March 22, 2012 • 50 mins
Tipping is commonly expected in some places, such as U.S. restaurants. Yet this practice varies across cultures. Join trivia gurus (and former waiters) Josh and Chuck as they take a closer look at the history, practice and controversy surrounding tipping.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast on Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant
and uh, this is stuff you should know the podcast.
(00:24):
Have you ever waited tables? I did notice? Awful? How
long did you do it? I did it often on
for many years, but man, I was Yeah, I waited
tables for many years as well, in many uh several
different states, in different many different kinds of restaurants. So
I have a pretty wide range of experience with being tipped.
(00:50):
How are you doing? It's great? Now? Are you? Are
you trying to hurry this along? Here's a tip for
for for me to you steer clear that O J?
Guy pal, oh J. Simpson. Yeah, there's from a Dave
Letterman top ten from the nineties something about tipping, and
one of them was like, here's a tips, steer clear
(01:11):
of that, o J. Fellow Pal, I'm glad we're staying
relevant as always. I'm not trying to move it on.
I just thought, since you said he didn't have an intro,
I would document a little bit of my history as
a waiter, and he did great man. Remember what's his name,
the guy from Scrubs and Gardens State. For some reason,
I always think he was perfect at being that waiter.
(01:32):
For some reason, it was just like whenever I think
of waiters and then I think of l A, I
think of that character. Yeah, the scene at the beginning
and the end of it. I think that was really
based on his experience as a waiter. He wore a
lot of eyeliner in the early two thousand. Guyliner. So
what that's called? You never heard that phrase? No? Yeah?
(01:53):
Uh so tipping, Josh, this was You've been pushing this
one for a while and it never got done for
various reason. And I'm glad we got around to it
because I will be one that people it's ubiquitous and
we'll get tons and tons of email about this, I
guarantee it. Yeah, and it's gonna be helpful because in
several points we tell you to go to trip Advisor
to look up tipping customs. So yeah, that's helpful. Well,
(02:17):
it's hard to cover tipping customs because they're different everywhere
and for each job, and it's gets so overwhelming you
just have to end up saying hey, if you're going
to this country, look it up, or apparently you need
to go through life like Jimmy Conway and Goodfellas and
tip absolutely every single person you see your mechanic. Did
(02:40):
you see that? Did you know you're supposed to tip
your mechanic bucks or more for jobs like, Hey, thanks
for overcharging me and exploiting my ignorance of my car
and how it functions. Here's an extra twenty bucks your mechanic. Yeah, well,
you know what since you brought that up. Uh, there
was a saw on ad you see questionnaire is tipping
(03:04):
out of control? And of people say it is. I disagree,
you don't think it's out of control. After reading this,
I was like, man, I'm way cheaper than I realized. Um,
and this is just a question I thought was interesting.
What services bother you the most that you were obliged
to tip? Of people said bathroom attendance. Oh, I don't
(03:24):
tip them. That's at the top of my list. I
don't want a bathroom attendance. Well, yeah, I can get
my own. Well it makes me want to not watch
my hands. It makes me just want to get out
of there. Uh. Take out food tipping it irks people
to pay for like when you get a takeout order,
like when you go there and they just turn around
and get your food and handed to you in a
(03:45):
bag you like when you call it in, I do?
Do you really? Yeah? Okay? What else? Salons? Well, yeah,
of people don't like tipping the salon because women say
it's just endless because you gotta tip your colors and
the people who I can see that. And then the
tip jars at coffee houses. I rarely patronize those as well,
(04:07):
coffee houses or tip jars, And the reason being is, um,
I I'm sure I will be taken to task for this.
I don't think people in coffee houses are paid the
tipped wage. They're not, so I looked at it. I
might as well walk around with the tip jar and
ask people to give me their change. I'll even wear
(04:30):
a change belt. How about that. Don't make it easier
on you? Well, why would you even have a tip
jar there if you're not getting paid the tipped wage.
That brings up a big point because that is a
big controversy. People at Starbucks start out about eight fifty
to nine bucks an hour. Is that that's a minimum
wage that's above the minimum wage just I think is
a minimum wage. Now the tipped the Fair Standards and
(04:52):
Labor Act, the minimum federal hourly wage for tipped employees
is yes, yes, those people although usually getting tipped. Yeah, no,
it doesn't know not necessarily. No. Well, most states have
their own and it's more than two thirteen. I didn't
get that most states too. I know. The pinnacle is
Colorado and they have like a minimum tipped wage of
(05:13):
four thirteen an hour, and that's what everybody's like, Wow,
Colorado is really killing it. UM. I know here in
Georgia it's the it's the federal minimum. And there's a
group called fairy eats dot org that's dedicated to UM
shaming restaurants that that just adhere to that by celebrating
(05:33):
restaurants that pay their employees more than the minimum federal
minimum tipped wage. Well, you're supposed to make up the
difference as a restaurant from what employees claim to the
I r S and their tipped money. If that doesn't
equal minimum wage, then the restaurateur is supposed to make
up that difference in wages. I would I would wager
(05:54):
that that does not happen. Well, I would wager that
not many tipped employees are reporting all of their tips either.
It's true too, so it's kind of like you have to,
you have to, and then both just kind of storm
away disgruntled. But you don't tip McDonald's and for the
same reason I don't tip people at coffee houses because
it's the same thing. You are putting your my order
(06:18):
in right into a cash register or cash register computing machine, um,
and you're turning around and grabbing my coffee or my
my fries or whatever, right, And I'm not demeaning or
diminishing that job whatsoever, Like I'm very happy that you're
doing that because I really want that. And you're standing
between me and the fries, right, so hand him over.
(06:40):
I'll give you this money. But you make like maybe
you got health benefits. Sucks. So in my opinion, we
can either entirely do away with tipping by raising everybody
to at least the minimum wage, and while we're at it,
let's also maybe double the minimum wage because it's laughable.
Will still right, um, and just do away with tipping,
(07:04):
just go totally Japan, or or we need to really
make it clear who's depending on tips and who's not,
And these jokers at coffee houses need to get rid
of the tip jar and they need to stop calling
it karma, which I think we went over in the
Karma karmajar or whatever. Yeah, that's kind of that's that's
(07:25):
so aggressive guilty, you think. All right, So that was
our intro tipping. So let's talk about where this often
vilely exploited act came from. Chuck, go ahead, Well, I
feel like I was on a rant. I was too.
I'm just joking, okay. Um, Well, let's see. Tipping they
(07:48):
think has its origins in about the sixteenth century in Europe,
where if you went and visited a friend, a relative
of colleague, you went to their house. Uh, you would
often tip their servants, especially if you got really drunk
and soiled yourself and they cleaned you up. You might
be like, here's a couple of pieces of gold, let's
(08:10):
just keep this between you and me, okay, and they would,
and over time it became much less of a way
to um show your appreciation as something that was expected
and depended on. Right. Once you start kind of giving
money in a customary manner, people start to include that
(08:31):
in their budgets, right, Um, So they think that that's
possibly where the custom came from, Right Yeah. I don't
even think that this acronym thing is even valid at all. No,
and it's not. There's a guy named Steve Doblonica who's
written books on tipping, and he's got some pretty good
research down. And you want to say the acronym uh
(08:54):
t I P two in ensure with an eye promptness,
but that's just there's no no, because number one acronyms
didn't really come into use until the nineteen twenties. Yeah,
they weren't using acronyms in the sixteenth century. And the
word tip itself has been around for long before that.
And like you said, it should be it shouldn't be
tipped ensure with an eye, it should be ensure with
(09:15):
an E. So there's a lot wrong with that. What
they think is that tipping um originally came from the
uh this kind of word among thieves, which is how
we use it today, like you tip somebody off, that
it basically to give something right, and it was just
basically common thieves slang um. But then the act of
(09:38):
tipping itself also came from either the servants from tipping servants,
or it also was it grew out of giving money
to somebody who worked at the bar to buy their
own drink as well. Get a drink for yourself on me.
And in fact, the word tip in Slavic languages translates
(09:58):
roughly to drinking money. I like that one. The word
for tip in French is poor beer pour boi, which
means for drinking and um. Basically everywhere else except in English,
the word tip means drinking money. So that's probably where
tipping came from. I like that origin. Here, I'm having
(10:21):
a good time, I had a few drinks. Go by
yourself one exactly, it's just spreading the joy. Or I'm
at my buddy's house and I've drank until I soiled myself.
Here's some money for cleaning me up last night. I
appreciate it. I don't know about the train spotting the
origin of tipping. Yeah, so this is this is probably
where tipping came from. And uh, a little more history
(10:42):
if you don't mind chuckers um, you can pretty much
pinpoint how tipping became accustomed in the United States because
it was all a raged In Europe, it was not
caught on here in the US. Even though a lot
of wealthy Americans were traveling to Europe and coming back
and tipping, people were like, what are you doing? Like, sure,
give me your money, but I'm not gonna do the
same thing until the Pullman Company, the Pullman rail car company,
(11:07):
figured out that they could grossly underpay their porters by
publicizing that they relied on tips to survive. And basically
the Pullman Company cut almost three million dollars in the
in the like late nineteenth century, there was a lot
of money from their payroll by basically relying on their
customers good hearts to take care of their porters for him.
(11:31):
It is when you think about it in those terms,
it is sort of a dirty business. It's like, hey,
we don't want to pay our employees. They're serving you,
so you pay them. But like you're the one reaping
all the reward of the five dollar cup of coffee,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, And a lot of
a lot of restaurants, or a lot of people in
the on the restaurant side of this debate, say, well,
(11:53):
if we start raising their wages to like the minimum wager,
even like double the tip wage, Um, we're gonna go
wonder And apparently some studies have found that that's actually
not the case that they can come out on top
because restaurant owners spend so much money on training through
turnover because the wages are so low that people just
hop from job the job wherever they can get the
(12:13):
most tips. If you can offer a higher stable wage,
you're gonna have much less turnover and ultimately in the
long run, you may come out on top as a
restaurant owner. It's so interesting. Possibly that's one sign. You know,
who pays the customer? Yeah? Us, because middle class you
pay the five bucks for a cup of coffee, which
the company gets they don't have to pay. Well, they
do pay their employee minimum wage, but that ain't much
(12:36):
and then they get the little tip on top of
that and you end up paying six for your cup
of coffee. And you know what now that you're you're
bringing this up, you mean I were at Caribou and um,
they have I love Caribou coffee, right, But they had
this promo where it was like beans for the Troops
or something like that, and it was like, hey, go
ahead and uh and buy this this fifteen dollar pound
(12:57):
of coffee and we'll send them to the troops. And um,
we asked if they were selling them at a discount,
like if the Caribou was doing anything. They were like, no,
this is a regular price. And we're like, so wait
a minute, you're exploiting Americans affinity and affection for the
troops as a way to you know, beef up your
on ground bean sales. That was disgusting. If you ask me,
(13:22):
it happens. That's gross. At that board meeting is the
gross part where that's decided, you know, where we can
really reckon right, all right, I knew this would be
a lightning rod. This is just us are going to get. Ohoy, Well,
since you brought it up, it is a lightning rod. Period.
If you go on the internet and you start looking
about tipping, you will find two camps. People that work
(13:45):
for tips that are outraged that people don't want to
tip or the under tip, and then people that say
it is out of control. Every you know, you go
on a vacation, you staying in a hotel and need
a restaurants, you're Jimmy Conway. I again, like I was
reading this, I'm like, oh man, dude, do other people
tip all these people because I feel like a real
(14:05):
jerk in some of these cases I do, and I
end up feeling like a sucker. And then you know
what I thought. I was like, well, I never carry cash,
it's all plastic, so surely plastic leading to a decline
in tipping. I did a search for that. No, No,
All I could find was that most people carry plastic
and a little bit of currency for tips. I'm like,
oh man, I really have to get on the ball here.
(14:29):
All right. They've actually done a lot of studying about tips. Yeah,
why do we do this? That's the psychology tipping, as
it were, Well, um, one is out of guilt. Yeah,
wasn't that one of the reasons. Uh well yeah not supposedly.
If you think about tipping, the whole idea is that
you're doing it out of gratitude, like you did a
really good job, and I want to make sure that
(14:52):
you have, um, this extra little bit go buy yourself
something nice on me, or I want to ensure because
I come back to you that I will get same
service when I come back. Right, So really it's um
what they're finding is that it's guilt and fear, Like
you know that people rely on these tips, and part
of your role as customer in some circumstances is to
(15:15):
pay these people their salary that they're depending on the tips.
Or you're afraid that they're gonna pe in your soup
and you're basically saying, here's some money, um, please don't
pe in my soup, and they say, all right, that
that's gonna do it. That that that takes care of
the no pea soup levy. Yeah, but the tip comes
after the soup. Yeah, but you may be back there again, okay, right, Yes.
(15:41):
The Center pro Hospitality at Cornell University, UH, they've done
some research there and I thought this was fairly interesting.
They found the US leads the world in uh being
neurotic and being extroverted, and those are two traits that
lead to big tips because you're neurotic, so you feel like,
of course I have to leave. You know. Any and
has ever seen the Curb Your Enthusiasm tip episode? That's
(16:03):
like tipping neuroticism and its finest portrayed. You want to
tip as much as your friend. You don't want to undertip.
You want to tip just you don't want to overtip.
You want to tip just the right amount. I don't
mind over tipping, especially when it's like it's really good service,
Like I'm happy to overtip, and I prefer to air
on the side of overtipping. For sure. Extroverts are outgoing
(16:27):
social folks, and they see it as an incentive to
get a little extra attention, like make a big show
about me, party of Benjamin, party of four, Benjamin Franklin,
party of four. I never heard that. Yeah, Uman's got
a story about this one. Dude, Wow, you won't tell it. Well,
that was pretty much it. They were she and her
(16:48):
boyfriend at the time and his friend were at this
restaurant and um, the guy actually said uh Franklin party
of four, and she said it worked. She couldn't believe it.
She was like, I felt bad about the guy we
were with and the guy who took the money, but
it was a good, interesting, good meal. I've never agreased
to palm for like a table. I haven't either. That's
(17:12):
a good move, though I wish I'd like to do that.
It is, but really it's kind of like, man, you
you give up a lot of any claim to the
even if you don't make that much money. If you're
walking around doing stuff like that. You know, speaking of
did you see the internet meme going around about the tipper, yes,
which apparently is totally unfounded. Now I don't. I think
(17:33):
it's sort of unfounded. I thought he was a tipper.
He's a one percent temper because he is part of
the one percent. And from what I understood was the
tip was real, but what he wrote on there was fabricated. Well,
or that they didn't even know for sure he was
a banker, then the whole thing is fabricated. I did
see that though. By the way I mean this, this
(17:53):
is breaking news, is like yesterday for four weeks ago.
So can we go back some some of the interesting
studies about how you get good tips. This is Josh
and Chucks. If you're a waiter or a waitron, here
are our tips for you to increase your tips and restaurant.
This isn't just us in our observations. This is again
(18:14):
Cornell has put a lot of thought and energy into it.
I believe in real research. There's been a lot of
studies about how and why we tip. One of them
is touching, Like if you are a server and you
touch the your customer, you will increase your tip and
it's not just lonely horny men. Um Men and women
(18:35):
of all ages um will increase their tip with just
a brief touch on the shoulder from eleven point eight
percent to fourteen point eight percent. I, however, do not
like to be touched. I don't either. I'm glad you
said that the other day and I was just like, like,
what are you doing? It didn't freak me out, like
it's not something I don't know. You you don't know me.
(18:59):
Let's just keep our hands theirselves, okay, and then we'll
see where your tip goes. Did his tip go down? No,
of course not. You should have punished him severely. How
god do you so much? Former waiter guilt tip on
bad service as long I do. As long as you
have the right attitude, that makes the biggest difference. If
(19:19):
you're like, oh, really sorry and it was bad service
and you said I'm sorry, guys, I you know I
let you down the night, unless you're being manipulative by
doing that, and you really just couldn't have cared less
you phoned it in and then you said, oh really sorry,
I can't too. Yeah, intentions go a long way with me,
all right. Squatting and This was my big move when
(19:40):
I was a waiter because at my at my at
the nice restaurant I worked at, it was my big move.
I would kneel down next to the table A lot
of times. You get that eye contact going on, and
your tips are gonna go up from fourteen point nine
percent to seventeen point five. Okay. I would also like
to add a caveat to this. However, if you actually
(20:00):
get into the booth or take a seat at the table,
you've crossed the line. Well I I used to do
that at Mexicali, though, but that was a college atmosphere
and that that would be acceptable at certain times. You've
been in college at Mexicali. No, no, no, that was
over the line. No no, no, no. It was fun
girls drinking margharita's. I would sit down and flirt and
(20:22):
would your tip go up? Yeah, and occasionally would get
a phone number out of it. Oh and free margarita
that that well I had. I worked there. I got
all the free margarities I want them. I didn't realize
they gave free margarita to employees at MEXICALI. Well they
didn't officially anywhere supposed to have them. While you're working
either those were the old days. Giving candy to uh
(20:45):
to your customer will jump your tip up from fifteen
point one to seventeen point eight. Giving two pieces of candy,
one initially and one spontaneously like here have another jumped
it from nineteen percent to twenty one point six percent.
So long as you didn't end it with chumps. I'm
sorry that jumped it when it was the spontaneous secondaries
(21:07):
chumps by being like, oh, well, you know what here
take two and we're talking like the starlight peppermints here, Okay,
it's not like good dive at chocolate. Yes, thank you
for rescuing me, because I almost said snickers. I'd be
nice too. I had a waitress recently give Emily and
I the pen that she gave us to sign the
(21:29):
bill with because I'm a big pen guy, so as
Emily and as far as having like the perfect pen,
and I signed things like, oh my god, feel this
pin and it was a combination of the pin on
that that slimy paper that they give you and it
was amazing. And Emily said something that she was like,
I agree. I keep them in my car so much.
Go ahead and keep that one and how much of
(21:51):
a tip you leave her? I left her my pen.
No I'm kidding. Oh yeah, sure I tipped her. No,
it's always like, so the highest you goes twenty five. Yeah,
I mean I I go, I go twenty, and I
round up. No matter what I noticed, especially before the
(22:12):
um uh well, no, I guess it would have been
even after the economic collapse, the global catastrophe that we're
in the midst of. Still um that it was moving
very clearly towards across the board was the new percent,
and then the economic meltdown happened, and all of a sudden,
(22:33):
now it's back to fifteen percent and percent if you're
doing good. It seems like, am I wrong? Am I
just fantasizing here? No? I think it used to be ten,
that it was like twelve and fifteen and then twenty
and then Yeah, you're right, with the economic crisis. I
did read articles that people said, our tips are going down.
But it's a collective movement, you know what I'm saying, Like,
you can be the nice guy in tip twenty all
the time or whatever, but you're also kind of pushing
(22:56):
everybody else forward by doing that. Yeah. I also did
the deal to you where you know you go out
with certain people and you wh whoa, whoa? What does
that mean? I've got like eight different homes. I don't
want I don't want to call out any any person
or even are you talking about a specific buddy of yours? No,
not buddy, just you know, could be family members, could
(23:17):
be certain friends, just you know, when someone picks up
the tab, I always do the thing where I look
to make sure that they were properly compensated. Then on
the way and I was like, oh, I gotta use
the bathroom. I'm gonna put more money in there. Oh
you're an underminer. Huh yeah. Because certain people. Oh man,
I wish I could say who. I had a friend
whose father was in a very rich dude, and he
(23:39):
was a bad tipper and embarrassed the crud out of
me when we would go to these nice places and
he would pick up the tab and leave like a
eight to tip. And so I always need to bring
cash to leave in the thing. Jared Hess's dad. No, No, uh,
all right, so that's it. How to increase your tips? Oh?
Tell him it's sunny outside. Yeah. The psychology of weather
(24:01):
strikes again, where the study was conducted where if m
a in a windowless room, right, yeah, uh, if the
waiter described it as being rainy out, the tips were
something like nineteent. This isn't too bad. But if the
waiters like, oh, it's so sunny and beautiful out, then
tips average. So squat at the table, touch him on
(24:23):
the shoulder, give him candy, Give him candy, and then
all of a sudden you've got two pieces of candy,
and uh, give good service, and then tell them it's
sunny outside and you will be rolling in the dead
makes like a million dollars table, thank us later, and
tip on the original amount. By the way, that's a
waiter thing. It's a big one. If you if you
got coupons or you do the scout mob thing, be
(24:44):
aware that you're you should tip on the original amount.
You kind of have to. It's not the waiter's fault.
You had a coupon. Yeah, I mean that is really
bad if you don't know that at this point, especially
with how ubiquitous those those deals are getting these days.
You know, um, but chuck. On the other hand, you
can make a pretty strong argument that, um, if you
(25:05):
order a hundred dollar bottle of wine. Do you that? So? Why? Why? Yeah? Why?
I like some nice wine, and that is a bone
of contention that I swallow, and I just still tip
on the total amount. But yeah, you're right if you
(25:25):
let's say you just order a bottle of wine, like meaningmly,
we're just gonna go have a bottle of wine one
night because we ate dinner somewhere else, or maybe we
gotta have dessert somewhere and we get a nice bottle
of port and it's like eighty bucks. You guys drink
a whole bottle of port, And no, of course not.
Let's say with a group or whatever, we drink a
whole bottle of port, a group of what like twenty
(25:47):
you're drinking a whole bottle of drinking glass of port,
and there's like five glass like that small, it's like
a regular wine glass. What do you drink brandy like that? No,
because that's liquor poored is wine? No, brandy is a
type of wine anyway, do you you're like Homer Simpson
when he was baby sending Mr Burns house when he
(26:09):
like pours himself like a whole sniffer brandy and drinks
the whole thing and when when gulp and then just
falls right over. My friend Timmy's wife one time asked
for a bourbon on the rocks at her house, and
she bought me like seven ounces of bourbon on the rocks,
and I was like, what are you trying to do
to me? That's awesome? No, but porchs not. You're not
supposed to be a little It's not like sambuca. I
(26:29):
mean ports like a regular glass of wine. Right, I'm
mistaken then, because every place I go they pour your regular,
regular glass. No it's a little tiny like it's like
a cordial wine glass. No, no, no, no, no, I promise,
all right, you're gonna be wrong regardless. You drink expensive
wine and how how much do you tip? Well, But
it does cross my mind, like, man, I'm giving this
(26:50):
guy like fourteen dollars for bringing me a bottle of wine.
It's a good point, and I think even the average
server would grudgingly agree. Okay, all right, maybe maybe not
this one. But it's not just the waiter that you
want to tip in the restaurant, surprise, surprise. Depending on
where you go, you need to be prepared to tip
a lot of people. Yeah, that the person who see
(27:12):
it's a really nice place the matri d. If the
matri d goes out of his way, um to get
you a very nice table, or you feel like he's
he or she is doing something um very just kind
of above and beyond, you might want to slip from
fifteen to twenty bucks. There's a lot also if the
Somalia comes over to your table and tells you a
bit about the wines, especially if you solicited this advice. Yea.
(27:37):
In reading this article, I realized that I have stiffed
at least one Somalia in my life, and now I
understand why he's looking at me weird when he finished.
Um uh, you you want to give them anywhere from
ten to twenty bucks, depending on how in depth the
recommendation is. And usually when you're talking tips at least
in this article that we're working from from how stuff
(27:57):
Works dot com, um, there's a eyeing a low yeah,
And it's basically the discrepancy is based on just how
much effort this person is putting into it, how much enthusiasm, um,
but and just how much out of their out of
the way of their normal duties are they going. See
here's my deal, dude, I don't want a big show.
(28:17):
I want genuine good service and and to be left
alone because you you can. The tip won't go down
because I just have the guilt. But you can go
down in my mind if you're just too like, just
too much, don't work too hard, don't give me a
big show. Apparently they can do whatever they want to
and they're still gonna get the same amount of money.
(28:37):
Do you know what, chuck? You know where you would
do well, then buffet's. At a buffet, you serve yourself
and you just leave your plate and it mysteriously vanishes.
But that's a person behind the kidnapping of that plate,
and you want to leave them about ten percent as
the recommendation, So you want to leave them thirty five
cents at your buffet. I don't go to buffet's, but yeah,
(28:59):
if you don't go to buffet, No, I don't understand
the existence of cafeterias. Since there's buffets, it's the same
exact thing, except buffets are all you can eat, and
cafeterias like, here's a little ramikin of the same thing
you can have ten helpings of if you want for
the same price. Well, you don't see a lot of
cafeterias anymore, you do, you do? Yeah, there's at least
(29:19):
as many cafeterias as there are buffets. Oh no, yeah,
I think the Chinese food restaurants have made that a
null and void comment. The Chinese food Okay, alright, so
though they exist outside of this realm, I'm talking more
like country cook and buffets. Yeah, yeah, there's almost one
for one all right. Uh. And by the way, most
(29:40):
most nicer restaurants pulled their tips. Um like in Mexicality
was every man for himself. You know, the bus boy
didn't get tips or actually we kind of bust our
own tables. But most restaurants will pull their tips in
the the that's usually not a matre d at that point.
It's just the host or hostess they'll get a cut,
and like the bartender and the bus boy, they'll they'll
(30:02):
get dishwasher. They'll all get a cut. So just remember that.
But some places it's every man for himself too. Uh.
If speaking of bartenders, you are at a bar, I
usually tip a buck of drink for the first few drinks.
That's what I do. Unless it's a very if it's
like a complex, complicated drink, which I tend to prefer um.
(30:23):
It will be like a percentage to the bill. If
there's really muddling going on. Yes, once you start muddling,
I'm like, all right, here's some extra money. I don't
tip on the bill because I will usually just say
give us six BBRs for my friends and I and
we then tip a bucket. Even if the beer is
a dollar, I'll give a dollar. It's very nice of you,
you know, because it's like, what am I gonna like
fish around for fifteen cents? That's just ridiculous. But you
(30:48):
know we're rich, we're high rollers. You're tipping a buck
a buck for a dollar? Beer chuck wow? Podcasting business Uh.
Cafes and coffee houses. I think we kind of covered that.
I tend to tip out of guilt there. But I
don't go to a lot of coffee shops because I
don't drink a lot of coffees. Do you really see
look those guys in the eyes while I'm not tipping them.
(31:11):
Do you what the worst is? Checking out the grocery store,
they're like, would you like to give a dollar to
the you know whatever foundation? That's fifty fifty for me?
Depending on my mood. Really yeah, I mean like I
should do it every time, but um yeah, and that's
sad that helping out kids with muscular distrophe is equated
to tipping. Well it's not, but yeah, I know what
(31:32):
you mean, um holiday tipping, which was a big part
of that Curb Your Enthusiasm Enthusiasm episode when you do
this when you were have money. I think it's generally
for people that have a little more money and they
live in places where they know the service people helping. Yeah,
like they got the country club and the guy you
know this and that. But you can deliver your newspaper
(31:54):
or your garbage collector your newspaper delivery person. You can
tip your mailman. My brother used to when he worked
at uh the movie theaters would give every holidays he
would give out movie tickets, yeah to like the mailman
into the garbage person and stuff like that. Um, fifteen
to twenty five bucks they say for your garbage collector,
(32:16):
your dog walker, your nanny, your cleaning service, they say
one week's pay. I save a lot of money every
year by not having those people set up to tip them.
Uh yeah, manicurist, you have manicurist supposed took them ten
to fifty. I do. And you know the way around this,
go to different manicurists every time, so that you're not
you're not you're not a common enough customer that you
(32:40):
feel like you need to tip them at the holidays.
Hairdressers women obviously the ones who are probably been in
the big bucks at the hairdresser, they say hundred and
this is for the holidays. You understand, it's not each visit.
This is hey, it's Christmas. You also have to tip
them each visit. I get a fourteen dollar haircut, I
tip six bucks? What well? Because what am I gonna
(33:02):
give them? Nineteen dollars? Wow? Or two dollars? Okay? That
just seems really cheap to me to say, like, thanks
for the great haircut that's gonna last me three months.
Here's eight quarters. Huh. I tipped my haircut lady all
over the place. What I kisses and hugs stuff like that.
(33:24):
You may cut your hair um hotels. Uh, you're This
is something that I have just recently learned. I didn't
know you're supposed to tip the maid service. I knew that,
but I thought that was something from maybe the fifties.
And that's how I like, um, comforted myself by not
kipping the maids. But yeah, apparently we're supposed to be
doing that a lot. One to ten dollars per night,
(33:47):
depending on the mess you make. I am extremely clean
and I clean up before I leave. It depends on
if they change you, if you soiled yourself the night before.
Bell hoops a dollar per bag if it's bull key
and large or heavy and awkward, maybe a little bit
more of that. Yeah, more than a buck That one
I totally get. Still don't do it because I frequently
(34:07):
don't use bell hoops to do it myself. But um,
I hate that when they force you to like walk
you into the room and show you around and stuff.
I would much rather just carry my own bag, just
give me my key card again with a big show.
I don't want a big show, right Well apparently though,
Remember that one study found that bell hops who do
make a big show of things by showing people how
(34:28):
to how to operate the thermostat on the TV and
opening the drapes and offering to fill the ice bucket,
they almost doubled their average tip. But I wonder if
it was people who are like, here's some money, just
please go away, which is one of the words is
a tipping to remember, throwing money for uh concierge five
to ten dollars depending on how helpful. Remember when we
(34:51):
were at the Pittsburgh Fairmont and our buddy Chad give
the concierge like ten bucks for a wreck and it
turned out to be a bad recommendation and he was
on man, he wanted his money back. What was the recommendation?
I didn't go. I was eating Indian food by myself
in my room. The whole thing. It was for a
restaurant that was either closed or it was like it
was just a bad tip. And he was like, did
(35:11):
he get his money back? No, of course not. I'll
bet he did not stop complaining about it. That he
kept going and going. Uh. And I didn't know until recently,
you're supposed to tip the concierge. I'm a dummy. I
didn't know that. Well, I mean they help you out,
and depending they were, how much help they are? Yeah,
I mean like they concierge. And I've never had one
(35:33):
do this for me. I've never really needed the services
of concerts, but concierges can like really go to town.
I'm making your life easy. They can get you tickets
to a show, like all sorts of things. They can
buy your kid a toy. If you're staying at a
nice enough place, oh and you're busy or whatever shopping,
the least they can find your shopper. This is, you
(35:57):
know what, in the in the spirit of keeping the
tradition of facts alive. I made that last part up,
but it seems like a say that's something. Oh sure
they would, okay, uh doorman, tip your doorman if they
if they hell a taxi, tip them a buck. A
lot of them aren't allowed to accept tips, so don't
be surprised if they hand it back. Really all right,
(36:18):
deliveries this is a big one for me. I get
Chinese food delivery. It's about the only delivery I get.
Oh yeah, maybe the occasional pizza where you order from.
I order from a place indicator of Chinese food place. Yeah,
it's good, but they take forever. Yeah. See, that'll cut
down on a tip with me. Well, especially if I'm
really hungry when I order. Yeah, we've learned to order
(36:40):
before we're hungry from this place. It's smart like Tuesday,
Yeah exactly, they say to tip two to five bucks
on your on your food delivery to your home, depending
on the weather, m the amount of danger depending on
the neighborhood you live in. Yeah, my neighborhood's dangerous. I
was not talking about your neighborhood. It's really not that been.
Flower deliveries one to ten bucks, depending on the arrangement.
(37:03):
I spent a little time as a flower delivery person,
and I can tell you that most people don't tip
their flower delivery guy, even though they're bringing this bit
of sunshine into your life. Assume that goes for fruit
delivery too, with those silly fruit displays, unless ironically, you're
dressed like a piece of fruit while you're delivering it.
Then the tips to start pouring out. Furniture delivery like
(37:27):
large things. I can tell you I did that as well,
Very large furniture among the heaviest arm wars you can
possibly conceive of our fabrics. If you delivered to the
home of like someone aged sixty five or older, there
was about a sixty percent chance they were gonna tip you.
Anybody below that was like, hey, thanks, thanks for coming.
Don't don't get hit by a car on your way out.
(37:49):
See my history with tipping with the elderly as they
don't tip as much. It depends, It depends, It depends
on the industry. You're in restaurant because tipping, I think,
and it used to be a lot more ubiquitous than
it is now. Right. So yeah, so like furniture delivery,
like that's why the older generation I would get a
(38:10):
tip from him more frequently, because there was a time
when you tipped everybody like that. Our generation wasn't raised
like that, right, I mean, do you tip the furniture
delivery guy. I pick up my own furniture buddy, Okay,
but you probably wouldn't like the mover, Let's say, like
the people who help you move. I think it's expected
you pay the big, huge moving costs and you tip
(38:32):
the guys on top of that. Man, I've got a
lot of a lot of self reflection. Sky Cap. I
took five bucks a bag for sky Cap. I must
be a sucker because it saysn't here two dollars a bag?
Very good? What's next? Um? Shuttle drivers at the airport?
I didn't know you're supposed to tip them. You're not.
This is all made up, Cabby. In New York, they
(38:56):
make it very easy on you know. You just put
in the percentage you want in the little computer and
it'll add it to your to your credit card, which
is great valet. If I like you, which is frequent,
you get two bucks. If I don't like you, you
can get as little as zero dollars. I try to
get to UM. I feel bad though when I don't
have it, and I'm just like a man, and sometimes
I'll say, can I go get my own car? Dude,
(39:17):
I don't have any cash. Yeah, I'll say that too,
and they say, no, we'll go get it. There was
an I'll fart in it, you know they will? Oh
they will, Yeah, I'll soil myself in your car. Uh, mechanic,
I had no idea. That's this is why it's made up.
You don't tip your mechanic. Who what are they talking about?
(39:39):
I had no idea. I think this is from like
the Gentleman's Guide to Life edition. Tip your mechanic ten
to twenty dollars for any job over five. I had
no idea. Gas station attendance like they exist anymore or
Oregon or wherever. If you if if they voluntarily check
(39:59):
your luids, meaning the ones in your car, uh, you
should tip them one to two dollars? Is it Oregon?
You do? You have to get your gas pumping. I
remember in New Jersey. I think I've even told you this.
My girlfriend had never pumped her gas. She was like,
oh yeah, yeah, Well our friend Van Nostrian, he lives
in Washington, which is nearby Oregon, so he probably knows
(40:22):
about that. We should ask him. Um so international tipping,
it's way way too much to go over and we
hate to cop out, but you really do need to
go online because there's tons of information. When you go
to visit a country, it's all different. Look it up
before you go so you don't look like a schmuck. Yeah. Um,
(40:44):
there are a couple of rules of thumb. You should,
like you said, familiarize yourself. You know, not knowing the
value of the currency is not an excuse. Um, and um,
don't use US currency. Yeah, that's a here's a couple
of American dollars for you, Mr Costaagan. Don't just red
your g d P. Yeah, that's that's cop out. That's
(41:04):
bs to convert it and give them their currents. Yeah,
because they have to go to an exchange place, and
you know, everybody has a cameo in their in their
neighborhood or and you know, I guess some countries I think,
like like Puerto Rico and stuff like, they can use
American dollars because it's in American territory well now, and
(41:25):
I think even like Jamaica, in a lot of these
places close to the US in the Caribbean, I think, well,
they can use American dollars as well, so it's not
so obnoxious. Can we go over some people who you
don't have to tip? Which I was very relieved to
hear some of these are are there? Is there anyone
that you don't have to tip? Restaurant owners you're not
(41:45):
supposed to tip. Salon owners, and basically any owner of
an establishment you don't tip unless they're the ones providing
the service to you. Um food deliveries under thirty bucks.
I don't know what that is. That doesn't make any
sense to me. Here's my favorite. I was so glad
to know that I don't. I can go ahead and
stop tipping. Flight attendants. You don't have to tip flight attendants.
(42:09):
Did you know that? I did not know anyone would
do that. Bus drivers, theater rushers, you have to tip,
shuttle drivers, but you're not supposed to tip bus drivers.
This place is crazy, that's I'm saying. The rules are
so like you you don't tip McDonald's, but you do
tip the coffee person even though you can get a
coffee at McDonald's. Salespeople you don't tip them. And employees
(42:32):
at fast frid restaurants, air airline flight attendants. I can't
believe someone actually wrote down that you don't have to
tip them. So, Um, there's a lot of federal stuff
going on right now, my friends. Uh, there's something up.
So the the federal tipped minimum wage has been the
same since it's a two hour because of inflation. That
(42:55):
whole concept was created in nineteen sixty six because of inflation.
It's never been less valuable than it is right now
relative to the cost of living. So it's a big
deal for people who make their living, you know, in
service industries. Um, before Congress right now, there's Hr. Thirty one,
the Working for Adequate Gains for Employment and Services or
(43:16):
the Wages Act. Congress is so clever. Um, but basically
it would tie the federal tip minimum wage to six
of the federal minimum wage. So every time there's a
hike it would also be a hike in the federal
tip minimum wage, and that act would raise it right
now to four thirty five an hour, which is, you know,
double what they're making, but still way below just over
(43:36):
half of you know, the federal minimum wage. And if
you want to go join a group that lobbies on
behalf of people who should make a decent wage in
the service industry, you can check out fair eats dot org,
I F A I R e A t s dot org.
And that Buddy is a local group there. Atlanta based
(43:57):
a lot of restaurants here. I have a list, Josh
of best and worst celebrity tippers. Oh nice. Yeah, this
is very TMZ, although it wasn't from TMZ. And I
hesitate to even read these because take it with a
grain of salt. A lot of these stories I don't
know for true, and I'm not gonna get into the stories.
But you'll be pleased to know that our ghostbusters Dan
(44:20):
Ackroyd and Bill Murray are legendary good tippers. Awesome, you
would think Drew barrymore great tipper. Russell Crowe kind of
surprised me tipper. Apparently he's a really good tipper. I
would not have guessed that, and the whole smashing your
face with a phone incident was out of character for him. Wait,
I thought he like in fights all the time. I
don't know, huh. Drew Carey good tipper, Hulk Hogan, Charlie
(44:44):
sheen I'll bet Charlie sheen Ley's more than just money
as tips. David Beckham, Johnny Depp apparently really really good tipper.
And then I cross reference the list of worst tippers
on because there's all sorts of sites where people where
you can go as a waitre on and say so
until came in my restaurant last night and they did X,
Y and Z, so I did cross reference some of these.
(45:05):
Mick Jagger, the rock Bill Cosby Is was on every list.
I'm sad to say I am not the least bit surprised.
Kirsten dunst Weird Madonna Tiger Woods was on every list. Usher,
Britney Spears and Jeremy Piven was on every list. Sean
(45:26):
Penn really yeah, David Burne, Dude, this is so disappointing
if it's true. David Byrne of The Talking Heads is
considered one of the worst tippers ever because apparently he
does not tip period, Like, oh yeah, I don't tip.
That is two episodes in a row that future rose
(45:47):
Board dogs Michael Moore supposedly. What wait a minute. If
this is true, Michael Moore, and you are a friend
of Michael Morris who listens and stuff, you know, please
play this for him, you should be ashamed of yourself,
Sir ashamed. It said once less left than left left
(46:08):
less than twenty dollars on a four fifty dollar bill.
And see all these though. I say take with a
grain of salt, though, because because I could just be
the ones and the ones not had any money. Maybe
the maybe the server was a big Republican jerk that
he didn't like because it is Michael Moore. Remember that
part did you see Capitalism a Love Story? Yeah? And
he's like, hey, I'm looking for some some advice. And
(46:29):
one of the traders was like, stop making movies. It
was ame alright, So I'm not gonna embarrass any more
of these people like Molly Ringwald and Ricky Lake being
really worried about like her her finances, and Rachel Ray
she was on a bunch of the sites too. They
said she's cheap. I could see her being cheap too.
(46:50):
You know what, I'm not surprised by all them. Don't
be cheap people. I mean, you make tons of money,
spread it around and I'm no socialists, but come on,
just bring a little joy in someone's life like Bill
Murray does. Yeah, but not Bill Cosby. Be more like
Bill Murray, not like Bill Cosby. Okay, yes, all right,
what's our big takeaway? That's it for our list of
(47:10):
most hated celebrities. If you want to learn more about that,
you can type tipping into the search bar at how
stuff works dot com. Right, that's right, that's t I
P P I n G, which is what That's like
a palin drum or something. Almost didn't it close? Uh?
Let's see, I said search bar how stuff works dot Com,
which means it's time for listening. Mail Josh, I'm gonna
(47:32):
call this one dueling Vikings. Call it that though from
a dude from Viking Land. He says, Hi, guys, just
finished listening to the Dueling podcast. I thought i'd share
a bit on how they were handled in Nordic countries
back when they were pillaging the rest of Europe and
ber jerking at every opportunity Despite the outward appearance of
(47:53):
being crazy ax wielding pirates. The Vikings prefer to keep
things civil on the home front. Thus the concept of
home aang was created. A home is a small island
and gang means to go. So when two parties or
odds over an insult a woman or property, they would
go to a tiny island or the tip of a peninsula,
(48:13):
or some similar isolated area to duke get out. Viking style.
They would take a three by three meter square of
ox hide, spread it on the ground, and stake each
corner uh and rope between them, much like a modern
boxing ring. Each home gunger typically wielded an axe or
a heavy sword and had with him three wooden shields.
(48:34):
The challenging party I'm sorry. The challenged party would have
first strike, and they would then proceed taking turns to
hammer away at each other's shield broken shields being replaced
with the two spares along the way, and the first
man struck bodily to typically be considered the loser. Huh,
thanks for the hundreds of hours of entertaining knowledge and
(48:55):
keep being the awesome dude, you are your friend and
biking land uh yoh? Nick Johnick, the k is that Minnesota.
J A n An, I K no, I don't think Minnesota.
That's pretty cool, Yannick. I think it is, yea, and
then I K Yawnick. We'll go with that. Okay, thanks
a lot, Yannick from Minnesota. UM, and uh, if you
(49:17):
want to know about vikings and you haven't heard it already,
go listen to our How Vikings Were podcasts A good one,
very neat. Yeah, talk about perserkers. UM, let's see. Oh
if you have a good tipping story, we want to
hear it. Um. You can tweak to us at s
y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You
(49:39):
can also join us on Kiva at kiva dot org
slash Team slash Stuff you Should Know to help us
finish out the million dollar March right yeah, I mean
we are right there right now. Um, and you can
send us a good old fashioned email at Stuff Podcast
at Discovery dot com. Be sure to check out our
(50:03):
new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join houste Work
staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow. Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand
twelve camera. It's ready. Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast on Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant
and uh, this is stuff you should know the podcast.
(00:24):
Have you ever waited tables? I did notice? Awful? How
long did you do it? I did it often on
for many years, but man, I was Yeah, I waited
tables for many years as well, in many uh several
different states, in different many different kinds of restaurants. So
I have a pretty wide range of experience with being tipped.
(00:50):
How are you doing? It's great? Now? Are you? Are
you trying to hurry this along? Here's a tip for
for for me to you steer clear that O J?
Guy pal, oh J. Simpson. Yeah, there's from a Dave
Letterman top ten from the nineties something about tipping, and
one of them was like, here's a tips, steer clear
(01:11):
of that, o J. Fellow Pal, I'm glad we're staying
relevant as always. I'm not trying to move it on.
I just thought, since you said he didn't have an intro,
I would document a little bit of my history as
a waiter, and he did great man. Remember what's his name,
the guy from Scrubs and Gardens State. For some reason,
I always think he was perfect at being that waiter.
(01:32):
For some reason, it was just like whenever I think
of waiters and then I think of l A, I
think of that character. Yeah, the scene at the beginning
and the end of it. I think that was really
based on his experience as a waiter. He wore a
lot of eyeliner in the early two thousand. Guyliner. So
what that's called? You never heard that phrase? No? Yeah?
(01:53):
Uh so tipping, Josh, this was You've been pushing this
one for a while and it never got done for
various reason. And I'm glad we got around to it
because I will be one that people it's ubiquitous and
we'll get tons and tons of email about this, I
guarantee it. Yeah, and it's gonna be helpful because in
several points we tell you to go to trip Advisor
to look up tipping customs. So yeah, that's helpful. Well,
(02:17):
it's hard to cover tipping customs because they're different everywhere
and for each job, and it's gets so overwhelming you
just have to end up saying hey, if you're going
to this country, look it up, or apparently you need
to go through life like Jimmy Conway and Goodfellas and
tip absolutely every single person you see your mechanic. Did
(02:40):
you see that? Did you know you're supposed to tip
your mechanic bucks or more for jobs like, Hey, thanks
for overcharging me and exploiting my ignorance of my car
and how it functions. Here's an extra twenty bucks your mechanic. Yeah, well,
you know what since you brought that up. Uh, there
was a saw on ad you see questionnaire is tipping
(03:04):
out of control? And of people say it is. I disagree,
you don't think it's out of control. After reading this,
I was like, man, I'm way cheaper than I realized. Um,
and this is just a question I thought was interesting.
What services bother you the most that you were obliged
to tip? Of people said bathroom attendance. Oh, I don't
(03:24):
tip them. That's at the top of my list. I
don't want a bathroom attendance. Well, yeah, I can get
my own. Well it makes me want to not watch
my hands. It makes me just want to get out
of there. Uh. Take out food tipping it irks people
to pay for like when you get a takeout order,
like when you go there and they just turn around
and get your food and handed to you in a
(03:45):
bag you like when you call it in, I do?
Do you really? Yeah? Okay? What else? Salons? Well, yeah,
of people don't like tipping the salon because women say
it's just endless because you gotta tip your colors and
the people who I can see that. And then the
tip jars at coffee houses. I rarely patronize those as well,
(04:07):
coffee houses or tip jars, And the reason being is, um,
I I'm sure I will be taken to task for this.
I don't think people in coffee houses are paid the
tipped wage. They're not, so I looked at it. I
might as well walk around with the tip jar and
ask people to give me their change. I'll even wear
(04:30):
a change belt. How about that. Don't make it easier
on you? Well, why would you even have a tip
jar there if you're not getting paid the tipped wage.
That brings up a big point because that is a
big controversy. People at Starbucks start out about eight fifty
to nine bucks an hour. Is that that's a minimum
wage that's above the minimum wage just I think is
a minimum wage. Now the tipped the Fair Standards and
(04:52):
Labor Act, the minimum federal hourly wage for tipped employees
is yes, yes, those people although usually getting tipped. Yeah, no,
it doesn't know not necessarily. No. Well, most states have
their own and it's more than two thirteen. I didn't
get that most states too. I know. The pinnacle is
Colorado and they have like a minimum tipped wage of
(05:13):
four thirteen an hour, and that's what everybody's like, Wow,
Colorado is really killing it. UM. I know here in
Georgia it's the it's the federal minimum. And there's a
group called fairy eats dot org that's dedicated to UM
shaming restaurants that that just adhere to that by celebrating
(05:33):
restaurants that pay their employees more than the minimum federal
minimum tipped wage. Well, you're supposed to make up the
difference as a restaurant from what employees claim to the
I r S and their tipped money. If that doesn't
equal minimum wage, then the restaurateur is supposed to make
up that difference in wages. I would I would wager
(05:54):
that that does not happen. Well, I would wager that
not many tipped employees are reporting all of their tips either.
It's true too, so it's kind of like you have to,
you have to, and then both just kind of storm
away disgruntled. But you don't tip McDonald's and for the
same reason I don't tip people at coffee houses because
it's the same thing. You are putting your my order
(06:18):
in right into a cash register or cash register computing machine, um,
and you're turning around and grabbing my coffee or my
my fries or whatever, right, And I'm not demeaning or
diminishing that job whatsoever, Like I'm very happy that you're
doing that because I really want that. And you're standing
between me and the fries, right, so hand him over.
(06:40):
I'll give you this money. But you make like maybe
you got health benefits. Sucks. So in my opinion, we
can either entirely do away with tipping by raising everybody
to at least the minimum wage, and while we're at it,
let's also maybe double the minimum wage because it's laughable.
Will still right, um, and just do away with tipping,
(07:04):
just go totally Japan, or or we need to really
make it clear who's depending on tips and who's not,
And these jokers at coffee houses need to get rid
of the tip jar and they need to stop calling
it karma, which I think we went over in the
Karma karmajar or whatever. Yeah, that's kind of that's that's
(07:25):
so aggressive guilty, you think. All right, So that was
our intro tipping. So let's talk about where this often
vilely exploited act came from. Chuck, go ahead, Well, I
feel like I was on a rant. I was too.
I'm just joking, okay. Um, Well, let's see. Tipping they
(07:48):
think has its origins in about the sixteenth century in Europe,
where if you went and visited a friend, a relative
of colleague, you went to their house. Uh, you would
often tip their servants, especially if you got really drunk
and soiled yourself and they cleaned you up. You might
be like, here's a couple of pieces of gold, let's
(08:10):
just keep this between you and me, okay, and they would,
and over time it became much less of a way
to um show your appreciation as something that was expected
and depended on. Right. Once you start kind of giving
money in a customary manner, people start to include that
(08:31):
in their budgets, right, Um, So they think that that's
possibly where the custom came from, Right Yeah. I don't
even think that this acronym thing is even valid at all. No,
and it's not. There's a guy named Steve Doblonica who's
written books on tipping, and he's got some pretty good
research down. And you want to say the acronym uh
(08:54):
t I P two in ensure with an eye promptness,
but that's just there's no no, because number one acronyms
didn't really come into use until the nineteen twenties. Yeah,
they weren't using acronyms in the sixteenth century. And the
word tip itself has been around for long before that.
And like you said, it should be it shouldn't be
tipped ensure with an eye, it should be ensure with
(09:15):
an E. So there's a lot wrong with that. What
they think is that tipping um originally came from the
uh this kind of word among thieves, which is how
we use it today, like you tip somebody off, that
it basically to give something right, and it was just
basically common thieves slang um. But then the act of
(09:38):
tipping itself also came from either the servants from tipping servants,
or it also was it grew out of giving money
to somebody who worked at the bar to buy their
own drink as well. Get a drink for yourself on me.
And in fact, the word tip in Slavic languages translates
(09:58):
roughly to drinking money. I like that one. The word
for tip in French is poor beer pour boi, which
means for drinking and um. Basically everywhere else except in English,
the word tip means drinking money. So that's probably where
tipping came from. I like that origin. Here, I'm having
(10:21):
a good time, I had a few drinks. Go by
yourself one exactly, it's just spreading the joy. Or I'm
at my buddy's house and I've drank until I soiled myself.
Here's some money for cleaning me up last night. I
appreciate it. I don't know about the train spotting the
origin of tipping. Yeah, so this is this is probably
where tipping came from. And uh, a little more history
(10:42):
if you don't mind chuckers um, you can pretty much
pinpoint how tipping became accustomed in the United States because
it was all a raged In Europe, it was not
caught on here in the US. Even though a lot
of wealthy Americans were traveling to Europe and coming back
and tipping, people were like, what are you doing? Like, sure,
give me your money, but I'm not gonna do the
same thing until the Pullman Company, the Pullman rail car company,
(11:07):
figured out that they could grossly underpay their porters by
publicizing that they relied on tips to survive. And basically
the Pullman Company cut almost three million dollars in the
in the like late nineteenth century, there was a lot
of money from their payroll by basically relying on their
customers good hearts to take care of their porters for him.
(11:31):
It is when you think about it in those terms,
it is sort of a dirty business. It's like, hey,
we don't want to pay our employees. They're serving you,
so you pay them. But like you're the one reaping
all the reward of the five dollar cup of coffee,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, And a lot of
a lot of restaurants, or a lot of people in
the on the restaurant side of this debate, say, well,
(11:53):
if we start raising their wages to like the minimum wager,
even like double the tip wage, Um, we're gonna go
wonder And apparently some studies have found that that's actually
not the case that they can come out on top
because restaurant owners spend so much money on training through
turnover because the wages are so low that people just
hop from job the job wherever they can get the
(12:13):
most tips. If you can offer a higher stable wage,
you're gonna have much less turnover and ultimately in the
long run, you may come out on top as a
restaurant owner. It's so interesting. Possibly that's one sign. You know,
who pays the customer? Yeah? Us, because middle class you
pay the five bucks for a cup of coffee, which
the company gets they don't have to pay. Well, they
do pay their employee minimum wage, but that ain't much
(12:36):
and then they get the little tip on top of
that and you end up paying six for your cup
of coffee. And you know what now that you're you're
bringing this up, you mean I were at Caribou and um,
they have I love Caribou coffee, right, But they had
this promo where it was like beans for the Troops
or something like that, and it was like, hey, go
ahead and uh and buy this this fifteen dollar pound
(12:57):
of coffee and we'll send them to the troops. And um,
we asked if they were selling them at a discount,
like if the Caribou was doing anything. They were like, no,
this is a regular price. And we're like, so wait
a minute, you're exploiting Americans affinity and affection for the
troops as a way to you know, beef up your
on ground bean sales. That was disgusting. If you ask me,
(13:22):
it happens. That's gross. At that board meeting is the
gross part where that's decided, you know, where we can
really reckon right, all right, I knew this would be
a lightning rod. This is just us are going to get. Ohoy, Well,
since you brought it up, it is a lightning rod. Period.
If you go on the internet and you start looking
about tipping, you will find two camps. People that work
(13:45):
for tips that are outraged that people don't want to
tip or the under tip, and then people that say
it is out of control. Every you know, you go
on a vacation, you staying in a hotel and need
a restaurants, you're Jimmy Conway. I again, like I was
reading this, I'm like, oh man, dude, do other people
tip all these people because I feel like a real
(14:05):
jerk in some of these cases I do, and I
end up feeling like a sucker. And then you know
what I thought. I was like, well, I never carry cash,
it's all plastic, so surely plastic leading to a decline
in tipping. I did a search for that. No, No,
All I could find was that most people carry plastic
and a little bit of currency for tips. I'm like,
oh man, I really have to get on the ball here.
(14:29):
All right. They've actually done a lot of studying about tips. Yeah,
why do we do this? That's the psychology tipping, as
it were, Well, um, one is out of guilt. Yeah,
wasn't that one of the reasons. Uh well yeah not supposedly.
If you think about tipping, the whole idea is that
you're doing it out of gratitude, like you did a
really good job, and I want to make sure that
(14:52):
you have, um, this extra little bit go buy yourself
something nice on me, or I want to ensure because
I come back to you that I will get same
service when I come back. Right, So really it's um
what they're finding is that it's guilt and fear, Like
you know that people rely on these tips, and part
of your role as customer in some circumstances is to
(15:15):
pay these people their salary that they're depending on the tips.
Or you're afraid that they're gonna pe in your soup
and you're basically saying, here's some money, um, please don't
pe in my soup, and they say, all right, that
that's gonna do it. That that that takes care of
the no pea soup levy. Yeah, but the tip comes
after the soup. Yeah, but you may be back there again, okay, right, Yes.
(15:41):
The Center pro Hospitality at Cornell University, UH, they've done
some research there and I thought this was fairly interesting.
They found the US leads the world in uh being
neurotic and being extroverted, and those are two traits that
lead to big tips because you're neurotic, so you feel like,
of course I have to leave. You know. Any and
has ever seen the Curb Your Enthusiasm tip episode? That's
(16:03):
like tipping neuroticism and its finest portrayed. You want to
tip as much as your friend. You don't want to undertip.
You want to tip just you don't want to overtip.
You want to tip just the right amount. I don't
mind over tipping, especially when it's like it's really good service,
Like I'm happy to overtip, and I prefer to air
on the side of overtipping. For sure. Extroverts are outgoing
(16:27):
social folks, and they see it as an incentive to
get a little extra attention, like make a big show
about me, party of Benjamin, party of four, Benjamin Franklin,
party of four. I never heard that. Yeah, Uman's got
a story about this one. Dude, Wow, you won't tell it. Well,
that was pretty much it. They were she and her
(16:48):
boyfriend at the time and his friend were at this
restaurant and um, the guy actually said uh Franklin party
of four, and she said it worked. She couldn't believe it.
She was like, I felt bad about the guy we
were with and the guy who took the money, but
it was a good, interesting, good meal. I've never agreased
to palm for like a table. I haven't either. That's
(17:12):
a good move, though I wish I'd like to do that.
It is, but really it's kind of like, man, you
you give up a lot of any claim to the
even if you don't make that much money. If you're
walking around doing stuff like that. You know, speaking of
did you see the internet meme going around about the tipper, yes,
which apparently is totally unfounded. Now I don't. I think
(17:33):
it's sort of unfounded. I thought he was a tipper.
He's a one percent temper because he is part of
the one percent. And from what I understood was the
tip was real, but what he wrote on there was fabricated. Well,
or that they didn't even know for sure he was
a banker, then the whole thing is fabricated. I did
see that though. By the way I mean this, this
(17:53):
is breaking news, is like yesterday for four weeks ago.
So can we go back some some of the interesting
studies about how you get good tips. This is Josh
and Chucks. If you're a waiter or a waitron, here
are our tips for you to increase your tips and restaurant.
This isn't just us in our observations. This is again
(18:14):
Cornell has put a lot of thought and energy into it.
I believe in real research. There's been a lot of
studies about how and why we tip. One of them
is touching, Like if you are a server and you
touch the your customer, you will increase your tip and
it's not just lonely horny men. Um Men and women
(18:35):
of all ages um will increase their tip with just
a brief touch on the shoulder from eleven point eight
percent to fourteen point eight percent. I, however, do not
like to be touched. I don't either. I'm glad you
said that the other day and I was just like, like,
what are you doing? It didn't freak me out, like
it's not something I don't know. You you don't know me.
(18:59):
Let's just keep our hands theirselves, okay, and then we'll
see where your tip goes. Did his tip go down? No,
of course not. You should have punished him severely. How
god do you so much? Former waiter guilt tip on
bad service as long I do. As long as you
have the right attitude, that makes the biggest difference. If
(19:19):
you're like, oh, really sorry and it was bad service
and you said I'm sorry, guys, I you know I
let you down the night, unless you're being manipulative by
doing that, and you really just couldn't have cared less
you phoned it in and then you said, oh really sorry,
I can't too. Yeah, intentions go a long way with me,
all right. Squatting and This was my big move when
(19:40):
I was a waiter because at my at my at
the nice restaurant I worked at, it was my big move.
I would kneel down next to the table A lot
of times. You get that eye contact going on, and
your tips are gonna go up from fourteen point nine
percent to seventeen point five. Okay. I would also like
to add a caveat to this. However, if you actually
(20:00):
get into the booth or take a seat at the table,
you've crossed the line. Well I I used to do
that at Mexicali, though, but that was a college atmosphere
and that that would be acceptable at certain times. You've
been in college at Mexicali. No, no, no, that was
over the line. No no, no, no. It was fun
girls drinking margharita's. I would sit down and flirt and
(20:22):
would your tip go up? Yeah, and occasionally would get
a phone number out of it. Oh and free margarita
that that well I had. I worked there. I got
all the free margarities I want them. I didn't realize
they gave free margarita to employees at MEXICALI. Well they
didn't officially anywhere supposed to have them. While you're working
either those were the old days. Giving candy to uh
(20:45):
to your customer will jump your tip up from fifteen
point one to seventeen point eight. Giving two pieces of candy,
one initially and one spontaneously like here have another jumped
it from nineteen percent to twenty one point six percent.
So long as you didn't end it with chumps. I'm
sorry that jumped it when it was the spontaneous secondaries
(21:07):
chumps by being like, oh, well, you know what here
take two and we're talking like the starlight peppermints here, Okay,
it's not like good dive at chocolate. Yes, thank you
for rescuing me, because I almost said snickers. I'd be
nice too. I had a waitress recently give Emily and
I the pen that she gave us to sign the
(21:29):
bill with because I'm a big pen guy, so as
Emily and as far as having like the perfect pen,
and I signed things like, oh my god, feel this
pin and it was a combination of the pin on
that that slimy paper that they give you and it
was amazing. And Emily said something that she was like,
I agree. I keep them in my car so much.
Go ahead and keep that one and how much of
(21:51):
a tip you leave her? I left her my pen.
No I'm kidding. Oh yeah, sure I tipped her. No,
it's always like, so the highest you goes twenty five. Yeah,
I mean I I go, I go twenty, and I
round up. No matter what I noticed, especially before the
(22:12):
um uh well, no, I guess it would have been
even after the economic collapse, the global catastrophe that we're
in the midst of. Still um that it was moving
very clearly towards across the board was the new percent,
and then the economic meltdown happened, and all of a sudden,
(22:33):
now it's back to fifteen percent and percent if you're
doing good. It seems like, am I wrong? Am I
just fantasizing here? No? I think it used to be ten,
that it was like twelve and fifteen and then twenty
and then Yeah, you're right, with the economic crisis. I
did read articles that people said, our tips are going down.
But it's a collective movement, you know what I'm saying, Like,
you can be the nice guy in tip twenty all
the time or whatever, but you're also kind of pushing
(22:56):
everybody else forward by doing that. Yeah. I also did
the deal to you where you know you go out
with certain people and you wh whoa, whoa? What does
that mean? I've got like eight different homes. I don't
want I don't want to call out any any person
or even are you talking about a specific buddy of yours? No,
not buddy, just you know, could be family members, could
(23:17):
be certain friends, just you know, when someone picks up
the tab, I always do the thing where I look
to make sure that they were properly compensated. Then on
the way and I was like, oh, I gotta use
the bathroom. I'm gonna put more money in there. Oh
you're an underminer. Huh yeah. Because certain people. Oh man,
I wish I could say who. I had a friend
whose father was in a very rich dude, and he
(23:39):
was a bad tipper and embarrassed the crud out of
me when we would go to these nice places and
he would pick up the tab and leave like a
eight to tip. And so I always need to bring
cash to leave in the thing. Jared Hess's dad. No, No, uh,
all right, so that's it. How to increase your tips? Oh?
Tell him it's sunny outside. Yeah. The psychology of weather
(24:01):
strikes again, where the study was conducted where if m
a in a windowless room, right, yeah, uh, if the
waiter described it as being rainy out, the tips were
something like nineteent. This isn't too bad. But if the
waiters like, oh, it's so sunny and beautiful out, then
tips average. So squat at the table, touch him on
(24:23):
the shoulder, give him candy, Give him candy, and then
all of a sudden you've got two pieces of candy,
and uh, give good service, and then tell them it's
sunny outside and you will be rolling in the dead
makes like a million dollars table, thank us later, and
tip on the original amount. By the way, that's a
waiter thing. It's a big one. If you if you
got coupons or you do the scout mob thing, be
(24:44):
aware that you're you should tip on the original amount.
You kind of have to. It's not the waiter's fault.
You had a coupon. Yeah, I mean that is really
bad if you don't know that at this point, especially
with how ubiquitous those those deals are getting these days.
You know, um, but chuck. On the other hand, you
can make a pretty strong argument that, um, if you
(25:05):
order a hundred dollar bottle of wine. Do you that? So? Why? Why? Yeah? Why?
I like some nice wine, and that is a bone
of contention that I swallow, and I just still tip
on the total amount. But yeah, you're right if you
(25:25):
let's say you just order a bottle of wine, like meaningmly,
we're just gonna go have a bottle of wine one
night because we ate dinner somewhere else, or maybe we
gotta have dessert somewhere and we get a nice bottle
of port and it's like eighty bucks. You guys drink
a whole bottle of port, And no, of course not.
Let's say with a group or whatever, we drink a
whole bottle of port, a group of what like twenty
(25:47):
you're drinking a whole bottle of drinking glass of port,
and there's like five glass like that small, it's like
a regular wine glass. What do you drink brandy like that? No,
because that's liquor poored is wine? No, brandy is a
type of wine anyway, do you you're like Homer Simpson
when he was baby sending Mr Burns house when he
(26:09):
like pours himself like a whole sniffer brandy and drinks
the whole thing and when when gulp and then just
falls right over. My friend Timmy's wife one time asked
for a bourbon on the rocks at her house, and
she bought me like seven ounces of bourbon on the rocks,
and I was like, what are you trying to do
to me? That's awesome? No, but porchs not. You're not
supposed to be a little It's not like sambuca. I
(26:29):
mean ports like a regular glass of wine. Right, I'm
mistaken then, because every place I go they pour your regular,
regular glass. No it's a little tiny like it's like
a cordial wine glass. No, no, no, no, no, I promise,
all right, you're gonna be wrong regardless. You drink expensive
wine and how how much do you tip? Well, But
it does cross my mind, like, man, I'm giving this
(26:50):
guy like fourteen dollars for bringing me a bottle of wine.
It's a good point, and I think even the average
server would grudgingly agree. Okay, all right, maybe maybe not
this one. But it's not just the waiter that you
want to tip in the restaurant, surprise, surprise. Depending on
where you go, you need to be prepared to tip
a lot of people. Yeah, that the person who see
(27:12):
it's a really nice place the matri d. If the
matri d goes out of his way, um to get
you a very nice table, or you feel like he's
he or she is doing something um very just kind
of above and beyond, you might want to slip from
fifteen to twenty bucks. There's a lot also if the
Somalia comes over to your table and tells you a
bit about the wines, especially if you solicited this advice. Yea.
(27:37):
In reading this article, I realized that I have stiffed
at least one Somalia in my life, and now I
understand why he's looking at me weird when he finished.
Um uh, you you want to give them anywhere from
ten to twenty bucks, depending on how in depth the
recommendation is. And usually when you're talking tips at least
in this article that we're working from from how stuff
(27:57):
Works dot com, um, there's a eyeing a low yeah,
And it's basically the discrepancy is based on just how
much effort this person is putting into it, how much enthusiasm, um,
but and just how much out of their out of
the way of their normal duties are they going. See
here's my deal, dude, I don't want a big show.
(28:17):
I want genuine good service and and to be left
alone because you you can. The tip won't go down
because I just have the guilt. But you can go
down in my mind if you're just too like, just
too much, don't work too hard, don't give me a
big show. Apparently they can do whatever they want to
and they're still gonna get the same amount of money.
(28:37):
Do you know what, chuck? You know where you would
do well, then buffet's. At a buffet, you serve yourself
and you just leave your plate and it mysteriously vanishes.
But that's a person behind the kidnapping of that plate,
and you want to leave them about ten percent as
the recommendation, So you want to leave them thirty five
cents at your buffet. I don't go to buffet's, but yeah,
(28:59):
if you don't go to buffet, No, I don't understand
the existence of cafeterias. Since there's buffets, it's the same
exact thing, except buffets are all you can eat, and
cafeterias like, here's a little ramikin of the same thing
you can have ten helpings of if you want for
the same price. Well, you don't see a lot of
cafeterias anymore, you do, you do? Yeah, there's at least
(29:19):
as many cafeterias as there are buffets. Oh no, yeah,
I think the Chinese food restaurants have made that a
null and void comment. The Chinese food Okay, alright, so
though they exist outside of this realm, I'm talking more
like country cook and buffets. Yeah, yeah, there's almost one
for one all right. Uh. And by the way, most
(29:40):
most nicer restaurants pulled their tips. Um like in Mexicality
was every man for himself. You know, the bus boy
didn't get tips or actually we kind of bust our
own tables. But most restaurants will pull their tips in
the the that's usually not a matre d at that point.
It's just the host or hostess they'll get a cut,
and like the bartender and the bus boy, they'll they'll
(30:02):
get dishwasher. They'll all get a cut. So just remember that.
But some places it's every man for himself too. Uh.
If speaking of bartenders, you are at a bar, I
usually tip a buck of drink for the first few drinks.
That's what I do. Unless it's a very if it's
like a complex, complicated drink, which I tend to prefer um.
(30:23):
It will be like a percentage to the bill. If
there's really muddling going on. Yes, once you start muddling,
I'm like, all right, here's some extra money. I don't
tip on the bill because I will usually just say
give us six BBRs for my friends and I and
we then tip a bucket. Even if the beer is
a dollar, I'll give a dollar. It's very nice of you,
you know, because it's like, what am I gonna like
fish around for fifteen cents? That's just ridiculous. But you
(30:48):
know we're rich, we're high rollers. You're tipping a buck
a buck for a dollar? Beer chuck wow? Podcasting business Uh.
Cafes and coffee houses. I think we kind of covered that.
I tend to tip out of guilt there. But I
don't go to a lot of coffee shops because I
don't drink a lot of coffees. Do you really see
look those guys in the eyes while I'm not tipping them.
(31:11):
Do you what the worst is? Checking out the grocery store,
they're like, would you like to give a dollar to
the you know whatever foundation? That's fifty fifty for me?
Depending on my mood. Really yeah, I mean like I
should do it every time, but um yeah, and that's
sad that helping out kids with muscular distrophe is equated
to tipping. Well it's not, but yeah, I know what
(31:32):
you mean, um holiday tipping, which was a big part
of that Curb Your Enthusiasm Enthusiasm episode when you do
this when you were have money. I think it's generally
for people that have a little more money and they
live in places where they know the service people helping. Yeah,
like they got the country club and the guy you
know this and that. But you can deliver your newspaper
(31:54):
or your garbage collector your newspaper delivery person. You can
tip your mailman. My brother used to when he worked
at uh the movie theaters would give every holidays he
would give out movie tickets, yeah to like the mailman
into the garbage person and stuff like that. Um, fifteen
to twenty five bucks they say for your garbage collector,
(32:16):
your dog walker, your nanny, your cleaning service, they say
one week's pay. I save a lot of money every
year by not having those people set up to tip them.
Uh yeah, manicurist, you have manicurist supposed took them ten
to fifty. I do. And you know the way around this,
go to different manicurists every time, so that you're not
you're not you're not a common enough customer that you
(32:40):
feel like you need to tip them at the holidays.
Hairdressers women obviously the ones who are probably been in
the big bucks at the hairdresser, they say hundred and
this is for the holidays. You understand, it's not each visit.
This is hey, it's Christmas. You also have to tip
them each visit. I get a fourteen dollar haircut, I
tip six bucks? What well? Because what am I gonna
(33:02):
give them? Nineteen dollars? Wow? Or two dollars? Okay? That
just seems really cheap to me to say, like, thanks
for the great haircut that's gonna last me three months.
Here's eight quarters. Huh. I tipped my haircut lady all
over the place. What I kisses and hugs stuff like that.
(33:24):
You may cut your hair um hotels. Uh, you're This
is something that I have just recently learned. I didn't
know you're supposed to tip the maid service. I knew that,
but I thought that was something from maybe the fifties.
And that's how I like, um, comforted myself by not
kipping the maids. But yeah, apparently we're supposed to be
doing that a lot. One to ten dollars per night,
(33:47):
depending on the mess you make. I am extremely clean
and I clean up before I leave. It depends on
if they change you, if you soiled yourself the night before.
Bell hoops a dollar per bag if it's bull key
and large or heavy and awkward, maybe a little bit
more of that. Yeah, more than a buck That one
I totally get. Still don't do it because I frequently
(34:07):
don't use bell hoops to do it myself. But um,
I hate that when they force you to like walk
you into the room and show you around and stuff.
I would much rather just carry my own bag, just
give me my key card again with a big show.
I don't want a big show, right Well apparently though,
Remember that one study found that bell hops who do
make a big show of things by showing people how
(34:28):
to how to operate the thermostat on the TV and
opening the drapes and offering to fill the ice bucket,
they almost doubled their average tip. But I wonder if
it was people who are like, here's some money, just
please go away, which is one of the words is
a tipping to remember, throwing money for uh concierge five
to ten dollars depending on how helpful. Remember when we
(34:51):
were at the Pittsburgh Fairmont and our buddy Chad give
the concierge like ten bucks for a wreck and it
turned out to be a bad recommendation and he was
on man, he wanted his money back. What was the recommendation?
I didn't go. I was eating Indian food by myself
in my room. The whole thing. It was for a
restaurant that was either closed or it was like it
was just a bad tip. And he was like, did
(35:11):
he get his money back? No, of course not. I'll
bet he did not stop complaining about it. That he
kept going and going. Uh. And I didn't know until recently,
you're supposed to tip the concierge. I'm a dummy. I
didn't know that. Well, I mean they help you out,
and depending they were, how much help they are? Yeah,
I mean like they concierge. And I've never had one
(35:33):
do this for me. I've never really needed the services
of concerts, but concierges can like really go to town.
I'm making your life easy. They can get you tickets
to a show, like all sorts of things. They can
buy your kid a toy. If you're staying at a
nice enough place, oh and you're busy or whatever shopping,
the least they can find your shopper. This is, you
(35:57):
know what, in the in the spirit of keeping the
tradition of facts alive. I made that last part up,
but it seems like a say that's something. Oh sure
they would, okay, uh doorman, tip your doorman if they
if they hell a taxi, tip them a buck. A
lot of them aren't allowed to accept tips, so don't
be surprised if they hand it back. Really all right,
(36:18):
deliveries this is a big one for me. I get
Chinese food delivery. It's about the only delivery I get.
Oh yeah, maybe the occasional pizza where you order from.
I order from a place indicator of Chinese food place. Yeah,
it's good, but they take forever. Yeah. See, that'll cut
down on a tip with me. Well, especially if I'm
really hungry when I order. Yeah, we've learned to order
(36:40):
before we're hungry from this place. It's smart like Tuesday,
Yeah exactly, they say to tip two to five bucks
on your on your food delivery to your home, depending
on the weather, m the amount of danger depending on
the neighborhood you live in. Yeah, my neighborhood's dangerous. I
was not talking about your neighborhood. It's really not that been.
Flower deliveries one to ten bucks, depending on the arrangement.
(37:03):
I spent a little time as a flower delivery person,
and I can tell you that most people don't tip
their flower delivery guy, even though they're bringing this bit
of sunshine into your life. Assume that goes for fruit
delivery too, with those silly fruit displays, unless ironically, you're
dressed like a piece of fruit while you're delivering it.
Then the tips to start pouring out. Furniture delivery like
(37:27):
large things. I can tell you I did that as well,
Very large furniture among the heaviest arm wars you can
possibly conceive of our fabrics. If you delivered to the
home of like someone aged sixty five or older, there
was about a sixty percent chance they were gonna tip you.
Anybody below that was like, hey, thanks, thanks for coming.
Don't don't get hit by a car on your way out.
(37:49):
See my history with tipping with the elderly as they
don't tip as much. It depends, It depends, It depends
on the industry. You're in restaurant because tipping, I think,
and it used to be a lot more ubiquitous than
it is now. Right. So yeah, so like furniture delivery,
like that's why the older generation I would get a
(38:10):
tip from him more frequently, because there was a time
when you tipped everybody like that. Our generation wasn't raised
like that, right, I mean, do you tip the furniture
delivery guy. I pick up my own furniture buddy, Okay,
but you probably wouldn't like the mover, Let's say, like
the people who help you move. I think it's expected
you pay the big, huge moving costs and you tip
(38:32):
the guys on top of that. Man, I've got a
lot of a lot of self reflection. Sky Cap. I
took five bucks a bag for sky Cap. I must
be a sucker because it saysn't here two dollars a bag?
Very good? What's next? Um? Shuttle drivers at the airport?
I didn't know you're supposed to tip them. You're not.
This is all made up, Cabby. In New York, they
(38:56):
make it very easy on you know. You just put
in the percentage you want in the little computer and
it'll add it to your to your credit card, which
is great valet. If I like you, which is frequent,
you get two bucks. If I don't like you, you
can get as little as zero dollars. I try to
get to UM. I feel bad though when I don't
have it, and I'm just like a man, and sometimes
I'll say, can I go get my own car? Dude,
(39:17):
I don't have any cash. Yeah, I'll say that too,
and they say, no, we'll go get it. There was
an I'll fart in it, you know they will? Oh
they will, Yeah, I'll soil myself in your car. Uh, mechanic,
I had no idea. That's this is why it's made up.
You don't tip your mechanic. Who what are they talking about?
(39:39):
I had no idea. I think this is from like
the Gentleman's Guide to Life edition. Tip your mechanic ten
to twenty dollars for any job over five. I had
no idea. Gas station attendance like they exist anymore or
Oregon or wherever. If you if if they voluntarily check
(39:59):
your luids, meaning the ones in your car, uh, you
should tip them one to two dollars? Is it Oregon?
You do? You have to get your gas pumping. I
remember in New Jersey. I think I've even told you this.
My girlfriend had never pumped her gas. She was like,
oh yeah, yeah, Well our friend Van Nostrian, he lives
in Washington, which is nearby Oregon, so he probably knows
(40:22):
about that. We should ask him. Um so international tipping,
it's way way too much to go over and we
hate to cop out, but you really do need to
go online because there's tons of information. When you go
to visit a country, it's all different. Look it up
before you go so you don't look like a schmuck. Yeah. Um,
(40:44):
there are a couple of rules of thumb. You should,
like you said, familiarize yourself. You know, not knowing the
value of the currency is not an excuse. Um, and um,
don't use US currency. Yeah, that's a here's a couple
of American dollars for you, Mr Costaagan. Don't just red
your g d P. Yeah, that's that's cop out. That's
(41:04):
bs to convert it and give them their currents. Yeah,
because they have to go to an exchange place, and
you know, everybody has a cameo in their in their
neighborhood or and you know, I guess some countries I think,
like like Puerto Rico and stuff like, they can use
American dollars because it's in American territory well now, and
(41:25):
I think even like Jamaica, in a lot of these
places close to the US in the Caribbean, I think, well,
they can use American dollars as well, so it's not
so obnoxious. Can we go over some people who you
don't have to tip? Which I was very relieved to
hear some of these are are there? Is there anyone
that you don't have to tip? Restaurant owners you're not
(41:45):
supposed to tip. Salon owners, and basically any owner of
an establishment you don't tip unless they're the ones providing
the service to you. Um food deliveries under thirty bucks.
I don't know what that is. That doesn't make any
sense to me. Here's my favorite. I was so glad
to know that I don't. I can go ahead and
stop tipping. Flight attendants. You don't have to tip flight attendants.
(42:09):
Did you know that? I did not know anyone would
do that. Bus drivers, theater rushers, you have to tip,
shuttle drivers, but you're not supposed to tip bus drivers.
This place is crazy, that's I'm saying. The rules are
so like you you don't tip McDonald's, but you do
tip the coffee person even though you can get a
coffee at McDonald's. Salespeople you don't tip them. And employees
(42:32):
at fast frid restaurants, air airline flight attendants. I can't
believe someone actually wrote down that you don't have to
tip them. So, Um, there's a lot of federal stuff
going on right now, my friends. Uh, there's something up.
So the the federal tipped minimum wage has been the
same since it's a two hour because of inflation. That
(42:55):
whole concept was created in nineteen sixty six because of inflation.
It's never been less valuable than it is right now
relative to the cost of living. So it's a big
deal for people who make their living, you know, in
service industries. Um, before Congress right now, there's Hr. Thirty one,
the Working for Adequate Gains for Employment and Services or
(43:16):
the Wages Act. Congress is so clever. Um, but basically
it would tie the federal tip minimum wage to six
of the federal minimum wage. So every time there's a
hike it would also be a hike in the federal
tip minimum wage, and that act would raise it right
now to four thirty five an hour, which is, you know,
double what they're making, but still way below just over
(43:36):
half of you know, the federal minimum wage. And if
you want to go join a group that lobbies on
behalf of people who should make a decent wage in
the service industry, you can check out fair eats dot org,
I F A I R e A t s dot org.
And that Buddy is a local group there. Atlanta based
(43:57):
a lot of restaurants here. I have a list, Josh
of best and worst celebrity tippers. Oh nice. Yeah, this
is very TMZ, although it wasn't from TMZ. And I
hesitate to even read these because take it with a
grain of salt. A lot of these stories I don't
know for true, and I'm not gonna get into the stories.
But you'll be pleased to know that our ghostbusters Dan
(44:20):
Ackroyd and Bill Murray are legendary good tippers. Awesome, you
would think Drew barrymore great tipper. Russell Crowe kind of
surprised me tipper. Apparently he's a really good tipper. I
would not have guessed that, and the whole smashing your
face with a phone incident was out of character for him. Wait,
I thought he like in fights all the time. I
don't know, huh. Drew Carey good tipper, Hulk Hogan, Charlie
(44:44):
sheen I'll bet Charlie sheen Ley's more than just money
as tips. David Beckham, Johnny Depp apparently really really good tipper.
And then I cross reference the list of worst tippers
on because there's all sorts of sites where people where
you can go as a waitre on and say so
until came in my restaurant last night and they did X,
Y and Z, so I did cross reference some of these.
(45:05):
Mick Jagger, the rock Bill Cosby Is was on every list.
I'm sad to say I am not the least bit surprised.
Kirsten dunst Weird Madonna Tiger Woods was on every list. Usher,
Britney Spears and Jeremy Piven was on every list. Sean
(45:26):
Penn really yeah, David Burne, Dude, this is so disappointing
if it's true. David Byrne of The Talking Heads is
considered one of the worst tippers ever because apparently he
does not tip period, Like, oh yeah, I don't tip.
That is two episodes in a row that future rose
(45:47):
Board dogs Michael Moore supposedly. What wait a minute. If
this is true, Michael Moore, and you are a friend
of Michael Morris who listens and stuff, you know, please
play this for him, you should be ashamed of yourself,
Sir ashamed. It said once less left than left left
(46:08):
less than twenty dollars on a four fifty dollar bill.
And see all these though. I say take with a
grain of salt, though, because because I could just be
the ones and the ones not had any money. Maybe
the maybe the server was a big Republican jerk that
he didn't like because it is Michael Moore. Remember that
part did you see Capitalism a Love Story? Yeah? And
he's like, hey, I'm looking for some some advice. And
(46:29):
one of the traders was like, stop making movies. It
was ame alright, So I'm not gonna embarrass any more
of these people like Molly Ringwald and Ricky Lake being
really worried about like her her finances, and Rachel Ray
she was on a bunch of the sites too. They
said she's cheap. I could see her being cheap too.
(46:50):
You know what, I'm not surprised by all them. Don't
be cheap people. I mean, you make tons of money,
spread it around and I'm no socialists, but come on,
just bring a little joy in someone's life like Bill
Murray does. Yeah, but not Bill Cosby. Be more like
Bill Murray, not like Bill Cosby. Okay, yes, all right,
what's our big takeaway? That's it for our list of
(47:10):
most hated celebrities. If you want to learn more about that,
you can type tipping into the search bar at how
stuff works dot com. Right, that's right, that's t I
P P I n G, which is what That's like
a palin drum or something. Almost didn't it close? Uh?
Let's see, I said search bar how stuff works dot Com,
which means it's time for listening. Mail Josh, I'm gonna
(47:32):
call this one dueling Vikings. Call it that though from
a dude from Viking Land. He says, Hi, guys, just
finished listening to the Dueling podcast. I thought i'd share
a bit on how they were handled in Nordic countries
back when they were pillaging the rest of Europe and
ber jerking at every opportunity Despite the outward appearance of
(47:53):
being crazy ax wielding pirates. The Vikings prefer to keep
things civil on the home front. Thus the concept of
home aang was created. A home is a small island
and gang means to go. So when two parties or
odds over an insult a woman or property, they would
go to a tiny island or the tip of a peninsula,
(48:13):
or some similar isolated area to duke get out. Viking style.
They would take a three by three meter square of
ox hide, spread it on the ground, and stake each
corner uh and rope between them, much like a modern
boxing ring. Each home gunger typically wielded an axe or
a heavy sword and had with him three wooden shields.
(48:34):
The challenging party I'm sorry. The challenged party would have
first strike, and they would then proceed taking turns to
hammer away at each other's shield broken shields being replaced
with the two spares along the way, and the first
man struck bodily to typically be considered the loser. Huh,
thanks for the hundreds of hours of entertaining knowledge and
(48:55):
keep being the awesome dude, you are your friend and
biking land uh yoh? Nick Johnick, the k is that Minnesota.
J A n An, I K no, I don't think Minnesota.
That's pretty cool, Yannick. I think it is, yea, and
then I K Yawnick. We'll go with that. Okay, thanks
a lot, Yannick from Minnesota. UM, and uh, if you
(49:17):
want to know about vikings and you haven't heard it already,
go listen to our How Vikings Were podcasts A good one,
very neat. Yeah, talk about perserkers. UM, let's see. Oh
if you have a good tipping story, we want to
hear it. Um. You can tweak to us at s
y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You
(49:39):
can also join us on Kiva at kiva dot org
slash Team slash Stuff you Should Know to help us
finish out the million dollar March right yeah, I mean
we are right there right now. Um, and you can
send us a good old fashioned email at Stuff Podcast
at Discovery dot com. Be sure to check out our
(50:03):
new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join houste Work
staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow. Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand
twelve camera. It's ready. Are you
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.