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Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

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Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#171

Post by zem »

jdietrich wrote: post #80

> Increasingly, I was struck by how much impact the experience was having on me. Surmounting this challenge night after night was actually giving me a certain self-assurance, a feeling of having grown up. Some might find this disillusioning: “You mean life is not first-come, first-served?” I found I had a different reaction: “You mean all it takes to crack one of New York’s most daunting thresholds is fifty bucks?” E…

yeah, coming from india and having railed against the entrenched culture of bribery all my life, i felt slightly greasy after having read this

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#172

Post by SebMortelmans »

In Vegas where at check-in, if you slide a 20$ bill with your CC & passport and ask for "any complementary upgrades", you can get a free room upgrade. If you do a quick search you'll notice how common this trick is, and the success rate for most hotels is in the 80-90% region.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#173

Post by ohashi »

alexophile wrote: post #91

Back in college, a buddy of mine worked as a doorman at what had become a reasonably popular bar (with >30k undergrads, they're all pretty popular) with a line down the block every Friday and Saturday. As a friend of the doorman, I would rarely have to wait in said line, but on one peculiar condition. On such days when he was going to be working, he'd give me a $10 bill some time during the day. Later that night, I w…

That's clever. Sends a great signal to the right audience. May I ask if that's a common thing or if he came up with it?

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#174

Post by kenver »

RK wrote: post #65
kevingadd wrote: post #30

Growing up, I rarely was in a situation to tip, but these days, living near Palo Alto, i've noticed something interesting: out of the places I go to eat or get coffee, a few are small independent businesses owned by locals. At the ones where I was getting consistently good service, I started tipping 20%+. Within a few weeks of this, I was surprised to notice that they began discounting my food and drinks without ment…

I think a very common tip increasing strategy used by people serving food is to give discounts. If I'm selling you something for $10 and you'd normally tip $1 and I give it to you for $8, you are much more inclined to tip me $2-3, because you'd still pay the same or less and received "special" service. This of course may be unethical for the employee, depending on store policy. My best friend falls for it every time,…

I used to do something similar when I was a student and getting my haircut! I'd ask for my student discount, then tip and make up the difference and give it straight to the girl who cut my hair. I got some good haircuts back then.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#175

Post by hnal943 »

ohashi wrote: post #173
alexophile wrote: post #91

Back in college, a buddy of mine worked as a doorman at what had become a reasonably popular bar (with >30k undergrads, they're all pretty popular) with a line down the block every Friday and Saturday. As a friend of the doorman, I would rarely have to wait in said line, but on one peculiar condition. On such days when he was going to be working, he'd give me a $10 bill some time during the day. Later that night, I w…

That's clever. Sends a great signal to the right audience. May I ask if that's a common thing or if he came up with it?

It's just like the loose change in the street musician's instrument case. They always start with a little of their own money in there because it helps people understand what's expected.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#176

Post by hnal943 »

mikeknoop wrote: post #123
tkahn6 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think it's kind of a dangerous thing when you start saying you deserve something by virtue of the fact you perceive it to be a cultural norm? "I work hard but was laid off from my job. America is all about rewarding people for working hard so I got screwed. Therefore it's OK for me to rob a bank in order to compensate myself for my monetary losses which society owes me."

Well, not rob a bank per say. But they certainly might feel entitled to receive compensation from the Government.

And how is that different? You're still soothing your problems with other people's money.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#177

Post by reappear »

Goosey wrote: post #170
jafran wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think this article made me realize that in any situation it is important to ask "what are the rules?". It's not like there is a sign posted above the door saying "do not tip for better seating". Who says it's wrong to tip for priority seating?

You have hit on a way of thinking that, for me, was inspired by reading David Sirlin's masterpiece 'Playing to Win'. The book is available on amazon or for free on his website http://www.sirlin.net/ptw Although the book focuses on competitive video games it quickly establishes an important point that can be applied to nearly every situation in life: There are two types of people in a situation, "scrubs" who make up a…

Going angry-mob on someone for successfully achieving their objectives is just being a scrub.

No. In your framework, at least, this tactic is a move well within the "true extent of the rules".

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#178

Post by pontifier »

dagw wrote: post #126
Perceval wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives of the waiters and the restaurant owners are almost never perfectly aligned. Most profit comes from simple items: drinks, salads, the most basic pasta dishes, coffee. It's all stuff where the ingredients cost next to nothing and the prep time is negligible. They don't cost much either, but have huge margins. The waiter's incentive is not to push you to get the $9.95 ziti marinara, but to get the $22 lo…

But this is a problem you'll never really fix. Actually it's a fairly easy fix. Pay waiters a decent wage (so they aren't reliant on tips to pay the rent), plus an annual bonus for everybody who's worked the entire year (so they have an incentive to do their job right and not get fired), and combine this with actively discouraging/forbidding accepting tips and you're basically there. That's how most industries work.

I have a friend that would disagree with you. He is from Holland, and when we have gone out to eat we have discussed the differences between our customs.

He enjoys tipping. He says that back home, because the Dutch don't have a custom of tipping waiters, the service suffers. There is no incentive for them to provide more service than the minimum required to not get a complaint... Which is quite low when expectations are already low across the board.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#180

Post by [deleted] »

lionhearted wrote: post #5

I was reading Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, and he talks about being liberal and magnificent with money. I'm in Vietnam now, things are cheap-ish anyways, so I decided I'm make the transition towards doing that. I wrote up my first experiences here - http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=161 Since then, it's been even more crazy. I was just trying to be gracious - I wasn't trying to bribe for favors like the author…

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