18% (OK, fine, 20)
June 7th, 2006But not a penny more.
New York really ought to make a law where an automatic gratuity gets added to the restaurant bill.
I know this is sort of my Andy Rooney moment, but tipping is bullshit, isn’t it? Expecting waiters to grovel for their money like that. It’s like a weird master and slave relationship—“if you’re nice I’ll give you a reward.” But then again, it’s also a complete ruse because if you ever dared to tip a waitress say 12% at a good restaurant, they’d come running after you and shake you down for the money. In fact I’ve seen this happen to hapless Europeans. Really, several times. Give the poor Europeans a break! Just add the tip on! We’re not living in some feudal state anymore; give up the tips.
What would be the harm? Well, in New York, dudes are always swinging their cocks around, throwing down twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five percent tips to show off, so I’m sure that waitresses benefit from the Wall Street assholes who like to throw their money around. But really, should those assholes be encouraged? In fact, there should be law that says your not allowed to add anything to the already-added gratuity.
Bars too.
July 24th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
I would go one further: have tax included, too. Think of all the bullshit that would be eliminated if at payment time you said, “Well, I got the Pork Tartare for $21.32 and the boiled oysters to start at $9.03. Add $5.31 for my glass of Pouilly-Fuissé, and I owe $35.66. Make it an even $36.” Okay, so the odd numbers with cents and all makes it a little confusing, but easier than having people calculate tax and tip in their heads. Invariably, someone forgets that tax amounts to almost $1 on every $10, and then there is awkwardness.
Here’s the problem. If we take this further, then restaurants should just pay their staff for real, but then they would get minimum wage or something, and then it’s terrifically awful. Raise the minimum wage. Oh, my head hurts. I can’t solve the world’s problems just now.
Until the world’s problems are solved, folks, here’s my trick for figuring tax and tip with a group. $2.80 for every $10 you spend includes tax plus about a 20% tip. If you want to go 15%, use $2.30 for every $10. If you want to make life super easy on yourself, go $2.50 for every ten. That’s easy because you just divide what you owe by four and slap that on top of your bill. If you go with the $2.80, the trick (not supereasy, but a good exercise of your brain) is to multiply by 3, divide by 10, then subtract from that the total time 2 over 100.
I’m a rambling idiot this morning. All mornings? All the time?