George: What do you tip a chamber maid?

A guy buys a coffee. Guy receives change from coffee which amounts roughly to 20 cents. As he goes to place the 20 cents in his pant pocket the woman who served him says to him, in a rude sort of fashion, “oh, I think you accidentally misplaced your change” whilst she pushes the tip jar pointedly towards him. After a second or two the guy sheepishly fishes the coin out of his pocket and places it in the jar.

I heard this on the radio the other day, in a segment called ‘the form guide’ if you were wondering, which deals with questions of etiquette and the like. So the question was: Is it ever appropriate for the staff to ask for a tip? The prevailing opinion was ‘no’, which seemed fair enough, but I wasn’t so much as interested in that but another question, which was about tipping in general. I’m rather green when it comes to these sorts of things and was just curious about people’s thoughts on the topic. Not to try and get all Reservoir Dogs or Seinfeld on you but: When/where is it that you find it appropriate to tip, and how much would you usually tip?

In Australia? Never.

In America jobs are classified as ones which earn tips and ones which don't. Jobs where you get tipped have a lower minimum wage because of this.

That America thing is a whole other story, one that irritates me... muchly, so I'll focus on the Australian one. You never tip? Ever? I'm not saying that in the sense that I think you're stingy — because I don't — but in the sense that I marvel at the gall you must possess to flat-out refuse to tip even in situations where, for example, they give you your change back on those damn little plates, and any change left on the plate is assumed to be the tip; I just find it impossible to take all the change off it. But I salute you, Mr.Pink.

I say never, but, well, umm...... yeah, I usually leave something when at a restaurant.

I just hate the way tipping is becoming more common here.

Yeah, it's annoying that it may be becoming the norm, and that if you don't tip you're seen as the one that's stingy, rather than it being them not deserving a tip.

Restaurant bills: I'll round up to the nearest ten for the tip. Especially if you have a big group it just makes it easier to work out.

I almost never tip in a bar or anything unless I have way too much change.

I kinda agree with marc on the restaurant thing but it generally depends on the service and how much money i've got at the time.

If the people serving me at a bar want a tip they need to do something specially cool (like a flip). It shouldn't just be "hey, i pulled this lever and beer went in that glass, THAT WAS FOR YOU.... moer munny plz".

Hey, if someone said to me "moer munny plz" I think I would definitely tip them. Especially if they said it in a Master Chief tone.

I r guy who pored u drink.

I came across this when watching Seinfeld, and thought it was pretty appropriate for this topic. It was one of his intros to the episode.


Have you noticed that every little place you go into lately has that tip jar on the counter? What is the service that this tip is for? I mean, isn’t the man just turning around? Isn’t that really all it is? I think we’re tipping people now just for the absence of outright hostility.
“Thanks very much, here’s a little something extra for not taking my head and smashing my face through the glass counter top. Real good service here.”

Tipping is becoming more common place, at least i think it is, because we were moving toward getting rid of minimum wages.

the last Liberal govt. had made a point of lowering wages and the like to try and make low wage earning more competitive, you know the whole Workplace agreements thing.

it's possible that our economy will follow the USA's lead in the next few years- something that i think wont work in a country with such a small population as ours.

but no- i think if you have to ASK for a tip, you don't deserve one. heck, when i worked in the cafe, we all averaged out the tips between all the staff, and on a busy week we would maybe get an extra $30 tops.