You know who could rescue us from the derail? Double Down.

What part of that could possibly be considered wasteful? It's like a 23% tip or something.

Yes. I apologize for my participation.

I had never read Double Down for such a tease. Sad.

Check out the bayareabeast thread in OOT for a textbook example of rationalization of theft.

But DD is a server-zealot, so he'd likely dive right into this derail instead of giving us the goods. Like a bad server would give us stuff in the wrong order, ironically.

DD's dads airport water story had me in tears laughing as i was reading it

I was at the San Jose airport with someone and we only had ~30 minutes before the flight. Between the 2 of us we have access to most Airport clubs/lounges, but I couldn't find info easily about San Jose. So I said let's just grab a quick beer at a restaurant and pay for it. He said no way, if there is potential to get something for free. Rather than rush to do a 15 minute round trip walk to a lounge, that we may or may not have access to, I just went to a bar across from my gate. My beer cost $15, so he got the last laugh.

ha i'll win or lose thousands in poker but i love free airport lounges and there is no way in hell i'd pay for an airport beer

I'm mad i can't get into the amex lounge free anymore bc i canceled the platinum card but i loved it when i had it.

In the mind of someone bold enough to steal a tip from a server, probably any amount above a pittance is "wasteful."

Meh. 23% is generous, and to a 15% tipper, that's 15 extra dollars that's "wasted".

But he's just stealing the spotlight by teasing us.

Or is it not really stealing if he doesn't come back?

Don't want to get into a tipping derail but 23% is not overly generous. 15% tippers are only very narrowly better than 10% tippers.

Hard to imagine that a good post has ever started this way.

I got caught in LKJ's shadow and had to start hibernating to retain warmth. I will be making no more tipping related posts until I see sunlight again.

I said "generous" and not "overly generous". Standard is 15-20%, and anything over 20% is usually considered marginally generous. I would guess that most servers would be happy with 23%.

By my calculations, 15% is 5% more than 10%, and 50% more comparatively. That wasn't the point though. It was that, to a 15% tipper, or even more so to a stingy 10% tipper, a 23% tip would be generous and 15 extra dollars that's "wasted".

This is all a silly derail, but within it, we weren't looking at what you or I would consider generous or wasteful, but rather, what a stingy tipper or someone tight on funds would consider generous or wasteful.

HOLY **** STOP

I did a little arithmetic on a napkin and I came up with they are 50% better.

Too stingy to use a piece of paper you paid money for?

I paid for that napkin, it came with my dinner!

As people, not as a monetary function.

Back to my hole.

Sorry. I erroneously assumed that you meant a paper napkin like the common folk use.

If you paid for the dinner, it is your right to take the napkin home with you

And the extra ranch.

Is it stingy to ask for extra napkins and then
1. Honestly not use them but still take them home
2. Knowing you wont use them and specifically to take home

I saw a guy at an airport bar take his bill and put cash + change out next to it and then take a close up picture. Then he took back some of the cash, put it in his wallet, and left. I assume he was stealing a couple of bucks from his employer by claiming he left a larger tip and pocketing the difference.

On the same trip me and a co-worker both got a beer and a burger but were on separate checks and paid through one of those kiosk things. Neither one of us received the email receipt that usually comes right away, so we asked for paper receipts. The waitress accidentally gave me his receipt and he had tipped something like $1.23 on a $24 tab. Pretty cheap considering he was getting reimbursed from work.