Getting on in the Service Industry

When dining out, as a standard, I tip 10%. By UK standards, this is acceptable. This is not to say that I'll tip 10% regardless of how good the service was. If the service was awful I will tip less. I very rarely leave nothing, and have only walked out without paying a bill once (in Cambodia, where I waited 30 minutes for a drink, and 2 hours for a steak that was undercooked. I might add this was in a quiet hotel, not a busy restaurant). However, most of the time, I will tip a little even if the food takes a long time. My reasoning behind this is that the chef probably took ages, and that's hardly the waiter's fault. Even if the prices are excessive, the waiter hasn't set them, he merely delivers the bill. Only if the waiter gives me atrocious service, will I pay the bill and leave nothing for him. I thought everyone acted to this principal.

Then I got a job working as a barman in a hotel.

I have had weeks at a time, where I have received absolutely nothing in tips. You could argue that my service is bad, and I just don't realise it. It would have to be seriously bad though, and that wouldn't explain why I have had guests compliment me so profusely on my professionalism. On other days, I have been the only serving staff on shift, and a wedding reception of 30 people have shown up unexpectedly. On such an occasion, I had one table of 7 people complain to me about how slow my service was, told me I should be ashamed, and then left without paying. At the same time, I had another table complimenting me, telling me they could see how hard I was working and was coping very well with an exceptional situation. Actually, it was a group headed by a somewhat boisterous Scotsman, so what he actually said was "I couldn't do your job, Christ, I'da punched that p***k in the face! Does he not realise he's not the only one in the bar? You're doin fine work." He went on to tip me £10 for a pint of Carling.

Sadly though, I have come to make some generalisations. The first is that English people do not tip, or if they do, it's around 1%. I have had far fewer tips from English people than from any other nationality guest. It is a very rare occasion when I receive a decent tip from an English guest. It would seem the only English people who tip on a regular basis are myself, and my dad, who I learnt this behaviour from.

European guests tip in trickles. It's not 10%, but it's usually around 4%, and is fairly constant. This is excluding the Irish guests. Somewhat bizarrely, I have yet to be tipped badly by an Irish guest. Bizarre, purely based on the law of averages. I should have received a bad tip from an Irish guest by now.

Americans though, take the trophy for best tippers. I once got told that in America the minimum wage is so low, waiters live off their tips. This may help to explain why most of the American guests I serve tip around 20%. This may have something to do with the cost of living in America, in terms of taxes alone. Every American I have told is appalled at the level of VAT (Value Added Tax) that we pay on all goods purchased in England. It is 17.5%

I remember reading an article, I think it was in 'The Guardian', about a study carried out which showed service staff were more offended when they got a bad tip, than when they got no tip at all. I'm not sure why, but this is true. I also remember listening to my brother, when overhearing someone yell at a waiter in a restaurant, telling me that anyone on that table eating something that came out of the kitchen afterwards was an idiot. I'm proud to say I have yet to spit on some one's food, no matter how rude they were to me, and I don't intend to. However, based on my uniqueness in tipping, I may be the only one not to.