💸 Ask Tip! — "Daybreak in Daytona"
A point-of-sale register installer gets the better of the donut shop workers who are getting the better of the graveyard shift workers. (4 min)
“Daybreak in Daytona”
Dear Tippi,
I work behind the counter in a donut shop. The owner is flat out broke with the opening of her 12th store. So our team pooled our savings and purchased a flippable point-of-sale register for the shop.
The other stores in our strip mall have been recommending this for months. Employees that invest in point-of-sale registers for their employers can see their take home go from $11 an hour to over $100 an hour (if they work during the graveyard “donut” shift.)
This morning the installer came. At first, we loved him. He urged us to “go big” setting the default tip amounts. “10%, 15%, 20% are not for donut shops,” he explained. “You should be thinking 30%, 40% and 50%. Donut eaters will pay whatever you put in front of them,” he advised. “You need to set the opening bid aggressively. It’s your flash bomb. You want your customers to have trouble operating their fingers.”
But then he sprung it on us:
When he was done with the install, he pulled out his own iPad for us to pay him. On the screen there were three tip amounts: 80%, 90% and 100%. I was frozen, and he kept smiling at me like his mouth was frozen. I was in a horror film.
I tapped and tapped at the Custom button but it seemed to have been turned off. I had to pick 80%, but now I feel like maybe I should have tipped more. How much should I tip a point-of-sale installer?
What does bother me a tiny bit was we gave him a free coffee, and he didn’t leave anything in our tip jar, even though he turned the can around to read our “help us pay for college” message (that we made up.)
Help!
Daybreak in Daytona
Cher Daybreak in Daytona,
Do you remember his name par hazard? Was it Herbert? Tall with red hair and a bald spot? He was premier de sa classe at the Daytona Training for the 4th Annual Square Point-of-Sale Conference.
It was your mention of the “flash bomb.” Yes, I am sure this was Herbert. I wasn’t sure if I was teaching the seminar or he was!
(Je plaisante. C'est clair pour moi.)
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” There is no equivalent expression for this in French (we do not give each other horses or look in their mouths). But mon Herbert was worth ten times what you gave him. If your friends at the strip mall had Herbert configuring their systems, they would be reporting 400% - 500% improvement in their take home.
Herbert instincts were impeccable. He showed the Daytona class how to remove the automatic decimal point from the custom entry amount. Even a “round up” tip of seventeen cents can be worth $17. “Nobody checks their credit card statements anymore,” he shared.
I was in awe. This is why I teach. “That giants would stand on my shoulders.” I believe this is the expression.
In short, Il t'adorait, sauf que he removed the decimal point from his own point-of-sale register. Vraiment, you should vérifier. In which case, you may have tipped him between $90 and $120. But you can still recoup this in a morning or two of donuts. (There is, merci dieu infiniment, no word for donuts en français.)
Mais…
None of this matters because you haven’t mastered the fundamental rule of tipping.
Principe #1
If you aren’t ready to tip $0, then you aren’t ready for advice on tipping.
You have déjà perdu la guerre. You think you are Verdun in February, 1916, and you are Paris in May, 1940. I cannot be your Normandy in June, 1944.
Whether you tip 10% or 80% at the point-of-sale, it hardly matters. Until you are ready to tip rien, you are the man weeping on the side of the Champs Elysee.
Dans votre cas, the challenge, Daytona, is to lead others around by the nose more than they lead you around by the nose.
And writing “help us pay for college” in Sharpie! Oooh-la-la, mon brave petit. You are leading yourself around par le nez.
For this I cannot help you, mon Moscou en Décembre, 1812.
Votre maîtresse et servante,
Tippi “Tip” Pointier
Le Verdict:
You accidentally did not give enough. You “stiffed him.” Quelle expression repugnante!
Il n'est toujours pas trop tard. You will find my Venmo account directly below, mon cher.
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Professional advice on the etiquette of tipping is in a state of rapid and unpredictable change. Our answers may change over time to address evolving circumstances and point-of-sale technology.
💸 Ask Tip! — "Furious on the 4th Floor"
“Furious on the 4th Floor” Dear Tippi, I live in a four-story walkup on the Lower East Side. Last week I was having my refrigerator replaced, and two men from the box store came to carry my new refrigerator up to my top floor apartment. The younger man forgot to bring the dolly so they were forced to carry it by hand. Then the older man wanted to cancel b…
Madame Pointier,
As a military historian (MA, King's College London, 1985; PhD, Scottish Center for War Studies, 1991) I spend a considerable amount of time in freshmen seminars, at cocktail parties and – though the frequency of invitations I’ve received to them has unaccountably diminished over the years – at tailgate parties correcting common mistakes in the use of the Great War battles as metaphors for conflicts between, say, dormitory alliances regarding shower time limitation agreements, faculty disputes vis a vis parking privileges or the “ground game” in American “football”. You will therefore understand and forgive, I hope, that your subtle but distinct reference (at least for scholars such as myself) to that topsy zigzag plaything of fate – one general Philippe (“the Lion of Verdun”) Petain – awoke in me an instant wariness. You might even say it awoke a suspicion, if you will forgive me, that you might be playing fast and loose with matters of great geopolitical seriousness. It is the solemn duty of a scholar to stand watch over the debasement of history and to correct misstatements of fact and inference wherever and whenever they appear, to provide critical context where it is missing, and when the opportunity presents itself, to add the zest and colour of essential historical facts from the humble compendium of military details I carry everywhere in my head. I accept this responsibility despite the friendships it has soured and the awkwardness of inserting myself into conversations overheard on the trolley because, as you will doubtless again agree, someone must speak up for the dead. It is not easy. I cannot count the number of times that I – a British subject! – have been accused of humourlessness, a charge that, in all earnestness, quite baffles me. Still, I soldier on, an often lonely guardian against the casually mis-applied military metaphor.
But where were we? I seem to have strayed. Ah – Mr. Daytona of the coffee and confectionery shop. Before proposing a modest improvement and several small corrections to your otherwise commendably ambitious use of history by a layperson, may I just write that I noticed how you skillfully avoided choosing between “Mr. Daytona” and “Miss Daytona” in your rather Continental reply to the troubled youth? While the French seem quite comfortable tossing out “Cher Daytona” and “mon Herbert” and even “Votre maîtresse et servant” as if they were shell casings at Iwo Jima we British simply do not speak like this. Without the protection of these blandishments I must poke my head above the parapet, so to speak, and commit to “Mr” or “Miss”. After long consideration I have settled on “Mr. Daytona” because, despite the leaning to the feminine usage “we loved [the installer]” and the evidently flirtatious “It’s your flash bomb” (even men named Herbert don’t usually talk to one another like that) or the less than manly admission that “I was frozen… I was in a horror film” I conclude that “Daybreak in Daytona” is a masculine figure. I rely here on the professorial instinct honed from my long study of correspondence between separated bunkmates serving in Horatio Nelson’s Royal British Navy. At first glance those old letters seem so feminine the perfume practically rises off the page. However the absence of actual women in Her Majesty’s 18th century navy is a matter of near historical certainty. Quod erat demonstrandum: “Daybreak in Daytona” is a “he”. It’s a pity that those in positions of power and influence do not more assiduously consult the true scholars amongst us. Sometimes the truth is the exact opposite of what’s perfectly obvious to everyone else. It takes an advanced degree to see that.
I really must conclude. I have papers to grade. So, Mr. Daytona, here is my military analogy: don’t imagine yourself as some exhausted foot soldier tromping through the mud while Herbert the Installer grins at you like a Cheshire Cat hovering in the trees. Instead, summon up the scene in The Deer Hunter where the prisoner of war is compelled by his captors to shoot a revolver at his own head and about eight jailors are all pointing their rifles at him so there’s no monkey business. That’s more true to the feeling you get when the cashier spins the little screen around to face you. You could put down $0 most of the time and nothing happens – click – click – click – but you’re never sure, are you? That’s why it’s such an exciting game. Anyway, what did the captive do in The Deer Hunter? It’s a Hollywood movie so I don’t actually remember, but the analogy still holds. Basically, don’t pull the trigger. In short, follow Tippi Pointier’s excellent advice and always be ready to tip $0. Her advice is correct but dragging General Petain into the picture just confuses things. Stick with “The Deer Hunter” to really grasp the spirit of the situation and you'll be fine.
I'm not 1000% sure what Tip's advice ultimately was, but I'm certain it was correct. Have I ever mentioned I took French 1 four times? Part of why I love Tippi so much is that she speaks to me at my level, that quantum continuum between dingdong and mastermind that goes undecided until someone is looking. She is, how do you say? Parfait - a delicious dessert.