Under The Tipping Point
Posted on | February 8, 2006 at 5:56 pm | 8 Comments
I’m losing my mind. I’m having more and more trouble doing simple math these days. And when does simple math most come into play in our daily lives? When calculating tips. Yesterday my co-worker Pilto and I went to our usual Tuesday lunch, where we take turns picking the restaurant and paying. I picked the local Indian joint for some lunch buffet curry. When it came time to pay, the bill was just over $20. I usually tip around 20% these days, unless the service is excruciatingly awful. Plus, it’s easy to do – move the decimal point two places to the left and multiply by two. I did the math in my head and then wrote down the tip and totalled it up.
When I got home and looked at the receipt to put it into Quicken, I noticed that I had left only a $2 tip. I forgot to do the “multiply by 2″ part. I’ve been making a lot of mistakes like that lately. Now I’m afraid to show my face back in the restaurant for fear they’ll remember me, even though I only go there about once every few months. But since it was a buffet and all the waiters/busboys did was bring the drinks, clear the old plates, and deliver the bill, maybe 10% was okay? I wonder how much most people tip there at lunch.
Anyway, back to remedial math for me, as senility starts to set in. Maybe the same brain cells that help with that also aid in determining just why I entered a room. I’d sure love to get those cells back, as I’m tried of wandering around my house trying to remember what it was I was going to do. But I’m not really that old. So I blame the iPod.
And I’m not even going to mention how I had to run home from work today in the middle of the morning to go change my pants.
Latre.
Comments
8 Responses to “Under The Tipping Point”
February 8th, 2006 @ 7:34 pm
10% is adequate for a buffet; if it had been a restaurant with regular table service, it would have been way cheap, obviously! Here’s something for you to print, clip & stick in your wallet:
http://www.wqad.com/global/story.asp?s=686797
February 8th, 2006 @ 9:08 pm
I actually have one of those tip table cards in my wallet. But I never use it, because that’s like admitting I’m stupid or something. Hey, I was a math minor!
Speaking of those tip tables, why do they usually start at $1? Who buys an under $5 meal at a sit-down place? Wasted space!
Might be useful if you got one drink at a bar, I guess…
February 8th, 2006 @ 9:44 pm
It’s not even the custom in Australia to tip – it’s not taboo, but it’s extremely rare to see and almost never expected. I suppose they pay their servers better – they certainly do a better job than what’s typical here!
We had such incredible food and service in Tasmania that we tried to tip anyway, and had a very hard time getting them to accept it in most cases!
(Not that moving there would solve your math problems, but there are a lot of other things the country has going for it…)
February 9th, 2006 @ 9:44 am
Bar-tipping is a special circumstance, in that unless you’re with a bunch of people, any given round tends to be pretty cheap – particularly if, as is frequently the case with me, I’m by myself seeing a band or something. I tend to alternate between tipping a buck (which is often like a 25%-30% tip) and tipping 50 cents or 75 cents (which by itself would be cheap) hoping the bartender catches on that overall the tip’s in a reasonable 20% range. Unless I’m drunk, in which case I probably just toss a dollar on the bar. Or all my change. Or my pants. Whatever.
February 9th, 2006 @ 6:11 pm
Speaking of those tip tables, why do they usually start at $1? Who buys an under $5 meal at a sit-down place? Wasted space!
What, you don’t go out for a diner breakfast now and then?
Actually, in those types of situations, I bump the percentage way, way up because the tip seems so paltry and it’s not like the waitstaff are working any less hard than their counterparts at some schmancy place.
February 10th, 2006 @ 1:30 pm
2fs, I totally do the same thing at a bar/show. You just gotta hope that the bartender(ess) remembers that you overtipped last time. It’s tough dealing with coins.
Editrix, the only time I eat out for breakfast is when I’m traveling. I tend to bump up the tip too in those cases.
February 15th, 2006 @ 6:20 pm
Here in CA, I just double the tax. Our rate is 7.75%, so twice that is 15%.
That may not sound like much, but at our regular haunts we consistently receive great service from the same staff.
My guess would be that the typical Orange County snob is a crappy tipper, so 15% is relatively good. I do know my fellow diners sure like to bitch. I saw one “lady” send back her burrito because the cheese inside was melted. She wanted cheese, but not melted.
February 17th, 2006 @ 11:47 am
Why are Orange County diners tipping snobs? Um, don’t you have to be fairly well off to live out there?
I’d say around here, 18-20% is pretty standard, and you give 15 if the service was bad.
I guess someone should invent unmeltable burrito cheese.