I'm sorry , I'm reading this thread and all I can think about is Cow tipping!

and i think I've just randomly given someone Karma , by way of an inadvertant mouse click.

is it time to go home yet?

I've been googling around and it says almost everywhere that you should tip 20% for a massage at a spa. Well, I'm planning to get a $169 massage and there's no way I'm going to leave a $35 tip. That just feels way too much. I was thinking more around $20 and that's probably what I'll do.

In your case, I'd probably see how much the most expensive treatment is that you're going to have, and give 12-15% of that.

I get my little bit of hair cut at Marvel Beauty School for $9.50 and give the student a $2 tip. At the noodle house where we go for lunch often, dinner for 2 is around $16 - $17 and we always leave a toonie. If we have a larger party or order some side dishes we'll leave a larger percentage. I won't go to the trendy pubs where the server automatically takes a dollar for serving a $4 beer.

My tipping policy

17% at the local - cos they're boss
$10 at the hairdresser for the shampooer - nothing for the hairdresser as he owns the place
$5 at the eyebrow place
Round up tip or 10% to the taxi driver
15% - 20% for other eating out occcaisions, but most often 15%

I hate tipping almost as much as I hate HST

Which reminds me of a recent quandry. We ordered a pizza a couple of weeks ago that had a guarenteed 40 min delivery window or free. It arrived after 3/4 hour, so I refused to pay. Other half thinks I was being too Yorkshire. What does everyone else think?

As an "innocent foreigner" just starting out here I see no harm in being blunt with someone at a spa and saying "look, whats normal for tipping in this situation?"

They may try and pull a fast one on you and say 30%, but most people I suspect are inherently decent and are happy to try and explain things to a newcomer to their country...

I would not pay for the pizza but would offer the deliverer a tip. I used to set the stove timer and delight if it buzzed before the pizza guy arrived. Usually the deliverer would refuse the tip, very often spitting at me or on the floor. One went completely beserk, he opened the pizza box and threw the content face down on the rug. Indian food is safer to have delivered.

I wouldn't order from them again if I were you.

OMG! Mr Prettyflowers said that the delivery guy would have to pay for the delivery out of his wages, which made me feel pretty bad. But on the other hand, they do advertise that on their site. Normally I wouldn't have bothered, but this was the third time that the delivery had arrived outside of that 40 min window, and I was in a bad mood. Good idea about giving the driver a tip though. I'll remember that for the next time.

I wish we had an option of food being delivered to the door All I ever get is the dogs left overs of local wildlife!

Anybody remember the Dominoes policy years ago 30 minutes or its free.
Well guess what happened some delivery driver in the US was rushing to deliver within the 30 minutes and ended up killing someone in a fatal vehicle accident. Thats why they dont do it anymore.
Any food joint that offers this is being reckless IMO.

I just do not understand why Canadians feel the need to give so much money away. Baffles me why they have this culture.

Im sure it baffles Canadians that the british are so tightfisted and dont seem to acknowledge the fact that tipping jobs are poorly paid on the grounds that tips will make up a large proportion of the persons total income.


Its their culture, and we should observe it if we are going to choose to live here.

On the reverse, it feels weird when you go to a country that tipping is not common.

I don't know. My wife understands my views. Even some Canadian friends to an extent. I accept the culture but it makes it no less baffling.

What is tight fisted about a price being displayed and paying for the product and service as quoted?

My son works as a head bar tender - he is lucky that the hourly rate he gets is the standard minimum wage and not the minimum wage for servers -which in Ontario is $8.90 an hour.

Bearing in mind that servers don't generally get minimum guaranteed hours - or if they do it is normally 3 - they have to heavily rely on the tips they receive in order to pay their bills.

If your main job is in the service industry and you get 4-5 shifts a week consisting of anything between 3 and 8 hours it doesn't add up to much! If the restaurant or bar isn't busy, you get cut - you go home having earned perhaps $35 gross.

The majority of restaurants and bars require their serving staff to pay a percentage to the house for distribution to non-tipped staff (kitchen, cooks, dishwashers, busboys etc.) - this is not generally a percentage of their tips, it is a percentage of the amount of the bills! Consequently, if they don't receive a tip from a customer or a very small one, they can actually be out of pocket.

Perhaps the people who don't want to put their hands in their pockets to tip the staff should consider that in doing so, they are actually costing that server money.