ok with that. You just lost money. But maybe overall they don't. People can be that cheap.
 
Flamma said:
I miss the days restaurants had to survive on their own. Without relying on their customers to pay their employees. Of course that would mean a lot fewer restaurants, but they were all good. Pay your employees their value, don't worry about the tips. But no, we can't do that.

I use cash in 90% of my transactions, so I don't ever get to see that tip option. The only place I don't use cash is at the grocery store or at a restaurant. I usually tip very good. But if I saw that sign, I wouldn't walk in.

Where I am, if you have a party of 8 or more, they include a 15% tip. I'm ok with that. You just lost money. But maybe overall they don't. People can be that cheap.
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Back when I frequented Hooters, the girls would tell me about bad tippers. One girl had a party of about 16 people. They stayed for a few hours, and tipped her $10 total. She was a good waitress, and pretty attractive, with a good personality. Some people either just don't understand how important tips are, or they're scumbags.
 
The pizza place that I help manage, people tip. I'm talking about for carryouts, we don't have a tip jar at the register but people do tip when picking up pizza. This is separate from whatever the waitresses get when people dine in. It's not uncommon to have 30 40 bucks at the end of the night for carryouts, even seen plenty of times there were 50 60 dollars or more
 
Runwildboys said:
Back when I frequented Hooters, the girls would tell me about bad tippers. One girl had a party of about 16 people. They stayed for a few hours, and tipped her $10 total. She was a good waitress, and pretty attractive, with a good personality. Some people either just don't understand how important tips are, or they're scumbags.
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That of course was just rotten. But 30% and more? Not from me. I think 15 to 20% are ok when you have been served. For takeaway? Zero. As far as that is concerned I'm happy to live in Europe. We have a pretty healthy tipping culture over here. It's getting worse though.
 
Runwildboys said:
Back when I frequented Hooters, the girls would tell me about bad tippers. One girl had a party of about 16 people. They stayed for a few hours, and tipped her $10 total. She was a good waitress, and pretty attractive, with a good personality. Some people either just don't understand how important tips are, or they're scumbags.
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Yeah people can be strange to say the least. And I'm kind of being nice LOL. I've seen people leave all kinds of crazy tips, a McDonald's coupon, especially funny I've seen people leave religious pamphlets. Even seen parties come in and have a birthday party and their tip to the staff was leftover cake LOL
 
JohnnyTheFox said:
Yeah people can be strange to say the least. And I'm kind of being nice LOL. I've seen people leave all kinds of crazy tips, a McDonald's coupon, especially funny I've seen people leave religious pamphlets. Even seen parties come in and have a birthday party and their tip to the staff was leftover cake LOL
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That's being intentionally douchy.
 
nightrain said:
Another gift from the covid lunacy period. Take-out employees suddenly became front line workers. Now, we are expected to tip for a cup of coffee at the take-out counter.
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No one’s expecting you to tip. If there’s no service, don’t tip. Easy. Much easier than whining about it.
 
Runwildboys said:
Back when I frequented Hooters, the girls would tell me about bad tippers. One girl had a party of about 16 people. They stayed for a few hours, and tipped her $10 total. She was a good waitress, and pretty attractive, with a good personality. Some people either just don't understand how important tips are, or they're scumbags.
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I think ignorance can play a role, but we see patterns. I'm not going to get into all of them, but I can tell you one. Back in the 70s my father worked for a moving company. He said tips were fantastic in working class towns. Terrible in rich towns. No one wanted that route. But they got paid well regardless of tips. Right now tipped help can be paid stupid low wages per hour. I personally don't think that's right. If you can't run your business paying your employees minimum wage, you shouldn't have a business. But the law allows more businesses to stay afloat.

If businesses paid their help accordingly, cheap customers wouldn't matter. I know I sound like this left wing nut, but I'm not even close. I lean heavily right. I just don't like businesses expecting their customers to pay their employees. It bothers me just as much as the scumbags that don't tip!!
 
Runwildboys said:
Back when I frequented Hooters, the girls would tell me about bad tippers. One girl had a party of about 16 people. They stayed for a few hours, and tipped her $10 total. She was a good waitress, and pretty attractive, with a good personality. Some people either just don't understand how important tips are, or they're scumbags.
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I want to say one more thing that came to mind. Back around 1990 4 of us went out to eat at a chain restaurant. The bill came out to around 62 dollars and change. I'll always remember this. I just left four 20 dollar bills. The guy sought me out to shake my hand. I didn't think I did anything great. And I didn't. I did nothing special. It was just a deviation from the norm. I learned that much later due to talking to people that worked those jobs. But at the time, I didn't know why the dude was so happy.
 
Flamma said:
I want to say one more thing that came to mind. Back around 1990 4 of us went out to eat at a chain restaurant. The bill came out to around 62 dollars and change. I'll always remember this. I just left four 20 dollar bills. The guy sought me out to shake my hand. I didn't think I did anything great. And I didn't. I did nothing special. It was just a deviation from the norm. I learned that much later due to talking to people that worked those jobs. But at the time, I didn't know why the dude was so happy.
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Almost 30% is a generous tip, but like you alluded to, it shouldn't be all that rare.
 
Flamma said:
I think ignorance can play a role, but we see patterns. I'm not going to get into all of them, but I can tell you one. Back in the 70s my father worked for a moving company. He said tips were fantastic in working class towns. Terrible in rich towns. No one wanted that route. But they got paid well regardless of tips. Right now tipped help can be paid stupid low wages per hour. I personally don't think that's right. If you can't run your business paying your employees minimum wage, you shouldn't have a business. But the law allows more businesses to stay afloat.

If businesses paid their help accordingly, cheap customers wouldn't matter. I know I sound like this left wing nut, but I'm not even close. I lean heavily right. I just don't like businesses expecting their customers to pay their employees. It bothers me just as much as the scumbags that don't tip!!
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I agree to a point but many, if not most, restaurants will fold if they pay minimum wage to servers and bartenders. It can be done in some cases but your $40 steak would then cost $100. It is much cheaper paying a 20% tip rather than obscene food costs.
 
Tabascocat said:
I agree to a point but many, if not most, restaurants will fold if they pay minimum wage to servers and bartenders. It can be done in some cases but your $40 steak would then cost $100. It is much cheaper paying a 20% tip rather than obscene food costs.
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I agree with you. I remember the time before the law. You had to wait hours to get into restaurants. Because only the best could survive. But now, trash restaurants can survive too. So how do we get to a happy medium? If a restaurant has to fold for paying minimum wage, should they be in business? Do I want to eat there? It's a give and take. Do we want more places to eat? Or do we want only the best places to eat?
 
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