Some jobs in this country depend on the tips of customers to earn their wages. Every time I hear someone complain about the necessity of tipping, I mention the alternative. Slow service would be rampant. Think of the slowest cashier you’ve ever had and that’s every waiter/waitress you’ll have in a tipless society. That got me thinking, “What other occupations would tipping enhance?”
1. Grocery store check-out cashier – I would gladly pay 4%-5% of my order towards getting through the line faster. In fact, I might even tip for the guy in front of me once and a while.
2. Sandwich guy at Subway – This weekend I went to Subway and it reinforced my longstanding idea that Subway must think their employees already know how to make sandwhiches. I don’t fault them for making this assumption, but my own evidence is quickly going from anecdotal to statistical.
3. Gas Pumper – This is a NJ specific, since you have to pump your own gas everywhere else. I’d gladly pay for a quicker fill up, especially if he doesn’t top off my tank with an extra gallon or two. Also, I feel bad for these guys in the cold.
4. DMV Employees – There is probably a law against tipping state employees, but it’s in need of serious review. I spent almost three hours in the Haddon Heights DMV in October getting my license renewed.
5. The Cable Guy – Until I had my own place I thought all those stories about the cable guy coming between 8:00AM and 5:00PM were exaggerated.
Comments
3 responses to “Tipping”
Tipping certainly makes a difference. When I was working at a dopey, run-down restaurant in Arizona, tipping was even bigger because we weren’t paid an hourly wage (another story in itself). You could usually tell who would be good tippers, though it was certainly a crap shoot, as illustrated below.
We had a pair of middle-aged ladies who basically monopolized one servers time (can we have this? can we have that? could you do this? could I get that?)…essentially, a ton of work was put into making these broads happy…we even had a meal made for them that wasn’t even on the menu (not a huge deal, but talking the cook into doing that was a task in itself). They were real nice and seemed real appreciative, so we were certain a good tip was coming. When they left, we found a fake, Monopoly-style $20 dollar bill on the table, with a Bible verse on the back and a paragraph about how tips are worthless if you don’t have Jesus in your life. Obviously, we weren’t happy. Apparently they came in a week later, were recognized right away, and were basically made to sit for a half hour before the server (same one) took their order (and she even waited to put their order in 15 minutes after she took it), but I wasn’t working that night so I only heard this second-hand.
-Brian
It didn’t look like this exactly, but it’s pretty close…
http://www.jesusshaves.com/disappointed.jpg
man I couldn’t agree more