- Jan 7, 2002
- 12,755
- 3
- 0
Restaurant tipping points
Bill Dawson, Star Tribune
April 16, 2005 TIPVAR0416
Here's a tip: Leave a little something for your waitress. And your bellhop. And your skycap.
Or you might lose your appetite.
"If you're a person who consistently stiffs your waitress, people at that restaurant know you, they point you out, and watch out," says Kim Stahler, of Redding, Pa., who started a website called stainedapron.com.
"If you don't tip at least 15 percent," Stahler writes, "I bet you have ingested your server's saliva at least once."
Stahler, a waitress for 15 years before becoming a reference librarian, doesn't endorse spitting on food. But she understands the frustration behind the action. "Is it wrong for a server to do that? Yeah. But it happens all the time," she says.
Another website, badtipper.com, contains gruesome gratuity tales from restaurant servers, cabdrivers, bellhops and even exotic dancers. One waitress, who was nickled and dimed on a $60 meal, admits to throwing a tantrum as the customers were leaving the restaurant. One quickly returned with a $10 bill.
Famously tight tippers -- John Kerry, Tiger Woods, Sharon Stone -- are outed, and news stories are posted, including a Reuters piece labeled "Waiter, there's a condom in my soup."
Bitterwaitress.com also dishes on these topics, with one section called "Great Revenge Ideas." It details unsavory ways that undertipped or abused servers might get back at customers.
Fear of retaliation as a tip motivator has historic foundations. Some say the custom began in the Middle Ages, when coins were tossed to hostile beggars to ensure one's safety.
That anxiety continues today, for different reasons: Whom to tip? And how much? And what if you don't?
Stahler's own mother didn't know that skycaps expect tips. She often had her luggage lost. "She was mortified to learn she was supposed to leave a tip," Stahler said. After she started tipping, Stahler's mom no longer lost her luggage.
The established rule in restaurants is 15 to 20 percent, said David Strohmetz, a psychology professor at New Jersey's Monmouth University who has made a study of tipping. "But when we start getting into all these other services, we're not sure," he said. "There's a lot of ambiguity there."
Bellhop? Cabdriver? Manicurist? Chambermaid?
Even with the confusion, we're forking over a lot of change. The Internal Revenue Service says Americans pay $14 billion a year in reported tips. Unreported gratuities could add up to a much higher total.
"Gratuities," however, is a blurry word. Webster's calls it "a gift of money, over and above payment due for service," but many food servers regard tips as an essential part of their compensation, not to be withheld on a customer's whim.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/5350344.html
Bill Dawson, Star Tribune
April 16, 2005 TIPVAR0416
Here's a tip: Leave a little something for your waitress. And your bellhop. And your skycap.
Or you might lose your appetite.
"If you're a person who consistently stiffs your waitress, people at that restaurant know you, they point you out, and watch out," says Kim Stahler, of Redding, Pa., who started a website called stainedapron.com.
"If you don't tip at least 15 percent," Stahler writes, "I bet you have ingested your server's saliva at least once."
Stahler, a waitress for 15 years before becoming a reference librarian, doesn't endorse spitting on food. But she understands the frustration behind the action. "Is it wrong for a server to do that? Yeah. But it happens all the time," she says.
Another website, badtipper.com, contains gruesome gratuity tales from restaurant servers, cabdrivers, bellhops and even exotic dancers. One waitress, who was nickled and dimed on a $60 meal, admits to throwing a tantrum as the customers were leaving the restaurant. One quickly returned with a $10 bill.
Famously tight tippers -- John Kerry, Tiger Woods, Sharon Stone -- are outed, and news stories are posted, including a Reuters piece labeled "Waiter, there's a condom in my soup."
Bitterwaitress.com also dishes on these topics, with one section called "Great Revenge Ideas." It details unsavory ways that undertipped or abused servers might get back at customers.
Fear of retaliation as a tip motivator has historic foundations. Some say the custom began in the Middle Ages, when coins were tossed to hostile beggars to ensure one's safety.
That anxiety continues today, for different reasons: Whom to tip? And how much? And what if you don't?
Stahler's own mother didn't know that skycaps expect tips. She often had her luggage lost. "She was mortified to learn she was supposed to leave a tip," Stahler said. After she started tipping, Stahler's mom no longer lost her luggage.
The established rule in restaurants is 15 to 20 percent, said David Strohmetz, a psychology professor at New Jersey's Monmouth University who has made a study of tipping. "But when we start getting into all these other services, we're not sure," he said. "There's a lot of ambiguity there."
Bellhop? Cabdriver? Manicurist? Chambermaid?
Even with the confusion, we're forking over a lot of change. The Internal Revenue Service says Americans pay $14 billion a year in reported tips. Unreported gratuities could add up to a much higher total.
"Gratuities," however, is a blurry word. Webster's calls it "a gift of money, over and above payment due for service," but many food servers regard tips as an essential part of their compensation, not to be withheld on a customer's whim.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/5350344.html
Facebook
Twitter