Tipping Gone Mad

[JJReyes]

I made a donation to a politician.  The prompt asked for a 10% tip.  Purchased new shirts at a department store.  The machine asked for a tip and if you decline, an employee was required to help you complete the transaction.  We need airline tickets from Sydney to Manila this October.  The discount travel websites now demand a tip which negates the small discount offered.  When you decline, a persistent salesperson from India will call offering baggage and travel insurance.

Foreign countries have a better system.  The UK simply add 10% to your restaurant bill.  The Philippines is either 10%, at your discretion, or a 10% service charge added before the VAT.  In the US, the credit card machine brought to your table has a pre-programmed rate of 10% to 40% add on.  I heard high-end restaurants set the pre-programmed rate up to 50% or higher.

The element of shame has been cleverly added if you don't abide by the "their' rules.  I am glad to hear there is now a consumer backlash regarding the practice of tipping.

Edited September 1 by JJReyes
Added a last line

[earthdome]

20 minutes ago, JJReyes said:

The discount travel websites now demand a tip which negates the small discount offered.  When you decline, a persistent salesperson from India will call offering baggage and travel insurance

That would be my last time using them. Sounds less like a tip and more like extortion. 

[Possum]

I do not understand having tipping added to a bill, it's business expense to be added to the cost of whatever they're selling, who actually gets the tip?. Restaurants should pay a high enough wage to keep employees without requiring a tip added to the bill. I refuse to eat at a restaurant high end or otherwise that includes the tip as part of the bill. In a tipping culture the tip reflects the service. If it's normal service no tip, very good more tip. I don't feel required to tip because the person transporting my food to me sure didn't make it, a robot could transport it. However, I do tip at restaurants in the Philippines that I frequent because 1. I know they aren't paid enough to survive. 2. Word eventually passes back to the kitchen and they make sure in many cases my food is delivered promptly and the portion as well as presentation is correct. Around Christmas time I do make sure the kitchen staff gets a small monetary gift.

On the other hand in certain tourist areas of the USA waiters and waitresses make a lot of money during the season. As one told me it's the most money you can make around here while keeping your clothes on.

[Old55]

Recently I've noticed a shift in tipping here in our area. People are tired of having tip requests in their face seemingly everywhere. The local news has been covering this as well. There is now a real consumer push back on excessive tips and it's about time. 

Edited September 1 by Old55

[hk blues]

They may have been there before but yesterday was the 1st time I noticed that most of the restaurants in the food court have a small tip box.  Bear in mind that there is little to no service provided in such places.  

As an aside, they had lots of notices there advertising free 1.5l Coke with order over 599php.  I went to claim mine only to be told they had none as they were waiting on the delivery!  Lo and behold, 20 minutes later the assistant brough the freebie to my table - almost worth a tip but not quite!

[craftbeerlover]

9 minutes ago, hk blues said:

20 minutes later the assistant brough the freebie to my table - almost worth a tip but not quite!

lol oh come on, that is worth a tip!!

[Tommy T.]

1 hour ago, craftbeerlover said:

lol oh come on, that is worth a tip!!

He's Scottish... go figure...

[hk blues]

2 hours ago, Tommy T. said:

He's Scottish... go figure...

[jimeve]

6 hours ago, hk blues said:

almost worth a tip but not quite!

Spoken like a true Scotsman.

[scott h]

In the '70s I worked as a busboy in a couple of pretty nice restaurants (one of them was Lawrence Welks place if fellow yanks remember him), and we would get a slice of the waitress's tips. Every so often a customer would slip me a dollar or two on the side and say "Thank you". I remember being very grateful and even proud that these hard-bitten veterans of WWII who were born during the depression thought enough of my work to do that. So that might be part of the reason I am a pretty heavy tipper to this day.

But by god, it has gotten out of hand. When we go out nowadays here I check the bill, and if there is a service charge on the bill, I still tip, but not as much. But I swear if we were still in the states, I would look at the bill, back out all the miscellaneous crap like health insurance fee, environmental, fee stuff like that, put down the cash and say "call a cop! If you don't like it".

Nothing pisses me off more than being taken for a sucker.