At The Café

No, I’m not cal­cu­lat­ing my Adsense rev­enues (that would be easy: $1 + 0.50¢ = $1.50… last time I checked!). I’m expe­ri­enc­ing tipping-related stress. Don’t laugh: it’s common.

After a nice meal, a few drinks, I sweat when the bill arrives. Not because I’m afraid I’m might have maxed out my credit card. No. I’m the kind of peo­ple who pay Visa two weeks before the bill is due. I know, I’m a lit­tle psy­cho with bills… Any­way, the rea­son why I’m sweat­ing is because I just don’t know how to tip. And trust me, I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out for ages: I don’t want to look cheap! Peo­ple gave me many advices. Like adding the GST (Gov­ern­ment Sale Tax) and the PST (Provin­cial Sale Tax), respec­tively 7% and 8% of your total bill, adding up to the rec­om­mended 15% tip­ping amount. Thing is, not only Harper has a very con­ser­v­a­tive man and a war­mon­ger, he also low­ered the GST to 7%. And then to 6%. Con­clu­sion, the addi­tion trick doesn’t really work anymore.

So every time I get the check, I sweat. I feel the eyes on the waiter or the wait­ress on me, a “don’t dis­ap­point me” look, as I des­per­ately try to cal­cu­late 15% out of what­ever and not look cheap or ungrate­ful. I hand the check. And I run.

I usu­ally have a bit more social skills than that but remem­ber: I’m French. French are tipping-disabled. We don’t tip in France. Or if we do, we do it like a mas­ter who leaves a cou­ple of yel­low coins to the yokel. Out of pure kindness.

Hey, have you ever been to a Parisian café? First, man­age to find a table and most impor­tant, attract the atten­tion of the waiter. Small talk? For­get about it. Be grate­ful, very grate­ful, if you get more than ten sec­onds to order. If you ordered the most expen­sive items on the menu, the waiter may not tear it from your hands, but don’t expect a glass of water with your 30€ salad. Ordered cheap­est things, like a cou­ple of cof­fees and a slice of gâteau? The waiter will most likely ask dis­dain­fully: “c’est tout?” Polite­ness is the excep­tion, not the norm, and “French cus­tomer ser­vice” is an oxy­moron. The French abhor to be thought of as being the ser­vant of any­body. There­fore, expect the food to be thrown on the table, your glass of water to be half empty rather than half full and the waiter to try to kick you out of your table. Ser­vice is included, so no tip­ping on top of that for your fab­u­lous din­ing expe­ri­ence. Phew.

But this is North Amer­ica, where tip­ping is sim­ply good eti­quette. Ser­vice charge isn’t included, so I tip the waiters/waitresses at the restau­rant, the hair­dresser at the salon, the cab dri­ver, the pizza guy… And I thought I were a good cit­i­zen.

But accord­ing to The Orig­i­nal Tip­ping Page, I’m appar­ently also sup­posed to tip mas­sage ther­a­pists, tow truck oper­a­tors, restroom atten­dants and.. air­port shut­tle dri­ver…? Is there any­one I’m not sup­posed to tip?

Once again, I had never thought I was cheap, but I don’t feel like leav­ing my change in the lit­tle “tip” bowl at every fast-food joint or con­ve­nience store. I know they are under­paid. And so I am. When I buy a pack of cig­a­rette, the guy usu­ally grabs it and takes the money. How does that require a tip? Same goes for fast food. I go order at the counter, I bring my own food at a table that I may even clean it myself occa­sion­ally, I eat and clean up again.

Is a tip a reward for good ser­vice of just some­thing manda­tory? I know employ­ers are legally allowed to pay less than min­i­mum wage to employ­ees who ben­e­fit from tip­ping. And I will keep on tip­ping, improv­ing my men­tal cal­cu­la­tion at the same time. Yet, where do I draw the line? I sim­ply can not tip every­one in the city. So, help me here: who do you tip, who don’t you tip, and why? Do you still tip if you receive bad service?

Related arti­cles:

1. Damn, I Wish I Had Known That…!
2. Split­ting Hair on Hair­cuts in Canada
3. 5 Sub­tle Cul­tural Differences
4. The Cus­tomer Is King
5. What I Miss From France… And What I Don’t!