A Tipping Question

[Riptide]

When we met at the gas station, I had changed into a hoodie and out of my tux/bow tie look. It was like a drug deal.

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

 

[playthrough]

I was very friendly and affable as a dealer, usually making $80-$100 an hour in my tip box. Of course it was split evenly by dealer hour for the week.

Some weeks we would make $20,000 in dealer tips. Divide that by about 1400 "dealer hours" and that's what each person made per hour on top of the $4.25 minimum back then. If you worked 66 hours a week, you made a ton of cash.

There is a slight backstory on the $1,000 tip I took illegally.

Our conversation was very friendly at the table. I took the year off college to get in-state tuition. His daughter was my age and at the same university. I think he appreciated what I was trying to do. His winning 6k that day didn't hurt.

When we met at the gas station, I had changed into a hoodie and out of my tux/bow tie look. It was like a drug deal.

I was already rattled by the Natives that I worked for. I was a statistics major with a 31 ACT and I was taking orders from uneducated 50 year olds who, as I found out later thanks to online court records, had long rap sheets for DUIs and burglaries and bad checks. I just wanted to get along and do the job but one guy - a floor supervisor - in particular would do anything to make my life difficult. Sometimes if a white person was winning big, he would take me to surveillance (think the hammer in Casino) and accuse me of working with him.

By the time the $1,000 tip came about, I was about to give my notice and go back to school anyway.

Did you ever count the tip money? I was in a casino once (forget where) and saw a couple dealers pour out a massive amount of chips from plastic bags onto an empty craps table and start counting/racking them. Wondered why they'd do it in the middle of the casino but figured the eye in the sky had something to do with it. Was a sea of red and white chips with a few stray greens.

 

[justgladtobehere]

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.

 

[BTExpress]

Yes, servers have a long memory when it comes to cash.

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.

 

[exmediahack]

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

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.

 

[exmediahack]

Did you ever count the tip money? I was in a casino once (forget where) and saw a couple dealers pour out a massive amount of chips from plastic bags onto an empty craps table and start counting/racking them. Wondered why they'd do it in the middle of the casino but figured the eye in the sky had something to do with it. Was a sea of red and white chips with a few stray greens.

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.

 

[qtlaw]

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.

 

[Guy_Incognito]

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.

 

[bigpern23]

I go 20% across the board, rounding to the nearest dollar because I hate arithmetic.

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?

 

[jr/shotglass]

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

 

[playthrough]

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.

Might depend in part on whether you're in a big or small town, a chain or mom-and-pop restaurant. Or a really high-end steakhouse, one of my old college housemates is a waiter in my town's renowned downtown steakhouse and has been there for years. One might think "he went to college to be a waiter?" but I know how high dinner tabs can run there and bet he's making more than many of our friends.

 

[jr/shotglass]

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, fork that. I mean, really, fork that. If I put $110 down for an $80 meal, first of all, my wife is going to give me heck when we get to the car. But she wouldn't have to. I'd be giving myself heck. 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.