DOL Guide To Tipping

They say, "you can tell how a person truly is by the way they treat a waitress". I personally could not agree more with that saying that I may or may not have butchered. If you haven't worked a service job in your life you will never truly understand how it is dealing with people in that setting. You can't say anything if they're being an asshole because you need to be polite and nice to try to get the best tip possible. I'll give you an inside scoop.....it fucking sucks, because there are a lot of scumbags out there. I hope after you read this and absorb the knowledge (how to be a decent person) you can use it in your everyday life.

First off I'm gonna say this; I understand for people around my age you may be broke, you're probably in college or recently out of school or have a crappy job like most people I know, but that doesn't make it okay to be a shitty tipper and treat people who are giving you a service poorly. ESPECIALLY if you have or used to work in service, that really blows my mind.

There is one thing I must get across, things like delivery, having someone bring your bags to your hotel room, valet, or good service in general is a LUXURY. Luxury costs more, that's why a BMW is more than a Honda Civic. Someone is bringing something to you that you very easily could do yourself, there is a premium that needs to be paid. Tipping someone who drove 12 minutes to your shitty college rental house $1.34 is not okay and honestly doing it should make you feel like a scumbag. Even if it takes like 45 minutes you need to use your brain and realize that on a Friday or Saturday night the place you're ordering from is probably busy. Think about it, if you went out to a restaurant on a Saturday night, you most likely aren't gonna get to sit down right away. Same goes for ordering delivery. With delivery all you gotta do is give $5 and the driver will be happy. It's not like going to a restaurant where they are expecting 20%. Five bucks is good for any delivery under $50, then over that I'd go up a few.

My rule of thumb is I'd rather over-tip than under-tip because being in the industry I know how awful it is. Giving a few extra bucks to a waiter/waitress doesn't really hurt you and can really make their day. Even if the service is awful I'll very rarely ever go under 20%, you have to be the worst server ever for me to go below that threshold. I'd also like to point out that I'm 24 and work a part time job so its not like I'm Rockefeller over here, but going out and having a good time is a luxury and if you can't afford to tip decently you honestly shouldn't be going out/getting delivery/using valet etc. If you're at a restaurant and you don't tip your server well you're a piece of shit, and if there is a mess up or the food takes a little while that shouldn't impact the server since it's probably the back of the houses fault. If he/she is taking good care of your table, checking up on drinks and such that is what determines good service IMO. So unless your server is hitting on your date or seriously busting balls, don't be an ass hole and tip accordingly. I personally start at 20% and the better they are the better the tip, but again it's almost impossible for me to drop below 20%.

When at a busy bar you may have to wait a little, but usually no matter what you gotta give at least a dollar per drink. Now this is a spot where I can side with the public and can acknowledge there are a lot of bartenders that are ass holes because its so busy and they'll make good money no matter what. But if you don't tip on your drinks they aren't gonna come back to you, that is just logic 101. Pro tip is just getting a tab and tipping at the end of the night.

Overall it's just a bad look to not be a good tipper, gotta take care of people if you wanna get taken care of, scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It's not groundbreaking stuff here but you'd be surprised by how many awful tippers there are out there.