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Comment by sudeepj | Hacker News Reader

As someone from India, I never understood the the tipping culture when I went abroad. It is not that tips are non-existent in India. It is not mandatory in India. However in UK, any tip < 10-15% is judged and hence the reputation of Indians as poor tippers. This leads to lot of mis-understanding.

I was surprised even getting a simple haircut had to be tipped in UK. I do not mind if the appropriate tip amount is factored in the price itself. The guilty-feeling and ambiguity whether I am being miserly or not made me avoid such places whenever possible.

Note: I learnt later that waiters in an restaurant are not that well paid and they have to "earn" it via tips.

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Where in the UK is this? I don't think I've ever tipped, although some restaurants do add an optional service charge (if you pay by card, it'll ask when you're paying).

I've never once even considered tipping for a haircut, and I've also never heard of Indian's having a 'poor tipper' reputation :)

I sound grumpy, but I do tip when I feel it's required. Once I went to a restaurant with family, and realised that they had no vegan food (my dad had thought a green 'V' meant vegan), and the chef and waitress went way above in preparing me some off-menu food for me, even though it was quite late in the evening. For me, that was an example of where tipping was required and I've been back many times since.

Since I do not have evidence for what I had experience. Here are some advice on the net:

https://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/tips-on-tippi...

https://www.lhaa.co.uk/blog/how-much-to-tip-a-hairdresser#:~....

Although it is always worded "if-you-want-to" or "if-you-can-afford". I feel this is a bit ambiguous.

I’m British. I’m sorry you feel this way. It’s the thing I hate the most about visiting the US. I’m going say this once and really big for you:

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TIP IN THE UK.

You can if you want but, having worked in the service sector, it is not expected, service staff won’t think worse of you and please don’t feel guilty.

Unlike the US we have a vaguely liveable minimum wage that is nearly £10 per hour now and tipping is absolutely not required.

I only tip when the service was excellent or the person actually went above and beyond.

£10/hr sounds significantly lower than what a US server would make in a $$ restaurant (based on industry norms for diner/day/server), let alone a $$$ or a $$$$. If they're relying on that little cash, I'm definitely tipping next time I'm in the UK.

A good salary in the UK is any over £40,000 and not all service workers are paid the minimum. Minimum wage in the UK works out At £15k-20k per year so yeah, not a good salary but a lot better than the $3 an hour I’ve heard US restaurant workers get per hour. If you have to rely on the enforced generosity of customers so your staff can afford to live you don’t have a viable business in my opinion, and that seems to be the model in the US.

If memory serves tipping used to be heavily frowned upon in the US until the Great Depression.

No, servers in the US do not make $3/hr; they're required to make minimum wage and have a starting backstop wage (that's the $3 you hear about), and make as much more than minimum as their tips allow.

Of course, the US minimum wage is much too low to live on in most urban areas, so the minimum wage part is cold comfort. But servers in $$/$$$/$$$$ restaurants make substantially more than minimum wage in tips. By OpenTable's scale, a $$$ is ~$40/customer; a 4-top would be ~$32 in tips, a normal table is turned in 1.5 hours or so, and you serve multiple tables simultaneously. You can work out a rough range of outcomes in your head. Service staff come in an hour or so early and may stay a bit later to close out, and that brings the average down, as does sharing, splitting, or pooling, where that's allowed to happen, but it's still much higher than minimum wage.

Obviously, this applies to higher-end restaurants. But then, higher-end restaurants are where the "no tipping" movement is happening.

Yes I’ve heard this argument before as well and understand that’s why tipping is still pervasive however most restaurants aren’t $$$+ meaning most service workers don’t earn this amount and it still requires customers to pay more at their own “choosing” for the staff to have a liveable income.

I was once chased out of a restaurant in New York and forced to tip 10% after they got both our orders wrong, what they did eventually serve us was cold, the staff were very rude (apparently he couldn’t understand our accent - I’m from the UK south and basically have zero accent) and the toilets hadn’t been cleaned in what looked like forever. Yet apparently I still had to tip or he would called the police. This place was rated as $$$.

Tipping isn't legally required, so this story doesn't make much sense.

Well it doesn’t make the story less true, it just means the waiter lied to two tourists and used the threat of police to get what he wanted. Further evidence that US tipping culture should be abolished.

You thought that tipping was mandatory?

From what I've read, that's not true at all. I'd imagine a whole lot of waiters and waitresses are earning a lot less than you imagine. £10/hour seems more reasonable, but our minimum wage keeps going up and includes holidays, etc. and we do not need to pay health insurance either.

Oh, lots of servers are earning less than that, but in the UK, if there's no tipping norm, and people are generally paid a $14/hr minimum wage instead, then fine dining servers in the US are substantially out-earning those in the UK.

It's worth pointing out that minimum-wage workers in the UK receive various government benefits too, such as help with rent, low rates of taxation etc.

Minimum wage in the UK doesn't provide a lavish lifestyle, but it's more than possible to live on it.

> then fine dining servers in the US are substantially out-earning those in the UK

You keep moving the goalposts. Now fine-dining? People here can tip too, it's just that companies are required to give them a basic standard. At a fine dining restaurant they'd be earning more than minimum wage generally.

Service workers are required to receive a basic standard in the US as well, it’s just that tips are counted towards the minimum wage.

The reason fine dining is interesting is that’s where the no tipping movement is most prevalent in the US. Also note that fine dining serving staff is generally pro the current status quo because they believe they make more money under the current arrangement than they would under the alternative.

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