I hate the way our society tips! Think about it, people always argue about "10% is the accepted tip amount," and "No, 15% is the accepted tip amount."
HELLO?!?! WTF!? THERE SHOULD BE _NO_ ACCEPTED AMOUNT!
The word "tip" denotes that the payment is a bit extra cause they did you a good service. Note: this does not mean that any body who does you any service deserves a tip! The damn delivery guy (of a home grocery service) is already being paid to do his damn job! Is he going out of his way to deliver your groceries? NO! He is doing what he must to get paid BY HIS COMPANY and not get fired. If he brings you some free food, or puts it in the fridge for you, or stops for a moment to pet the dog, then maybe you should give him a tip.
Why do we accept this notion of mandatory tipping? It should be on a case-by-case basis and not accross the board. One approach I have tried is what I call the "3-point scale." If I go to a restuarant I pay attention to the performance of my server. If they do something that makes me think, "well, that sure was nice/thoughtful/cool of them" then I give them 1 point. At the end of the meal I total up how many points they have and each point corresponds to $1. (I only call it the 3-point system cause I've never had the chance to give any body more than 3 points... pretty sad when you think about it.)
The other interesting thought is that people used to tip 5%. Then people decided that 10% was more proper. Now the "standard" is 15-20%. Next thing you know it will be 25%! One person tried to tell me that this was because of inflation. This makes no sense at all. Inflation would make the cost of the food/service itself rise, thus a set percentage of that cost would rise along with it... but not the actuall percent figure... know what I mean? --> 10% of $100 is $10, but 10% of $150 is $15. The percentage doesn't need to change and they still get a bigger tip in raw dollar amount.
Finally, i just want to shutup all the people frothing at the mouth who want to tell me that "tips are figured into a waiter's salary, so we have to tip or else they don't get their full pay." This is f-cking stupid-ass logic! So, you're saying that when the restuarant decides to pay waiters less and depend on tips to get by, we should allow this to "force" us to pay tips. NO! Give a tip as a tip, not a another part of the bill you must pay if you don't feel you got "above-average" service!
Finally, the best argument I have found to support not tipping all the time is this: If you take all the tips that people don't deserve, that you would have formerly given to them anyway, and give them to youself, think about how much money you'd save every year! Make yourself a tip jar that you put money in every time you get bad service.
WARNING!!!
Following my advice will make you very unpopular. The waiters wont say anything to you, so don't worry about them. However, your friends and family will try to crucify you. They will insult you, call you stingy, rude, cheap. Then they'll try to argue with you about the philosopy of the whole thing. Stick to the above defences of my plan and you will succed! Be brave and begin the 3-point scale!
Let the flaming begin!
Epsil0n
HELLO?!?! WTF!? THERE SHOULD BE _NO_ ACCEPTED AMOUNT!
The word "tip" denotes that the payment is a bit extra cause they did you a good service. Note: this does not mean that any body who does you any service deserves a tip! The damn delivery guy (of a home grocery service) is already being paid to do his damn job! Is he going out of his way to deliver your groceries? NO! He is doing what he must to get paid BY HIS COMPANY and not get fired. If he brings you some free food, or puts it in the fridge for you, or stops for a moment to pet the dog, then maybe you should give him a tip.
Why do we accept this notion of mandatory tipping? It should be on a case-by-case basis and not accross the board. One approach I have tried is what I call the "3-point scale." If I go to a restuarant I pay attention to the performance of my server. If they do something that makes me think, "well, that sure was nice/thoughtful/cool of them" then I give them 1 point. At the end of the meal I total up how many points they have and each point corresponds to $1. (I only call it the 3-point system cause I've never had the chance to give any body more than 3 points... pretty sad when you think about it.)
The other interesting thought is that people used to tip 5%. Then people decided that 10% was more proper. Now the "standard" is 15-20%. Next thing you know it will be 25%! One person tried to tell me that this was because of inflation. This makes no sense at all. Inflation would make the cost of the food/service itself rise, thus a set percentage of that cost would rise along with it... but not the actuall percent figure... know what I mean? --> 10% of $100 is $10, but 10% of $150 is $15. The percentage doesn't need to change and they still get a bigger tip in raw dollar amount.
Finally, i just want to shutup all the people frothing at the mouth who want to tell me that "tips are figured into a waiter's salary, so we have to tip or else they don't get their full pay." This is f-cking stupid-ass logic! So, you're saying that when the restuarant decides to pay waiters less and depend on tips to get by, we should allow this to "force" us to pay tips. NO! Give a tip as a tip, not a another part of the bill you must pay if you don't feel you got "above-average" service!
Finally, the best argument I have found to support not tipping all the time is this: If you take all the tips that people don't deserve, that you would have formerly given to them anyway, and give them to youself, think about how much money you'd save every year! Make yourself a tip jar that you put money in every time you get bad service.
WARNING!!!
Following my advice will make you very unpopular. The waiters wont say anything to you, so don't worry about them. However, your friends and family will try to crucify you. They will insult you, call you stingy, rude, cheap. Then they'll try to argue with you about the philosopy of the whole thing. Stick to the above defences of my plan and you will succed! Be brave and begin the 3-point scale!
Let the flaming begin!
Epsil0n
