tipping

[thecavemankevin]

Now i like many other dudes am cheap by nature. Just the way i am. But unless i receive really really bad service i always tip at a restaurant because i know they make jack and tips are part of their living. In fact i think i have only not tipped once when the waitress was god awful and blatantly rude. but heres what I've often wondered if one really needs to tip at the barbershop (beauty parlor in rudz *case). I mean, do they make $2.xx an hour like wait staff? I don't think so but i do not know for sure. I've always felt a bit weird in the past when tipping after getting my hair cut because, well hell do they really deserve it? Or is it some stupid trend that got started and now has turned into an evil machine of expectation?

I got my hair cut last night and this time i held onto my extra cash. I paid for the service and that was it. Now i have always tipped in the past, but what prompted me to not this time is the woman simply sucked. I get more a less a buzz cut for low maintanence so it is a quick easy job for the person and i'm usually in and out inside of 10 minutes. But this chick might as well have used a grinder the way she kept jamming the damn thing into my head. not to mention her bedside manor was quite poor and so on. When i was paying, i paid with a debit card and she asked if i'd like her to put a tip on there as well. I said no thank you, to which she responded a semi questioning, "Okay??." While the machine dialed in to get the transaction approved i could tell she was looking at my wallet (in my hand above the counter) to see if i was going to pull out any bills. I then signed the recipt making sure to cross out the tip section on it and then handed her copy back and left.

So what do you guys think, is tipping after getting your hair cut semi required like at a restaurant?


*edit: i forgot rudz is on a ban-vacation right now so making fun of him looses some of its affect. so replace his name with triangle...wait no. Kai.....wait no....bobthecow (just because i know you are still here )

[Madmarx]

I like your style.
I hate it when they try to make you feel like you owe them for a hack job!!
My solution... go to Wal Mart or Target and buy yourself a set of clippers/razor and shave your own head.
That's what I do!

[spwz99]

I HATE the idea that tipping is mandatory. A tip should be something that is earned above and beyond the price of your food. I do not feel responsible at all to make up the difference in the wages, because its not my fault that waitresses don't get paid enough. That being said, I have never tipped for a haircut, and probably never will, and I very rarely tip above 10 or 15%. One of my best friends is a waitress and she hates me.

[skife]

my mom shaves my head :P


but i dont think tipping for poor service is nessicary.

i mean, i drive pizza somtimes and if i'm significantly later than i should be, i dont expect a tip at all.

but then again, if we tell the person 45 minutes for a delivery and i make it there in 10 they better tip me decent. but if they have an uphill driveway thats pretty steep that is dirt and isn't plowed with 6" of snow on it and a plow truck at the bottom of the driveway.... i'll remember that house and the next time i take a delivery there, i'll use up all of those 45 minutes if not more.

I've purposly gone out of my way to take longer to deliver to a bad tipper.

i do remember addresses like

Rodney King(no relation)
who lives at a previously undisclosed location... way out in the boondocks about a 20 minute drive one way and he doesn't even tip, and you have to take dirt roads for about half the drive to get there.

[Raven001]

Whether to tip a barber/hairdresser all depends. If you frequent the same one all the time and they make an extra effort to give you a perfect haircut then yes tip by all means. Also, if you tip from time to time, they may treat you a bit better than someone that doesn't. If they just go on autopilot, then you do the same.

[MaD_SaM]

[NoForts4Me]

At restaurants, I tip 15-20%, usually 20 if the service is pretty good, and then go down from there.

The best way to avoid the hair cut tip is to purchase a $20 Wahl hair clipping kit. I've cut my hair and my son's every two weeks for the last four years, and I've never complained once about my tips.

I know what you mean though, I was in a similar situation riding airport shuttles a few months back. I hadn't flown in many years, and wasn't aware you were supposed to tip the driver. As people were getting off the shuttle, they kept handing the guy money. I didn't have a freaking clue what I was supposed to tip the guy, or why.

On topic, if you didn't like the haircut, don't feel bad about not tipping.

[skife]

that sounds good.


i've never had a shave from a barber before.
there is this place around here called Jude's barber shop, i think i might stop by. they used to give you a complimentary beer when you were done but apparently its against some city code

[91Foxtrot]

So here is an interesting situation. I got my hair cut a few weeks ago. Paid the lady and gave her a few bucks for tip. My hair looked fine in the shop. When I got home and combed it a bit, however, it became very clear that the front was horribly uneven. So I go back to the shop the next day and ask one of the barbers (not the same woman) if she would fix it for me. The lady who screwed it up in the first place was busy ruining someone else's hair, so the new lady fixed it. I didn't pay for the fix, of course.

Now the question is: Do you tip the Fixer?

While she was was fixing my hair, I was debating whether or not to. In the end I didn't, just because while I was grabbing my coat she wandered away, as if she didn't expect one. I hope she went back to the Ruiner and got the tip I gave her.

[robnix]

I HATE the idea that tipping is mandatory. A tip should be something that is earned above and beyond the price of your food. I do not feel responsible at all to make up the difference in the wages, because its not my fault that waitresses don't get paid enough. One of my best friends is a waitress and she hates me.

Tell your legislator to change the state minimum wage laws to provide your server with a decent living wage then, it's not the servers fault that the minimum wage for tipped employees in most states is between $2.13 and $3.50/hr.

I'm sure your friend has told you this as well, but servers get taxed based on a percentage of their sales. A minimum of 8% of that total has to be claimed as income, so if your friend sells $1000.00 worth of food in one night, then she has to claim an additional $80.00 that day on top of the hourly wage she makes. If credit card tips are higher than the 8%, then she'll be claiming even more income. You may not think this is a big deal, but I was waiting tables when the minimum was $2.01, had paychecks that were $0.00, and in the negative for tax purposes because of this, so TIPS were the only real income I had.

Does it suck? In some ways yes, and in some ways no. We could be like many countries where the tip is automatically included in the price of your meal, but then there's no incentive for service is there? We could also just pay the servers a decent wage, and make tipping illegal, but then the price of your dinner would go up to cover the additional labor cost, and again, there'd be no incentive for good service. Servers get hosed becuase they're dependant on the goodwill of other people in order to make a decent living.

With that, I personally I think it's a pretty good system, you get lower meal prices, the server has an incentive to provide you with good service, and there's an immediate feedback system available there for you and the server in the form of the tip. Now, I'm not saying that every server deserves a tip, I usually go 15% for average service, and raise it beyond there for going above and beyond, but I lower it as well if the service stinks, and have even not left a tip if the service is bad. Hopefully the system of immediate feedback helped a recent server realize that he needed to look into another career.

[robnix]

The best way to avoid the hair cut tip is to purchase a $20 Wahl hair clipping kit. I've cut my hair and my son's every two weeks for the last four years, and I've never complained once about my tips.

QFT, We bought one about 8 years ago, haven't been to a barber since.

[thecavemankevin]

QFT, We bought one about 8 years ago, haven't been to a barber since.

i really need to do that, but just havent gotten around to it. maybe i'll do that next time.

[paintballfiend]

If they did a good job and spent a good amount of time on your hair I say tip them. However, I did not tip the last "hairstylist" because all I asked for was a buzz cut. I was in the chair for no more than 5 minutes. After that I decided to buy my own clippers from Target and have been cutting my own hair for about a month now.

[Crighton]

I just give the wife a nice slap on the rump and say, Nicely trimmed there sweety.

[PyRo]

I've worked for tips before so it's probably different for me. When I was 14 my first job was working in a gas station and made an extra $6 or so an hour asking people if they wanted me to wash their windows (and I actually put fresh water in the buckets and used a clean squeegee), check oil or other fluids, check the air in their tires, etc. I also worked in a Christmas tree lot where most of my money came from tips.

I always tip the guy cutting my hair $5, if someone washes my hair they get $3. It is always the same guy cutting my hair and he does an excellent job and deserves it. If he did a lousy job though he wouldn't be getting anything.
With resteraunts it comes down to service. I usually do 15-20%. If I feel the did an excellent job they'll get more. A lousy job and they get less. I've left $50 on a $90 bill before because the food was excellent, the waitress was on top of everything, and I happened to have some extra money at that time. I've also left $5 on a $60 bill because the women kept going over into the corner and talking to another waiter, could not order more drinks, etc, couldn't get the bill, couldn't pay the bill, etc.
I usually tip anyone who I know isn't making a whole lot of money who goes out of their way to help me.