I bought the Telegraph the other day for £1 and, you know what, it was such a rip-roaring read, such a rewarding experience, that I rushed back to the newsagent an hour later and gave the man 15p as a thank you.
I am, of course, joking. I wouldn’t read the Telegraph if you paid me. I also wouldn’t pay more than charged for a newspaper, a book, a house, a haircut, a taxi ride or a meal. And yet, the latter three tend to incur an extra charge over and above the agreed price as standard in the UK. Why?
Most of us are not accountants, most of us do not know the fixed and variable costs of a hairdressers or a taxi firm or a restaurant and are consequently not able to ascertain whether the mullet chop, meter charge or menu price need topped up by 10% or 15% to ensure that the staff get a decent wage and the business can break even. That job, surely, lies with the owner or the manager of the company. Set your prices high enough to make a decent profit and everybody’s happy.
And yet, here I am feeling forced by British society to round up or add on 15% (when did it go up from 10%?) to various bills in order to avoid being a selfish oaf. Indeed, it’s not even society, tips are now added onto bills as standard. Oh, sure, there’s the whole ‘discretionary’ get-out clause that people use but who is going to make a scene and request that the waiter or waitress only puts through the cost of the food and drinks and leaves the tip out…
Me, that’s who!
I’m not ashamed, I’m really not. Be the change you want to see in the world they say? Well, I don’t want the gun of a 15% mark-up put to my head on the rare occasion that I feel flush enough to go out for a pricey meal.
Maybe this is how it starts, the seeping of Tory values into a vulnerable ageing wannabe lefty. It’s the working classes who are counter-intuitively more generous with tipping and buying the Big Issue etc after all. They have a better sense of what it’s like to be in one of life’s trenches I suppose.
If that’s the first thing to go blue then so be it but for as long as I think the NHS should stay public, we should stay in the EU and that income taxes should go up, I ain’t tipping nobody unless they deserve it.
#1 by Sandy Brownlee on July 14, 2012 - 11:34 am
Agreed! I’d much rather salaries were higher, and good service being part of the job rather than needing rewarded. I don’t think it’s necessarily a Tory value either – expecting fair pay for a good job (rather than depending on the generosity of your customer) – sounds quite progressive to me.
I’m just back from a work trip to the US, and according to the guides, for the city I was in the going rate was 20%. I had to eat while there, for which I’ll be able to claim expenses – but tip I was paying was right out of my pocket, and at 20% adds up to a fair bit. I’m not keen on tips for bag carriers etc in the hotel either – but the guilt-tripping when one isn’t provided isn’t all that pleasant. If I knew the pay was likely to be good then the guilt wouldn’t be there and everyone would be happy.
How can it be made to happen though? We already have a minimum wage.
#2 by Jeff on July 14, 2012 - 11:41 am
I think the only way to change the culture is to have the courage of convictions and not tip unless you genuinely want to do so, something that I regularly fail to do to be honest.
Incidentally, I’m going to the US in a few months but have less problems with tipping out there as it’s there culture and not for me to change it. I’m pretty sure a lot of waiting staff don’t get minimum wage so the tips really are necessary in many instances. And with the exchange rate still reasonably in our favour, it shouldn’t burn ‘too’ much.
#3 by Iain Menzies on July 14, 2012 - 7:03 pm
Generally i take the view that I wont tip….unless i am given a reason to. Usually decent service.
There was a place, forget the name, in Bridge of Allan, that collected tips and shared them between the serving staff and the kitchen staff. That i REALLY didnt like. Generally it was a good place to eat with good food and good service, but sometimes one, or the other, just wasnt up to scratch.
The problem with tips, especially if they are added to the bill and not given in cash, is that you just dont know if its going to who it is ment to go to.
#4 by Craig Gallagher on July 15, 2012 - 8:31 pm
You’re right Jeff, here in Massachusetts serving staff are not subject to the state-wide minimum wage, and thus only earn $2.70 an hour. The rest of what they make is through tips, which has the benefit of encouraging excellent service – really fabulous, bend-over-backwards-for-you service – but confounds many a Scot – for example, my father not two weeks ago – too parsimonious to part with the whopping 20% rate expected of patrons here.
It’s such a grotesque faux-pas to tip badly as well. Boston serving staff will call you out on it, asking for a justification. My father found himself blue in the face arguing with a restaurant manager about how 20% was a ludicrous mark-up, while I stood outside refusing to be associated with his argument. I was uneasy when I first moved here, but I’ve learned to accomodate it into my budget simply because the dollar goes so far in providing value for money compared to sterling that paying a little extra isn’t, in the scheme of things, too painful.
Having to tip in Britain, however, when the opposite is true, is definitely a problem. As with many awkward cultural exchanges, our people are not really the best at establishing a hard and fast rule, especially Scots, noted skinflints that we are.
#5 by Indy on July 14, 2012 - 10:13 pm
My rule of thumb on tipping can be summed up thus: if I go for a £10 haircut I tip. If I go for a £40 haircut I don’t. Same with eating out, I’m more likely to leave a tip as standard if I go for a curry at an averagely priced curry house. Whereas if I go somewhere really pricey you think well I’m paying 100 quid here, that ought to cover the service as well. I’m not shelling out an extra 15 or 20 pounds.
If you are paying a high price for something you could get more cheaply elsewhere you just assume that part of the reason the price is higher is that the staff are getting paid more. Maybe that’s not the way it works but it’s the assumption most people make isn’t it?
#6 by Nikostratos on July 15, 2012 - 3:42 pm
My niece works for a well known restaurant hotel chain and when we had a meal there i did not tip on the basis she would not receive the cash.
Afterward she explained they do indeed get the tips individually from the tables they serve tips through your cards are placed on there wages and tax is deducted.
Cash is not declared and no tax is taken she (and the others prefer cash). Given she got 120 quid in tips the other night she is not doing too bad eh?
#7 by Indy on July 15, 2012 - 11:47 pm
Oh yes I always leave cash. Don’t trust them to pass it on if you pay by card.
#8 by Aidan on July 15, 2012 - 4:22 pm
I think the automatic service charge on the bill thing is a London thing, don’t see it elsewhere and it caused consternation amongst my coworkers (a Finn, an Italian and a Brazillian so fairly broad) during my sojourn there.
#9 by Jim Bennett on July 15, 2012 - 5:15 pm
It’s all been discussed before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=-NdFKXXKDLg
Classic!