Adele recently amazed staff at a luxury restaurant abroad with a numerically appropriate tip of $2,020 (over £1,500) to see in the new year.
I was amazed too as the tip would’ve covered my entire annual food shopping bill.
In Britain, we are expected to tip people in catering/hospitality, cabbies and hairdressing industries.
I’m uncomfortable with tipping waiting staff because eatery owners should’ve accounted for their rental fees and the costs of buying, transporting and cooking the food and the wages of their staff to prepare, cook and serve it to you.
These overheads explain why a simple double sausage, egg and a handful of oven chips meal in a café can cost £6 when you know you can make likewise for far less. Personally, I believe the “convenience” of not having to remove the food from a packet, cook and wash up yourself isn’t worth an extra fiver.
The feeling that I’m already being overcharged whenever I eat out, makes me reluctant to pay anyone any more money just because they’re expectedly nice to me. They should be adequately paid by the owner.
Barbers are now cleverly costing some gents haircuts at £8 and, if you’re unprepared and hand over a tenner, you feel really bad saying: “take £9 and hand me back the other pound.”
You know a £2 tip is too much for 10 minutes work but reluctantly pay anyway because you’re also aware that trying to achieve something stylish with your own hair clipper set indoors, where you fumble around with clipper attachments; razor oil, a kitchen chair, 2 hand-held mirrors, scissors and a carpet of newspapers, whilst trying not to strangle yourself with the clipper cord is horrendous.
And why are No.1 haircuts £1 cheaper than numbers 2 and above? It’s only changing a razor attachment and the skill set is the same. It’s not less difficult. If anything, it’s cutting more hair so should cost more.
Avoid all cafes and demon barbers. That’s my 2020 tip.
Russ Writes 
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