o yesterday was Mr Smaggle’s birthday and I thought I’d get all fancy pants on him and take him to a fine dining restaurant. You know the kind where there’s a $100 fee for the guy that delivered water from the Himalayas while riding a goat bareback, all the sauces are called ‘jus’ and they insist on getting you a clean glass for every new wine despite the fact that your wine drinking vessel of choice is usually the cleanest looking coffee mug at your best friend’s house.
I’m not very accustomed to the whole fine dining thing but it was such a pleasant evening, the food was great, the service was wonderful and if I ever get the hankering to drop a week’s rent on one meal again, I’ll certainly go back.
However when the bill came I got all confused about the tip situation. There’s always that pesky little space on the receipt that suggests that I should leave a tip and I can never figure out what to do. The decision stresses me out for a variety of reasons.
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1.I’ve just spent an obscene amount of money on dinner and dishing out extra money on top of that for good service feels like rewarding something that should be a basic expectation. As a consumer in a country with fair working conditions I’m just not convinced that this is necessary.
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2.Compared to most other countries we’re fairly well protected in Australia when it comes to fair pay and wages which is why everything is so expensive in general. It’s not like in the USA where the waiters live off tips because their pay is so terrible. We have things like penalty rates, overtime and minimum wage for a reason so it seems unnecessary to tip under these circumstances.
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3.People who work outside of the hospitality industry don’t get tips. When I was a teenager I worked in a newsagent and earned my $8.70 per hour which was the same as what my friend at Woolworths earned. Our mutual friend worked at a Lebanese restaurant and earned the same hourly rate but would sometimes end a shift with an extra $50 in her pocket. Which is great for her but it seems unfair when people who earn the same hourly rate cleaning toilets at shopping centres don’t get tips and they’re probably the ones that deserve the tips the most.
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4.Generally speaking, people who work in fine dining restaurants have a higher hourly rate because they’re trained in silver service and have to learn about the meals and accompanying wines. If I’m expected to tip anyone in Australia, I’d much rather tip the lovely girls at my local cheap Vietnamese takeaway who are probably working for peanuts at the family business rather than earning a higher than average hourly rate at a beautiful restaurant.
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5.I don’t know if a tip is expected in a fine dining restaurant. Do all the waiter’s roll their eyes and think I’m a tight arse when I leave? Or are tips just pleasant bonuses that occasionally happen?
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6.If I’m supposed to be tipping, how much should I tip? In the US 20 % of the bill is appropriate but dining in restaurants in Australia is ridiculously expensive compared to other countries in the world. 20% of last night’s bill was not an insignificant amount of money.
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7.Is it possible to tip too low? Popping an extra $10 or $20 on the table sometimes feels a bit lame. Is it better to not tip at all than to tip an insulting amount?
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I’m genuinely very curious about this because it causes me a lot of grief whenever I go to a semi-fancy restaurant.
What’s the general consensus on this? Does anyone else find tipping as stressful as I do?