I went to a Taco Bell the other day… ok there I said it, I went to Taco Bell and the funniest thing happened to me, no I didn’t get screwed in the drive through as Joe Pesci so eloquently put it. What happened was this: after placing my order I noticed a miniature trash receptacle on the counter; when I say miniature I mean it stood about 6 inches from top to bottom. There was a sign on the micro trash can that said if I made you smile please leave a tip. Oh give me a break! Is that what it’s come to now, you make me smile and I give you money, at a Taco Bell?

This whole tip thing has just gotten out of control. Now when you buy something to-go at a restaurant, there is actually a place on the bill to leave a tip, and the funny thing is I feel guilty if I don’t one. Why do we have to tip the person who just poured us a cup of coffee, or the person who reached in an open cabinet and simply placed a bagel in a brown paper bag? TIP means To Insure Proper service. You pouring me a cup of coffee is not TIP worthy. And if you think that pouring me a cup of coffee is tip worthy, please keep reading because I am about to blow the whole lid off this tipping deal. No pun intended.

For the record this is my second article addressing this tipping issue. It seems that everyone wants a tip these days. I am waiting for the day when I get stopped for speeding and after the officer issues me a ticket it will have a tip calculator attached. Ok maybe that’s a little extreme, but I think you get the point. Maybe there should be a code of ethics when it comes to when and when not to leave a tip. I just took a tip quiz on a website I found called expertrating.com and guess what, I failed. I thought I knew the rules of tipping, but now I have a better knowledge of who should get a tip and who should not. I’ll share some of the information I discovered.

First off the hotel concierge who makes your dinner reservation should get at least a five dollar tip. To all the hotel concierges I have short changed, I’m sorry. If you employ the service of a wine steward he should get, get this: 15% of the cost of the bottle of wine. The pizza delivery man gets no less than two dollars. But what about the person who shampoos your hair at the beauty salon? The correct answer is two dollars. While a flight attendant does not get a tip (I knew that) the cocktail waitress at a Vegas casino should get 1 to 2 dollars per round unless you hit the jackpot, then I might just be inclined to give a little bit more.

Now according to expertrating.com there are some big tipping rules that you might not be aware of, and I must admit some of these caught me by surprise. For example your personal trainer, once you reach your goal you are required to tip the trainer 60 to 100 dollars. Your housekeeper should get one week’s pay, but only around the holidays. If you get married you are required to tip your florist 15% of your total bill, which could be significant. Now get this, according to expertrating.com you have no obligation to tip anyone at Starbucks or for that matter any other coffee shop period, so save your money. If you have any more information regarding tipping rules please send them to me at sroberts at we8there dot com.