Should/ Do you tip a hairdresser?

[Tiff]

Tipping is the cultural norm here, so I always do. About $5 or so, depending on how much work the hairdresser had to do.

I understand it may not be the cultural norm in other places and that's fine. I suspect I'll have some very surprised people if I ever travel to certain places! Its just as I do!

 

[AllyTiel]

Yes it's customary in the US to tip for restaurant service and salon services such as haircuts and manicures. I tip about 15% to the hairdresser. Usually more if my bill is around $13 which is how much a pay to get a usually cut here. I usually tip wait staff a bit more since I was a server a couple of years. I always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability but was appalled that some people especially foreigners did not think they should leave a tip. I made $2.13 an hour so the rest had to be made up with tips. We also had to tip out a percentage of our expected tip to the bartender and busboy so if someone had $100 check or even a $20 check and left me nothing, I had to pay out of my own pocket. Insane. I usually tip 20-40% for good service but terrible service (rude, never checks on us) even I can't bear to leave less than 10% even. I understand it's differ in different countries but in the US you are expected to tip those professions.

 

[AP]

I'm not sure how others work but at my Aunts salon the tips are put into a bowl and they're split between everyone at the end of the day, even when I worked there one day a week just sweeping up I still got a share of the tips.

I will never tip if I'm in an establishment where this is the set up. Sometimes I will tip the person who provided a service for me but never when someone that I probably didn't even see whilst I was there will be getting a cut of it. If I'm tipping my waiter/waitress I always make sure to ask that they get to keep their tips - if the answer is no, I don't tip or if there's a big bowl by the front door, I don't tip.

.

I would never leave a tip in that case either. I put a lot of effort into customer service whereas my colleagues were just lazy and couldnt be assed, I'd be well peeved if tips were shared! I might attempt to ensure the lass gets the money personally though.

 

[Kate&Lucas]

Yes it's customary in the US to tip for restaurant service and salon services such as haircuts and manicures. I tip about 15% to the hairdresser. Usually more if my bill is around $13 which is how much a pay to get a usually cut here. I usually tip wait staff a bit more since I was a server a couple of years. I always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability but was appalled that some people especially foreigners did not think they should leave a tip. I made $2.13 an hour so the rest had to be made up with tips. We also had to tip out a percentage of our expected tip to the bartender and busboy so if someone had $100 check or even a $20 check and left me nothing, I had to pay out of my own pocket. Insane. I usually tip 20-40% for good service but terrible service (rude, never checks on us) even I can't bear to leave less than 10% even. I understand it's differ in different countries but in the US you are expected to tip those professions.

Do you not think that's crazy though? That's the sort of thing that makes me begrudge tipping, it gives employers an excuse to pay less. There was a big to-do here a few years ago and now I don't think they're allowed to pay less than the minimum wage and top it up with tips. Though I know some restaurants where the establishment will keep the tips, they don't go to staff (I've been told a few times by wait staff not to leave tips because they won't receive them).

Why can we not just be more transparent and pay what we pay, it stresses me out

 

[misspriss]

Yes it's customary in the US to tip for restaurant service and salon services such as haircuts and manicures. I tip about 15% to the hairdresser. Usually more if my bill is around $13 which is how much a pay to get a usually cut here. I usually tip wait staff a bit more since I was a server a couple of years. I always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability but was appalled that some people especially foreigners did not think they should leave a tip. I made $2.13 an hour so the rest had to be made up with tips. We also had to tip out a percentage of our expected tip to the bartender and busboy so if someone had $100 check or even a $20 check and left me nothing, I had to pay out of my own pocket. Insane. I usually tip 20-40% for good service but terrible service (rude, never checks on us) even I can't bear to leave less than 10% even. I understand it's differ in different countries but in the US you are expected to tip those professions.

If you did not make minimum wage with your tips, your employer is required by law to make up the difference. So you didn't have to make up the rest with tips, if you didn't, your employer would. I assume they reported earnings and pay to the government like any legit employer should. If you weren't walking home with minimum wage in one way or another, you should report your employer.

I actually always felt for wait staff and thought "Oh how sad, they don't even make minimum wage!" until I read the law, and found out wait staff (and anyone else on the $2.13 wage) always go home with AT LEAST minimum wage, probably more, if not by tips their employer has to step in. Having worked for minimum wage myself in customer service (which is really what waiting tables is, customer service, it's not like you make the food!) I don't see why one class of minimum wage customer service workers get tips, and another class of minimum wage customer service workers don't.

As for hairdressers, I get the feeling there are many different levels of service people get from them. Last time I got my hair cut, it took less than 15 minutes and cost me $25. I got a wash, simply cut, and that is it. Since I wanted it curly, not even a blow dry, and no product.

 

[Tiff]

I wish we had laws like that here! Up here, you get about $5 less per hour than minimum wage. Unless your establishment doesn't serve alcohol. If it doesn't, then you get minimum wage.

I guess I see customer service differently. I'm in customer service now, and my work is FAR easier than what I did as a waitress. When I waitressed, it didn't matter if I worked 8 hours without a break, because the laws dictate that if its busy you can't sit down and have a break yourself. Not to mention lugging around all the plates, dealing with people who didn't like their food and completely grouch you out like you were the one making their food.

I didn't get stat holiday pay, I could've gone to the labour board about my boss but I needed the job. It was so close to where I lived and my boss was willing to work around my husband's rotating work schedule and we desperately needed the money. Tips are tough though, because they solely depend on your customers moods. I remember giving terrific service to people who didn't tip at all. Not much you can do, but it did suck ha ha.

That being said, I finally realized that waitressing is NOT for me. I love working with people, but in my customer service job I have now, I have a set time I start and get off. I get paid breaks and the work is not nearly as heavy and hard as when I was serving.

That's just me though. Not all waitressing places are like that of course. I've seen places where they do the communal tips, I'm not a fan of them either. Mainly because the hostesses don't make the same wage that the servers do, and I don't think that they should get a percentage of tips when all they did was seat me, and my server did the rest of the work.

 

[misspriss]

I wish we had laws like that here! Up here, you get about $5 less per hour than minimum wage. Unless your establishment doesn't serve alcohol. If it doesn't, then you get minimum wage.

I guess I see customer service differently. I'm in customer service now, and my work is FAR easier than what I did as a waitress. When I waitressed, it didn't matter if I worked 8 hours without a break, because the laws dictate that if its busy you can't sit down and have a break yourself. Not to mention lugging around all the plates, dealing with people who didn't like their food and completely grouch you out like you were the one making their food.

I didn't get stat holiday pay, I could've gone to the labour board about my boss but I needed the job. It was so close to where I lived and my boss was willing to work around my husband's rotating work schedule and we desperately needed the money. Tips are tough though, because they solely depend on your customers moods. I remember giving terrific service to people who didn't tip at all. Not much you can do, but it did suck ha ha.

That being said, I finally realized that waitressing is NOT for me. I love working with people, but in my customer service job I have now, I have a set time I start and get off. I get paid breaks and the work is not nearly as heavy and hard as when I was serving.

That's just me though. Not all waitressing places are like that of course. I've seen places where they do the communal tips, I'm not a fan of them either. Mainly because the hostesses don't make the same wage that the servers do, and I don't think that they should get a percentage of tips when all they did was seat me, and my server did the rest of the work.

Yeah I guess we do, "Customer Service" is a pretty broad brush. I've worked in customer service for years, and some of it is way easier than others.

Maybe it's because I've never been a waitress, but around here I see my wait person when they take my drink order, they come back with drinks and take my food order, more often than not SOMEONE ELSE brings my food, they check on me once, and then come back with the bill/process it. I don't feel that I get a lot of service out of the situation, at least, not to warrant any more pay than anyone else in the room.

I have worked at a restaurant, and the wait staff spent just as much time hanging around doing nothing that the hostesses did and the bartender (me). It was not a super busy place though. But people even tipped the hostesses, who literally did almost nothing all day.

 

[Tiff]

It definitely depends on your server, that's for sure! I always chatted with my customers, would bring them refills when I noticed that their drinks were getting low (before they had to ask for them), recommended stuff that I liked on the menu, listened to their stories (some fun, some inane), entertain their kiddos if they were getting bored with waiting for their food. It can be very fun! But you can get people who are just miserable and feel like you are dirt beneath their toes too. Win some, lose some?

That would bug me too though, I've never agreed with the communal tipping. I've waitressed in a few different places, from 'Mom and Pop' restaurants to big chains. The Mom and Pop ones I find are the crappier places to work at times. It was those ones where I didn't get stat pay, they forced me to work holidays, I had to help with food prep and do the dishes as well.

Bigger chains were different. I was a server and nothing more, I'd bring the dirty plates to the kitchen but there was a bus boy who would put them through the dishwasher and then put them away.

I remember at the Mom and Pop one I was at, another server and I shared a table as it was large. She took one half, I took the other. When we had to put our orders through to the kitchen, we printed off what we needed and then put the chits on the hanging thingy (sorry! I don't know what its called) from right to left. On the left side were the orders that had been there the longest, so made first if that makes sense.

The other server messed up and put hers on the right side rather than the left. I put mine on the left so her side of the table got their food immediately, where mine had to wait for another half hour or so. They were PISSED. I figured I had messed up somehow as the other waitress was more experienced than I was at the time and told her that instead of splitting the tip for the table she could keep hers and I'd keep mine. I reasoned it wasn't fair for her to miss out on tips because my side was obviously angry.

Anyhoo, Doesn't my boss bring us BOTH out to the table and proceed to SCREAM at us in front of our customers. It was humiliating. He was livid that she would get her food before me and I guess wanted to "make it clear" to the customers that he doesn't fool around with making sure his customers are taken care of.

I was so upset. Again, at this point it was still assumed that I was the one who messed up. It finally came out that the other server was the one who messed up, but my boss didn't care and continuted to blast me for it.

It didn't work out for either of them though. I was pissed that the other server didn't own up to making the mistake and continued to let me take the brunt for it. Our table was mortified that we got reamed out in front of them. Her side of the table tipped normally, my side tipped above and beyond because they were so upset with how I was treated.

They also told me they'd never come back to that place again. I don't get why bosses feel that its okay to yell and scream at people. I've had more do that than not.

 

[Bex84]

I don't go to restaurants or get hair cut often and as said before I don't particularly tip. I think the other thing to consider is most people make less as apprentices or training for a job. I worked as a waitress and got minimum wage and I also trained for EYPS and teaching. Both of these I was in work placement. My EYPS I got less than minimum by quite a bit for the work I actually did for nursery and when did teaching qualification I took out a student loan, and I had a large work load. It was part of getting to where you needed to go, when I was at university I went to a careers talk where we were told if you wanted to work in human rights for aid agencies you would be doing unpaid internships, any job where you need training you most likely had a period of not getting much money

 

[Rhi_Rhi1]

No, I never tip. I wouldn't dream of paying someone EXTRA just to do their job.

 

[Tasha]

It is interesting to read how different it is every where. In the UK there isn't a different minimum wage (except under 18's get one, under 20's another and then over 21's) for waiting etc, so it means that many are on minimum wage like waiting, retail, my husband was as a cabinet maker at one point and things like health care assistants who probably don't get breaks, work long hours, get shouted etc are on minimum wage, so I guess that is why people don't tend to tip.

Also atomic pink, it is more regulated now for apprentices, there is an minimum wage for them (albeit stupidly low) but that is only if you are only 19 or in your first year other wise it is normal minimum wage. I remember that my brothers garage (huge national company) got in trouble with HMRC because they continued to pay him really low after the one year.

 

[MrsBandEgglet]

I ate out in Harvester yesterday and my husband left a fiver tip on a £22 bill but I think it's cos he fancied our waitress lol and she was really chatty with the kids.

 

[Midnight_Fairy]

lol chellie!

I never do

 

[Caite]

I always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability but was appalled that some people especially foreigners did not think they should leave a tip. I made $2.13 an hour so the rest had to be made up with tips...I usually tip 20-40% for good service but terrible service (rude, never checks on us) even I can't bear to leave less than 10% even. I understand it's differ in different countries but in the US you are expected to tip those professions.

I think it is wrong that a tip is expected that much that when one isn't left it appals people (not a personal comment against you, Ally). When I was a student nurse, I was on a measly bursary, yet I too always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability. I never, ever got a tip and wouldn't have expected or accepted one if I had been offered.

I also hate when waiters and waitresses constantly come round and ask if everything is ok. If something were not ok, I would have said something to someone, and probably sent my food back to the kitchen. I don't like waiters and waitresses recommending the food - they're hardly going to say it's horrible, and they probably like different things to me.

 

[Tiff]

I always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability but was appalled that some people especially foreigners did not think they should leave a tip. I made $2.13 an hour so the rest had to be made up with tips...I usually tip 20-40% for good service but terrible service (rude, never checks on us) even I can't bear to leave less than 10% even. I understand it's differ in different countries but in the US you are expected to tip those professions.

I think it is wrong that a tip is expected that much that when one isn't left it appals people (not a personal comment against you, Ally). When I was a student nurse, I was on a measly bursary, yet I too always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability. I never, ever got a tip and wouldn't have expected or accepted one if I had been offered.

I also hate when waiters and waitresses constantly come round and ask if everything is ok. If something were not ok, I would have said something to someone, and probably sent my food back to the kitchen. I don't like waiters and waitresses recommending the food - they're hardly going to say it's horrible, and they probably like different things to me.

Oh, I'd say if something wasn't good. We had a few items on the menu that would constantly be returned, if a customer were asking for them I would mention it for sure!

I agree too, tips should never be expected. It sucks when you don't get them, but you can't help that. Also, at times I had to remember that not all people who are eating out have lots of money. People pay what they can, if they want.

 

[AllyTiel]

Yes it's customary in the US to tip for restaurant service and salon services such as haircuts and manicures. I tip about 15% to the hairdresser. Usually more if my bill is around $13 which is how much a pay to get a usually cut here. I usually tip wait staff a bit more since I was a server a couple of years. I always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability but was appalled that some people especially foreigners did not think they should leave a tip. I made $2.13 an hour so the rest had to be made up with tips. We also had to tip out a percentage of our expected tip to the bartender and busboy so if someone had $100 check or even a $20 check and left me nothing, I had to pay out of my own pocket. Insane. I usually tip 20-40% for good service but terrible service (rude, never checks on us) even I can't bear to leave less than 10% even. I understand it's differ in different countries but in the US you are expected to tip those professions.

Do you not think that's crazy though? That's the sort of thing that makes me begrudge tipping, it gives employers an excuse to pay less. There was a big to-do here a few years ago and now I don't think they're allowed to pay less than the minimum wage and top it up with tips. Though I know some restaurants where the establishment will keep the tips, they don't go to staff (I've been told a few times by wait staff not to leave tips because they won't receive them).

Why can we not just be more transparent and pay what we pay, it stresses me out

Whether you disagree with the practice or not, no one should take it out on the sever just because they don't agree with the restaurant business model in the US. I Don't mind being paid that way, as long as everyone at least tips 15%. If the restaurant owners were paying their servers a full wage, you would end up paying more than your meal plus the tip just in the higher food prices. I worked for a large chain so there was nothing shady like the employer keeping our tips. We took home our tips every night.

 

[AllyTiel]

I always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability but was appalled that some people especially foreigners did not think they should leave a tip. I made $2.13 an hour so the rest had to be made up with tips...I usually tip 20-40% for good service but terrible service (rude, never checks on us) even I can't bear to leave less than 10% even. I understand it's differ in different countries but in the US you are expected to tip those professions.

I think it is wrong that a tip is expected that much that when one isn't left it appals people (not a personal comment against you, Ally). When I was a student nurse, I was on a measly bursary, yet I too always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability. I never, ever got a tip and wouldn't have expected or accepted one if I had been offered.

I also hate when waiters and waitresses constantly come round and ask if everything is ok. If something were not ok, I would have said something to someone, and probably sent my food back to the kitchen. I don't like waiters and waitresses recommending the food - they're hardly going to say it's horrible, and they probably like different things to me.

Well you are in the UK where the tipping practices are different . In the US, our culture is a tipping culture for restaurant service. I hate when people try to excuse not tipping just because their job they had they didn't get tips. In the US, it's not wrong to expect a tip because that's how things work here. Since you live in the UK this doesn't apply to you, unless you visit the US. Then you are expected to use American customs.

Also, at my restaurant, we were forced to go over he specials and give a tour of the menu and if a manager caught us not doing it, we got busted. None of us liked doing it, but it wasn't a choice we had.

 

[AllyTiel]

Yes it's customary in the US to tip for restaurant service and salon services such as haircuts and manicures. I tip about 15% to the hairdresser. Usually more if my bill is around $13 which is how much a pay to get a usually cut here. I usually tip wait staff a bit more since I was a server a couple of years. I always gave friendly, prompt service and worked to the best of my ability but was appalled that some people especially foreigners did not think they should leave a tip. I made $2.13 an hour so the rest had to be made up with tips. We also had to tip out a percentage of our expected tip to the bartender and busboy so if someone had $100 check or even a $20 check and left me nothing, I had to pay out of my own pocket. Insane. I usually tip 20-40% for good service but terrible service (rude, never checks on us) even I can't bear to leave less than 10% even. I understand it's differ in different countries but in the US you are expected to tip those professions.

If you did not make minimum wage with your tips, your employer is required by law to make up the difference. So you didn't have to make up the rest with tips, if you didn't, your employer would. I assume they reported earnings and pay to the government like any legit employer should. If you weren't walking home with minimum wage in one way or another, you should report your employer.

I actually always felt for wait staff and thought "Oh how sad, they don't even make minimum wage!" until I read the law, and found out wait staff (and anyone else on the $2.13 wage) always go home with AT LEAST minimum wage, probably more, if not by tips their employer has to step in. Having worked for minimum wage myself in customer service (which is really what waiting tables is, customer service, it's not like you make the food!) I don't see why one class of minimum wage customer service workers get tips, and another class of minimum wage customer service workers don't.

As for hairdressers, I get the feeling there are many different levels of service people get from them. Last time I got my hair cut, it took less than 15 minutes and cost me $25. I got a wash, simply cut, and that is it. Since I wanted it curly, not even a blow dry, and no product.

Actually that was only if we didn't make minimum wage over he entire week combined, but I often went home from a lunch shift with only $6 if we were slow...

 

[Tiff]

I completely get that its hard for some people to understand it if it isn't the culture where they live. It gets discouraging to read people being so negative about it though. If I can accept that is the culture somewhere else to not do it, its not asking a whole lot to hope that others would do the same, right?

That being said, I don't feel that tourists from a different area should be expected to assimilate. I would still tip if I went to the UK as that's how I'm used to things working. I wouldn't just because that isn't the cultural norm. I hope that makes sense, I'm not trying to be argumentative.

 

[Bex84]

If i was in america where is cultural norm i would tip for the uk no i would not and thats when i have worked as a waitress