Let me give you a little tip

This could be a bit of a touchy subject depending on what your line of work is, I don't mean to cause any offence but apologise if I do

In my job, if I help someone out, change their flat tyre for instance (to any members of management reading, clearly I've never done this, it's against procedure) then I would expect a thank you, that's just polite, and generally speaking that is the response I receive, a thanks for a job well done

If a police officer catches a robber that has stolen an old ladies handbag, as in physically pins him down in the street catches him, then he may get a round of applause, he'll certainly be thanked by the lady who's handbag he has retrieved and it won't look to shabby to his superiors

When a fireman puts out a fire, saves lives, even saves a cat from a tree....I guess eventually that job comes up, however stereotypical, I would imagine they get a similar response to that received by the police officer

So, the question I ask, is why do we feel obliged, or guilty if we don't, leave a tip for the person that takes a food order and delivers and collects plates from our table. There's no denying they are the backbone of the food and beverage business, a lifeline if you will, but it's not saving lives, it's not stopping criminals, no kittens are rescued between the kitchen and the restaurant.

Now I'm sure we've all heard the standard response 'they don't earn a lot, it's nice to give them a little extra for good service' but why? They earn at least minimum wage, as much as say a supermarket checkout operator and we don't tip them. My bin man has never failed to leave my bin empty, that's as good a job as he can do, and I've never tipped him

I went for a meal once, breakfast (not at Tiffany's') and at the end of the meal I think the bill was around £15. Myself and my dining partner, not my wife, a man, but not my boyfriend (he doesn't like cooked breakfast ;-) but seriously, we each only had a £10 note. Upon taking the money from us, the waitress asked 'do I need to get any change?'. This put us both in an uncomfortable position, with us both alternating between saying yes and no. Eventually we got our change and left a small tip, but we shouldn't be made to feel we have to

On another occasion, I went for a meal with around 15 friends, I think the bill was something around £300, but then the restaurant added on a 15% 'service charge'. I believe this is a standard practice for large groups, but why? We took up less space than 4 groups of 4 people, we certainly ate as much, but didn't create any additional work than 4 individual tables, so why penalise us for having a larger social circle

By all means, if you feel your service has gone beyond expectation or beyond what is required, leave a tip, but if you're feeling obligated to tip, just think about the police officer, the firefighter or the checkout operator and then decide....just how good was the service?

And on that cheery note, let me leave you with some pictures. Is it a human faced dog or a hairy boy?, a meal for the more upper class student and a breakfast with the least pleasing plate size to mushroom portion ratio

Bye bye for now