Tipping

Not exactly tough work to be honest, pouring a drink. Plus I don't know, it would feel odd tipping 10% on a £2 drink too. I generally dislike the culture of tipping and the follow up anger at people who don't tip because it shifts the blame of underpaid staff away from the employers to the customers, who are already paying quite high prices as it is

 

Here's a question for you.

I've worked a couple of minimum-wage retail jobs in London (about £5.60 an hour at the time). The work was unsatisfying and thankless but necessary. No-one tipped me. Why, apart from it being something established in your culture and therefore naturally ingrained you, is someone working at a bar more worthy of being tipped than someone who works a different poorly paid job? Why not tip the guy working in an off-license, who also has to make idle chat and deal with assholes, as well as stocking shelves and coping with deliveries?
I don't have a problem with people being paid extra -- I have a problem with the arbitrariness of your argument.

 

Wait, so in the UK people don't tip bartenders?

 

I think Essex Ale Man raised a most valid point in the other thread

That being the welfare state in the UK

So £5.93 is an appalling wage and should be tipped ?

How much do bar staff in the US, for example, have to contribute for health care per month?

£5.93 I agree is not a big wage but in the UK all your health care is laid on for you

 

No - this has never been the custom although I did raise in the other thread that it is not uncommon to buy the barman/woman a drink occasionally

Read the various points on this (and the other recent thread - visiting London) as to why

 

No, and there's no reason why they should. Just like in any other retail outlet the price posted is what you pay.It's not my job to pay the wages of someone who is employed by somebody else.

 

What makes the bartender want to give you good service then?

If we pulled that here we'd never get a drink on a busy night.

 

If I got rushed into hospital in the US for an emergency operation, I'd get a big bill of many $$$, here I pay big fat nothing!

Different cultures my friend!

Service in a UK bar is generally fine, first come, first served, rarely a problem

The tipping culture doesn't exist here so the barman doesn't expect to be tipped. They are there to maximise the sales for their pub, not maximise their own wallet by selectively serving people who tip more!!!

As I've already stated when you work out the typical basic wage of a UK barman as opposed to a typical US basic, plus the state health benefits who gets the most overall!?!

 

I find that pretty interesting overall as I've never been to the UK. Does the same apply to waitors/waitresses at restaurants there?

 

Keep in mind that minimum wage for tipped employees is drastically less than for non-tipped employees. I was paid $2.13/hour as a bartender (1.34£/hour).
It also depends on what kind of drinks you serve. The "average" tip in the US is $1 per drink (less, if the customer orders in bulk). That doesn't change regardless of whether you open 50 bottles of beer in an hour or make 15 mojitos. In one case you would receive maybe $30-$40, and in the other case, $15. Those are extreme examples, however.
This isn't necessarily For or Against your statements, just some information for those who were curious.

 

At restaurants 10% is the norm

However this is often a generational thing

My parents don't believe in tipping and would leave a token gesture of say £2 on a £70 bill thinking they were doing the waiter a favour!!!

For my generation (who in many cases have travelled a lot more than my parents) it has become the accepted norm

You very rarely find anyone tip more than 10% in the UK - again, same minimum wage, health benefits etc apply

I think I read somehwere recently that the 'average' UK tip was around 8% (probably people who don't beleive in it/people in my parents generation bringing it down a little!)

Restaurants often build in a 10% service charge as standard

 

Hey Hanzo,
It is because service in the UK is mostly based on decency rather than bribery.
[by the way, I still find your avatar extremely distracting]

And this is it really. I don't know how the idea ever evolved that the US customer will pay a large portion of certain workers' salaries (but not others for some reason) directly to them instead of having it go to the establishment as sales which are then allocated back to the worker. But this never developed in UK. The barman has not been programmed to think that s/he has power over you and can leverage that into money in their own pockets. They are perfectly happy to supply drinks with respectful conversation and do it for a set wage.

 

I would much prefer the UK system, because as it stands, even if I get poor service I still leave a tip out of guilt, because I know the person is relying on my tip to pay their bills. If I know they were making minimum wage, I likely wouldn't tip, or would tip very little.

 

Tip guilt is indeed an issue! My US cousins suffer from it, I don't!

To be fair, the service in the US is nearly always excellent as folks want their tips

However when it falls short (ie multiple mistakes or forgotten orders) I will happily drop to 10% and one occasion in NYC didn't tip at all (think . . . vegetarian breakfast with bacon on it, non de-caff coffee for someone who has a bad reaction to it, one breakfast totally overlooked, everything coming 5 minutes apart, coffee spilt on me etc etc!!!)

On such occasions I am happy to point out the shortcomings in their service and why they didn't get a full (or any tip) if challenged !

I can only think of 2 or 3 such instances and the waitress didn't have the cheek to challenge us in the NYC breakfast scenario!

 

Yes and, given enough time with a system such as this, the service would eventually stabilize at a satisfactory level as the notion of entitlement diminished. Your service worker would just do their job to their best knowing that they will be paid dependably. As it stands, the US system has flip-flopped: no longer an expectation of a good tip in exchange for stellar service, it has devolved into poor service unless there is a show of a healthy payoff.

 

See I am very strict with tipping. If you suck, you get nothing.

I would prefer a no-tip system also. I feel like people want a tip for everything these days. I don't give them, but I feel people want them. I just don't see anyway in hell that happens. Restaurants will never agree to it as it would raise their costs. And they would then just pass those costs on to the customers.

 

If it is a place I'll never go back to I have no problem stiffing someone for bad service, but if I plan to return?

I just can't screw with people that handle my food/drink.

 

We have this thing alot of people subscribe to called "not being a dick".

See in the UK the staff doing this kind of stuff would get complaints and eventually fired!

 

If only that we had that in the states. Here you have to be an attractive female or a good tipper to get good service in a bar. (with some exceptions)