Non-motoring > Giving tips Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Crankcase Replies: 35
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 09:25 
 Giving tips - Crankcase
Having just been on a rare coach trip, I'd forgotten there seems to be a tradition that a little brown envelope comes round as you near your destination and the driver gets a nice little bonus. On a fifty seater, I guess most people give a quid, and if he's doing five days a week, that's what, nudging £1000 a month in little extras for basically doing his job. Do they only get paid minimum wage or something?

What's that all about? Why coach drivers and not bus drivers?

Come to that I tip a barber, a taxi driver or a waiter, although I don't know why - but nobody else I can think of immediately. Why not a garage attendant or a solicitor?
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 24 Sep 13 at 09:26
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 09:45 
 Giving tips - Zero
>>.Do they only get paid minimum
>> wage or something?

mostly.


>> Come to that I tip a barber, a taxi driver or a waiter, although I
>> don't know why - but nobody else I can think of immediately. Why not a
>> garage attendant or a solicitor?

Tips are only really given for personal service, so I guess the driver qualifies if he helps the olds up and down the steps, and he makes the day friendly and jolly.

I only ever tip in cash, I refuse to pay tips or service charges on credit cards, I am tipping the staff not the bleedin owner or tax man.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 09:51 
 Giving tips - L'escargot
I tip my hairdresser because she strokes my hair and makes me feel good.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 10:11 
 Giving tips - Clk Sec
>>I only ever tip in cash, I refuse to pay tips or service charges on credit cards, I am tipping the staff not the bleedin owner or tax man. <<

Same here, although I once left a generous tip in an expensive restaurant without realising that a service charge was included in the bill.

Too much bubbly that night.

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 Tue 24 Sep 13 10:13 
 Giving tips - Runfer D'Hills
We do quite a lot of mini trade exhibitions at large hotels. We might be in a function room for two or three days at a time and need stuff like coffees and sandwiches etc for trade customers on a regular basis. I learned long ago that you are wise to tip generously when you arrive if any staff member helps with the lifting and shifting part of set up. Word soon gets round the hotel that it's "worth" helping these guys !
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 10:20 
 Giving tips - BiggerBadderDave
"I tip my hairdresser because she strokes my hair and makes me feel good."

Here's a tip at the hairdressers. Rest your arms and hands around the outside of the arms of the chair. The hairdresser presses her groin against you she works on your coiffure. Makes me feel good too.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 10:57 
 Giving tips - L'escargot
>> Here's a tip at the hairdressers. Rest your arms and hands around the outside of
>> the arms of the chair. The hairdresser presses her groin against you she works on
>> your coiffure.

I used to do that but she said it prevented her from getting close enough to cut my hair.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Tue 24 Sep 13 at 10:58
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 18:59 
 Giving tips - PhilW
I used to do that but I'm not sure he appreciated it
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 11:13 
 Giving tips - Dog
I tip my barber too - myself! .. did it yesterday actually, like I have done for the last 15 years or so.

AND it shows!!
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 13:47 
 Giving tips - VxFan
>> I tip my barber poodle parlour ;)
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 13:52 
 Giving tips - Alanovich
>> >> I tip my barber poodle parlour French polisher ;)
>>

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 Tue 24 Sep 13 14:25 
 Giving tips - Armel Coussine
Does anyone agree with me that if the undertakers and sexton have so scrambled their communication that the coffin won't fit easily into the hole, the odd convention of a crackling handshake with the undertakers' honcho should be pointedly suspended? God knows they get paid enough for their often defective services.

I've been to at least two funerals where that happened, except the carphounds still got their bung. You wouldn't tip a waiter who poured your soup down your front and dropped your steak on the floor, then picked it up in his hand and wiped it on his trousers before putting it back on the plate, would you? So why bung an undertaker who drops one of your parents down a hole at an unseemly angle?

I reckon people are intimidated by the top hat. Perhaps I'll get one and see if people keep giving me £50 notes.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 10:10 
 Giving tips - VxFan
>> and if he's doing five days a week

Depends whether his driving hours allow him to drive that amount of time.

No problem whatsoever tipping coach drivers, providing we all arrive in one piece and not upsidedown in a ditch.

>> Why coach drivers and not bus drivers?

Bus drivers generally only take you a short distance, so it hardly seems worth it tipping them 5p.

If I get table service at a pub then I'll leave a tip. If I've got to get my own drinks, cutterly, etc, then they can go whistle for a tip. They won't get one from me. Likewise if they hover around the table every 5 mins asking if everything is ok they won't get one either. Sod off and let me enjoy my meal. If there's a problem I'll let you know.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 14:48 
 Giving tips - bathtub tom
When I was brought home on the back of a breakdown truck earlier this year, we invited the driver in for a cuppa. Thought he'd never leave!

Guess he was waiting around for a bung, but as I'd paid for a service he provided, that was it as far as I'm concerned.

I spent over forty years in service industries and apart from small gifts for going beyond the call of duty I never received anything.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 14:57 
 Giving tips - Roger.
I thoroughly disagree with tipping.
IMO an employer should pay his/her staff a wage which is right for the job.
Charges should reflect the proper cost of provision of the service.
The headline price shown should be the total cost of the service or goods, not artificially disguised by add-ons.
If tipping escalates any further we'll have airlines quoting prices and adding lots of extras to the price displayed..................oh hang on a minute!
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 15:38 
 Giving tips - Cliff Pope
There must be a grey line somewhere between tipping and bribery.
Bribery is I think illegal?
But if there is an understanding that if you get better service, you will pay, is that bribery? Or can bribery only occur if you pay in advance?
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 16:38 
 Giving tips - RattleandSmoke
Nobody seemed to tip the coach driver when I went to Spain and 2400 miles is a long trip :P.

I always tip my barber etc. I do usually tip taxi drivers unless they are miserable sods.

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 Tue 24 Sep 13 16:41 
 Giving tips - Clk Sec
>> Nobody seemed to tip the coach driver when I went to Spain and 2400 miles
>> is a long trip :P.

That's unusual.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 16:57 
 Giving tips - Zero
everyone was so bleedin knackered they forgot.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 17:13 
 Giving tips - RattleandSmoke
Probably people were just concerned with getting the luggage of the coach and the driver was just concerned with getting to the final destination as quickly as possible before both their final hours were up I would imagine.

The company had been fined £50,000 in the past for tachograph offences. How it now seems to work is that they have bottom end drivers in who drive it from southern France to Spain then a pair of drivers who stay on the coach from southern France all the way to the final destination in the UK. These then sleep on the coach (they have a proper sleeping cab).

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 Tue 24 Sep 13 17:15 
 Giving tips - Pat
>>The company had been fined £50,000 in the past for tachograph offences. <<

That wasn't a minor misdemeanour then.

Pat
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 17:28 
 Giving tips - RattleandSmoke
It seems they have been caught twice, once in 1990 for tachograph offences and once in 2008.

In 1990 one of the directors was actually jailed for the offence.

archive.commercialmotor.com/article/28th-june-1990/22/mrs-ferris-takes-over

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/coach-firm-ferris-holidays-ltd-2134272

Now this is not a fly by night company, they have been going since the 1970s and buy brand new coaches etc at a cost of £480,000 each.

What I was told is the offence related to drivers clocking off at service stops etc e.g pretending they are resting when actually they were refuelling and all the rest of it, e.g while not driving they were still working.

I didn't know of any of this when I travelled with them and my impression is it was a professional outfit.

That 1990 article is very interesting, as the coach drivers seemed to refer to Mr Ferris a few times when joking about the rules on-board.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 24 Sep 13 at 17:32
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 17:34 
 Giving tips - RattleandSmoke
More recent article here.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/drivers-worked-illegal-hours-coach-2086489
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 17:41 
 Giving tips - RattleandSmoke
More here, Ferris say it was more down to a lack of paper work rather than actually driving over the hours.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/coach-firm-facing-drivers-hours-2091802

All I know from my experience is it was a highly slick operation.

What is interesting is it says they send two drivers down, well now it is three drivers. The bottom end drivers obviously reduce the chance of the UK based drivers going over the hours in the first place.

Of course the offence of working while not driving was only a rumour and there is probably no truth in it.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 24 Sep 13 at 17:44
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 17:54 
 Giving tips - Dave_
About half the fares in my taxi gave a tip - usually between 50p-£1.50 to round the amount up to the next pound or so, and a fiver on airport runs.

When I delivered white goods (fridges / washing machines etc) and more recently beds and mattresses as part of a two-man team, many householders would have placed an even number of pound coins (usually 2 or 4) on the side in full view as we walked in. Those houses would always receive a slightly better, more careful service :)

In my current incarnation the only customers who tip are old money Bentley owners on the return of their Mulsanne or Arnage from a service. They do slip you a twenty though.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 18:51 
 Giving tips - No FM2R
I will happily give 0% tip if the service is below par and tell them why if they query it.

I will usually give something if the job is simply done pleasantly & satisfactorily - 10% to a waiter, round-up to a taxi driver, a drink to others, that sort of thing.

I am quite happy to tip the earth should the service provider be putting that level of effort in. The Manager of a restaurant and I do very well. I don't book, I get the best table available, I get the most competent staff available, he gets [quite] a few pesos.

The competent waiters try to serve at my table and work hard if they do. They get a few pesos as well. Or naff all if they don't try.

Works for me.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 18:54 
 Giving tips - Runfer D'Hills
I'll give you a tip, never complain in a restaurant until after you've had enough to eat...
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 19:04 
 Giving tips - Clk Sec
I never ever complain about restaurant food, and the very thought of sending anything back to the kitchen to be replaced horrifies me.

If I get a duff meal I'll tell them when I'm on the way out, and never return.

Worked in several kitchens when I were a lad.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 19:08 
 Giving tips - Runfer D'Hills
Aye...
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 20:20 
 Giving tips - Bromptonaut
>> I never ever complain about restaurant food, and the very thought of sending anything back
>> to the kitchen to be replaced horrifies me.
>>
>> If I get a duff meal I'll tell them when I'm on the way out,
>> and never return.
>>
>> Worked in several kitchens when I were a lad.

Depends why it's duff. It it's obviously undercooked then there shouldn't be a problem either way. If you're trying to mitigate for making wrong choice from menu then different rules apply.
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 Tue 24 Sep 13 20:32 
 Giving tips - Runfer D'Hills
You really don't want food you've complained about out of your sight if you plan on subsequently eating it or indeed ordering anything else in replacement...
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 Wed 25 Sep 13 07:01 
 Giving tips - Clk Sec
>>Depends why it's duff. It it's obviously undercooked then there shouldn't be a problem either way<<

Rather you than me.

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 Wed 25 Sep 13 07:59 
 Giving tips - Meldrew
I had to send a Sunday roast lunch back in a pub a few weeks ago. Had it knocked off the bill and went to another pub. If plate 1 of roast lamb was rubbish it wasn't likely that plate 2 would be any better/different. I send a pizza back last week, the base was too tough to cut, apologies and freshly cooked replacement, no problem.
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 Wed 25 Sep 13 09:09 
 Giving tips - legacylad
If Barratt Homes shares dip below £3.10 buy some
That's my tip for the day.
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 Wed 25 Sep 13 09:21 
 Giving tips - Ambo
>>>If Barratt Homes shares dip below £3.10 buy some
That's my tip for the day.

With a yield of 0.79%? I like the look of Man Group, with 15.74%. (Source, www. iii.com/).
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 Wed 25 Sep 13 09:13 
 Giving tips - Ambo
>>>freshly cooked replacement

In such a case, are you sure you didn't get some Chef's Special Spit as well?
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