Plan B Forum

I know we've had a couple of threads on tipping over the years, but a recent experience raised a question I think it worth discussing. My daughter recently got a tattoo and said she gave the tattoo artist a 20% tip; before she said this, I would never have thought you'd tip an artist (although I really haven't thought about it with regards to tattoos), but it made me question when a tip is due. Now I am separating tipping, which is expected as part of a person's compensation (like a waiter/ress, e.g.) from a gift or a expression of gratitude (like giving a Christmas present or gift certificate to a teacher, e.g.) or a bribe (like slipping the matre d' in a restaurant money for a good table). So the question is, who should get tipped?

My general rule of thumb is that you tip people who render personal service to you (like a waiter or hairdresser as opposed to, say, a counter clerk in a store), and that you generally tip people who perform a trade rather than a professional (so you would not tip your doctor or accountant), but this can raise questions. For example I would not go to a photographer or an artist and tip them for a photo/picture they made at my request because I consider them professionals; I might give a gift because I like it, but I would believe they are compensated for their time and the gift is not expected nor necessary. Indeed, I would think offering even a well-intended tip could be seen as in insult by some. Going back to the tattoo artists, I see them as artists and professionals as well, and would never have considered tipping them any more than photographers or other artists; I might even be hesitant to offer a tip because I would not want to insult them.

However, a google search reveals that they should be tipped. Now one can always look on the internet, but how do you decide when a tip is required (and by required I mean expected as it is a substantial portion of the person's compensation, and when it is not necessary?

and just to complicate it more, leaving aside the professional/tradesman divide, there are many skilled tradesmen that I generally think are not tipped, from the exterminator who treats your house periodically, to flight attendants, to the plumber, to your car mechanic, to the UPS or Fed Ex delivery guy, to the carpenter who installs your windows, to landscapers, to bus drivers... And there are some who generally are--from movers, to DJs, to uber and taxi drivers... How do you make that call. Generally, I try to limit it to close contact personal service (so I'd tip a taxi driver who takes me somewhere, but not a bus driver with 30 other passengers, or the movers who carry and place my furniture in my new home but not the Fed Ex driver who brings the package to my door, but it can get tricky as well.

Well, at least we've gotten past the old custom of tipping your executioner, as was the practice in Merrie Olde Englande back in the days of Henry the 8th.

... the execution of the Duke of Monmouth for high treason against the English Crown. Having mounted the scaffold on Tower Hill, Monmouth, "as was usual, gave the headsman some money, and then he begged him to have a care not to treat him so awkwardly as he [had recently done to one unfortunate] Lord Russell."

-"BB"-

Well, I guess that's more of a bribe to bet a clean cut than an actual tip.

Do you know if hangmen were tipped as well?

Tipping can be uncertain. I just rented a house and paid a cleaning fee. I thought I should tip but was told otherwise since we had paid a fee for that specific item. I don't tip for product, only service -- so with service counter tipping jars, if I am buying a grab-and-go product, I don't tip, but if someone is making something (sandwich, drink, etc.) then I would tip.

And how much tipping is appropriate in the states that have increased minimum wage on its way to $15/hr, and which applies to all workers even those regularly tipped? The hassle of figuring it out is enough to make you appreciate how most European countries figured it out (for the most part).

One thing is clear though:

Cow tipping... Fact or Fiction?

Start at 6:00 minutes in.

Bicycle Bill wrote:Well, at least we've gotten past the old custom of tipping your executioner, as was the practice in Merrie Olde Englande back in the days of Henry the 8th.

... the execution of the Duke of Monmouth for high treason against the English Crown. Having mounted the scaffold on Tower Hill, Monmouth, "as was usual, gave the headsman some money, and then he begged him to have a care not to treat him so awkwardly as he [had recently done to one unfortunate] Lord Russell."

-"BB"-

Wasn’t it Margret Pole, Henry the eight’s oldest victim , that was chopped to pieces even after she tipped the axe man.

Did he use a pole axe?

Big RR wrote:Well, I guess that's more of a bribe to bet a clean cut than an actual tip.

From the rest of the article:

No such luck for poor Monmouth. Eyewitness reports assure us that it took no fewer than five strokes with a blunt axe to have off with his head.

Maybe he didn't tip enough??

Truth of the matter, and gruesome as it may sound, most beheadings turned into butchery more because of a lack of experience than anything else.  Beheading was a relatively rare form of execution, even for crimes like high treason, and generally reserved for the nobility and royalty (think Catherine Howard, for example, or Anne Boleyn). Hanging was far more common, so a practiced headsman wasn't usually available and the hapless hangman was pressed into service to perform the task — with varying degrees of competency. In fact, for the execution of his queen, Anne Boleyn, Henry the 8th engaged the services of a skilled French headsman to spare his soon-to-be-late wife the embarrassment of a botched beheading.

It wasn't until a Frenchman named Guillotine invented his eponymous execution device in the 18th century that heads really started to roll.

-"BB"-

In fact, for the execution of his queen, Anne Boleyn, Henry the 8th engaged the services of a skilled French headsman to spare his soon-to-be-late wife the embarrassment of a botched beheading.

and that headman used a sword not an axe, as swords were used for beheading outside of England. If I'm not mistaken, using a sword the head was not cut off on a chopping block, but while the person knelt with their head up so the sword could cleave it).

As I recall from an account I read about Pole (who had the audacity to have a son who criticized Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn), she refused to place her head on the chopping block and the headsman chased her wound swinging the ax and hitting her 11 times before she succumbed (I don't even know if she was beheaded before she died, although I imagine she must have been afterwards and "traitors" heads hung on pikes near the tower).

From what it appears, beheading was a difficult task to learn, and it required good equipment as well (including a sharp ax--battleaxes were more used for clubbing ang crushing, and not the quick cleaving of a head or a limb). Of course, hanging wasn't much better; I don't think there was much understanding of the proper ropes and drops at the time to break the neck, and people often strangled to death over excruciating minutes at the end of the rope. Guillotine's device was actually much more merciful as it required little skill to assemble and use correctly.

Tipping is easy.

1. More is better.

2. When you're unsure, go ahead. If the recipient feels it is improper or undeserved they will say so.

yrs,
rubato

Big RR wrote:

As I recall from an account I read about Pole (who had the audacity to have a son who criticized Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn), she refused to place her head on the chopping block and the headsman chased her wound swinging the ax and hitting her 11 times before she succumbed (I don't even know if she was beheaded before she died, although I imagine she must have been afterwards and "traitors" heads hung on pikes near the tower).

Margret Pole spent her life trying to avoid a beheading. She was a young woman when her beloved younger brother was beheaded and she spent the rest of her life trying to avoid the same fate. He spent most of his childhood in the Tower of London waiting to be old enough to have his head cut off. Some historians claim that he was executed because of pressure from the king and Queen of Spain as part of the marriage arrangement for their daughter. But I think his real problem was he had the wrong last name. When he died the royal line of the Plantagenets died with him; Henry the VII would have killed him with or without the insistence of the Spanish.

We tip for good service provided, not to try to ensure it.