Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Nooze u can uze

And then there are the WaPo's tips on tipping. I did like this particular case:
Travelers who have forgotten much of an overseas trip still remember their tipping debacles. Lee Austin of Chapel Hill, N.C., recalls guessing at the appropriate tip in a Paris cafe shortly after arriving in France as a foreign student in 1947. She can still visualize the haughty look on the face of the waiter who returned her tip, saying, "You must need this, Mademoiselle, more than I do."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always meant to look for a little book that explains tipping to various people, but just haven't done it. I tend to overtip.

That can get expensive though. Every time we go to NYC and are figuring out how much money to take - I always think "tips!" -- Such a huge portion of the budget in that city.

I agree with $20 for the bottle of champagne. Wonder if the guy who pops the cork feels the same way?

helmut said...

I'd feel pretty good about receiving 20 bucks when I pop a cork on a bottle of champagne.

15-20% is the rule in the US. But in France, for example, waiters are often professionals who are paid a salary as opposed to the humiliating wages waiters in the US earn. French waiters don't live off of tips. US waiters do. The problem is that this is changing in other countries - that tips are now expected in some places they previously were not.

I think much of this has to do with Americans traveling abroad and tipping.