Author Topic: Tipping Tradesmen  (Read 5115 times)

ian

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #25 on: 24 March, 2021, 08:54:27 pm »
In the US it's not really a tip, it's an extortion because you still mostly pay it for mediocrity. I would accept it if things were actually cheaper, but you're actually rewarding the owners for underpaying their staff. At least when you hand out dollars to sweeten your way in Nigeria it feels comparatively honest. Sometimes they print the tip on receipts. Fifteen per cent. Twenty per cent. Get higher, baby, and don't ever come down! Twenty-five per cent. Ho ho ho and I think no. A dollar just to pour me the drink. I can reach over and do that myself. Here, let me demonstrate.

I suppose we dutifully pay the 12.5% in the UK.

I remember my grandparents always used to put something back for the binmen et al. at Christmas so they could buy a satsuma or somesuch. You don't want to know how much a doorman in a NYC apartment block expects in his Christmas stocking.

Basil

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Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #26 on: 24 March, 2021, 10:57:42 pm »
.
You don't want to know how much a doorman in a NYC apartment block expects in his Christmas stocking.

See also central Paris concierge 70s 80s.

On an amusing note, Mrs B gave postie a bottle of wine this Christmas.
Fine.

But then she gave a bottle to the bin man.  Erm.. There were four blokes in the crew.  So I'm not sure how that worked out.
Admission.  I'm actually not that fussed about cake.

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #27 on: 24 March, 2021, 11:56:24 pm »
We tipped the removal men (and supplied tea) but nobody else - we also don't supply tea for builders/workmen (at the moment that's partly Covid related) either.
We moved house in January, and I tipped the guys doing the shifting. It was a local company, family-owned, and they were all fairly young and enthusiastic. I offered it to the team leader and he said 'give it to them yourself'. They got about a tenner each, and they seemed happy.

We've got the builders in now, remodelling the bathroom. I'm sure they'll do a fine job, but I won't be tipping on a job that costs thousands.

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #28 on: 25 March, 2021, 11:58:21 am »
I've been known to hand over a slab of Universal Currency Units* after a job well done (or at Christmas for the milkman, etc), but never tip as-such.

UCU = Can/bottle of beer.
Life is too important to be taken seriously.

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #29 on: 25 March, 2021, 12:16:54 pm »
I spend between £25 and £50 every week, with a local cab firm.
I don't tip.

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #30 on: 25 March, 2021, 12:30:56 pm »
Removals people get a tip - I’ve used the same ones a few times now, always very likeable and I suspect no-one but the boss gets paid a lot. I give to each one individually.

Give the current postie a Christmas tip as he has to run the whole way round to get done on time.

At home in NI, we used to leave the binmen a tip and a crate of beer but that was in the days of metal bins hoiked about on shoulders. I’ve never felt that way inclined in London - current place is ok but in previous 2 abodes I needed to search the surrounding area for my bins after they had been.


ian

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #31 on: 25 March, 2021, 12:47:30 pm »
I usually tip local taxi drivers, there's a limited pool of them hereabouts, so it's good to have them (and the controllers) on-side.

I think we tipped our removers, but they were very helpful, and when a terrible irate driver came to personally complain about the blocked road, eight burly men who moved furniture for a living helped make the point that he should perhaps go and patiently wait in his car. Honestly, he was ready to kick-off, until 'seriously, you're going to fight us?' At which point he turned into a whimpering puddle of piss that trickled back down the hill. They were also helping to drive people's cars around the blockage etc.

Of course, blame the solicitors and tortuous completion process for the reason we were moving house during rush hour. They didn't get a tip.

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #32 on: 25 March, 2021, 12:53:09 pm »
Tippling tradesmen are those to avoid. As are tripping tradesmen.

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #33 on: 25 March, 2021, 12:55:04 pm »
You're supposed to tip?

News to me.  AIUI not having to worry about tipping left right and centre is one of the few remaining good things about being BRITISH.

Indeed - having been to the US loads of times it's really annoying with the tipping culture - especially when the "server" tells you how much to tip! * 

One Christmas Night we went to the bar in the Rainbow Room in NY and they added 3 yes THREE tips to the already extortionate cost of a couple of pre-dinner drinks (one for the server, one for the barman and one for the "bell captain" whatever he might be)  At least, later, in the restaurant it was just the one tip.

  As a complete contrast we were surprised when in Australia & New Zealand this time last year there was a clear no-tipping culture.

* at a mid-range restaurant in Hilton Head, S Carolina we had such an awful meal and very surly waitress that we didn't add the 15 or 20% to the bill.  She actually chased us to the car swearing at us (I half expected a bullet)

The other thing being when the price doesn't include the tax so you have to sort of guess how much your food / thing might cost when the bill eventually appears.

For such an advanced nation in someways they are terribly backwards.
Somewhat of a professional tea drinker.


Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #34 on: 25 March, 2021, 02:46:46 pm »
US might be technologically advanced but socially it is backward. The tipping thing is awful because it encourages people to either ingratiate themselves as if they want to be my friend or just be obsequious. I prefer British grumpy service without a smile. Or with a smile if they are actually happy, or have wind.
 

ian

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #35 on: 25 March, 2021, 04:14:43 pm »
Tipping in the US enables business owners to make more profit by charging their customers the full price while at the same time paying their workers less than the paltry minimum wage and then getting their customers to make up the difference.

The US isn't really technologically advanced at the consumer level, it's still the land of chunky buttons and oversized appliances.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #36 on: 25 March, 2021, 04:26:58 pm »
Apparently, they’re so obsessed with tipping in America, they even tip cows.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #37 on: 26 March, 2021, 07:53:08 am »


The US isn't really technologically advanced at the consumer level, it's still the land of chunky buttons and oversized appliances.


Damn right. When we were there a few years back I needed to pay in a shop and tapped my card on the card machine. They nearly hung me as a witch. Signature and photo ID required none of this chip and pin let alone contact less

Tips wise we tend to use small businesses so no as they're being paid direct but my time carpenter friend usually geta paid a fair chunk extrawhat he asks as far far far too humble and last time we had him round sent him home with dinner as found out his wife had broken her wrist and they have triplets

Mr Larrington

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Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #38 on: 26 March, 2021, 11:03:22 am »
Chip and PIN is slowly creeping into the USAnian consciousness and I expect its near-universal adoption to coincide with that of commercially-viable nuclear fusion.  And don’t get me started on their card-reading petril pumps.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

ian

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #39 on: 26 March, 2021, 06:53:57 pm »
Chip and PIN has been nearly a thing in the US for about a decade without ever being a thing. Sometimes they inadvertently get technology that requires a PIN on a European card though. Now that can be fun when their funky modern PoS terminal bleeps for a number. This happened to me in a restaurant in New Orleans. Cue a gathering of the staff, more and more of them, a few helpful customers, a drunk guy from the street, all looking at the terminal in a sense of confused awe. Eventually, I had to be led around the back like the customer who couldn't pay, shame marched through the kitchen, and into an office where, with a flourish, rather than put in a PIN, they yanked out one of those old-school imprint credit card machines. This was probably about 2017.

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #40 on: 26 March, 2021, 09:55:47 pm »
As a young person, I worked in a telly shop. Sometimes I got to go out doing the deliveries. It was a well-understood fact that "middle-class" people never tipped and "working-class" people always did. You could tell if you were going to get a tip by net curtains in the front windows. A suburban semi-detached 2-up-2-down with net curtains would tip a fiver for a ten minute delivery, which was astonishing given my pay in the shop was £5 for a Saturday and £4 for a week day.

Being middle-class, I never tip (apart from the cleaner at Christmas), on the grounds that no-one would expect me to. The days of the bin men accidentally dropping half the contents of your bin every so often just cos you didn't give them twenty quid at Christmas are thankfully long gone.
Quote from: tiermat
that's not science, it's semantics.

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #41 on: 27 March, 2021, 07:05:40 pm »
Chip and PIN is slowly creeping into the USAnian consciousness and I expect its near-universal adoption to coincide with that of commercially-viable nuclear fusion.  And don’t get me started on their card-reading petril pumps.

Why? What's with the card-reading pumps?

My very first job was as a pump attendant near Givons Grove*.  Drivers tended to sit in their cars whilst we put the petrol in, then they would pay in cash and hand us a tip.  Some cars had two petrol tanks ISTR but we only got one tip.  My favourite car was a 1932 Rolls which always intrigued me because it took 2 star.  I don't think our customers were very middle class.

But no, I have never tipped a tradesman, even if they do use the right entrance and wipe their feet.

*an ancient settlement near Leatherhead
Move Faster and Bake Things

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #42 on: 27 March, 2021, 07:13:04 pm »
Chip and PIN is slowly creeping into the USAnian consciousness and I expect its near-universal adoption to coincide with that of commercially-viable nuclear fusion.  And don’t get me started on their card-reading petril pumps.

Why? What's with the card-reading pumps?


Many of them want you to enter a ZIP code and won’t give you any petril if you don’t have one.  And yes, I have tried entering the ZIP code for the White House and the Super 8 in Battle Mountain and divers other hotels and 90210 and the numerical bit of my postcode padded out with zeroes*.  And none of them work.

* this is alleged to work with Canuckistani postcodes but it dunt with mine.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #43 on: 29 March, 2021, 02:55:58 am »
God, I hate US petrol stations. One, nearest to where my BIL lived in New Hampshire, you had to pay in advance, in cash. I was driving a rented Lincoln Town Car, how the hell am I supposed to know how much it's going to cost to fill, how is anyone? Big car=big tank? How big, supertanker big? Could be, but cheap petrol, so could brim it on $5, $50, $150? Another petrol station, another time, lift nozzle, pull trigger, right? No, no, no. Lift nozzle, flip nozzle holder up, pull hidden leaver...(all being announced over the PA by an incredulous clerk who must have thought I'd just been released from prison after a long stretch and hadn't caught up with the modern world). If this sounds like it was some 50s backwater place, no, modern Exxon job, 21st Century.

ian

Re: Tipping Tradesmen
« Reply #44 on: 29 March, 2021, 07:40:31 pm »
Maybe New Jersey has it right after all.