Its a brand new Freakytrigger feature, since it is our fault the credit crunch, some say downturn, some say RE CESS ION has happened*. But nevertheless the new economic climate throws up new situations. What do you do when the beggar at Marble Arch Tube is your old boss? Toss them a nugget and ignore them, or tell them how much their boom’n’bust ways made you the risk averse and hence recession proof person you are today?
Well, step one is pride. You may have noticed in this November a proliferation of 2-for-1 deals on main meals at medium range restaurants. Zilli’s has it on . Ask Pizza too. All handy for the serial luncher. Save yourself a few quid and eat out. Great eh? Well yes, until the bill comes. Because then you have to explain your cheapskatery to your waiter. I have a voucher, you say, where “voucher” comes out of you mouth like “dead child”. I have seen many a waiter sigh, and an equal number of punters too scared to flash the photocopy.
And the secret is the tip. The big problem with tipping 10%, or 15% in a restaurant is that it is a percentage of the meal cost. It seems to belie the the fact that waiters in cheap’n’cheerful gaffs may work twice as hard as a fancy pants maitre’d. But whatever happens, if you get a food discount, it should never effect the tip value. You saved a tenner, that is money to spend on the wait staff. It costs you nothing and they may just spend us out of recession.
CREDIT CRUNCH ETIQUETTE RULE 1: Always tip the full cost of the meal. Even if you got a discount. If it cost you a tenner, but you saved a tenner, you should be tipping more than a quid and let them know it.
*We’ll explain this when the FSA allows us to.
I’m pleasantly shocked to read such sensitivity on the subject of tipping from a Britishes like yourself.
For my own part, I’ve noticed that minicabs appear to have lowered their prices back down to realistic levels (i.e. not charging 12 pounds for a trip from the Hackney Empire to Kingsland Road), which raises another question – do minicab drivers get tipped? Ever?
The bigger the savings, the bigger the tip i find. It’s a sort of English ‘I’m terribly sorry for getting 50% off have a tenner it’ll make me feel less cheap’.
There is a problem inherent with tipping culture WHICH WE WON’T GET INTO HERE that the value of the tip is necessarily tied to the cost of the food. So the more the food costs the bigger the tip. Which works in someways when you get to high end restaurants – where the wait staff should be very good, but probably gyps people in middle range restaurants – hence pushing us into the table turning culture that I bleieve the London lite is obsessed with.
Can tips be used to make up wages to minumum wage in the UK? I didn’t think it could, but someone at the weekend suggested otherwise.