(avitania)
As many Consumerist readers have pointed out over the years, you’re generally under no obligation to leave a tip for someone who provides you a service. That being said, most of us still do — and for a seemingly increasing number of services. That’s why we want to know about those situations in which you almost always leave a little extra.
So, assuming competent service, for which of the following 9 things do you think tipping is part of the standard operating procedure. You can select as many from the list as you’d like (and tell me in the comments about the items that didn’t make the list).
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I tip for all of those.
I tip unless the service is abominable. Then I don’t leave anything, complain to management and never return.
I always tip good to the people who cut my hair. They do a good job even though it is a walk-in clip joint.
My $0.02:
If the person is making less than minimum wage (e.g. a server at a restaurant), and the service is good, they deserve a tip.
Otherwise, no. And I’ve shared this before. As a teenager I used to work at a full serve gas bar, making minimum wage. We would fill up cars with gas, rain or shine (no canopies at full serve gas bars, so we would get drenched), check people’s fluid levels, top up oil, etc. No matter how good the service was, we would only get a tip around Christmastime, and only from a few people (if you got $5 during an 8-hour shift, you were lucky).
Yes, people can pump their own gas. They can also pour their own drinks if the bar would allow them, park their own car, clean up their hotel room, and get their own food from the restaurant kitchen. Oh ya, and often pick up their own food. But they don’t, and some people tip those folk.
Except for the gas bar attendant, who has to smell gas fumes, work in the pouring rain, and so forth. It’s very telling that gas bar attendants weren’t on the list, yet other professions who make *more* money doing *less* work are listed.
If I go to a full serve gas bar, I always make sure to tip. The attendants are usually surprised. If you can tip the guy who delivers your pizza, cuts your hair, and parks your car, then you’re a fucking hypocrite if you can’t bring yourself to tip the gas bar attendant, especially when he’s filled your car, checked your oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, and topped up your car.
It’s very telling that gas bar attendants weren’t on the list
Most places don’t have them. I think they left it off because it wouldn’t even apply to most people.
Hotel room cleaning staff – $2 per person per night
Sit down Restaurant – 20% with the same percentage to the wine steward if there is one and we order wine.
Parking garage where the attendant gets my car – $1
Haircut – The cost is $17 and I always give him $23. The cost used to be $18 with a $5 tip and when he reduced the price, I left the total the same.
Drinks at a bar – 20%
The bigger question is hotel concierge services. How much do you tip if they get you theater tickets or ball game tickets? What if they just recommend a restaurant or give you directions?
Tipping is a lousy practice but it’s ingrained and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.
Never understood tipping hotel housekeeping. I don’t stay in cheap hotels and the $$$ I paid per night includes a spotless room that is cleaned and returned to that condition during my stay. Pay the damn housekeeper good money!
Never understood tipping hotel housekeeping. I don’t stay in cheap hotels and the $$$ I paid per night includes a spotless room that is cleaned and returned to that condition during my stay. Pay the damn housekeeper good money!
Wow, less than 20% tip at restaurants? What? I hope most of them are either living in countries where restaurant tips aren’t expected or only eat at buffet-style restaurants…
Fight tip creep. I remember when 12 percent was considered baseline, then it was 15 percent, then 20 percent started being suggested, now here you are, acting like 20 percent is not only reasonable but a minimum entitlement. Entitlement, indeed.
I work at a hardware store and regularly, with no expectation of remuneration, I help people fix their bikes, carry paint out to their car (there’s no parking in the neighborhood to speak of), etc. All of which I consider just ‘doing my job.’
I am still surprised when someone tips me. I _do_ refuse it twice but then accept it and promise to waste it on beer.
Don’t forget to tip your tattoo artist!
Everything on the list EXCEPT for the valet parking bullshit, mainly because I NEVER get my car valet parked.
Stories of people having their stuff stolen by valets, having been ticketed for parking violation due to the valet’s fault but never realizing it until it’s too late because the valet ripped up the ticket and pretend that nothing had happened, valets taking cars for joyrides and such mean that I am willing to walk a few blocks rather than to hand over my keys to a complete stranger.
If you are going to tip for food/beer at a sporting event, you may as well tip the counter people at the movie theater. Not to sound cheap but if I’m am expected to pay $10 for a beer or $8.50 for some popcorn then there is no way I’m going to tip too. That just seems like grinding salt in an open wound.
wait, do only 17.5% of voters think it’s normal to tip for dinner at a restaurant? I mean, I don’t tip at fast food joints, but that’s not what I assumed “Dinner at a restaurant” meant. And 12.8% for taxis? Am I reading this wrong?
Ill tip at a restaurant, Ill tip at a bar, Ill tip the delivery guy. Ive never been on a taxy, so I dont know about that. And housekeeping? Not sure about that.
One thing I do not tip is coffee bars, juice bars, etc.
I mean seriously, I just paid 5 bucks for a stupid Starbucks/Jamba Juice/Cold Stone/whatever, and you want me to tip you for a minute worth of work? What the hell do you tip? 10 cents??
I was really surprised not to see movers in the poll or in the comments (that I read). Maybe its just because I live in SF, where often times they’re lugging your shit up 4 flights of stairs while getting paid the same as if they carried it in the front door of a house. I tip those guys well, but mostly because I’ve been on the other side of the coin.
Otherwise, I despise tipping, but recognize where it is due. I still don’t like the idea that it is mandatory. I really wish places with expected tips would just pay the employees minimum wages and treat tips as a nice gesture, not as an obligation to the customer.
And to all those people that say you must tip at a restaurant, screw that! We live in a capitalist society; if you feel you’re underpaid for your job, go out and get a better one! And if you can’t, there’s a reason for it. Also, I’ve never understood the whole wait staff/server spitting in your food thing – why take it out on the customer. Your boss is the one screwing you.
There is clearly either something majorly wrong with this poll, or readers of consumerist are cold, cold bastards. I cannot believe under any circumstances that 82% of you do not actually tip at a restaurant. Or 83% won’t tip a pizza delivery guy. Come, is this a mass joke?
Yes, seriously. If over 80% of Consumerist readers don’t tip when they eat out at a restaurant, it almost makes me reconsider why I consider taking people’s opinions here seriously.
Granted, I know there are people who don’t tip, and it’s within their rights not to, in my opinion… but I’ve always assumed they were in the extreme minority.
Must be nice to work for tips rather than working to avoid malpractce lawsuits. Ill tip for table service but not those damn Dunkin Donut tip cups. Have any of these fast food companies realized yet just how many of us avoid them because of the damn cup? Only ones I tip like that is in the summer when the high school kids are working at Dairy Queen. I just hope only the kids get to keep the tips and not some franchise owner using some BS excuse. BTW in an earlier posting, I have been asking servers how their tips are managed, either they get it or they have to split it. As was stated in that posting, surprisingly the staff does not mind being asked.
You should mention that you can vote for more then one.
Hasn’t it said “check all that apply” since it’s been up?
Poll results are busted though so the percentages are way off.
A lot of food service/bar folks are taught TIPS stands for To Insure Prompt Service. I always felt this was pure crap. If i’m a customer/guest in your establishment i expect prompt service or i’ll walk and take my dollars elsewhere. Your goal should be prompt service. A tip is a bonus, not a suppliment to your minimum wage. A server who is just doing their job isn’t earning a “bonus” at least not from me. Now everyone has different expectations of that service. I usually plan on giving 20% at the start of the meal and it ticks up/down depending until the total arrives. I’m not going to ding a server for slow service in a very busy place. I’m going to reward them for prompt service in the same busy place. My drink glass is empty in a slow time? Not going to be good for you. Oh and places that just lump on 18% for big tables or just because? Thats all you person is getting regardless.
Theres always the story of someone who has a friend who goes to restaurants, lays down $20 in ones bucks on the counter, and tells the server, “Here is your tip, for every screw up tonight, I’m going to deduct a little from your tip.”
I wonder if anyone really does that?
I once took a long cab ride and as we approached the destination point I looked at the meter and saw that the ride was much more then I expected or had on me (cab did not take cards) so I told the driver to let me out about two miles before the destination so I would have money to tip him. He turned and said “You tip?” with a huge grin. I nodded and he turned off the meter, took me directly to my destination and told me my fare was less than half what the meter had read before he turned it off. I paid him what he asked plus a healthy tip, which was still less than what the meter had read. He handed me a card and I used that same cabbie again and again and always got great service.
Is it wrong that I generally don’t tip at buffets because busing plates doesn’t seem like tipable activity? Does anyone know if those people get server pay or real salary?
Busboys get minimum wage and rarely, if ever, get raises since it’s a high turn-over position. Having been a busboy as a kid I know how hard they work and when I see a busboy busting his a55 to turn tables, especially while I’m waiting for a table, I always tip him on the sly.
I lost my phone at a hotel a few days back. When I return to the area in another few days, If no one has stolen it and given it to their child, I’ll tip then.
Of course, the thing is shut off, so…
If less that 18 percent of people here tip after dinner in a restaurant, that could explain why everyone here is always complaining about bad customer service.
Is there anything wrong with simply having a general rule of thumb of tipping on “above perfunctory” service?
Once I got tipped (and commended) by a customer when I worked at Home Depot after going to bat for them against management and ensuring they got what they wanted and b) got what they paid for and paid for what they got. At the same time, when was at a restaurant-not-to-be-named-for-I-am-shamed-to-have-worked-there, I worked tables to fill some short staffing. I provided solid, but not exceptional, service. No tip. Looking back, it wasn’t merited.
I think the poll is messed up… It is counting every selection as an individual voter… I doubt that only 17% tip for dinner at a restaurant.
Here in massachusetts food server make $2.63 an hour so unless service is exceptionally horrible a tip is rather obligatory
When I was younger, I didn’t tip hotel housekeeping. Now that I have 4 kids they deserve the tip for dealing with the way kids turn the room upsidedown.
The only places that I despise leaving a tip is Dunkin Donuts. Pouring me coffee while making over minimum wage (meaning not a tip based job) in my book does not constitute a tip.
There is one Dunkin Donuts that I have absolutely no problem leaving my spare change at – Exit 71 off of I84 in Connecticut – the Ruby Road exit with the truck stop.
In lieu of tipping, they now have a collection bins where the money is donated to charities for kids. I was very happy to see one of the Dunkin Donuts follow the lead of McDonalds.
When I was younger I worked at a few grocery stores stocking shelves, etc., and would sometimes get called to help someone out to their car. Occasionally I got a few dollars which I always appreciated but never expected.
If you ask for help with your groceries and loading them into your car, would you tip?
So Devil’s Advocate here;
Since most of the people here seems to feel that tipping is expected, would you tip the Comcast repair man if he arrived on time and resolved your problem?
You need to put a n/a option on these for those of us who don’t use those services. Otherwise, your results are useless. It’s going to look like we don’t tip for say ‘food at a sporting event’ when we don’t go to sporting events.
Im surprised there was no option for “Advice on Consumer Affairs (hint hint)”
Unless four-fifth of participants really do NOT usually tip for dinner in a restaurant, it looks like this poll was structured incorrectly. The numbers should not add up to 100%. As I’m writing this, it says 7,833 people voted for customarily tipping for dinner, I’m assuming fewer than 10,000 people actually voted, but there are 44,543 total votes, which would seem to be across all categories. To put it another way, I checked 7 of the 9 boxes, which should have counted as one vote but probably counted as 7. I hope you can redo this to give an idea of how many respondents actually chose a particular answer, which would be far more interesting and useful.
Oh, and I’d include “Picking up a take-out order” on there.
Anytime someone handles a bag of mine, I always tip. The bellman at a hotel, someone who gets my hotel bags out of hotel storage, anyone who handles my golf bag as well. This would include extra for a taxi driver that handles my suitcases for me.
Haircut
Pizza delivery
Restaurant
Bar
Local cafe I have lunch in every other week
That’s about all that applies to me. No hotels, sporting events, taxis or valet parking.
Everyone gets two bucks. Everyone. Two bucks.
the little “help pay for your blah blah’s college fund!” jars and ones like in your picture? NEVER. You see those mostly at places like Dunkin Donuts, where they are not making below minimum wage. It drives me nuts.
I’ve started tipping less and less as I”ve gotten older. When I was in my twenties, I tipped all over the place.
Never for take out food, why should I.
I’ve heard that people don’t tip their piercers/tattoo artists? I find this insane, is it just me? I used to be an ear piercer at Claire’s, where we couldn’t take tips, but if I go for a body piercing or if I ever get a tattoo, YES they get tipped. What’s the word there?
I tip if I feel the individual doing the serving is professional and polite. Why not?
I’ve never tipped housekeeping though… I had no idea! Do you just leave the tip in the room??
You do realize that if tipping was replaced by employers paying livable wages the prices for nearly every good/service would skyrocket?
I tip servers in restaurants because they get less than minimum wage and are expected to make up the difference in tips. Otherwise…no.
what about dog groomers? is this the same kind of thing as haircuts? I usually take my dog to PetSmart because they’re quick and it looks decent, but it’s $40 (she’s a schnauzer with a complex groom)…I always hesitate to tip after that!!
I work as a Barista and don’t expect people to tip, but if they do I’m grateful. I think of a tip as a thank you gift. A customer brought my manager a bottle of wine because he found her camera and kept it save. It was a really nice gesture. Personally, I tip whenever I feel like the person really deserved a tip. I don’t believe in the BS that people live off tips. Employers take advantage of this and it’s not fair. Employers need to pay their employee’s well whether they are receiving a tip or not. I was a server and didn’t like being paid minimum wage, so I quit.
My LORD are you people cheap!!
I always tip 20%, at the least, when at a restaurant. At a bar, $1 per drink, if I feel it’s deserved and that’s what a bartender friend told me. I tip a little extra when I’m at a Mom-and-Pop place because even though it might be more expensive, they’re local and not some crappy Starbucks or Subway. I usually just leave my coin change for Subway. Their quality has gone WAY down hill. The one in the gas station I work at has literally just omitted the cheese from the Italian Herbs and Cheese bread. It’s just Italian with some herbs on it. It sucks. Plus, they’re getting paid hourly and they don’t rely on tips for actual pay.