h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The clothes he used were things like my sun hat and a casual top Richard took with him. Nothing damageable, and everything was fine. The lad was very careful. We took pictures of everything. One day I'll put them on Fotango so you can all see them!

Don't believe the story about TIP coming from To Insure Promptness.
(Wouldn't it be To Ensure Promptness anyway?). These stories where commonly used words are made from initials invitably turn out to be untrue. The word tip meaning a gratuity has been around since 1755. People did not make words in this way back then.

Other words that weren't made from initials are POSH (not from Port Out Starboard Home) and the F word (not from some stupid phrase starting with Fornicate).

I always thought that POSH was written on the boat tickets across the pond, Port out Starboard home gave you a south facing room both ways to ensure good sun.

Mel

Well, I tip my hairdresser like a prince, because I am so pathetically grateful that he has time to see me, and that he consistantly makes my hair look good.

I tip taxi drivers, and waiters. A quid or two to taxi drivers; 10-15% to waiters.

It does depend where I am. I beleive that in Sweden the custom is simply to round up; which is usually a lot less than 10%.

***B

I'm a fairly generous tipper ordinarily, because my mother supported me and my brothers as a bartender for many years. Her wages just barely covered the bills, so we ate with the generosity of strangers. If the service left me with no complaints, I'll give 15-20%. That number will be adjusted by performance. If the service was deplorable, I'll leave a small coin. It's insulting, and I mean it to be.

I remember one particular instance, when I was in Sydney, Australia. I was out at the Hard Rock Cafe with 5 friends on the first day, just as a place to get some food and beer and get started for the day. The waitress was heavily burdened by the sheer mass of food and beer we ordered. In addition, we pumped her for information about the town. The service was outstanding, her advice was perfect, and she was warm and polite the entire time. We were all so pleased with her performance that we took the opportunity to relieve ourselves of all the coins we had leftover from our time in Perth, which have a way of accumulating in alarming quantities in Australia. We built a mound in the center of the table, and since Australia coins $1 and $2 values, there was probably an excess of $60 in change, total.

I honestly don't understand what the complaint is about "performance pay." That's what a tip IS. If you don't like their performance, you don't tip, or tip very little. If the service is outstanding, you should be generous. People should have a reason to do their jobs well. And it is a very effective way to ensure good service from people you intend to visit regularly. It always makes me feel so good to walk into a bar and be recognized instantly, and have my drink brought to me before I even have to request it. It also makes people predisposed to liking you. I've become good friends with people who initially knew me only as an agreeable customer and a generous tipper.

To me the problem with performance pay is not that people expect you to pay extra for a good performance. It´s that they also expect you to pay for a mediocre performance. Remember that Seinfeld episode with the tipping? Where he talked about how nowadays it seems people in shops expected to get tipped just for turning around.

They can feel free to expect it all they want. Getting it is something entirely different.

True never feel embaressed by not doing the expected thing, that's how problems bcome the norm!

Mel