Human Shield

[An Haddock]

Reminds me of a scene in Trading Places:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av_vcjD2h2g


"Maybe I'll go to the movies... BY MYSELF."

[vikingchyk]

This might just be me, but -- when I was a waiter, I felt worse about getting a shitty tip than no tip at all. To me, "no tip" normally means "cheapskate," while an insultingly small tip means "I remembered to tip you, you just suck!" -- I tend to do the same when I go out, tho I have very, very seldom been in a situation where I would do the mini-tip.

Were you ever the victim of the passive-aggressive shitty tip? Where it was a shitty tip (like a quarter) under a full, inverted glass of water?

One of my relatives would do that - I think she learned it from her asshole boyfriend. I hated going out to eat with them

[Jester]

I had a group of teenagers once leave SEVEN inverted glasses of water on the table for me. Even though I was a teenager myself at the time, I hated teenagers like that.

[Racket_Man]

Out of curiosity, since I'm not from the states myself, does anyone know if the line "If the driver can be here within <not-asswipeish> minutes, I'll give them <insert generous tip here>" and actually KEEPING their word actually works? Sure, it's bribing to an extent, but it's an opportunity for the driver to earn a nice tip for a relatively short job. Win-win.

(for example if they ordered something like $30 in pizzas, needing them in a hurry and offered a $10 tip - effectively a 33% tip)

In MY experience this is just a "pickup" line to get the order there faster. The "payoff" ie. the supposed generous tip, does NOT appear most of the time and the driver leaves the customers location VERY disappointed and bitter.

[sms001]

the supposed generous tip, does NOT appear most of the time

Ditto that, although the one or two exceptions were pretty nice.

Kagato - except in very large towns, about all a delivery person can do to expedite is move you to the top of a particular run, which usually means fifteen to twenty minutes, tops. If we have a good relationship with the kitchen, it's sometimes possible to get an order made out of turn, which helps more, but then I feel obligated to cut them in on that "generous" tip, which starts to water it down...

Thing to remember is that the people wanting this special snowflake status usually aren't OMGmusthavepizzabeforeIdie! hungry, they've usually messed up on their timing for something and are trying to buy their way out of it. We've seen enough of that type in different incarnations here at CS to know what kind of person they probably are.

[Kagato]

I realise that some people can be prats and stiff people on the tip, I was just curious if such things worked if someone was genuinely in a situation where they needed it in a hurry (like for example if another place left them hanging and they had to do a rush order from another place), whether offering a bigger tip might have made them more willing to help them. Like I said in my previous post, I was largely curious, due to the fact that we do not tip in NZ, with minimum wage being $14.25 an hour.

[downforit2008]

Reminds me of a scene in Trading Places:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av_vcjD2h2g


"Maybe I'll go to the movies... BY MYSELF."

Just more proof that rich people pay really shitty to their employees.

"We seem to be paying our employees an AWFUL lot of money."

"Yes...can't get around the ole' minimum wage, Mr. Duke!"

And then that piss-poor excuse for a "tip", which was even pathetically low back in 1983 when the movie was made.

"I bet you thought I forgot your Christmas bonus!" *rich guy hands over a bill to his black employee(I mention black because the rich brothers seemed to really think negatively about black people in general)

"5 dollars. Maybe I'll go to the movies...by myself."

"Half of it is from ME." the other brother says smugly.

"Thank you, Mr. Duke." the employee does a good job of keeping a straight face through all this.

Makes me wonder what they pay him in regular wages.

[Jarlaxle]

I used to work as a pizza driver. I found it funny that the fancier the house I delivered to, the more likely I was to get stiffed OR to get a bigger tip. If the house was cheap or in general disrepair, I could almost guarantee a small tip. It was a gamble sometimes: Do I try my luck at getting a big tip on Ritzy Boulevard, or do I play it safe and get a dollar or two on Cheap Duplex Drive?

Also had the tip-from-the-kid thing before. I agree that it was cute, but that never made up for a miniscule tip. One dollar on a $70 order is insulting. And speaking of insulting, I actually had a lady write out a $75 check for a $74.95 order and tell me, as if she was doing me a huge favor, "That extra nickel is for you. You can keep that." And this after I had trudged up her steep, muddy driveway, carrying her pile of pizzas, and almost slipped and fell at least twice.

But the kids can be fun. One kid handed me a bag of his Easter candy when his mom told me that she didn't have enough cash for a "proper" tip. One little girl "tipped" me with a handful of dandelions. One kid rushed out to greet me as I got out of the car said, "I can't give you a tip, but I can help!" as he proceeded to carry the soda bottle and open doors for me. They can be fun at times...

I once had a guy offer me a hit off his bong as a tip. I declined. Yes, he was a regular.

Another time, I left my door open (I was balancing 3 pizzas and a bag of subs), brought everything inside, got paid...and discovered the dude's dog in my car!

[Jarlaxle]

Thank you - and others like you - for accepting/acknowledging that those of us who are poor sometimes just do the best we can. (Though this is part of why we rarely order delivery.)

Extreme weather we don't order delivery. If it's too bad for us to go out to get food, it's too bad for us to ask someone else to bring it to us.

By all means, order! I made my best tips in snowstorms. (I was able to borrow a Plymouth Trailduster with tire chains.) I worked in a huge blizzard...the city actually closed the streets. After sending pizzas, soda, and offers of free coffee to the police and DPW garage, not only were we not bothered, but a DPW dump truck cleared a spot for us to park!

[ADeMartino]

In MY experience this is just a "pickup" line to get the order there faster. The "payoff" ie. the supposed generous tip, does NOT appear most of the time and the driver leaves the customers location VERY disappointed and bitter.

Concur. I've seldom had anybody keep their word on such a promise. In fact, such 'promises' usually resulted in NO TIP AT ALL.

But that was okay. Once they played THAT game, they were forever on my shit list. I didn't care if I had to drive by their house five times during a multi-order run, they would be THE very last delivery I'd make on that run. AND I was pretty good about 'spreading the word' about liars like that.

[Jester]

I once had a guy offer me a hit off his bong as a tip.

It's not a regular thing, but I've had people offer me weed or other extracurriculars as a tip enough times where I've lost count.

And just because it seems to have been a while since anyone did this, a customer asked me just yesterday if I knew where he could get some weed. I gave him my standard deflective (and true) answer: "Sorry, I can't help you there...I'm just a drunk!"

[Kagato]

On my recent trip to the states I think I was pretty decent about tipping - we ordered delivery a few times while we were there and based the tip off how accurate they were with delivery (Almost every time they said 30 minutes)

Early delivery (before the 30 minute estimate): 15%-20% tip (Basically somewhere between $3-$4 tip, tailored so that I would only get notes as change, I wanted to carry as little coinage as possible)
Slightly Late delivery (30-45 minutes): 10% tip (Not going to punish the driver for a delay that might have been the restaurants fault)
Very late delivery (45+ minutes) $1 tip if I was still in a decent mood, no tip if grumpy.

Every single order made it early, so we were quite happy - also second time we ordered from the same place, we got the same driver, who I'm guessing must have floored it to get there, since the food was still piping hot, almost fresh from the oven

[BlaqueKatt]

By all means, order! I made my best tips in snowstorms.

The times I ordered during snowstorms, I always asked if the drivers were wiling first(I usually lived in weird places.) if they were, I usually "guilt tipped" $10-$20 depending on how bad it was. Wisconsin usually didn't shut down in inclement weather, and drivers almost always had very reliable vehicles(one I knew had a BMW station wagon just for a delivery vehicle)

[dalesys]

...Another time, I left my door open (I was balancing 3 pizzas and a bag of subs), brought everything inside, got paid...and discovered the dude's dog in my car!

Thissa car a-smells like-a piece-a heaven, where good dogs go.

[LillFilly]

My housemate just quit delivering for block-with-dots pizza. First he was hired and told a different amount for mileage than they ended up paying him, he would get stiffed on a tip at a good 70% of the houses, he had to stay at the shop until it was cleaned and closed and one manager managed to take 3 HOURS after close to be finished and let everyone leave, and then two fellow drivers got robbed at gunpoint within a week...that was the last straw!