during my rookie years working in europe, a tip could be anything from ten cents to two hundred.
quite a difference, i know.
i appreciated whatever people left, but tipping wasn’t really on my mind. i never expected it.
i do remember some of the retired guests. they would carefully count their money to pay for a coffee, and sometimes leave ten cents for me.
and yes, i would give them extra cookies and stop for a chat, tip or no tip.
when someone has counted every penny and still leaves something for you, those ten cents mean something.
back then, i was learning that there was a method to the madness.
serve from the right. clear from the right. french service from the left…
these were the practices we had been taught. many of the people i worked with were proud to be waiters. it was their profession, and they took it seriously.
i received a fixed monthly salary that was enough for me to live on, and i was able to save as well. service was included in the prices where i worked, so a tip was extra.
then i moved to north america.
many of the waiters i worked with were students supporting themselves through their studies. they were paid an hourly minimum wage, and tips were an important part of making a living.
you wanted to give good service, and you hoped the tip would reflect that.
more than ten per cent? even better.
we even used to compete to see who got the most tips that day.
i also became used to restaurants automatically adding a fifteen per cent gratuity for parties of six or more.
six people or more? gratuity added. we knew how it worked. we just accepted it as part of going out for dinner.
years later, we had a regular customer who came in every day for lunch.
he was a banker. we talked about all sorts of things, but one particular conversation stayed with me.
“do you know what gratuity means?” he asked.
“no.”
he explained that it was a sum of money given voluntarily by a customer to someone working in service.
i knew tipping was voluntary. i knew it wasn’t a written law. i just didn’t know there was a definition for it. :)
and i agreed with his point.
i knew how much tips mattered to the people working there. but when i was the guest, i wanted to leave something because i had received good service and was happy with the experience.
not because someone had decided i had to.
i remember one time we ate at a buffet, paid the bill and left.
we were waiting at a traffic light when the waiter came after us. my first thought was that my card hadn’t gone through, or we had paid the wrong amount.
but no.
he had run after us because we hadn’t left a tip… can you believe that?
being followed into the street for one felt very different from choosing to leave something at the table.
talk about uncomfortable…
of course, what i expect from service also depends on where i’m eating.
if i go to mcdonald’s, i know how it works. i place my order, collect my food and find somewhere to sit.
if i go to a fine dining restaurant, my expectations are going to be slightly different.
all right. very different.
i’m paying for the food and the service. basically, the whole experience.
i expect the staff to know the menu, pay attention to the table and look after us throughout the meal.
when i receive good service and leave happy, i’m happy to tip.
but when i’m picking up a takeaway or a coffee and the payment machine asks me for one, i do wonder what exactly i’m tipping for.
and if the service has been bad, i don’t think i should feel obliged to leave something simply because there’s a space for it on the bill.
then came australia.
i went out for dinner with my sister, and when the bill came, i asked, “what’s the total? ten per cent tip?”
“ten per cent tip???”
she explained that tipping wasn’t the norm here, but if i wanted to leave something, i could.
“oh, ok.”
i was still used to north america. adding a tip was something i did without really thinking about it.
once she explained it, it made sense to me. the pay structure here was different, and tips didn’t have the same role in making up someone’s income.
understanding that as a guest was one thing. getting my mind around it at work took a bit longer.
after serving a table and receiving no tip, i would sometimes wonder whether i had done something wrong.
was my service bad? had i missed something?
i could be standing there reviewing the whole meal in my head, when really, they had just paid their bill and gone home.
i had to remind myself that no tip didn’t automatically mean bad service.
but i also remember a guest asking me whether it was okay to give one of our staff members a tip. he said she had done such a good job.
“absolutely.”
later, she was walking towards me with this big smile on her face.
i asked her why she was smiling.
“he gave me a tip!”
she showed me the $20, but honestly, it was the way she said it.
you just had to see her face. she was beaming from ear to ear. soooo happy.
then there was a coffee i bought where a ten per cent tip was automatically added at payment.
i wasn’t given a choice.
for me, it wasn’t about the amount. it was a coffee.
it was the fact that someone had made the decision for me.
funny, isn’t it? i didn’t question the group gratuity in north america, but that extra ten per cent on my coffee bothered me. i suppose i had become used to one, but not the other.
it also made me think about how we handle payment ourselves.
when a customer asks for the bill, i tell the staff to leave the bill and the eftpos machine with them, then step away and come back in a couple of minutes.
give them some space.
if they want to leave a tip, they can. if they don’t, they don’t.
at least nobody is standing there watching them decide which button to press.
i once had a staff member who was disappointed about not receiving a tip. i said to him, “it’s extra money. you shouldn’t depend on it.”
yes, the same person who used to wonder whether no tip meant her service was bad was now telling someone else not to take it personally.
i had learned a few things along the way.
if i’m somewhere staff rely on tips to make ends meet, i take that into account. i’m happy to adjust to the local custom.
in australia… i see it as a choice. i appreciate receiving one, but i don’t think a guest should feel bad about saying no.
and sometimes, we probably give the whole thing more meaning than the person leaving the money ever intended.
you know those tip jars at coffee shops?
i’ve watched people—quite a few men among them—get their change and put it straight into the jar.
hmmm… i wonder, is it because they love the service, or because they don’t like carrying change?
either way, thank you. lol.
