This is a blog post on why tipping is bad. It should stir the pot of debate to help either myself or others understand things better.

It came to my great surprise to have some what of an arguement recently on wether tipping is expected or not in Australia. My belief and up bringing was that tipping is 100% foreign to Australian restaurants and the service industry. It is never ever expected. Providing a tip in a restaurant would place one in the upper class rich society… not somewhere I would have ever expected to find myself.

I’ve been living in Germany the past 2.5 years and have therefore adjusted quite well to the tipping culture. The concept I believe is quite simple. Tip up to 10% if you believe the service was good. Tip more than 10% if you’re drunk with satisfaction. In reality, this usually means rounding up to a nice number. Eg, dinner charge was 26€ then round up to 28€ if everything was ok/satisfactory. Round up to 30€ if you were absolutely delighted. If it was 17.60€, paying 20 would be absolutely fine if you were satisfied or delighted. This is due to the low numbers. Tipping only becomes a bit of a brain drain when the prices get higher. Paying for a 155€ meal/drinks/party could mean paying a total of 170€ or simply 160€ depending on your feelings. The tip difference is then rather larger than normal and weighs down a bit on ones conscious. Will they give me a bad look? Should I tip more? Did they go the extra effort to change my order heaps or bring complimentary drinks? The nice thing I’ve experienced so far however is that every tip, no matter how large or small is always received with appreciation. The standard approach is always a “Thank you very much, have a nice evening” (or “Dankeschön, schönen Abend noch”).

So I’ve been living in a country where tips are expected and gratefully appreciated. I believe I’ve mastered this quite well. Sometimes I do rethink things and wonder why on earth I’m paying so much for stuff. It feels often like just another tax one must pay besides the already included 19% luxury/service tax and 7% standard/basic foods tax. I should point out at this point that students or “poor looking” people are not expected to pay a tip. A student might pay for a 17.60 meal 17.60 or 18 euro in total. This usually depends on what’s in their pocket and if they like carrying coins or not.

For me, there have only really been 2 confusing scenarios that I’ve experienced and still don’t quite understand in Germany. One does not tip when visiting the local canteen or the German “mensa” (quick/simple/cheap mass produced food of ok quality). There are various people involved in cooking and serving, but one would never pay a tip. The other confusing but perhaps similar scenario is when one must pay for the meal before receiving anything. This happened to me and some friends at a busy ski restaurant. Although a tip was expected, I had received nothing. How does one tip up to 10% based on nothing? The result of the sitting meant speculation on why the meals took so long. Perhaps if we had tipped more we would have got at least our drinks faster? If the other 2 tipped and I didn’t, would that mean I screwed up the tipping/motivational plans because drinks/food are normally served all at once?

There are some very simple points as to why people are either pro or against the concept of tipping:

- pro: encourages better service and the desire to go the extra step for customers.

- pro: waiters/waitresses have generally low salaries, tipping makes the job worth while and helps out students and those in need to live their lives as independents.

- pro: speeds up payment processes as coins are hardly ever in play.

- against: why doesn’t the DJ get tipped for their music? Why not the chef? Why is the tip for some in some industries and not in others? Should tips only ever be salary based?

- against: it’s just another tax, why not include the amount in the food/drinks and pay staff better?

- against: one can’t claim the payment of a tip for tax purposes.

- against: even people that look well off might still need the money… think of the transition from living at home to moving out, mothers and families, freelancers with no projects or retirement funds. Not tipping in this regard can be seen as somewhat rude and often guilts those into giving… especially in front of friends.

I do believe that the pros listed above are highly valuable. Particularly to a German culture that has a very poor history of quality service. I think my strongest gripe is that the tipping process is so exclusive. I work in the service industry and yet I don’t receive a tip. Is it just because I charge a seemingly high rate that my services are not worth tipping for? Do my clients understand how my charges are broken down into retirement funds, health insurance, taxes, family accounts and so on? Probably not. At this point, it might be worth asking what the difference between a bonus and a tip is.

As I understand it, a bonus is a reward for achieving certain goals. In my case it could be time, functional or sales/income based. Would I receive a bonus if I threw in a few extra features for a project? No. Only if it was pre-arranged and agreed upon. Would I receive a tip? No (it’s not tax deductible). The best I could hope for is that the client continues to work with me in the future and recommend me to others. This is perfectly fine for me. There are millions of shit house web developers out there. Self taught know-it-alls who build swiss cheese solutions. In my industry, providing trust/confidence and education and transparency are my biggest selling points. Especially when the client can’t tell the difference between swiss cheese and a high quality, sustainable result (due to lack of technical understanding). I digress..

So both a bonus and a tip have the same incentives: go the extra step to provide a higher quality service and therefore greater customer satisfaction. One however is professionally calculated and managed, the other is more of an overall feeling. Would it be worth while to formally plan a tip with a waitress?

Dans satisfaction requirements:

- Menues provided on arrival (waited FOR EVER, no, yes)

- Complimentary water provided (no, yes, quickly)

- A suggestion/recommendation was provided (no, bad one, good one, consulted with others)

- Specials and soup of the day etc. were explained (no, yes, with detail and style)

- Food served within 20 mins of ordering (way too long, no, yes, incredibly fast)

- Tasty (yuck, no, yes, incredible!)

- Filling (nope, some, yes, too much)

- Healthy (could kill me, no way, no, maybe, yes, very)

- Extra smile, joke, good vibes provided (I feel bad, no, yes, brilliant)

- Payment of bill was made easy (split bill etc.) (took too long, no, yes, perfect)

- Overall pricing seemed fair (dreamers, no, fair, bargain)

You can probably see that a pre-arranged tip system wouldn’t really work. Some would say that I should be happy the food arrives and I can eat it. Satisfying this criteria is an instant 5% and up tip.

Leaving the tip criteria aside, what about salaries. How on earth do people know what the salaries for a given waiter/waitress in a given restaurant are? I don’t see people asking this question. I don’t see it advertised. What would be a fair wage? Can they tell me all the other perks they get like flexible working hours, free meals and discount drinks? Would a waiter in an expensive restaurant get a higher wage and more perks? Does this mean I should tip less? No, in fact, the theory goes that rich people eat in rich restaurants and therefore should tip ‘richly’ regardless of server salary.

It just doesn’t make any sense!

Does a tip have to involve cash? If the waiter/waitress provides me with a good experience, is it not possible that I can do the same? Is it not more worthwhile to them that they can enjoy their day stress free and therefore their job? I have worked in the restaurant/service industry. I sucked. I learnt quickly that a forced smile was required and I had to be nice to people. At this time in my life, I failed miserably and was fired. It was a tough realisation that people and staff are sometimes worth more than customers/cash. I later took on an HR role which helped me greatly understand people/training/service and the whole being nice thing. I totally understand the difficulties involved in the restaurant industry and dealing with humans. I chose more development based work over design based because of these experiences… People/customers/clients drive us all nuts.

I honestly believe that it is possible to show your appreciation and provide something of use to the restaurant/staff in non-cash ways. I can recommend the restaurant, sincerely thank the person serving, send compliments to the chef, make a suggestion on the food/entertainment/furniture, or perhaps even simply come back and eat there again. Wouldn’t this be the normal thing to do? Wouldn’t the staff and restaurant benefit from these things?

What about de-tipping? The ability to underpay for a service instead of killing someone? Have you ever had the feeling the person you just spoke to in customer support was an absolute prick/bastard/bitch/incompetent fool? If not, please call Deutsche Telekom (t-online/mobile) or some other massive industry/business that doesn’t know anything about customer service. The concept of not-tipping or tipping 0.00 doesn’t quite cut it for me. “I hated their service so I won’t give them extra money”… lame. It should be “Here’s my list of demands to improve your disgusting service. I can’t believe you guys exist! I’ll be paying 20€ instead of 25€ because I don’t believe it was worth it”. Just so we’re clear, I am actually a nice person. I just can’t believe what large corporations can get away with these days. This is why I normally work only for startups and small businesses.

Does a tip have to be service based? Can it be product based? If I was happy with a piece of software that out performed it’s competitors and exceeded my expectations, couldn’t I praise the developers and managers? Of course I could and I have. Money doesn’t need to be involved here, why should it be then in the (restaurant/hospitality restricted) service industry?

In summary, we should just offer better means for positive experiences and useful feedback and remove the monetary tip concept. If people took the effort to actually speak up and not be shy about providing some useful feedback, we’d all greatly benefit much more than simply throwing money at people. Don’t be afraid to tell people what’s good and what’s not. Word of mouth marketing is fantastic. There’s nothing better than getting a restaurant recommendation from a friend or having a good laugh with the waiter/waitress/bar staff. Pay staff in these so called poor industries what they’re worth and praise those products or services that you like.

I’ve whipped up a quick 4 question survey based on this post to help get an idea of peoples thoughts and opinions. You can join in or simply check out the results.

Some of the best…
(some photos from Karl and some altered by me)

It was nice and warm on the climb up, but the top was a little windy.
And as one would expect, you never really can get away from the Germans and their love of the Alps. Just when you think your are more than 10,000 Km from the father land, you meet 2 German girls right at the top!

The terrain is of course much different that most bush/mountainous areas. The Grampians has many rocky areas that make it unique in my mind.
Note to self: find more rocky hiking areas.

Scenic driving shot (taken by Anja)

We stopped on the way back at the Tangled Maze where we got lost, played mini-golf and a quick game of chess.

It took me a while, but I’ve finally found some time to let you know what Anja and I did on our trip around Australia.
Our trip focused on Melbourne, Brisbane and Cairns during May 2010 (28/4/2010 -> 26/5/2010). I’m blogging about our first stop here and will blog more about the others later.

Melbourne (12 days)

Melbourne was our ‘catch up with friends’ part of our journey. The mornings were late starts and the nights went long with the never ending dinners and games. Many thanks to those that were able to make time and catch up. Sorry to all those who I left out this time round, I hope to see you on my next trip!

I love the skyline that Melbourne has. By far it’s one of the varied city skylines I have seen around the world.

A more typical shot of Melbourne below with the Flinders Street train station, St Paul’s cathedral and the Yarra river (taken from Southbank).

We stopped by the Vic Market on our first day so that I could brag about differences b/w DE and AU markets/food. I have spent many years shopping at the Vic, often coming back with about 15Kgs of stuff on my back as I ride back home or to a train station.

Behold our latest discovery… it looks like something straight out of Dr Who with all the bad/old school monster costume design and tacky aliens, but it’s actually just a lemon. This was found near the Organic (auf Deutsche ‘Bio’) area.

Dancing was a must for us. For those that don’t know, Melbourne has the biggest Swing dancing scene outside of the US. Swing Patrol are massive and so if you’re living in Melbourne, I would definitely check it out! There is something on every night for all levels and the odd competition or ball for the more ‘spectator’ type people.

Fun pit was our first stop where the teacher (Brad) was in shock to see me.. It’s good to see a few familiar faces…. ..Daniel! You’re back… I thought you were in Germany… Leon also happened to turn up later which totally surprised me and the others when he gave me a hug.

North Melbourne feels like my birth place for Swing Dancing.. I know that I was really born into Swing dancing at (the now extinct) CBD, but North Melbourne is where I was raised and found my Swing. The dancers are great and the teachers (Shob & Andy) really make the place alive with good spirits, bad/funny jokes and great technical insight into fixing my dancing.

Below are images from the paintball birthday event which Viesha organised. This place in Dingley was one of the best paintball places I have played because of the field design/setup. Unfortunately, Anja hurt her knee while ducking for cover on the bridge (last photo) because there was a brick exposed and yet hidden at the same time in the ground. Luckily, that didn’t really affect the rest of the trip, however it was sore for at least 3 weeks.

My favourite moment is when I ‘killed’ like 10 people all lined up like sitting ducks on the ‘barrels course’. All I did was run up straight along side their defensive stretch and shot like I had infinite ammo. I think they thought it was: A) impossible that I was there, B) that I was on their side and C) the thought “what is going on and why am I in pain… where am I being shot from”. I have to say, it was a little too much fun. Adrenaline overload.

One of my favourite stops for sight seeing are the bells of St Paul’s and St Pat’s cathedral. I’m not religious, but I have a great fascination for the ringing and the technical skill and challenge that is involved in Bellringing. I think it’s sharing this with others that really leaves an impression in people’s minds. I’m not going to explain Bellringing in detail, but basically: it’s not typical music, bells are not instruments that are easy to stop/control, the weight of a bell can be compared to that of a small car, there is a conductor for the band, it can take months to learn the physical skill safely and properly, the mental ability is far, far more complex and difficult than the physical (methods, peals, touches etc.) and you can’t do it anywhere you hear bells (one requires full circle ringable bells set up for ‘english’ style change ringing). You can find more about Bellringing on the change ringing wiki

Below: My mum on the treble, the band at St Pat’s.

Above: St Pat’s Cathedral Melbourne, St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne

Below: St Paul’s Bells (4 of 13.. there are two 2s for different keys)

Probably the most memorable experience would be feeding the Sulphur-crested cockatoos and rosellas down at Mt Dandenong. Anja had up to 4 cockatoos on and hanging off her at one point. They landed on our shoulders, our hands and climbed all over us. It was actually a lot of fun! A bit scary at first, but the birds are civil. If you happen to have a fear of birds, or have seen to much Hitchcock, then I wouldn’t recommend this.

Lunch at the botanical gardens. It was fairly short lived once the rain that came however it was one of our few rainy days on our trip, so not so bad in the end.

There was also a few special dinners and parties, but this post is already too long. Check out my next post on the Grampians for the complete Melbourne trip!

About this photo.
This is a collection of images I have taken using my iphone and borrowed from the friendly digital world.

‘Before a few’ (top down):
——————-
The festival parade representing the beer produces and the like responsible for the event.
Thousands upon thousands of stores sell heart shaped gingerbread biscuits for friends, to eat or to give to a potential date.
Horses carry many carts containing barrels of beer.
A man on the train kind enough to let me take a photo of him.
Pushing the beer barrels onto the carts.
The traditional first tap of the beer keg to officially start the beer flowing for the event. Often done by a famous person or the major (in this case).
Traditional footwear for the lads and paraders.
One of the many theme park style rides available for the not so drunk and kids.

During a few (top down):
——————-
The many dressed up girls of which many wear their expensive dirndls.
One of the bands that was on break and decided to get up on the tables and chuck in a few songs. Each tent has a few bands that play constantly throughout the day and night with songs perfect to sing a long to, both old and new.
My ‘bretzel’ (similar to pretzel) that was helping me drink the 2 Mass (1 L beers) that I had on the day (the whole chicken also helped).
Some of the food that the many waitresses carried throughout the tents. Most trays had up to 8 meals on them!
A traditional ‘Prost’ or cheers.

After a LOT (top down)
——————-
The lights of the rides and tents at night.
The drinking games?
Pissoir = Pissing wall
The not so traditional dresses (it says in lip stick ‘I fcuked Jack’).
The many drunk lads that are happy to sleep against a wall or in the park (see below)
The packed tents and ‘beer participants’ happy to sing, dance, prost and all while standing on the tables!
Me.. wondering if I’ll make it. (FYI I did and even went swing dancing afterwards!…. but I couldn’t have done it without the chicken!)

The following are photos from the “für reinhard schulz” concert in München.

The music was not exactly to my taste. I found it rather angry, depressed and scary. The first 2 tracks seemed like they fell off the end of an x-files soundtrack because they were too scary!

My girlfriend was highly engaged throughout the first 3 songs… She said that she could feel almost every note in her teeth.

In my wildest nightmares I never though I would hear a piece with a clarinet that involved loud breathing in and out of a clarinet (titled: 32 breathes). It was something like Darth Vadar on a good day… You know, like if he worked out at a gym for a few days and stopped smoking.

Anjas father (Robert Delanoff) is a very talented composer and in all honesty, happened to have the best piece played on the day. Unlike the others which went down some kind of spooky, dark and depressing path, his actually came back out and into the light which gave it a nice contrast b/w the two.

So now I’ve had my share of exotic German musical culture… I’m glad that box is ticked.

Somedays (most) one feels like they are not lucky and nothing exciting and special will happen today. 11/3/2010 was a different day for me. It was lucky from the moment I left the house and my train pulled up as if it was just for me.

When I met Anja in the city for lunch, the question was where? Beautiful sun beaming through the winter cold but ice cold winds making the idea a pipedream. Out of shear luck, we headed down a street looking at cafes we didn’t even think existed and found one with a free table at the back. One free table! One next to the window with the entire sun beaming through! Needless to say, superb toasted sandwiches, exotic drinks and great service.

My next stroke of luck involved finding a German learning magazine in the main train station (of which countless hours can be lost looking for the right exit alone). Found it with no problems but the cashier insisted I only gave him 6€ and not 7€. In my best deutsch I stood my ground and after a minute of pointless argument I saved my self from being ripped off like a foreigner. Despite him wanting to count the till and show me the security footage.

On these days of luck, one must ask him self… “how much is a Lotto ticket in Germany?”
Considering that my luck might be changing or had already ran out, I spent 4€ on a ticket (choose 6 out of 49 times 5 ). I should have been charged 5€ but was only charged 4€.

Two days later, I won just over 11€ for having 3 numbers correct. This value was also slightly higher than the expected average winning (for matching 3 numbers).

All and all, a day to remember and a day to document. For all those who seem to have a bad string of luck, just remember that tomorrow is another day… and it’s got to be somewhat lucky for someone right?

Something for the travelers out there from the land of Oz.. I found the most common questions to be asked were:
“How big is Melbourne and what is the population of Australia?”

After being asked these kind of questions like 12 times, I decided to look it up.
FYI
Munich = ~1.3 Million
Syd = ~4.8 Million
Melb = ~4.3 Million

DE = ~ 84 Million
Aust = ~ 24 Million

So one can say that Melbourne is almost 4 times bigger than Munich (even if it doesn’t seem like it).
Sydney and Melbourne are the 2 biggest cities in Oz… almost the same size (people don’t get that Melbourne could be as big as Sydney because most know Sydney).
Germany has almost 4 times the population of Australia.
Germany is about the same size as Victoria.

All this came in incredibly handy when I was quizzed (at my DE school) on it for a Christmas chocolate prize. The poor American that had lived in Munich over a year guessed 1 Million but it was 1.3 that got the goods!

Finding out the population of Australia and therefore Munich really paid off….  those many little chocolates didn’t make it back from Egypt.

The process of being allowed to pay taxes in Germany is surprising difficult. I was not able to invoice properly until I was given a Steuernummer (tax number). The process involved many calls back and forth between the Finanzamt (tax dept.) and the kind colleagues willing to put up with them.
When the letter final came telling me how and when to pay taxes, I was so happy it was all fixed. I’d never been so happy to have the ability to pay taxes before!

(this was in Nov/Dec after applying start of Oct)

Another interesting verb in German:

Ich soll vs Ich solte (points out motivation)

“Ich soll”
Implies someone has told me I should.. (motivation from others)

“Ich sollte”
Implies I should because I must (and is a motivation from the self)

“Ich sollte mich gesunde ernähren”.
I should eat healthier (because I know this to be true)

“Ich soll mit dem Rauchen aufhören” (someone who has been told to stop smoking but doesn’t believe it or want to)
“Ich sollte mit dem Rauchen aufhören” (someone who believes they should stop smoking)

The tricky thing then is to also understand when to use müssen (must) and dürfen (may).

“Ich darf nicht mehr eis essen”
(I am not allowed to eat more ice cream = Someone has told me I can’t eat more ice cream)
(dürfen is used more for warnings, restrictions, signage etc.)

“Ich muss nicht in die Schule gehen”
(I must not go in the school = I don’t have to go to school)

Note that müssen = must and the German opposite is ‘don’t have to’. But the English ‘must’ = ‘have to’ and the opposite is ‘must not’ = ‘must not do xyz’ (which is actually still a must but the verb is not negated, only the object/subject to which the verb is with).

So much learning and practice ahead!

Seems like everyone has left me!
It’s either they don’t like me, or the staff don’t like working at Student Flights Collingwood.

Basically, everyone that has done some small favour for me has left the job which makes it impossible to plan things. Also, none of their “I no longer work here” reply emails actually offer another email address to use. And the website itself doesn’t offer an alternative email address either!

Chris booked everything with me before I left
(Chris left in Nov?)
Dave helped postpone my return flight
(Dave left in Dec?)
Lily gave a quote for flights return to AU
(She left in Jan?)
Natalie is on leave
(She didn’t return my email when she got back anyway…. maybe she quit)
I called up and got a new Dave who was just a temp working till Weds
Dave gave me a contact to email… The best bit was the google response:
————-
Karen topacio email account is rejecting gmail. [studentsflights.com.au (1): Connection refused]

Technical details of temporary failure:
The recipient server did not accept our requests to connect. Learn more at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=7720
————-

So after all is done, it’s really a comedic experience to try and get anything done with this Mob. If they should happen to come across this post, then I hope they learn something about customer satisfaction and service.. otherwise there’s no need for these middle man travel agency people. AVOID THEM and just plan trips yourself!