431–440 of 670 posts
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I drive for Uber part time even though it pays literally 8x less than my day job. It's relaxing and gives me an excuse to drive my car while someone else pays for the gas and mileage.
Are you making enough to pay for the new car you'll need after this one wears out?
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As a non-American this is how I feel about tipping in general. It's so much easier to just pay people a decent wage, include it in the cost of things and then not have the pressure of tipping. That, and tipping is akin to having paid servants. i.e. " if you do a good job, and if I feel like it, I might give you some of my wad of cash. Or not, sucker.". (Of course, I do tip because the servers rely on it, I just don't…
In the EU, tipping is half legal -- technically it should be declared income and pay all income+social taxes ++ VAT(!) as the tip is not a direct salary but a service (and hence subject of VAT)
More info here: https://www.gov.uk/tips-at-work/tips-and-tax
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2017/03/a-round-up-on-why-uber-is-a...
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Is good service and hospitably an antiquated notion? I'll happily give a bartender, server or a driver an extra buck or two when they make the experience pleasant/informative/friendly because, far too many people treat their jobs not as a privileged but a chore. Without tipping far too many would take your money for granted and the quality of service would decline across the board because there is zero incentive to p…
> Without tipping far too many would take your money for granted and the quality of service would decline across the board because there is zero incentive to provide anything better. I don't mean to sound flippant but, have you ever been to Europe? I've traveled to Germany, Ireland, Finland, and Iceland multiple times. None of those countries has a tipping culture and the service I receive, even at your basic fast fo…
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As a non American, for jobs where the service makes a significant difference, a service charge or tips seems reasonable. I live in London. I generally pay the service charge. Once out of every hundred times I eat out, I ask them to remove the service charge as I spent ten minutes trying to get someone's attention to order, rather than talk to my dining companions. Service doesn't make a huge different for transport t…
When you think about it a bit more it doesn't actually seem reasonable. What shop do you know of where they'll let you choose food, take a bite and then pay what you feel it's worth? Hmm, this donut's a bit stale, I'm not prepared to pay anything for it thanks Mr.Tesco. Sometimes I buy fruit and it goes bad too fast. That's life. Sometimes you get a shitty waiter, that's life, but now you get to unilaterally decide y…
You go to the customer service desk, say "This doughnut is stale" show your receipt along with the partly eaten doughnut, then get a full refund or exchange as you prefer.
If you're doing it daily the rules will change. :)
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Depends on the place. You can always ask staff if the service charge goes to them or is taken by management.
London here; You can ask, but on several occasions I've had them indicate they're not allowed to answer the question. Absolutely bullshit behaviour from an employer and in which case I'll insist it's removed and give the waiter/waitress cash.
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> I'm consistently amazed at how many people I end up giving sub-five star ratings That in itself is possibly a contributing problem. Incentives go all wonky when four-star ratings essentially don't exist. Five-star ratings should be reserved for exceptional service, and three-star ratings should be for average service, not "I'm unhappy with this but not enough that I won't feel bad giving a negative review, so I'll…
Perhaps a "likes" system +1 or +0 would be better? It's a simpler question, and if you apply some basic curving to the likes, you get a more decent score. Then again, everyone wants that "I ordered 4.9 star out of 5 item on Amazon" reassurance...
When I go to a restaurant, pick up the order, I rate the restaurant either thumbs up (all went well) or thumbs down (something wrong, with option to choose what). They also rate me. I drop off, same thing happens. I rate them up or down, they do too.
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It's completely logical. If you value a silent car ride, or more significantly, if you value not being asked for money by someone who has you trapped in the back seat of their car and whom you are trusting to get you to your destination, then you would pay more up front for a ride free of hustle for a tip.
Is the back seat the de facto protocol? I always sat in the front. It somehow feels more friendly and personal. But in a taxi, I'll usually sit in the back.
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On the bright side, this will be solved forever with the first full auto taxis. Unless Johnny Cab suddenly starts asking for Bitcoin...
I believe we're still a decade or more from true driverless vehicles / cabs. There are so so so many situations which require specialized decision making to get out of that we really need general AI to truly have cars drive themselves. I'm sure we'll get some sort of hybrid model sooner where the cars are driverless 95% of the time, but someone at a remote center can take over and pilot it around construction / throu…
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It is not basic manners and nobody cares what you tip except current and former waiters that were getting ripped off by the owners. 20% extra on top for doing your job shouldn't be expected.
Did you know that in most states wait staff can be paid as low as $3 per hour, under the assumption that tips will bring them up above minimum wage? The law literally assumes that customers will tip them. It's not just a nice custom, it is fully expected in the transaction.