I stumbled across this site today that laid out some standard percentages for leaving tips.
They claim you should tip:
- 20% for restaurants.
- 5% for taxi drivers.
- 10-15% for haircuts.
- $5 for hotel room cleaning.
- $10-15 for the bellhop.
- $1-2 per drink at a bar.
It’s implied that if you don’t tip this much, you will receive poor service next time because the workers will hate you. A tip is basically mandatory in our society. I know a few people who work at restaurants that even rant about how people don’t tip enough and that they should leave more than 20%.
Well fuck that.
I work in retail and often find myself helping customers out with things. Sometimes I help them find things. Sometimes I help them fill out labels. Sometimes I carry heavy packages to their cars, but do I expect a tip? No of course not. I get paid my next-to-minimum wage and I do my job. What difference does it make that I work in a store/post office and they work in a restaurant, or a hotel, or even a fucking taxi (the same taxis that won’t pick me up from a party at 3:00 AM because it’s too far out of their way). Why should I pay the bartender an extra $1-2 tip just for pulling a lever for 15 seconds?
The bellhop is the the best example of this tipping absurdity. Here’s a guy (or girl) who is paid by the hotel specifically to carry your bags.. and yet you are expected to fork over a fiver when you get to your room.
The whole problem with our tipping system is that we’re expected to pay an extra 15-20% tip even if the service was standard. This is wrong. We should pay the standard rate for standard service. Then maybe, just maybe add a tip if the server went above and beyond.
I’m not an asshole. I do leave generous tips for standard service, but I definitely don’t like or agree with it.
That was your weekly rant. Now I expect a $5 tip.
I haven’t posted that much in the last few weeks (much like certain other blogs). I’ve been busy with work, school, life, et cetera but that’s no excuse. I get the feeling that I’m doing nothing and it’s taking up all of my time. I would probably have posted a bit more frequently but my cache of clever observations and impassioned rants has been reduced to a few half-finished ideas. Even those are pretty useless to be honest. I can’t even remember what I was thinking about when I wrote them. Of the the three “blog ideas” I have left here, one is a question mark - nothing else - just a question mark. One says “H.S.T”. The last one is “JP vs MS” .. whatever that means. So instead of trying to decipher my cryptic notes-to-self (although you’re welcome to try), I’m just giving it to you straight. I’ve got nothing to say.
Now hold on a minute. I should clarify something.
This is not one of those forced compositions. You know the kind. Everyone has, at one point in their lives, witnessed this scenario:
A person is required to write a speech, or essay, or some other type of composition. They try desperately for hours to come up with a topic with no success.
Suddenly, it hits them. Why not write about not being able to find a topic? “That’s genius” they think to themselves. “I’m the most original person I know“.
Then they take this and show all their friends, who try their hardest not to roll their eyes while telling them how creative an idea it was.
Anyways, this post is not one of those lame compositions. I just have nothing to say, and I thought you should know it.
I spend a lot of time looking at screens. In fact, my entire life just seems to be this ever changing progression from one screen to another. I get up in the morning and stare at my computer screen as I check my email. I hop on the bus and look down at my ipod screen as I listen to music. I sit down in lecture and stare at the projector screen while the professor stares at his laptop screen and reads off the powerpoint presentation. After a few minutes of this I usually whip out my laptop and stare at that for a while. As I walk down the halls, the university has screens hanging from the ceiling every few meters to convey important information. When I get home, I stare at my laptop again as I do assignments. If I want to relax for a bit, I might go watch TV. Sometimes I play guitar, but I still end up staring at some tabs on my computer. At work, I stare at another computer screen to calculate prices. It’s just one screen to another to another. Even the bus to whistler shows skiing/snowboarding videos on the way up.
Well there you go. That’s your strange observation for today.
I think I’ll go see a movie.