kickycan wrote:And probably to a lot of other people too. I remember when I went to Italy, they told us that if we wanted to tip, just to give a dollar or two as a kind of extra thank you, but tipping wasn't mandatory there either.
Here, we tip for EVERYTHING. Do you guys tip cab drivers, baggage handlers, delivery guys, movers, and sometimes even the guy behind the counter at the local hole-in-the-wall pizza place?
No!!!
You CAN tip a taxi driver if you want.
If I want something extra done, or the job has been awful, I will tip movers.
It would be fine to give a pizza delivery person a tip if you wanted to, but nothing is expected.
I found it a nightmare in the US, having to remember to tip all the time, not to mention doing the sums quickly.
I know we sometimes forgot, and sometimes over-tippped.
I remember (at the end of the trip when I was broke), when I was in the middle of working it out, suddenly having to go to the loo. I muttered something to my friend, and left.
When I came back to finish figgering, the waiter had been by, and simply scooped up the money.
My friend hadn't been sure what my intentions were, so she let it happen. (We were taking paying in turns, as I recall.)
I crossly (since money was way short) went and humiliated myself by re-claiming the money, then left a 10% tip, because I thought the waiter (who had been fine) had been out of line.
Afterwards, I figgered some more, and realized the poor fella had actually only scooped up the bill and a perfectly reasonable (for the states) tip, and I had under-tipped by a large amount!
I felt terrible, given the wages he was getting.
