Tipping

I've done a little research for my trip to Montreal to try to find out the local customs. It seems they have tipping, just like the USA. (Except in the US there's a little more discretion ie 10-20% is recommended whereas in Quebec, because the tax is 14.5%, everyone equals the tax, I'm told.) It reminded me of just how unnatural I find it to give extra money on top of the charge. Of course I do it, but it's a matter of When in Rome. Most of the time it's not hard to remember but the other day I ate at a restaurant where we had to pay up at the counter, only after I paid did I realise that the tip was meant to be left on the table. (I went back to the table and left one.)

It's this fact that you're paying the waiter, separately from paying the establishment made me wonder if it's the process of having to evaluate the service that makes it feel weird to me, or just the fact that it's cash being thrown around none too discreetly. I think it's both. You don't need to be a militant unionist to feel that wages should be negotiated between the employee and employer, without the customer being involved. (Government regulation of minimum wages is different, because they're already involved with taxation etc. But I have heard that in the USA, waitstaff are not entitled to minimum wage because tipping is so entrenched!)

But I've also come to realise that, apart from this argument against it, I do have a cultural prejudice against filthy lucre. I assume it's a Britishism that Australians don't traditionally give cash as gifts. I know this is changing, and I suspect it's got something to do with immigration from Mediterranean countries (Asian cultures don't have a problem with cash either, especially with Chinese New Year, but their influence on Australian culture has come far later). I know I'm slightly more etiquette concious than other people my age but I don't think this is a rule-based objection, I just find it unseemly.

The thing that I find surprising is when at weddings Anglo-Celtic couples decide that they'd prefer cash and explicitly ask for it! A few years ago my friend Sara got married and sent with the invitation a little poem asking for cash. I got this mental picture of her leaving the reception in a wedding dress but, instead of a veil, wearing a bank-robber's mask and carrying sacks marked with dollar-signs! So that's what I gave her, a big sack of 20c coins marked with dollar signs!

Addendum 2006/6/8:
I accidentally offended a waitress last night.

I was out with friends from school and after dinner we went to a little cafe for dessert. (The strawberry cheesecake was excellent!) When the bill came I put down a note that was just over what I owed and then, instead of carefully equalling the tax, I put a bunch of coins on top that would have been a decent tip. As we were leaving the waitress plucked out all the pennies and handed them back to me saying, "I don't need these"!! I was too taken aback to say anything at all.

I remembered that, in the US at least, one can insult a waitress by leaving a tip of exactly two cents but I'd left more than that. Could it be the mere presence of copper coins that someone would find insulting? Sounds petty, as though they're not deemed legal tender! After a while I remembered when my family was in San Francisco back in '92 and my sister was giving change to a bum and he did the exact same thing as this Montreal waitress. (Thereby refuting the old adage!)

I felt really bad about it at first when I thought that I'd committed some sort of faux pas but the money was legal tender so they have no right to object. And, most importantly, I'm under no obligation to give them anything. There's no pleasing some people!