Bribing maitre d' to skip the line • Hacker News Board

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#181

Post by cellularmitosis » Tue, Sep 07, 2010, 5:37 AM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #66

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 guess this isn't quite like the experiences I've had, where you have a reputation of tipping well, and all of the sudden items are missing from your bill. That's just an illegal transfer of wealth from the owner to the employee.

For me this issue isn't so black and white. If an engineer being paid $100k/yr pulled something like this, yes I'd say he's stealing from his employer. When someone making $2.85/hr does this, I'm not sure it's stealing. The employer has the ability to hire someone at an insulting wage, and the employee has the ability to make the situation a little more favorable for themselves.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#182

Post by cellularmitosis » Tue, Sep 07, 2010, 5:47 AM UTC

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?

I have a friend who valet parks at an up-scale hotel, and over the years he's become pretty good at sizing up whether someone isn't aware that a tip is expected. So he's come up with a little code between his fellow employees. While the newb who doesn't know he's supposed to tip is waiting for his car, my friend loudly announces to a fellow employee as he hands him the keys to fetch some other customer's car "hey, he's already tipped, so he's good to go...". Without fail, the newb promptly pulls a $5 out of his pocket a few moments later...

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#183

Post by euroclydon » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 12:48 PM UTC

cellularmitosis wrote: post #181

euroclydon wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this isn't quite like the experiences I've had, where you have a reputation of tipping well, and all of the sudden items are missing from your bill. That's just an illegal transfer of wealth from the owner to the employee.

For me this issue isn't so black and white. If an engineer being paid $100k/yr pulled something like this, yes I'd say he's stealing from his employer. When someone making $2.85/hr does this, I'm not sure it's stealing. The employer has the ability to hire someone at an insulting wage, and the employee has the ability to make the situation a little more favorable for themselves.

Most people have though about doing something like this, or done it, but most of us do have choices about where we work, and if you want the word 'honorable' to ever be used to describe you, then you will avoid this type of activity.