A Tipping Question

So the guy originally offered to tip half ($3,000) but ended up giving you $1,000?

 

I love this site. Random fights over $10 in tips, weird anecdotes. Sometimes I think it is performance art created just so I don't drink a cup of bleach.

 

I don't doubt that's true, but isn't turnover ridiculously high among servers?

As in, if I give someone a generous (or miserly) tip, what are the chances I'll see that server again? I can only recall a couple of times we were in a place and said, "We know that guy." One time, a female server really doted on us when we mentioned it was my wife's birthday. I gave her something like a 40 percent tip . . . and never saw her there again.

 

Yes. He said he'd give $3,000 in chips INSIDE the casino but only if would go to me.

To my surprise, he really was there at the gas station with $1,000 in cash. Never saw him again.

Because I was sharp at math, I was always on the high limit tables so I always had the counters on my table. And I loved it.

To the surprise of many here, I put the cash in a mason jar and, the next Monday, paid $1,000 down on the back tuition I owed at the financial office.

The casino gig was paying me about $600 a week after taxes but that grand blew a nice hole in the $3,500 I owed.

Why did I owe $3,500? The father I've written about here refused to pay the second semester after saying he would. Too late for loans. So I paid it myself and never looked back.

 

No. There was a tribal committee of 6 or 7 people, dealers and the pit, and they would count the "tokes" every Monday. Paid on Friday.

I did get a $750 tip once while dealing.

"Dealer's Money... $750 dollars!" I yelled in my Johnny Olson Match Game voice. A cheer went up among the floor. We guessed that one tip was probably good for every dealer getting an extra $20 that week.

15 years later, I was playing there but this time I was the evening news anchor in the market where the casino is. Saw a lot of the same supervisors and dealers.

"The white boy done good," one of the natives I knew said as I sat down at his table and played a shoe.

 

Waitering at a pretty fine restaurant (after moving up from dishwashing (stinkiest job around) and busing tables and working in kitchen) gave me tremendous amounts of $$ for college life and tremendous amounts of life lessons (wait, full-time waiters need health care?).

Pooling of tips shouldn't deter a good tip, it all works out in the long run, your waiter may have a bad day some other day and someone else will have a great day. Its all about the team. We did not pool our tips, but I tipped out to the kitchen cooks and expediters, the bar, the bus boys.

After a free meal, man I'm thinking 30% min. at least.

 

Should Tipping Be Banned? - Freakonomics

Should Tipping Be Banned? - Freakonomics

The No-Tipping Point - Freakonomics

Far from my favorite podcast, but this is my 2nd time today linking it. The freakonomics guys have thought / talked a lot about tipping.

 

If you hate arithmetic, isn't it easier to simply add your tip to the total than find a round number, thus taking the change out of the equation? So, for instance, it's easier to add $20 to $65.14 and get $85.14, than it is to decide you want to spend an even $80 and have to do the math to get a tip of $14.86?

 

Some waitstaff is sure going to get its college loans paid off fast if it frequents the big-city seating area of SJ.com.

 

I've tried to be fair when it comes to tipping. Twenty percent is the rule and not the exception. But the attitudes still bug me.

One, some of us don't make the money we used to when we were in our earning prime. That doesn't mean we don't still want to go out and have a good meal sometimes. And a lot of the attitude I hear comes under the heading of, "If you can't tip well, you shouldn't go out to eat." Well, fuck that. I mean, really, fuck that. If I put $110 down for an $80 meal, first of all, my wife is going to give me hell when we get to the car. But she wouldn't have to. I'd be giving myself hell. Those 30 bucks mean a lot more to me than they did 10 years ago.

Two, I really believe that a lot of the rancor comes from people who are used to eating in city settings. Well, consider that it might be different in other places. Consider Pennsyltucky to be flyover country, if you will.

I'll tack on 20 percent -- usually. But I will also take my service and my food into consideration. If I get bad food, does the waitstaff take a hit for it? Sorry, they're in this together as far as I, the diner, is concerned. I'm not going to tip well for subpar meals.