Speaker 1: Now today's topic, Peter is tipping. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: like cow tipping, although that's a phenomenon we should probably
Speaker 1: delve into one day. I'm talking about the phenomena if
Speaker 1: cow tipping exists, how bored do you have to be?
Speaker 1: It exists? And it's all the rage and certain what
Speaker 1: satisfaction do you get?
Speaker 2: Oh he's over now you got to help him up again?
Speaker 1: And our topic is really, if you want to get
Speaker 1: down to the really, no, really, no matter what you
Speaker 1: do for a living, ladies and gentlemen, no matter what
Speaker 1: it is, maybe somebody owes you a tip. Really, no, really,
Speaker 1: And by the.
Speaker 3: Way, I didn't know how about this at heart exciting.
Speaker 3: I mean, we talk to adventures, we talked to rock stars,
Speaker 3: we talked to a lot of different people, and you
Speaker 3: brought up tipping, and I started mentioning tip people. Everybody
Speaker 3: seems to be outraged. And there was I don't know
Speaker 3: if people aware of this, but there was a New
Speaker 3: York Magazine article where they tried to define kipping.
Speaker 1: Why did you roll your eyes when you said New
Speaker 1: York Magazine, I have to look down to see it
Speaker 1: looked like a definitive eye roll. No, no, no. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're watching it on YouTube, roll back the tip. Did
Speaker 1: Peter roll his eyes and David google Heim will tell
Speaker 1: us at the end of the show, I'm sure by
Speaker 1: the way, now I'm right.
Speaker 3: So you have a comparison, a control group, and a comparison.
Speaker 3: So they come out with this article that where they're
Speaker 3: going to define what tipping is a It starts at
Speaker 3: twenty percent forget below, bottle of water a dollar and
Speaker 3: all these categories now of service that I go. So,
Speaker 3: it used to be you knew who to tip, right,
Speaker 3: you kind of.
Speaker 1: Knew who to Now you knew who to tip, you
Speaker 1: knew who to shmear, which is another hole, and you
Speaker 1: knew who to bribe. Right.
Speaker 2: There were different stuff like.
Speaker 3: That, right right, Yes, that's not a tip, right, and
Speaker 3: then there's others where they're saving your life. But tipping
Speaker 3: now has gone insane. No one has the rules, but
Speaker 3: everybody's acting like they have the rules. So I reached
Speaker 3: out to the foremost tipping expert in the world. His
Speaker 3: name is Michael Lynn, nationally recognized expert and tipping. He's
Speaker 3: written over seventy research publications on the topic. He's been
Speaker 3: covered by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, everybody,
Speaker 3: all of the networks, including NPR and now US. He
Speaker 3: was a former service worker in the industry, as was I.
Speaker 3: I don't know, did you ever work.
Speaker 2: For a living?
Speaker 1: I was always Oh damn you, I was. I was
Speaker 1: never a waiter, which is the typical other jober. I
Speaker 1: was a bus boy. Oh okay, I'm not good at that,
Speaker 1: so they certainly didn't move.
Speaker 2: Me up to the weights. I got fired.
Speaker 3: I ate more shrimp on the way out, and the
Speaker 3: guy finally said, there's a spree ship on it seventeen
Speaker 3: and he goes, let me smell your breast. I go no,
Speaker 3: And I was fired anyway. He did all of that,
Speaker 3: but he also got his PhD in social psychology from
Speaker 3: Ohio State and has taught in the marketing departments of
Speaker 3: business and hospitality schools since nineteen eighty eight and Professor
Speaker 3: of Services Marketing at the Cornell University School of Cornell.
Speaker 1: Is the guy.
Speaker 2: I'm not even allowed on the g.
Speaker 1: Is the guy. Thank you for joining. Hi'm Michael Lynn.
Speaker 4: Hi, thank you for inviting me of pleasure having a.
Speaker 1: Little extra something in your ravel up at the end
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 3: By the way, first thing I got to ask you
Speaker 3: is you're a tipping expert, why why would you become
Speaker 3: the tipping it's fasciinating. I'm glad you are, but why
Speaker 3: that area? Why do you say I'm going to I'm
Speaker 3: going to get into this in a big way.
Speaker 4: Well, I worked for tips to help pay my way
Speaker 4: through school, and I noticed that there were people that
Speaker 4: I thought were worse servers than me making more money,
Speaker 4: and you kind of wonder why, so I decided it
Speaker 4: would be an interesting subject for studying.
Speaker 1: Well wait, so what what I got to go right
Speaker 1: to that? Why in your experience with these people? Why
Speaker 1: were they making more money than you?
Speaker 4: Because I was really good at the technical aspects of service,
Speaker 4: but not at the social aspect, and people who could
Speaker 4: chat the customer up got better tips.
Speaker 1: Which is probably why I'm assuming actors are pretty good
Speaker 1: weight staff people, because they can at least we engage
Speaker 1: with people for a living to try and get our
Speaker 1: primary job.
Speaker 3: So that point, I'm always sitting with you at lunch
Speaker 3: and I and the most important part of this are
Speaker 3: you guys having the interruptions make me crazy too. It's
Speaker 3: the guy who engages too much that you go, God, dude, well.
Speaker 1: You have My favorite line where a guy says to you,
Speaker 1: if you need anything, my name is Steve, And then
Speaker 1: you say, and if I.
Speaker 2: Don't need anything, what's your name? Ralph?
Speaker 3: Right? First of all, really bad English, horrible, But it's
Speaker 3: interesting how weight staff, like you said, gets treated by personality, appearance, race.
Speaker 3: There's all kinds of stuff, But let's back up and
Speaker 3: go to the beginning for it. Can you give everybody
Speaker 3: just like a bullet point history of tipping, like where
Speaker 3: it came from, how it got started now, and.
Speaker 1: Why it's even called tipping or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Wow, there's lots of stories, and I don't know how
Speaker 4: much they're true. I'm not a historian. People have argued
Speaker 4: the tips is an acronym that stands for too unsure promptitude,
Speaker 4: and back in fourteenth century England people would wrap notes
Speaker 4: with coins with the word to insure promptitude. But that's
Speaker 4: almost certainly not true because acronyms didn't become popular until
Speaker 4: the nineteen thirties, and tipping way predates that. People have
Speaker 4: argued that it comes from an old gypsy or thieves
Speaker 4: can't tip er me meaning give me. I've also heard
Speaker 4: my favorite theory is that it comes from tippler or tipple,
Speaker 4: and that tipping evolved and eating and drinking places as
Speaker 4: a way to forestall the servers envy, because, after all,
Speaker 4: when you're at a bar or a restaurant eating, you're
Speaker 4: having fun, and the person serving you as working, it
Speaker 4: would be natural for them to envy you the fun
Speaker 4: you're having, and to keep that from happening, tipping evolved
Speaker 4: as a way of saying, Hey, don't envy me because
Speaker 4: I'm having fun, you're working. Here's some money you can
Speaker 4: have a drink on me after work. And if you
Speaker 4: look at the word for tip in many languages around
Speaker 4: the world, it does trans late to money for drink
Speaker 4: or drink money.
Speaker 3: Really, no, really, I did not know that that's why
Speaker 3: we do this, you're exactly. Oh, that's the reason we
Speaker 3: finally figured out out, all right, So if that's so.
Speaker 1: As far as you know, has tipping always been a
Speaker 1: percentage business, because that's certainly what we think of it
Speaker 1: as now, at least in restaurants and bars and food industry.
Speaker 4: Certainly, tipping became really prominent in this country after the
Speaker 4: Civil War. People traveled to Europe brought it back with them,
Speaker 4: and at the end of the nineteenth century, and it
Speaker 4: really became common at the beginning of the twentieth century
Speaker 4: if you go back to that point in time and
Speaker 4: look at etiquette books. Yeah, certainly in restaurants and hotels,
Speaker 4: percentage tip was common even back then. It wasn't thirty
Speaker 4: percent like it is today, but it was a.
Speaker 1: Percent in a minute. It went up to thirty.
Speaker 2: In a minute.
Speaker 1: But really, no, really, I was a good tip now,
Speaker 1: oh my god, oh my god. I apologize to everyone.
Speaker 1: I thought I was doing great at twenty five.
Speaker 3: Now, things that we should set the bar in and
Speaker 3: let's get to specific notarist people listening, we're going to
Speaker 3: give you guidance on all the areas that you go.
Speaker 3: I don't know what to do here. So Seinfeld and Curb,
Speaker 3: we're obsessed with tipping. There's the episode of Curb where
Speaker 3: you Jason is sitting with Larry and you won't share
Speaker 3: with your tip is.
Speaker 1: We're splitting the check. But and this was the scenario
Speaker 1: that Larry came up with. We're splitting the check and
Speaker 1: we're each adding our own tip, and he inquires of
Speaker 1: me what I'm leaving for the tip, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to tell him, and I thought, I thought that
Speaker 1: was a strange premise. But is that?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: Have you heard of that? Being typical? People don't want
Speaker 1: to give equal tips one one party wants to be
Speaker 1: the bigger fellow, and so they want to seem like
Speaker 1: the more gracious Gregaria's generous type, or they.
Speaker 4: Don't want to be the cheap one.
Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then by the way, that sets off of war
Speaker 3: because it's an oh, now I'm forced to give what
Speaker 3: you gave because you're This whole thing has become about embarrassment.
Speaker 3: Hotels are notorious and I never know this, Thank god
Speaker 3: travel metro State hotels. What's the etiquette, Michael, of the
Speaker 3: eleven people who are going to get you to your room?
Speaker 3: It seems like a handoff, a hand off, a handoff.
Speaker 3: Does everybody get.
Speaker 4: Something if you're willing to give it to them? They do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh you have that atitute.
Speaker 4: Look, I'm not an etiquette expert, and he doesn't care
Speaker 4: what people do, why they do it, what servers can
Speaker 4: do to increase their tips. Why tipping norms vary across countries.
Speaker 4: I don't want to hold myself out as a tipping etiquette.
Speaker 4: The one thing that's perhaps we're saying is there is
Speaker 4: no tipping God right, there's no central authority Wholujah bestows
Speaker 4: from heaven. Tipping norms. Tipping guidebooks, for the most part,
Speaker 4: do a reasonably good job of describing what is typical
Speaker 4: or common. But with the fast changing pace of what's
Speaker 4: happening and tipping today, you're going to see people asking
Speaker 4: for tips. Like restaurant carry out. It's quite common now
Speaker 4: for them to ask you for a tip when you
Speaker 4: go to pick up a restaurant meal that you're going
Speaker 4: to take home for yourself, and you might think everybody's
Speaker 4: asking for it. This is the new norm. And I
Speaker 4: haven't seen recent data, but prior to the pandemic around
Speaker 4: you know, twenty nineteen, only about a third of people
Speaker 4: tipped in that circumstance. So if seventy percent of people
Speaker 4: are not tipping, is it really a norm? I would say.
Speaker 3: The reason I want to Michael on was I read
Speaker 3: an article guy said, you know what, here the norms today,
Speaker 3: and Michael actually went off the norms. And that's why
Speaker 3: because because he really is getting to the point. You know,
Speaker 3: Jim Jeffery's a comedian, pointed out bus drivers doesn't get
Speaker 3: a tip, unless it's a bus driver from the airport
Speaker 3: to your car, then he gets a tip. Well, hairdresser
Speaker 3: gets a tip. Dentist who also makes you look good
Speaker 3: doesn't get a tip. He says it's arbitrary what service
Speaker 3: workers should get tips in.
Speaker 1: Well, that's exactly because the example I was going to give.
Speaker 1: And this perplexes me. This really does. So if I
Speaker 1: go into a Starbucks and I order a latte, somebody
Speaker 1: is making it in the back. They usually bring it
Speaker 1: to the person who's wrung me up, They hand it
Speaker 1: to me, and I'm putting a tip in the tip jar.
Speaker 1: If I go to the McDonald's drive through and I
Speaker 1: order a coffee, there's still somebody in the back making
Speaker 1: the coffee, bringing it to the window, and that person's
Speaker 1: putting in a bag, but there's no tip expected. Same
Speaker 1: exact services, but one seems to be has normalized tipping
Speaker 1: and the other one there is no. That's how how
Speaker 1: is this possible?
Speaker 4: I'm not sure exactly why we tip baristas and not
Speaker 4: counter workers at quick service places, but if I had
Speaker 4: to guess, I would guess that the barista it looks
Speaker 4: more like a bar setting, and so it's easier to
Speaker 4: generalize our habit of tipping bartenders to baristas.
Speaker 2: So it's the environment, it's the environment kind.
Speaker 4: Of environment plays a role absolutely, But.
Speaker 1: I would imagine in a bar setting that one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that you're tipping. Now, I'm not a big drinker,
Speaker 1: but but you know, if you're not running a tab,
Speaker 1: if you're paying for your drink, you know, per drink delivered,
Speaker 1: I would imagine the tip is like maybe in the
Speaker 1: next drink he paused me an extra finger full of
Speaker 1: you know of whatever means that you're you're sort of saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you you take care of me, I'll take care of you.
Speaker 1: And there's an ongoing.
Speaker 3: Suggestion component there is I want something for this, right
Speaker 3: I'm assuming that that that that would be sort of why.
Speaker 1: But that isn't gonna get What is that gonna get me?
Speaker 1: At the Starbucks? You know, extra foam? What am I
Speaker 1: gonna get?
Speaker 4: How often do you go to the same Starbucks?
Speaker 1: I don't have it?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't have it aginst there you go a
Speaker 3: lot of people feel that they know the people and
Speaker 3: it's like.
Speaker 2: And they start telling you the hardship stories.
Speaker 3: So the other thing about tipping is in Seinfeld that
Speaker 3: there's an episode where with the cal Zone where George
Speaker 3: is upset and I relate to this, and every listening
Speaker 3: probably relates to this because the guy didn't see him
Speaker 3: leave the tip, and it ends up with George taking
Speaker 3: the tip out to put it back in again. He
Speaker 3: gets caught and barred from the place as a thief.
Speaker 3: So while we were discussing this episode, I said to Jason,
Speaker 3: I gotta admit like I'm at the pizza place down
Speaker 3: the hill from my house, and I always do because
Speaker 3: he always gives me my stuff and then turns to
Speaker 3: walk and do something the next guy, and I always go, hey,
Speaker 3: and here's a little I always announce make sure you
Speaker 3: are it's there to get this. If I put on
Speaker 3: the card right or or I put the thing, I
Speaker 3: always have to announce what I've done because you want
Speaker 3: you want tip credit right, because you don't know what
Speaker 3: they're gonna do your food.
Speaker 2: Oh this is the guy without the tip credit credit
Speaker 2: last time? That isn't it?
Speaker 4: And yet you get mad, And yet you get mad
Speaker 4: when they swivel the thing around and ask you to
Speaker 4: tip in front of them.
Speaker 2: Okay, this and I know this is your thing, So
Speaker 2: the swivel. Doing the swivel.
Speaker 3: This is the new thing that pisses me off because
Speaker 3: now nonminally am I nervous about who to tip, But
Speaker 3: now I've got an audience and performance anxiety. A they
Speaker 3: swivel the screen room, the font you can see from
Speaker 3: the moon. It's and it gives you choices. Doesn't start
Speaker 3: at five ten fifteen, No, I suck. It starts at
Speaker 3: fifteen twenty thirty. Your bank accounts, your IRA sign it,
Speaker 3: and everybody's standing behind you can see it and see
Speaker 3: what you're doing. So now not only people who you're with.
Speaker 3: It used to be people are with would judge me
Speaker 3: on the tip. Now it's complet eat strangers. I can
Speaker 3: hear in the background it's like, really, screw you. There's
Speaker 3: so much pressure. There's so much pressure. And Jason, poor Jason, celebrity.
Speaker 3: You got to give a good tip every time.
Speaker 1: Well that's the thing. If you give an underwhelming tip
Speaker 1: and somebody sees it, you know, they go some guy
Speaker 1: will let me a crappy tip if I do. It's
Speaker 1: all over social media. So you know, first of all,
Speaker 1: I tend to I'm a big believer in I am.
Speaker 3: Disproportionately paid for what I do.
Speaker 1: I should pay, you know, so I try, and people
Speaker 1: who are performing a service for me, I try and
Speaker 1: compensate them, you know, to pay that forward. But you're right,
Speaker 1: if for any reason I don't like the service, if
Speaker 1: I have horrible service, I still can't undertip, because it's
Speaker 1: going to become a thing.
Speaker 3: And by the way, if you're under tip, not just you,
Speaker 3: but the guy then goes on and says, this customer
Speaker 3: came in today and then and there's a story out there,
Speaker 3: and that's the easiest way to get in. And by way,
Speaker 3: we should do this. Yeah, you live, like, order something
Speaker 3: for five bucks and leave a thousand dollars tip will
Speaker 3: be everywhere, and you do that a couple of times,
Speaker 3: the podcasts will get in there.
Speaker 1: I just read this. I was I was going through
Speaker 1: social media today. I just read another period.
Speaker 2: Somebody does that all the time, and they get.
Speaker 1: The college seriously, say for the college.
Speaker 2: We should just do it.
Speaker 3: If you like a ten thousand dollar tip for a sandwich,
Speaker 3: just once, I'd be so sure you can write it off.
Speaker 3: It's right, it's right off. Will you pay for this sandwich?
Speaker 3: So where to have the tip? Where did the swivel screen.
Speaker 3: Thing happen that intruded us? And is it going to continue?
Speaker 3: Is this the new technology that we're stuck with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's gonna You're going to start seeing it
Speaker 4: even more places. I was just eating at a sit
Speaker 4: down restaurant. I stayed at the table, and they brought
Speaker 4: an electronic device with my bill, and again the server
Speaker 4: stood there as I come at the key in what
Speaker 4: my tipping decision was.
Speaker 3: I hate that instead of just signing it, looking at
Speaker 3: the little thing and doing that, and then I can
Speaker 3: hardly read it.
Speaker 2: That's aside.
Speaker 3: I can hardly read it is a size that that's
Speaker 3: a menace to society.
Speaker 2: And then you got the New Yorker article.
Speaker 3: It says that you should leave a minimum of twenty percent,
Speaker 3: and based on your higher disposable income, you should tip more.
Speaker 1: Michael, can I go back because you I think I've
Speaker 1: read that. You are you know the reasons behind this
Speaker 1: very well? Why is it since everyone has some sort
Speaker 1: of tipping grip or tipping anxiety, what is the downside
Speaker 1: of asking businesses to just charge us more for the
Speaker 1: item or the service and pass that on to their employees,
Speaker 1: rather than us having to speculate there is there a
Speaker 1: downside to it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, People evaluate restaurants based on their expensiveness, based
Speaker 4: on menu prices, and if I eliminate tipping, I have
Speaker 4: to impose a service charge or raise my menu prices.
Speaker 4: People hate service charges because it's a mandatory tip, and
Speaker 4: nobody likes to be told they have to tip. And
Speaker 4: if I raise my menu prices, I look more expensive
Speaker 4: than my neighbors who use tipping, and that allows them
Speaker 4: to have lower prices. I know you would think customers
Speaker 4: are smart enough to say, yeah, the menu prices are higher,
Speaker 4: but I don't have to tip. But you'd be wrong.
Speaker 4: They're not smart enough to think that.
Speaker 3: But that's the whole club med model, right, is that
Speaker 3: you can go and you don't tip for anything.
Speaker 1: Everything's included. I mean it seems to work there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are places where people don't want to be
Speaker 4: nickeled and dimed, right, and so all inclusive model will work.
Speaker 4: But in restaurants, people are pretty price sensitive and they're
Speaker 4: going to evaluate me as more expensive than my competitors.
Speaker 4: And we can't get together and collectively decide to get
Speaker 4: rid of tipping, because that would be price collusion.
Speaker 2: How about that.
Speaker 4: I've also done the research and looked at online ratings
Speaker 4: of those restaurants. You know, there are a lot of restaurants,
Speaker 4: dozens of restaurants that have tried to eliminate tipping in
Speaker 4: recent years. At one point there we're about two hundred
Speaker 4: of those restaurants across the country. So I did some
Speaker 4: research and looked at the online ratings of those restaurants
Speaker 4: both before and after their move away from tipping, and
Speaker 4: in almost every case, their online ratings went down.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And those restaurants, I know that one in New York,
Speaker 3: the famous one of the high end guy, Danny whatever
Speaker 3: his name is any Meyer, tried it at his high
Speaker 3: end restaurants and it did not work after a while.
Speaker 3: And that's a highend restaurant with I think going to
Speaker 3: afford the food out yere is Europe, right, Europe got
Speaker 3: away with don't a way of tipping in most countries or.
Speaker 4: No, yeah, it's it's certainly not the way it is here.
Speaker 4: You would leave change in most European countries really literally
Speaker 4: just round the bill, you know.
Speaker 1: Really, And I know when I when I've done that,
Speaker 1: by the way, I always feel like when I've been
Speaker 1: in Europe, and they go it's you don't do it,
Speaker 1: you do it, and I leave at you know, a
Speaker 1: little something. But I always feel like if I left
Speaker 1: the proper tip, I would be breaking a custom work.
Speaker 1: It's a very strange feeling.
Speaker 3: The the reason that you feel trapped, I think, is
Speaker 3: you're going to restaurant and they're paying minimum wage. They
Speaker 3: don't get in Europe, by the way, they get vacation
Speaker 3: paid vacation right, so that's included, and they can make
Speaker 3: a wage. Here the restaurant owner because he's not going
Speaker 3: to pick it up because he can't afford it, or
Speaker 3: at least some candies, some can you're not responsible for
Speaker 3: this guy being able by formula first kid whatever. And
Speaker 3: then worse than that, the guys you're giving tips to
Speaker 3: in the front of the house, they have to figure
Speaker 3: out what they're going to do on the other guys
Speaker 3: stets up to them, beside what percentage the guys in
Speaker 3: the back and get. So the whole thing is like
Speaker 3: for cocked and as you said, it's gonna it's only
Speaker 3: going to expand more and more. You wonder like you
Speaker 3: go to shoes to buy shoes at Nordstromer somewhere the
Speaker 3: guy spends four four hours, he brings out seven hundred
Speaker 3: boxes of shoes. You say thank you when you pick
Speaker 3: the shoes. He's not getting a tip. Realtor works with
Speaker 3: you for months to close the deal on a house,
Speaker 3: does the research, doesn't.
Speaker 1: But you're getting commissioned.
Speaker 2: But but you didn't.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not buying the house. That's okay, but
Speaker 3: that's a service. So how do you hide the service job?
Speaker 1: Well, if I ordered the Starbucks coffee and I go,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not paying for this. I don't
Speaker 1: want it. They don't get tipped either. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're working on commission, right, Michael, but they can't up there.
Speaker 4: But they're a lot with you. Commissions are like a tip,
Speaker 4: but they're guaranteed.
Speaker 3: Did COVID Is COVID the thing to change this whole
Speaker 3: thing that all bets are off because of that?
Speaker 4: Certainly tips went up during COVID, and we started tipping
Speaker 4: in circumstances where we didn't ordinarily right. And I've not
Speaker 4: seen any evidence that we've come down from that. We've
Speaker 4: come down from the peaks. Tipping really went up, right
Speaker 4: when you know when COVID first hit that April May
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty, and it came down a bit since then,
Speaker 4: but it's not back to pre COVID level.
Speaker 3: And by the way, with food cost up, I would
Speaker 3: imagine it's harder and harder and harder. You know, my
Speaker 3: buddy runs a series of clubs, and he said, I
Speaker 3: can't print the menia anymore. I have to put it
Speaker 3: on something digital. Because the price of chicken, like chicken wing,
Speaker 3: goes up so much that I lose my shirt if
Speaker 3: it's at last week's price because they raised.
Speaker 1: Is that why they're doing there, I thought a lot,
Speaker 1: because we're moving to it's no touch, he said, because
Speaker 1: if you got three hundred places and every day the
Speaker 1: price of your chicken, the price of your potatoes goes
Speaker 1: up and you're at yesterday's price, you lose on every Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they got to be so the touchscreen has a
Speaker 1: reason there.
Speaker 3: But like you said, we're not going back once you're
Speaker 3: starting to do that. I got a question for you.
Speaker 3: Let me run through some categories here.
Speaker 4: Dog trainer, My wife trains our dogs. No, I don't
Speaker 4: tip we we.
Speaker 1: We heard that she got in touch. She hasked to
Speaker 1: the Jason buffet. You're at a buffet, you tipping in
Speaker 1: a buffet. Oh, well, we do tip in the buffo.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you would often leave a small time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for the person that's going to be to bust
Speaker 1: the table.
Speaker 3: We do that, okay, girl scout cookie, Cela sitting at
Speaker 3: the table. You're buying girl scouts. It may look bad
Speaker 3: for a fifty year old. Gotta go, here's a little
Speaker 3: something for you. What's you gotta get a tip in there?
Speaker 2: The tip?
Speaker 4: I wouldn't tip. I wouldn't even think of tip.
Speaker 1: Have you ever tried to tip a girl?
Speaker 2: I'm guessing.
Speaker 3: But next year they have touch screens, they'll be swinging
Speaker 3: fifty forty.
Speaker 1: Well, wait before you get into the I'm sure you
Speaker 1: have more that are off, but tell me if you can.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a because I was surprised to hear that.
Speaker 1: So the average now expected gratuity for a weight person
Speaker 1: in a restaurant is thirty percent.
Speaker 4: Oh in New York City, Okay, upscale restaurant.
Speaker 1: In upscale restaurants. But outside of.
Speaker 4: That, arguing that twenty is kind of the minimal tip.
Speaker 1: Now there you go. Uh huh, Okay, twenty five.
Speaker 4: Is a normal tip and thirty would be a good tip.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to run. Now that's not the heartland,
Speaker 1: right right, I got you, But I want to run
Speaker 1: like certain people that we are used to tipping. So
Speaker 1: what like a bellman, what's what's do you know what
Speaker 1: the average is? Again, depends on the.
Speaker 4: Hotel connecticutte expert right right, I would tip two to
Speaker 4: three bucks a back.
Speaker 1: Okay. What about a cab driver housekeeper at the hotel generally.
Speaker 4: Three to five dollars a night.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 4: Food delivery depends, like for a pizza three to five bucks.
Speaker 2: How about a pizza in Minnesota in the winter.
Speaker 4: To go through Minnesota in the winter. All I can
Speaker 4: give you is what I would do.
Speaker 1: You know you've got your finger on thee. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking. It's hard. Okay, what about mail delivery?
Speaker 4: You know, tipping government employees seems a lot like brib
Speaker 4: I'm noting.
Speaker 1: I like the way you're wrong, all right. Last one,
Speaker 1: gardeners or landscape folk, no.
Speaker 4: Because their contractors and presumably have already built me what
Speaker 4: they think it's worth.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling better about plumber because I give to all
Speaker 1: of those people because you know you'll be outed.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: You know what, even when I was growing up as
Speaker 1: a kid, and you know, my family was very, very
Speaker 1: working class. My parents gave holiday tips to the garbage guys,
Speaker 1: the mail guy. We had milk delivery back then too,
Speaker 1: so you know, all those guys got and I've always
Speaker 1: carried on to be honest with me, but the conversation
Speaker 1: in your house was you got to give the garbage guy.
Speaker 1: Wasn't that because he's gonna leave stuff, he's gonna make
Speaker 1: There's always a rationale of he did it, but there
Speaker 1: was a rationale no, to tell you the truth, I
Speaker 1: don't even know if everybody on our block was doing.
Speaker 1: It was something that my parents believed in. Maybe they
Speaker 1: grew up with it in some did some degree, but
Speaker 1: they always felt that the people who are performing a
Speaker 1: service for your year round.
Speaker 3: So did my son. But there was always a discussion
Speaker 3: of I think that's too much. There was always the
Speaker 3: way in, well, it's always a question of what what
Speaker 3: should it be? What are you crazy you're giving the
Speaker 3: garbage guy? Then then you could give them ail.
Speaker 1: That it was.
Speaker 3: It was like it was a brutal discussion, which, by
Speaker 3: the way, happens at tables now at restaurants. I hate
Speaker 3: that too. When you're sitting and you're settling up and
Speaker 3: it's a group and you're going and it's the guilt,
Speaker 3: the guilt tip where you got it? Then he did
Speaker 3: better than that. So other jobs. Guy saves your life
Speaker 3: on the sidewalk as you see PRP.
Speaker 4: No, no you are, you know, take them out to dinner.
Speaker 1: Or something, right, okay?
Speaker 3: And then and have him let the tip the postal
Speaker 3: you know those postal stores. So now with Amazon, you
Speaker 3: drop off the thing. He has to box it, he
Speaker 3: has to wrap it. They how much the tip? What
Speaker 3: percentage we get? We give him a holiday gift every
Speaker 3: year he's got to wait. Yeah, you go to the box. Well,
Speaker 3: somebody goes once a week. I'm saying to drop it off.
Speaker 3: Just drop it off a return we drop off, We
Speaker 3: pick up our furniture delivery guys delivering your new hassuck
Speaker 3: your new sofa.
Speaker 4: What's the tip if they're bringing it in the house,
Speaker 4: and especially if it's appliances and they're helping install it, Yeah,
Speaker 4: leave or something.
Speaker 3: I always like a plumber, even if I'm getting like
Speaker 3: killed with the billy the guy who came, because I
Speaker 3: forget the guy back there, what he's given him?
Speaker 2: How much you take that. Always.
Speaker 1: Anybody comes to the house and I'll tell you something
Speaker 1: that you talk about the celebrity thing. I always tip
Speaker 1: guys to come to our house because I say to them,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sort of paying for their their discretion
Speaker 1: to go. Now you know where I live. Please, you know,
Speaker 1: don't don't do a.
Speaker 2: Thing from pot dispensary. That's a new thing.
Speaker 1: Michael Shirley. We we dispensary where you pick up your
Speaker 1: your marijuana products.
Speaker 4: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Sure doesn't have to.
Speaker 1: It's legal in Ohio.
Speaker 2: So the guy who delivers, what do you give him?
Speaker 1: And Michael the real embarrassing part of this.
Speaker 3: As we wrap up here, Iss and I discuss this.
Speaker 3: Are we giving you? What are we sending you?
Speaker 4: I wanted to ask you where's your digital tipping jar?
Speaker 1: See jobs you?
Speaker 4: Wow? Hey?
Speaker 2: Is there ever have you ever refused?
Speaker 1: Do you in places like a restaurant where it is
Speaker 1: typical to tip? Have you ever not tipped because the
Speaker 1: service was horrendous or for whatever?
Speaker 2: That's the answer your face?
Speaker 3: Oh, you've always I thought, boy, if even that article
Speaker 3: you said f off, I thought you'd say ye, if
Speaker 3: it's bad service, the job is, that's your job.
Speaker 4: I've never gotten that bad of service. It would have
Speaker 4: to be pretty Can I imagine a circumstance where I
Speaker 4: would not leave a tip? Yes, because I've heard of
Speaker 4: cases where servers are downright abusive and and I won't
Speaker 4: pay someone to abuse me. But service is pretty good
Speaker 4: in this country, and I've always felt that the server
Speaker 4: deserved some.
Speaker 1: You know, there are some restaurants where you pay extra
Speaker 1: for to be abused, like the Carnegie Deli was a
Speaker 1: big that was why you went to the Carnegie to
Speaker 1: get a little abuse. I'm having having corn beef. I'd
Speaker 1: like it on a white bread. No, it's okay.
Speaker 2: Then place did he take tips?
Speaker 1: I don't know if we do tips. By the time
Speaker 1: I got there. In real life, I was I was banned.
Speaker 1: In real life, you were banned from the Sun was
Speaker 1: the name of the real place it was. Al Yagana
Speaker 1: was the guy that owned it. It was the soup kitchen.
Speaker 1: And I think fifty fourth and eighth.
Speaker 2: Why were you banned.
Speaker 1: For a very good reason? And I and I do understand,
Speaker 1: you know, the episode made him very famous and it
Speaker 1: and it did wonders for the soup kitchen. But Al,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he or his family, but they
Speaker 1: were survivors of the Holocaust. God, and that we called
Speaker 1: them a soup, not the whole So the whole show
Speaker 1: is not like that. And I was there like a
Speaker 1: year or two after we aired that episode and somebody said, hey,
Speaker 1: hell it's the it's the kid from the show. And
Speaker 1: he went, get out, get out, art imitating real life.
Speaker 3: So before you go, the one way around all of
Speaker 3: this stuff, the big loophole cash.
Speaker 2: They don't swivel the screen.
Speaker 3: If you're gonna give them cash, you're whipping out before
Speaker 3: they turn the screen, and they don't.
Speaker 1: Have a chance to turn the screen. That's you, that's
Speaker 1: your big ye. Cash is king, except now lots of laces.
Speaker 1: I haven't carried them, and I don't know how long
Speaker 1: this is America. This is a country that was driven
Speaker 1: by cash. Yeah, I don't carry cash. I don't think
Speaker 1: I've carried cash since I can't excuse me, we don't
Speaker 1: take casher? Hello, Oh well yeah, I don't Who carries
Speaker 1: you carry cash?
Speaker 2: I do carry cash. That's good.
Speaker 1: Don't to the parking lot. That will be a very
Speaker 1: good thing.
Speaker 4: If you don't carry cash, how do you tip the
Speaker 4: maid or the door.
Speaker 1: If I'm if I if I'm if I'm going to
Speaker 1: a hotel. But I'm telling you my day to day life.
Speaker 1: If I'm going to have lunch with a friends, I mean,
Speaker 1: I always know I'm going to be a tipping based
Speaker 1: on I.
Speaker 4: Mean, what's interesting is people are developing apps for precisely
Speaker 4: those cases where we don't carry cash anymore and we
Speaker 4: want a tip, and it's your traditionally tipped occupation like Dorman, Bellman,
Speaker 4: hotel maids. If you're not carrying cash, it's pretty awkward.
Speaker 4: They're developing apps to let you do that.
Speaker 1: Electric So now I have to ask the bellman for
Speaker 1: his information so I can send them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they often have a QR code that you can skim.
Speaker 1: I got to keep in touch, you know what.
Speaker 3: I want to develop an app so you can. You
Speaker 3: can turn this thing around before they turn their screen
Speaker 3: and go. I got the app here. I already paid you,
Speaker 3: so thank you very much. Yeah, and I paid it
Speaker 3: to show so on Starbucks to get it from him.
Speaker 3: I thank you for coming on sir.
Speaker 1: Leisure to meet you, and thanks for trudging through the
Speaker 1: snow to do this. A smile, well a million dollars smile,
Speaker 1: so we are joined out.
Speaker 3: Laurie, come in because I want you into this segment
Speaker 3: even if we use it not just a family, because
Speaker 3: you'll yell out something with jas Nitzebell. So mister google Hunt, Yes,
Speaker 3: who googles the things during the show that we need
Speaker 3: clarity on and looks things up to tell us what
Speaker 3: we've done wrong?
Speaker 2: What happened to this episode on tipping?
Speaker 5: Did you find Well, there was a moment that I
Speaker 5: was waiting for that we didn't hit on, so I
Speaker 5: figured I'd just google it and find the answer. A
Speaker 5: two thy fifteen study published by the Journal of Economic
Speaker 5: Psychology It's a great publication, found that waitresses whose customers
Speaker 5: deemed them more attractive tended to get tipped pore over
Speaker 5: the course of Really I want.
Speaker 1: To shop that.
Speaker 2: The Dutch stats that a waitress who's not as pretty.
Speaker 5: Guess how much more per year a waitress who is
Speaker 5: considered to be attractive by the patrons gets in tips
Speaker 5: more than her cohorts.
Speaker 1: You mean percentage or dollar figure? Well are yeah?
Speaker 5: Two thousand dollars and sixty one dollars is the which
Speaker 5: is a lot if you're the weirder part though most
Speaker 5: of the increased tips came from women.
Speaker 2: Oh from really that is interesting.
Speaker 1: So it's women who are making this determination about attractiveness.
Speaker 1: Apparently they are more than men. I have to say personally,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I've said, I always feel compelled to
Speaker 1: leave a good tip. But it's very hard for a
Speaker 1: wait person to know, because what I find I tipped
Speaker 1: more for is the quality of the interaction. Did I
Speaker 1: enjoy them? Did they enhance the experience of dining there
Speaker 1: with their personality? If so, you do. But there are
Speaker 1: many times when you know, we've all had it where
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to have a serious conversation at your table,
Speaker 1: or you're in the middle of something and you're just
Speaker 1: about to tell the punchline of a joke and they go,
Speaker 1: so can I tell you about the specials? And you know,
Speaker 1: and they've killed your whole thing. So it's hard for
Speaker 1: somebody who is a weight person to know how much
Speaker 1: should I interact? You know, what, what is the story? Yeah? Exactly,
Speaker 1: So I think it's a terrible position for them to
Speaker 1: me and because they have none of the information they need,
Speaker 1: and yet they are potentially being judged on the quality
Speaker 1: of their interrect I'm.
Speaker 3: Just laughing because we can't tell the story. But we
Speaker 3: eat out a lot. And you know, me at a
Speaker 3: restaurant if it's if it's not going well, I'm vocal.
Speaker 2: Because I'll yell.
Speaker 1: Wow, wow, no, no civil way at.
Speaker 2: But I'm good because I try and make it fun.
Speaker 2: And then they always enjoy it.
Speaker 3: There's always you turn and sure, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: There's a particular place where Jason took me to that
Speaker 3: that is about joy and happiness.
Speaker 1: There's there's a restaurant that, you know, no surprise, a
Speaker 1: vegan restaurant where they name the dishes things like I
Speaker 1: am an adjective, I am resplendent, dian, glorious.
Speaker 3: And he yells, well, first of taking me, there is
Speaker 3: a mistake, right, I'm going to a vegan restaurant.
Speaker 2: Right, yea, and everything about it is I'm.
Speaker 1: Meeting and everybody there is going No. I know it's
Speaker 1: a hedge from a lawn, but it tastes like a
Speaker 1: prom stake.
Speaker 2: Can I go? Not in any lifetime I've been in.
Speaker 1: And so my favorite part is this this god he
Speaker 1: yells out, he yells out, in this restaurant in the
Speaker 1: height of its lunch out I've.
Speaker 3: Been waiting twenty minutes for my I am patient, So
Speaker 3: that's that's my By the way, the slide of I
Speaker 3: am happy, I'm throw and he was dying, and they
Speaker 3: were all dying. Everybody was dying to sing. The place
Speaker 3: is so pretentious.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, if you if anybody knows the
Speaker 1: place I'm talking about, it's actually fantastic and it's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite restaurants. But I'm not going to name names. No,
Speaker 1: but yeah, no, so all right, so yes, what else, David? So,
Speaker 1: attractiveness is a determined is a determiner.
Speaker 5: Here's one you probably don't want to hear. Some of
Speaker 5: your fellow celebrities who have gotten blackballed on the internet
Speaker 5: for being bad tippers.
Speaker 1: Oh we shouldn't, but I know it's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's a terrible thing. And you know, sometimes I don't know, See,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the etiquette of that should be, honestly,
Speaker 1: because there is a contract that says, look, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't have recourse. A celebrity doesn't have recourse other
Speaker 1: than to engage and go, well, they were I don't
Speaker 1: remember this. I thought I left a good tip or
Speaker 1: they were a terrible server. But but and either way
Speaker 1: it's it's just untoored. It gets very tawdry very quickly.
Speaker 3: May I just say that it is an equitable system
Speaker 3: because there are a lot of customer service people who don't
Speaker 3: get it. That said, if I'm doing okay, I always
Speaker 3: tip excessively. And my problem is because it's such an
Speaker 3: emotional thing. Bad server. I start projecting, probably having a
Speaker 3: bad day, maybe the dad has cancer.
Speaker 1: I always insert a story and.
Speaker 3: I'm starting to project what it is, and then I feel.
Speaker 1: About it, dad cancer, how about the headache?
Speaker 3: I feel responsible and I put a story to the
Speaker 3: face and if they're the worst they are, the more
Speaker 3: they go, yeah, yeah, bad, Oh my god, there must
Speaker 3: be something going on there because everybody has Look, everybody's
Speaker 3: got a fifty pound bag of cement on their sholder.
Speaker 3: Always tell my kid, when you cut off people in traffic,
Speaker 3: smile rather than give them the finger, and they'll smile back.
Speaker 2: You can. You can diffuse by being nice.
Speaker 3: So I try and be nice, but I do project
Speaker 3: the worst to serve the more I because I figure
Speaker 3: something bad is going down in their life and I
Speaker 3: owe them that to tab again nice, Can I profit
Speaker 3: you Here's something I haven't.
Speaker 2: Heard the word profit in a million years. Look that
Speaker 2: up Google profit.
Speaker 1: Why did you try this? When someone performs the service
Speaker 1: for you, a weight person, why don't you before you
Speaker 1: hand over anything, why don't you say to them what
Speaker 1: do you think your service was worth?
Speaker 4: What do you think?
Speaker 1: What do you think is proper? And I'll give it
Speaker 1: to you whatever it is, I'll give it to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then they'd be see. But if you put the
Speaker 1: onus on them, see what see. I'm not saying this whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm not advocating this. I'm just trying to make Peter
Speaker 1: I have another I would love for him. He'll do it.
Speaker 1: He'll go to a restaurant with me and he'll go,
Speaker 1: what do you think you're a work? You know what
Speaker 1: I'll do?
Speaker 3: Honestly, if I'm at a restaurant for you, I will
Speaker 3: do it. If I go, Jason would like you then,
Speaker 3: would like to know what you think you're worth? You know,
Speaker 3: he'd like to know what you think?
Speaker 4: All right? This is the.
Speaker 2: Money lord does.
Speaker 1: If we're going to be tipping, I would like to
Speaker 1: add the following people pilot lands the plane, give them
Speaker 1: a little sun. I always do that surgeon. He did
Speaker 1: a hell of a job. You know. Get me Dad
Speaker 1: Surgery said.
Speaker 2: I got to be out by four fifty bucks.
Speaker 1: A cop Firemann emt cos you're trying to brob me right.
Speaker 1: What did we learn is that? What we learned we.
Speaker 2: Learned that we have reception.
Speaker 3: We have no idea who should get a tip anymore.
Speaker 3: It used to be so easy announce all blurred like
Speaker 3: I'm looking at you, going do I give him five
Speaker 3: when we're done? Just because he did another episode?
Speaker 1: Listen read this episode by saying, I haven't gotten a
Speaker 1: salary yet, let alone a tip. So let me ask
Speaker 1: your question. Look, I mean, yeah, what do you think
Speaker 1: you're worth? You afford it, you work for the next
Speaker 1: ten years, you're couldn't afford watched the watched the episode,
Speaker 1: then tell me where you think you were. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: if you have disposable cash, take care of the people
Speaker 1: around you. I think that's the thing we own today.
Speaker 1: You know what, It's a it's a kindness and it's
Speaker 1: a benefit for everybody. So if you can afford to
Speaker 1: do it, do it, and do it happily. We drop
Speaker 1: new episodes every Tuesday. If you're watching us, on YouTube,
Speaker 1: or whether you're getting us on the iHeart app or
Speaker 1: the Apple app, or wherever you get your ie, your iPad.
Speaker 3: Your pad, your iPad, yeah, wherever you get your your podcast.
Speaker 2: We will be here for you.
Speaker 1: Peter, thank you, and I'm going to take you out now.
Speaker 1: And there's a little extra something. And by way, all
Speaker 1: locations thing give, give, give happily. And I say, even
Speaker 1: if you're not happy, you should give. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm waiting twenty minutes. My restaurant is goodbye everybody.
Speaker 3: Thank you, David, thank you, Producer, Laurie. We'll see you
Speaker 3: next time. Good rice pudding though? Is it real rice?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah rice? They can do in a Figing restaurant.