Yeah, and what's even scarier is that it's in family medicine and I'll finish my residency this September. I'll then be ready to start practising the medicinz on unsuspecting Canadian patients.

If the intent was to impress me you failed but at least now I understand why you are concerned about tipping -- if I spent that much on school to then face a life of poverty I'd be stingy as well.

I don't think you understand what "nightly" means.

Lulz, family doctors are near the top of solicited physicians atm. If money is your primary concern you can go to remote regions that give you incentives to practice there on top of either having a basic salary or fee for service, meaning you can make 400k+ a year if you work big hours and see a lot of patients, which is much more than most specialists.

We have socialized medicine -- I know what OHIP pays -- it is on their website. I can't speak for other provinces but realistically they should be close with Quebec being lower if I remember correctly. So at least in Ontario you'll never make $400k even if you choose to go work in the freezing hell of the north. Not to mention because of the yearly cap it would be impossible (once you consider overhead) to make even $300k if you worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week. There is a news story about how little family doctors makes pretty much every few months. Are you sure you are actually in medical school?

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Other words too like socialism but I'll let others handle those.

Ontario and Quebec pay the lowest if you choose to work in a larger city. Remote region != freezing north. I will practice somewhere in the maritimes, which have plenty of remote places that I can pick from if I want, with all of them offering incentives, so it is very much possible to make 400k+ with fee for service, in fact even with a basic salary few make under 250k in smaller cities.

Legislation.

LOL, it was just a matter of time.

Funny ideas : in socialism is waiter as good as everybody, engineer, clerk, garbage man, he has pretension to dignified incomes and living standards as everybody.
In restaurants in socialistic Czechoslovakia was inscriptions on walls : " No offend us with tipping".
In theory at least. Never was true. Some of waiters was far richer than average in real socialism in east and middle Europe thanks to tips and stealing.

A question from a Euro tard:

Has the standard tipping percentage always been 20% in the USA?

There's obviously a follow-up question because I have a feeling that the standard hasn't always been 20%.

Have the prices in restaurants etc. not followed the inflation in other areas? Or is it simply a better deal to be a tipped employee than it was 10 or 20 years ago?

Anyone care to offer an opinion on that?

On topic:

You're not expected to tip anywhere in Denmark besides in casinos. Not even taxi drivers expect tips. Some people still tip by leaving change though, but it's not really a Danish custom to tip. However, if you're a tourist in Denmark the service staff would probably expect you to tip because that's what most tourists do.
We do tip when we're travelling though, because we think that every country but Denmark have a custom of tipping.

Tipping is ****ing ******ed. I can't think of a single good reason to give anyone extra money for doing what they are already getting paid to do. I do however tip all the time, and quite generously I might add, but only because I don't want people to think less of me.

Also, I want to meet the idiot who though it appropriate to tip taxi drivers and barbers. Never in my life have I tipped either and I don't plan on ever doing so.

Not tipping taxi drivers should be safe enough, you probably won't get a ride from the same driver again. But unless you go from barber to barber never using the same one twice, you might want to consider tipping.

As far as I am concerned, the "standard" tipping percentage is 15%.

i hate the tipping as a standard that has developed in north america. i have been places where the waiters/waitresses have been extremely rude and unhelpful, and i would've been more content to get my food and drinks myself, yet the people im with often are too conditioned to not tip.

Girlfriends of mine that wait tables make over $20 across the board. the better looking ones dont make more than the others either so the tipping doesnt seem to arise from that. Good service is rarely recognized and bad service is especially rarely punished imo. Wait staff make much more than kitchen staff on average and im not convinced their work is worthy of any more compensation (besides the fact hot girls are less in supply than foreign immigrants which can be hidden in the back).

I think tipping should be more used as feedback, and clients should be able to tip specifically for different parts of their service.

Is that you being more stingy than everyone else? There was a ******ed discussion about Tiger Woods not tipping 20% at some restaurant and how that was extremely stingy. And that supposedly had nothing to do with his net worth, but everything to do with 20% being standard.

Sorry for ****** questions. I've never been to the US so I have no clue about tipping.

It shouldn't be essentially mandatory (like it is), I agree. If it's going to be mandatory, go ahead and include a 15% tip in the bill and be done with it. Or (wild and crazy idea) let the restaurant pay the waitstaff a bit more, and no tipping required. Whatever, tipping is in fact socially mandatory, so I tip whatever appears to be the standard rate.

I'd say tipping 15% at a restaurant in the US is at the very low end of acceptable. Cheap, but (barely) acceptable. 20% would be more standard but 15% isn't outrageously low. But if you're Tiger Woods and you tip the bare minimum, that's going to get noticed.

I think you'll find that most of the people on this board are these idiots.

as a dutch euro tard i think tipping is like a gesture of your appreciation for the service you have received. when it is so forced and even already being put on your bill including pre-determined percentages etc, it just defeats the purpose in my eyes. its no longer what it is supposed to be.

i just round up usually, for instance if a cab ride is 7.80 i give a tenner, if its 13.20 i pay 15 etc.

same for bars where i'm a regular/friendly with the staff

It wasn't always 20%. It isn't even 20% now. Most businesses when they auto-grat large parties do it at 18%. Bigger cities may vary, but I've never seen an auto-grat above 19%. 20% isn't out of range or anything by much and I would consider it a good tip, but nothing big.

Until the 80s, 10-15% was standard here. Not sure what changed it, some theorize that younger people are more likely to have worked in tipping spots and feel for them more, and then it's a matter of keeping up with everyone else. I wonder if it will keep creeping up more and more, though. I haven't seen any conclusive evidence on what changed it. It most likely comes from everyone wanting to tip just a bit more than average, which raises the average and causes a positive feedback loop.

http://www.dol.gov/wb/faq26.htm

This is why tipping as a standard is just stupid. Tipping should be for good service. They are making min. wage no matter what.

Man you are one cheap a s s mofo. Tipping is not f'in ******ed. Cab drivers got one of the most dangerous jobs out there. If you can afford a taxi, you can afford to tip. Stop being so cheap.

People in the service industry depend on tips to get by, it's bad enough driving a cab for a living, at least give him a tip.

And stop being so cheap. It disgusts me when people are cheap

You're just a cheapo.

I spent a summer in South Africa, where (at the time) almost all servers worked for tips only, and the service was usually great, even though the standard tip was far lower than in the U.S. I think they now require employers to pay a minimum wage.

I don't know the customs in Canada when it comes to this but this would pathetic in the States