Sometimes, I think to myself, “I spend half of my life computing tips.” That statement is an exaggeration of course; it is really more like three-fourths of my life.
Tip computation should not be complex, but, perhaps because it comes at the end of a restaurant meal, it is an exercise that often baffles me more than it should.
Accepting the rule that a tip should range between 15 percent and 20 percent, if the check happens to be $40, that’s easy: I leave $6 to $8 on the plate. Where I get bogged down is when the bill is something like $46.83. In my sometimes wine-wearied mine, the math become more complex. I know some people have rules — just double the tax or move the decimal point to the left and double that, though I am not sure which formula is the more benevolent nor how benevolent I want to be.
Issues abound: What if I use the tax method but I am eating in a parish where the tax is lower than in the next parish? Is that fair to the server? How about buffets? If someone only served me a drink and I did the rest myself, how much is that worth?
What if the waiter was not particularly good? Is it OK to go below 15 percent?
So I am looking for tips of a different sort. It was a great day in my life when I learned to convert kilometers into miles (divide in half and add 10 percent or multiply by .60), but that is a skill I don’t get to use very often. Restaurant tipping, however, I face several times a week. So I am looking for suggestions. And if your idea is good enough, there might be a little something extra on the plate for you.
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