Tips

[Serial_Apologist]

My policy also - including the cash in restaurants/pubs bit. A year or two back we ate in the café at the Royal Academy, the service was appalling, and there was an automatic service charge on the bill, which I declined to pay - the waiter had to fetch his supervisor, as this was unheard of. Postman - cash tip. Hairdresser - a chum, a tip would be demeaning so he gets a decent bottle of wine at Christmas. Dustmen move in packs around here, hard to know where to start.

Is there a proper waiter-service cafeteria at the RAM, Richard? I always eat in the self-service canteen there - the apple crumble is incomparably good, and one gets to see and, if lucky, briefly chat with well known personalities on the music scene, who always seem to be rushed. I'm not sure how ethical this is, but I always recommend it to anyone asking where to eat cheaply but comfortably when in central London. Nobody has thought to stop me (up to now), and no tips, of course!

[vinteuil]

A year or two back we ate in the café at the Royal Academy, the service was appalling, and there was an automatic service charge on the bill, which I declined to pay - the waiter had to fetch his supervisor, as this was unheard of.

.. sad to hear you had a bad experience at the Royal Academy. I wonder if it has changed since you were last there? We have been using it quite a lot in the last year or so - both the excellent restaurants (dark green walls) in the basement, access by the door at the far right-hand corner of the courtyard; and (as guests) in the v select (brick walls) Academicians' Room on an upper floor. Excellent food, really reasonable prices, flawless service. Praps things have changed, or you were unlucky??




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[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is there a proper waiter-service cafeteria at the RAM, Richard?

RA or RAM?

[Serial_Apologist]

RA or RAM?

Aha, I see what you mean... the RAM was where I meant, though I have used the Royal Academy cafeteria, the one which is on the ground floor - I know of no other; it always seems full of general public, particularly tourists.

[BBMmk2]

Would people tip the stiff, even if there was a service charge on the bill?

[Richard Tarleton]

.. sad to hear you had a bad experience at the Royal Academy. I wonder if it has changed since you were last there? We have been using it quite a lot in the last year or so - both the excellent restaurants (dark green walls) in the basement, access by the door at the far right-hand corner of the courtyard; and (as guests) in the v select (brick walls) Academicians' Room on an upper floor. Excellent food, really reasonable prices, flawless service. Praps things have changed, or you were unlucky??
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Basement I think...down some stairs....probably just unlucky, it was busy and we had to wait an unconscionably long time... Much longer ago, I remember it being self service?

[vinteuil]

Would people tip the stiff, even if there was a service charge on the bill?

... I do, sometimes : if the meal has been super-excellent, I am in a mellow and benign frame of mind, and the service has been particularly pampering. I pay the bill with plastic and leave some cash on top.

I note that American friends are much more assiduous when it comes to tips - tips to the person who takes the coats, the person who arranges taxis etc.

In an hotel, how much do you tip the bellhop who carries your cases to your room?


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[Serial_Apologist]

Would people tip the stiff, even if there was a service charge on the bill?

There was a time when tips were handed over to the head waiter and went into what was called a "tronc", a system of hierarchical distribution of the total collected at the end of the day according to rank, which the establishment's management would agree with the head waiter. Having worked in restaurants around the time the service charge was first introduced in the '60s, I seem to remember that the SC total amount would be thus divided, along with extras voluntarily donated by clientele, so that the more "menial" ranks were treated without recognition of the appreciation they might have been afforded for good service. I understand a new law was introduced a few years ago requiring equal distribution of the service charge, but not including voluntary tips; but I could be wrong on this.

[cloughie]

Would people tip the stiff, even if there was a service charge on the bill?

No point in tipping a stiff!

[Lat-Literal]

Thank you for all of the comments. He fitted the carpet tiles in the kitchen and the bathroom and he painted the kitchen and the hall. It wasn't an easy job. I estimate that very little had been altered in 25 years. He will be 70 in May. Tattooed and with at least one f word in every sentence. A second wife from the Philippines. Still paying off a mortgage because wife one had got herself a female lawyer and taken him to the cleaners. Could easily out talk me and that is really saying something. Could have talked for England. Great Britain even.

Some fascinating history including work at various times for several well-known comedians, the family of a Liberal leader prior to Grimond, Buck House, Quentin Crisp, "a lovely fella", three other "p-----s", quite a few Irish "p----s" and a load of Jack-the-P-ks who were "originally from India". Five days out of seven. Start time 8am. The daily rate was cut by 20% at the end because he perceived I was "down on my luck" and was good to my parents. There was hardly any charge for paint and other items. So I offered a 10% tip which would have still made it considerably less than what I had anticipated. He rejected it so we settled on 5%. I am not used to people being in my home for any length of time. It was a challenge.

I went to bed each night feeling like there was a persistent hammering in the head. But when he departed, the place seemed too quiet. Almost scarily quiet. I am assuming that when he said he would be ringing me sometime in the summer so that we would go for a beer, it was his way of saying that he didn't want to tackle the two rooms that still need doing. Mind you, I did give every impression that I couldn't afford any more work which is right. It is just that there is a difference between advisory affordability and actual affordability. And one gets the bit between the teeth, has boosts every now and again, almost gets on a roll. I've looked into the rates of others. They are not favourable but it seems the only way forward.

I am in no doubt, though, that if he ever drops in unexpectedly and it is obvious that someone else has painted another room, he is going to get the hump. This then is Dilemmasville. It is also unlikely that anyone else would deliver a half hour joke about a man who buys a dog that talks while still getting all of his work done and not charging any extra for the humour.

[Petrushka]

Most tradesman I know would prefer to be left alone to get on with the job rather than have the customer standing there all day as if suspecting he might nick the spoons. Perhaps the incessant chatter was a way of trying to make you tire of it and clear off?

[Lat-Literal]

Most tradesman I know would prefer to be left alone to get on with the job rather than have the customer standing there all day as if suspecting he might nick the spoons. Perhaps the incessant chatter was a way of trying to make you tire of it and clear off?

Yes it could have been.

[Lat-Literal]

Top TV Tip:

I'm not normally a fan of these programmes but this episode is about as heart warming as things can be.

A lovely couple - unusually - with very demanding lives.

Highly recommended but make sure you have a handkerchief at the ready.

The DIY SOS team is back and in Birmingham helping a family in need. Charlotte and Chris have twins who were born prematurely and have a condition known as global development delay. It is a condition which has slowed down their progress of walking and talking. Their cramped house is hindering their progress even more, and if they have any chance of catching up, they're going to need DIY SOS and a host of volunteers from the local community to rebuild their lives and give the family a better future.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b071g6z4/diy-sos-series-27-1-the-big-build-birmingham

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think it's a horrendous custom, often used to depress wages. That said, I do leave a tip in a restaurant if the service has been particularly good. UNLESS, when I'm paying by card, the machine asked whether I wish to pay a gratuity, in which case I click on "No". How dare they ask?

Then there's the question of who gets the tip. Some staff aren't allowed to accept tips given to them, and have to hand them in, sometimes to be shared out amongst the staff, and sometimes not.

[Nick Armstrong]

I note that American friends are much more assiduous when it comes to tips - tips to the person who takes the coats, the person who arranges taxis etc.

In an hotel, how much do you tip the bellhop who carries your cases to your room?

In the US, everyone seems to have the requisite 'bill-fold' in a pocket, to peel off the necessary... I've found myself ignorant, awkward and lacking in the requisite greenbacks, resorting to embarrassed shrugging... and happy to be marked down as a stoopid limey, because I actively dislike the whole feudal business.

But on my first trip to NY, NY, I was 'called out' twice in restaurants on my failure to tip, both times amusingly but in different ways. First time, at a breakfast diner on the Upper West Side, when I failed to tip, the completely charming young woman who had served us explained to me in detail the economics of the 15% for her take-home and weekly wage, leaving me gladly bunging 20% on the original. Then at a steak house near Broadway, our extremely camp waiter flounced back to our table with my woefully under-calculated signed credit card receipt, tossed his head and flamboyantly ripped the paper up into four pieces and let it flutter on to the table... with a "you don't seem to know that it is customary, Sir....". It was so hilarious that again I forked out gladly. And never forgot again...