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My mate Andy is a man of few words. He despises small talk and absolutely loathes social chitchat. The longest sentence to spill from his mouth tumbled out 30 years ago when, after a very long and thoughtful pause that kept a large crowd anxiously holding its breath, he whispered: "I do."
So it came as a shock recently when the time arrived to split the bill at a restaurant. Andy, his face twisted in horror and disgust, wouldn't shut up.
It was my fault. I'd suggested we leave a tip.
"This is not America, mate," he fumed. "They get paid well here and they charge enough for the meals. We don't have to tip."
Andy's wife, stunned by the revelation that her husband's vocal chords still functioned, shrank into her chair. The waitress hovering at our table with the bill muttered something about giving us a little more time and promptly set a new world speed record departing the scene.
"Listen, mate," I said. "The meals were great and the service was outstanding. What's wrong in acknowledging that with a few bucks?" Andy grimaced, grunted and gave in, preferring to surrender rather than enduring the torture of an extended conversation.
I called him the next morning to apologise. "You made a very valid point," I said. "I'm going to stop tipping from now on." Andy didn't reply, of course. But I could sense a smug smile spreading across his face as he hung up in his customary manner without saying goodbye.
Worn down by years of inattentive waiters and missing meals that eventually arrive as a lukewarm afterthought, I've often felt obligated to offer a modest gratuity for service that barely reaches acceptable levels.
But in these inflationary times? Andy's right. Tipping, surely, is an anachronism in a country where hospitality workers enjoy much higher hourly wages and penalties compared to many western nations.
In America, where the minimum hourly wage is $7.25 an hour and hospitality work leaves you precariously hanging just above the poverty line, accepted practice is to add 15 to 20 per cent to a bill.
In Australia, a nation where shoddy customer service is culturally ingrained, the minimum wage is $21.38. Yet expectations that customers should leave a little extra continue to grow.
Been to a cafe where you order on your phone using a QR code without any human interaction? The system still asks for a tip. And that's on top of the mandatory service fee for using a card in a venue that often doesn't accept cash.
The groping hands of the tipping phenomenon now reach beyond the hospitality businesses. My wife went to the shopping centre for a beauty treatment. When she returned home the company had already emailed, asking her to complete a "short" 20-question survey about her experience and whether she would like to add a tip to the bill she had already paid.
My wife felt the girl who had provided her treatment had gone above and beyond the call of duty. So she added a small tip. When she saw the girl later and mentioned the gratuity, she was met with a blank stare. The company had pocketed the bonus without passing it on.
Not only has tipping become the expected rather than the exception, but now we must also suffer these endless "How did we treat you?" surveys companies constantly foist on us, promising how our answers will help them improve their customer service. In truth, these shallow exercises merely serve to justify the dubious existence of those marketing managers (let's be honest, no one really knows what they do) who help swell the bloated executive ranks of many companies.
But these puerile customer surveys and the rise of a more aggressive approach to tipping are merely symptoms of a wider trend in modern life where everyone requires not just acknowledgment, but glowing endorsement for doing something they are...err...actually paid to do.
Perhaps it's time we customers returned the favour.
In future if I book a table at a restaurant, arrive at the scheduled time, act politely and clean my plate I will be requesting a 10 per cent bill reduction - and up to 20 per cent if I refrain from talking loudly on my phone.
I'll also expect the chef and owner to fill out a short but helpful questionnaire asking if they enjoyed my company and if they would appreciate a return visit.
I'll be taking Andy with me, too. Nothing beats eating a good meal in silence.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you leave tips or is the custom best left to other countries where wages are lower? Have you worked in hospitality and ever received a large tip? Or were the customers stingy? Do email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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- Workers stumbled upon a "bone room" containing the remains of multiple unknown people inside a Melbourne health agency's corporate offices. An employee noticed fluid leaking into a hallway from a disused room at Eastern Health's administrative building, opposite Box Hill Hospital, Melbourne's Coroners Court was told.
THEY SAID IT: "I am famously bad at math. If I'm in charge of tipping at a restaurant, the waiter will either fall to his knees in gratitude or slash my tires. There ain't no Mr In-Between." - Celia Rivenbark.
YOU SAID IT: Steve ruminated on tea trolleys and wondered if there were any other old ideas which should make a comeback.
Elizabeth wrote: "How can any sense of camaraderie develop when everyone eats lunch at their desk, scrolling on their phone. Admittedly their barista coffee is better than the Nescafe that was usually supplied in the tea room."
Alan reminisced: "When I worked in Papua New Guinea in the late '60s-early '70s, the tea trolley was mostly pushed by male staff, and the tea was pretty excellent (except on the day we found a dead mouse in the hot water urn!!). The biscuits were tasty and the smiles as your tea/coffee was poured were positively incandescent."
Brian said that when he worked in the Foreign Affairs Department years ago, "our tea lady went by the most appropriate name of Mrs Beveridge".
Hilary thought of one other thing which might be good to return: "A favourite childhood memory for me is the lift attendant in the big department stores. Always a man (and old to my young eyes) clanging the steel cage doors shut, then reciting 'going up' 'first floor, Ladies underwear etc'."