Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Your thoughts on Tipping

Mlle Fire worked in hospitality for 25 years so we always tip. 10 - 20% depending on the bill.

If you aren't sure where the tip goes just ask the staff, we always ask and they always tell us and appreciate being asked.
 
Tipping's a crappy system in many ways - studies have found that tipped workers are a lot more likely to experience sexual harassment and employers are notorious for stealing tips - but obviously only massive arseholes protest the system by refusing to tip or undertipping.

But at least the UK requires tipped employees to get the same minimum wage as everybody else - in the US, the minimum wage for tipped employees is the equivalent of £1.75 an hour, and it hasn't gone up in 30 years.
Tipping leads to places like hooters where flirting with customers is necessary in order to get paid. I’m not sure why anyone chooses to eat there, I suppose as a prelude to going to a lap dancing club?
 
I tip in cash and always ask first where the money goes. I was in Cafe Rouge iirc recently and did this. The waitress said she gets 40 % and the rest gets shared out among the rest of the staff. Ive been in restaurants where the staff get nothing too.
Incidently we booked a table at a new restaurant Saturday, mainly on the strength of the menu. When we arrived the menu had been changed to a very limited one not offering any of the dishes we had been looking forward to. I brought this up to the waitress and she said its because they had been let down at the last minute by 4 staff members and the young chef was running the kitchen on his own. She then said she would see if the chef could do some of the missing dishes and told us he would . Service was a bit slow, due to the staff shortages but the food was excellent .There was a service charge on the bill which we paid but we gave the waitress a frew more quid for her & the chef as a thank you for working their collective nuts off for us. Restaurant work is normally very hard, with shit hours and not very well paid. How some staff manage to keep a smile on there face throughout their shift, dealing with arseholes a lot of the time is beyond me.
 
Nice one Delbert.

In most of the places I go in London now cash just isn't an option. We still ask if they get the tips though as it isn't hard to separate it off for the staff. Hopefully that's what happens but short of going and demanding confirmation from the owner/manager there's not much else we can do.
 
Actually I remember last summer I was out with my dad, over from Ireland, and he tried to tip one place in cash and they wouldn't accept it as it would have been too difficult to split between the staff...
 
probably unrelated but this reminded me of the calendar thing back in the 70s in France, around this time you would get people hawking calendars for the fire brigade, binmen, police,etc...
was this ever a thing in the UK?
And if so, where has it gone?
 
French did it until recently for sure. I brought a pompiers one back from Paris for Mlle Fire a few years back.
 
As a postie, I get tips from a small but significant number of my customers. Also bottles of wine, spirits, chocolates etc.
My neighbour has a present wrapped up for our postie, but I thought maybe cash.

Edit, especially with the strike, any strike pay won't cover the wages.
 
I suffer from anxiety in uncertainty and tipping is one of the worst triggers. I literally avoid going out for meals so that I can avoid the tipping anxiety.
 
My neighbour has a present wrapped up for our postie, but I thought maybe cash.

Edit, especially with the strike, any strike pay won't cover the wages.
Cash is best, partly to help with loss of earnings, also easier to carry.
 
Does anyone give Christmas tips to postie, bin men, etc ?
The interaction I have personally with either posties or bin men is minimal. I stick the wheelies out Monday night and they empty them first thing Tuesday leaving the empty bins at the end of my drive. The posties stick my mail through the letterbox.
On the odd occasion one knocks to deliver a parcel it never seems to be the same one twice. If it was the same guy every time I probably would tip him at Xmas but it doesn't seem to be.
I tip the Domino's pizza delivery guys since they are regular visitors to Chez Q. I used to tip every time in restaurants but I increasingly find myself with no spare cash these days unless I have made a concious effort to take some with me.
 
My mother does Christmas tips for the postie/bins/milk delivery folk and probably handsomely as she's a people pleaser. London is a lot more impersonable so I never have, much to my shame I guess.
 
Tipping is a real minefield.

I don't eat out very often, but exceptional food and/or service will be rewarded, provided I can make sure it gets to the intended people and not skimmed off by management.

Back when I worked in retail, at an extremely expensive gift emporium, we offered a service printing letterheads, wedding stationery and christmas cards. Some customers were frequent fliers and we did a lot of this personalised stationery. One family ordered a huge amount of stuff over several months, and again at crimble. Getting everything right was important ... and this year I dealt with them a lot. As a result I got asked to load their car with what I thought was quite a small parcel, bit it was so the father could give me a decent tip - he knew that if he tried to do so in the shop, and the manager saw, that twunt would confiscate it [that had happened a couple of years before]. He did give us a box of chocs for the staff room to share, as well.
 
Back
Top Bottom