UKJ wrote:I remember a guy on another forum who was a graduate, but chose to be a valet parker in Vegas ( or whatever you call them) as it paid more. Kind of defeats the purpose of paying for an education.
The system sounds unfair on customers, who are paying service staff $200 a night to work in an organic diner.


A couple of things that puzzled me on Vegas advice was the taxi wave guy and limo drivers. The limo tip was suggested at around $20 - $25 if I remember correctly. What's that in American minimum wage cost to the customer? Three hours of their hard earned? ( unless they are a waiter )
And why do you tip a guy who waves at a line of waiting taxis? imho, that screams "scam". The taxi would drive up anyway, as they are waiting for customers. What service do these guys actually provide, except lining their own pockets?

It's not "unfair"... read the model above more carefully. They'd still be paying it... but in the meal prices. There's not enough margin for the company to shoulder that without raising food prices. So they'd be forced to pay it, and wouldn't be able to adjust/refuse it for poor service. It's actually MORE fair to let them control how much they give or don't based on service quality.

Cabs:
In cambodia, why do you tip the guy who puts his hand up so you can back the car out. convenience. they hail you a cab... and likely when you're not there seeing it they work out which cab drivers suck and which don't... and single out the better ones. you can get some REALLY shitty cabs in vegas... guys who don't speak english or know shit about the city. if you want to test your luck, you're free to go wave your own. Many people do.

OrangeDragon wrote:Cabs:
In cambodia, why do you tip the guy who puts his hand up so you can back the car out. convenience.

Try NOT tipping one of these guys or telling them you don't want/need their 'service', and see how thin the veneer is. I parked the tuktuk at Central market the other day while the parking thug watched in amazement and did nothing. I wheeled it back out into the street without his assistance, too. Oh, to be fair, he did give a limp wave to the traffic I had already diverted. When I gave him 1000r for his 'efforts' he stood his ground and insisted the 'price' was 2000r.

Why do we tip them? Because they are organised little thugs and gangsters and it's simply just less unpleasant to pay them some monopoly money and drive on. Let's not ever kid ourselves it's something else.

yeah... that's what i meant by convenience. of course, you don't drive a big hard to maneuver SUV...

I tip as i see fit. On my travels i like to tip when i get good service. It's doing these little favors which help them, and make me feel good about myself. These people are really poor, and if i can afford to fly there i can afford a few real here and there.

If i lived in Cambodia, i would want to be a bit more 'in the know' as regards who to, and who not, to tip, though.

I tend to use tips as an "I see you!" for staff who look like they feel marginalised/invisible in developing countries. This is difficult when it's a shared tip jar for all staff - and I'm skeptical of those in some places. In first world countries I only tip waiters for average or better service. As an ex-chef I occasionally send a bottle of wine back to the kitchen staff for an exceptional meal, and without fail have always been thanked at the table by the head chef. Mrs Stroppy and I also like to send a round to the band/singers at a restaurant with live music if they are good or even just particularly passionate. I think when it becomes a tithe on food, it's lost the meaning.

StroppyChops wrote:This is difficult when it's a shared tip jar for all staff - and I'm skeptical of those in some places.

Agreed. Really, it's all about personal preferance and 'up 2 u'. If pple don't wanna give tips they can choose to eat street food. Usually upper class places like their tips, and this is same worldwide, not just USA, where tipping is another matter.

Luckily Cambodia aint that bad. If things came to the worse then we can just buy and cook our own right? Westerners often forget their lucky position to be able to live like a king in Poor Cambodia. Have some heart for the locals, but at the same time don't be a mug, peoples.

OrangeDragon wrote:

UKJ wrote:I remember a guy on another forum who was a graduate, but chose to be a valet parker in Vegas ( or whatever you call them) as it paid more. Kind of defeats the purpose of paying for an education.
The system sounds unfair on customers, who are paying service staff $200 a night to work in an organic diner.


A couple of things that puzzled me on Vegas advice was the taxi wave guy and limo drivers. The limo tip was suggested at around $20 - $25 if I remember correctly. What's that in American minimum wage cost to the customer? Three hours of their hard earned? ( unless they are a waiter )
And why do you tip a guy who waves at a line of waiting taxis? imho, that screams "scam". The taxi would drive up anyway, as they are waiting for customers. What service do these guys actually provide, except lining their own pockets?

It's not "unfair"... read the model above more carefully. They'd still be paying it... but in the meal prices. There's not enough margin for the company to shoulder that without raising food prices. So they'd be forced to pay it, and wouldn't be able to adjust/refuse it for poor service. It's actually MORE fair to let them control how much they give or don't based on service quality.

Cabs:
In cambodia, why do you tip the guy who puts his hand up so you can back the car out. convenience. they hail you a cab... and likely when you're not there seeing it they work out which cab drivers suck and which don't... and single out the better ones. you can get some REALLY shitty cabs in vegas... guys who don't speak english or know shit about the city. if you want to test your luck, you're free to go wave your own. Many people do.

I know it would be added to the meal costs and imho, that would fairer to the customer, as I don't think waiting staff would be on $200 a night.
I don't really buy that the tips are totally related to service. Google something like " chased for not tipping" and you will probably get incidents of staff chasing customers up the street to remonstrate with them, despite giving poor service. You read them every year, around holiday time.
We will have to agree to disagree on cab hailing guys. I wouldn't mind in say NYC if cabs are in short supply and he goes out, while you shelter from the weather, but not as it's been described to me, as a queue of taxis, waiting just a few yards away, like a total scam. Why not just wait right out front.IMO, it's so the cab hailer can scam toursts, plain and simple.

StroppyChops wrote:I also like to send a round to the band/singers at a restaurant with live music if they are good or even just particularly passionate. I think when it becomes a tithe on food, it's lost the meaning.

I like to tips bands and singers as well. They have started with a musical gift, then had to rehearse and practice for years. Unfortunately for them, they haven't really made the illogical " people to tip lists" , like these gifted taxi waving dudes who strut their unrehearsed taxi waving routine for all of 15 seconds!

UKJ wrote:

OrangeDragon wrote:

UKJ wrote:I remember a guy on another forum who was a graduate, but chose to be a valet parker in Vegas ( or whatever you call them) as it paid more. Kind of defeats the purpose of paying for an education.
The system sounds unfair on customers, who are paying service staff $200 a night to work in an organic diner.


A couple of things that puzzled me on Vegas advice was the taxi wave guy and limo drivers. The limo tip was suggested at around $20 - $25 if I remember correctly. What's that in American minimum wage cost to the customer? Three hours of their hard earned? ( unless they are a waiter )
And why do you tip a guy who waves at a line of waiting taxis? imho, that screams "scam". The taxi would drive up anyway, as they are waiting for customers. What service do these guys actually provide, except lining their own pockets?

It's not "unfair"... read the model above more carefully. They'd still be paying it... but in the meal prices. There's not enough margin for the company to shoulder that without raising food prices. So they'd be forced to pay it, and wouldn't be able to adjust/refuse it for poor service. It's actually MORE fair to let them control how much they give or don't based on service quality.

Cabs:
In cambodia, why do you tip the guy who puts his hand up so you can back the car out. convenience. they hail you a cab... and likely when you're not there seeing it they work out which cab drivers suck and which don't... and single out the better ones. you can get some REALLY shitty cabs in vegas... guys who don't speak english or know shit about the city. if you want to test your luck, you're free to go wave your own. Many people do.

I know it would be added to the meal costs and imho, that would fairer to the customer, as I don't think waiting staff would be on $200 a night.
I don't really buy that the tips are totally related to service. Google something like " chased for not tipping" and you will probably get incidents of staff chasing customers up the street to remonstrate with them, despite giving poor service. You read them every year, around holiday time.
We will have to agree to disagree on cab hailing guys. I wouldn't mind in say NYC if cabs are in short supply and he goes out, while you shelter from the weather, but not as it's been described to me, as a queue of taxis, waiting just a few yards away, like a total scam. Why not just wait right out front.IMO, it's so the cab hailer can scam tourists, plain and simple.

Again, take a shitty vegas taxi one time. 2 hours later when you get to your hotel 15 minutes away because the guy got lost (and the meter was still running) you'll likely change your tune. Never had it that bad... but I have had a guy pull a khmer tuktuk act and claim to know where I wanted to go (and i didn't know how to get there either) and take us about 20 minutes past the place, then have to turn around. never had a bad experience from a valet cab; in part because you tell THEM where you're going and THEY tell the cabbie and if he doesn't know how to get there, they'll explain it or send him on and find one that does. That's not a scam, it's a service.

As for chasing someone out of a restaurant... VERY rare, and usually a real cunt of a waitress (likely why they got no tip as well), and quite likely to get them fired. Even if you don't complain, someone who saw it will and she'll be sacked. I did your google search, and the first one i find is someone being followed out with the guy just nicely asking if he'd done something wrong to deserve not getting tipped. not too unreasonable of a thing to do... finding out one's mistakes so as not to make them again. turns out he just didn't see where they left it and they liked his service fine, which could explain his confusion.

then i find a forum with a lot of people saying they've never seen it.

Then found this story... where again the staff was concerned about what was wrong:

We did have one instance at a high end restaurant. My boss was in from The Netherlands and he left a 10% tip on the check after a really great dinner. The manager came by to politely ask if there had been a problem with service. We said "No, everything was great. Why?" and he mentioned the tip which is considered low and a method of indicating your displeasure. We explained US tipping rules to my boss and we all got a good laugh. Of course, then he realized how many other waiters he'd been short changing in his 3 yrs of traveling back and forth. But after 10 visits and countless dinners out, this was the first time any waiter or management had commented to him about the low tip.

So it seems to very much be supporting the idea that tipping can have an impact on performance.

Not sure where you "read about it every year"... perhaps its one of the many fun UK activities in which they try to downplay america by making exceptional and rare cases appear as though they're the norm.

Oh wait... I see one link with the BBC saying "don't be surprised if wait staff chase after you".. see above about UK media trends vs America.