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First time visitor to the USA
phoxphyre
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi,
so my work has told me I'm going to the US of A for a month. In a week. Apparently I have an apartment in the Presidential Towers in Chicago.
Suggest to me, knowledgeable H/A folk, some cool things to do in my time off!
Where's a good camera store (I'm looking to buy a lens, tripod + ball joint), and a good coffee store
Also, as somebody who's never dealt with tipping:
* Is 15% the standard for served meals/cafes?
* Is 10% the standard for taxis?
* Do I tip before/after tax?
* Is $5 a week sufficient for housekeeping?
* I assume that I don't tip the cashier in clothing stores -- unless they help me. What do I tip then?
* Do I tip on day tours?
Thanks guys -- and any extra advice would be appreciated!
so my work has told me I'm going to the US of A for a month. In a week. Apparently I have an apartment in the Presidential Towers in Chicago.
Suggest to me, knowledgeable H/A folk, some cool things to do in my time off!
Where's a good camera store (I'm looking to buy a lens, tripod + ball joint), and a good coffee store
Also, as somebody who's never dealt with tipping:
* Is 15% the standard for served meals/cafes?
* Is 10% the standard for taxis?
* Do I tip before/after tax?
* Is $5 a week sufficient for housekeeping?
* I assume that I don't tip the cashier in clothing stores -- unless they help me. What do I tip then?
* Do I tip on day tours?
Thanks guys -- and any extra advice would be appreciated!
Remember the Slug; They have all the disadvantages of Snails, but without the benefit of home-ownership...
phoxphyre on
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Restaurant:
Did they serve your food to you? If yes, then how was the service? Tip 15-30% as you see fit. Not tipping someone is a good way of letting them know they are not doing a good job. Tipping a penny works if you want to make a point about it. Typically in pricier restaurants if 6 or more people are dining together the gratuity (tip) is added to the bill by the server anyway.
Taxi:
I'm not sure actually. I have spent so little time in a taxi I don't know. I figure enough for them to not get out of the car and yell at you is good, right?
Before/after tax:
Not sure. Rule of thumb (in southern CA) is to double the tax to get a decent/minimum tip amount. I don't think tax really factors into it otherwise.
Housekeeping:
You're probably looking at $30+ per week. I don't know very many people who have it done on a weekly basis. More like once every 2 or 3 weeks.
Clothing stores:
The employees are most likely still in high school. If they are actually helpful, tipping wouldn't hurt, but I've never seen this done before.
Day tours:
Tip whom? Sorry, never been on a day tour before.
I hope some of this is helpful.
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- 15% is standard for meals, maybe 20% with good service.
- 10-15% is fine for taxis
- You don't tip anybody in a clothing store
- You might tip your tour guide if you thought they did a good job.
Downtown kind of empties out at night, so watch yourself if you are walking around. Also, don't go too far west or south, or you might end up in an area you don't want to be in.
Coffee there's the chain places of course, almost any local place is better, but 'Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea' might be more your, well, up your alley.
Tipping (it's not just a city in China):
- Yes, 15% is fine for any chain sit-down place, 20% for nicer places is unfortunately not uncommon anymore.
- A few dollars for any cab/taxi ride is fine, unless it's long - going from airport to downtown for example.
- Same with food delivery (pizza to your room, etc.) Taxis can give you receipts if you need them for work, just let them know before you arrive.
- The easiest method to figure food tip is to take the tax + 1/2 the tax, and you'll pretty much always be in range.
- Never heard of tipping clothing stores, unless you mean high-end, and I still don't think that's common.
- If you were especially inspired by the boat tour's lecture, then yes, a few dollars is appreciated.
Wow, what else? August can be hot here, 90F days easy, but being downtown will be cooler. Weather loves to change here during the day - sunny in morning, thunderstorm by mid-afternoon.
Any of the museums are good - the Art Institute of Chicago and the Shedd Aquarium are really good.
Walking around the city is very easy, the "L" train (subway/tube) is a good option as well. Buses run by the CTA can be a little challenging with tons of routes and different times.
And too far East, and you'll be the water!
You don't tip cashiers anything, or anyone else in the store for that matter - if you're not staying in a hotel, then aside from restaurants/delivery (but not McDonalds or the like), coffee shops and tour guides, I can't easily think of anywhere else you would be expected to leave a tip.
Several types of employees, mostly those in food service, make less than the state or federally-mandated minimum wage on the assumption that they'll make up the difference in tips. So yes, it's really that expected.
At a music festival this weekend, I made friends with an Aussie girl who thought she had to tip everybody who sold her anything. This is unnecessary.
As far as things to do in Chicago, I've never been myself but my plan has always involved lots of bar-hopping and checking out the city's music scene.
But then again, you weren't being intentionally malicious.
I wouldn't worry about it sir. The one time a nice drunk person gets in the taxi he'll make his tips for the week.
But yeah, OP, I wouldn't get too hung up on the whole tipping thing. I tip normally for good service in hotels/restaurants/barber shops/taxis and that's about it. Clothing stores and stuff actually forbid employees taking tips, even though I did a few times while working at Best Buy.
And tipping Taxi drivers 10-15% seems pretty good to me.
As far as tipping anyone else that seems a bit over the top. They make minimum wage or more, and don't expect tips. Actually if any of these people are caught accepting tips they'll usually lose their jobs. So by tipping them you could actually be getting them into way more trouble.
Yes. 15 - 20% is decent.
meh... taxis are cheap and those guys really bust their asses imo... 15 - 20% is decent.
Before.
Yes.
No and No.
Do not listen to this advice. It is a complete dick move that does nothing more than slightly increase the misery in the world. The only thing the server will learn if you do this is that you're a cheap douchebag.
Important question: Is your company reimbursing your expenses? You need to find this out, and you then need to find out if they reimburse tipping, and at what percentage. I have, in the past, worked for companies that reimburse 15% tips. If you tip over that, and turn in your expense report, they will chop off whatever you tip above that 15% of your food costs.
If you have any sort of pronounced accent, especially non-British, most food service workers sort of expect foreigners won't tip or don't understand how a good tip is figured.
Personally, I drop the last digit of the total bill and double that. So if your bill at the restaraunt is 14.50, I would take 1.45, double it to 2.90, and then probably round up to 3, and tip that, assuming the service excelled. Anywhere between the 1.45 and 3 dollars would fall in the acceptable range, though, depending on the service.
I am usually an exceedingly generous tipper though, and tend to tip high.. These people rely on tips for their livelyhood. An extra dollar or two won't kill most people, and a "big" tip (or at least bigger than they were expecting) can really make someone's night.
Don't tip at fast food places. If you order at a counter, or if you have to go to a counter to get your food, don't tip. If you're seated for the entire meal, tip. Tip delivery drivers. You can usually get away with a smaller tip for them, if you're concerned about it.
You generally only "have" to tip food service, taxis, or valet service. Maybe a hairdresser/barber if you're here long enough to require a haircut. Oh, and bartenders, a dollar a drink or so.
When we got there we had to stand around for 5 minutes. Then a waitress finally seated us. We got our menus then continued to wait for 20 minutes (I'm not kidding) and my wife got up and told a group of employees that were standing around talking that we were waiting. They gave her a little grief and we waited another 5 minutes.
Waitress comes over and doesn't apologize and asks if we were ready. Really? We've been here for 30 minutes staring at the delicious food. So she writes down that and our drinks, brings our drinks out a few minutes later. We sit and wait for our food, our drinks nearly empty and she walks by our table a few times without even looking at us.
She brings the food and both mine and my friend's were messed up. She brought us boned wings and we wanted boneless. We told her and she was like: "Oh... So you guys didn't want boned wings?" And stood there like she didn't want to take the wings back and make the RIGHT order.
So she grabs them, takes them back to the back... Still doesn't refill our drinks... And my wife eats her food. 20 minutes later we get our food. She puts it in front of us, and walks away without apologizing. Still no drinks.
My wife finally got tired and got up herself and filled up her drink. About 5 minutes after that she comes over and fills the other two glasses up. I wanted to leave $0, but I'm too much of a nice guy. She totally didn't deserve that $1 at all, but I gave it to her anyway.
Completely stiffing someone is not a "complete dick move". If they provide you shitty service, and you tip them, you are reinforcing that shitty service is worth the same to you as good service. If my waiter brings me the wrong food, messes up my order, is rude, is forgetful, is inattentive, or otherwise does what I consider to be a "poor" job, I am not going to reward him and reinforce his crappy work.
Tipping a penny is an asshole thing to do, don't do that. But tips are in no way required. They have to earn that shit. Would you tip a taxi driver who took you to the wrong address?
EDIT: See urahonky's example for a perfect time to tip poorly. Nobody should accept being treated like that at any establishment and then give away any more of their hard earned money than is required to pay for the goods they received.
Really? He should tip for bad service?
Some taxi drivers will get out of their car, take your bag, and put it in their trunk for you, then when you get out they'll get out of the car again to pull it back out for you. That service requires more of a tip than the taxi drivers who pull up, pop their trunk, and then wait for you to wrestle your bag in and climb in.
At a hotel some of the bellhops will be very aggressive about grabbing your bags so they can bring them up to your room and show you your room, this requires a tip if they do this. If you don't want to pay someone for this, don't let them touch your bags! Tell them you're fine and wave them away. This is mostly for if you travel outside of where your apartment is going to be.
If you're in Chicago, I'd recommend hitting up Madison and possibly Milwaukee while you're in the States because they're close. In particular, I'd say hit Madison up so that you're there on a Saturday morning and can go to the Farmer's Market because it's pretty nice. If you come to Madison let me know and I can show you around
Edit: I don't think they do this in other countries so much, but yeah, food delivery, especially pizza, requires a small tip of a dollar or three to the delivery driver.
Critically bad service is so uncommon it's not even worth mentioning. I'm not going to get dragged into an ethical argument concerning the caprious exercise of power in denying someone their livelihood because social custom considers it OK for some workers to be at the complete mercy of asshole customers.
I will however say that I dine out several times a week and have for several years and I can't even recall a single instance where poor service brought out the customer rage in me. (and I am in most areas a complete asshole)
Since I used to be a server, I know what it's like. I'm a good tipper because of it.
But you gave that girl $1 more than she deserved.
No, you should just not tip anything at all. If you want to make a point about it, complain about the bad service, point out exactly what was wrong face to face. Tipping a penny is the definition of passive aggressive and achieves nothing except indicate that you're a dick and in retrospect probably deserved bad service if that's how you handle conflicts in your life.
Every city I've ever been to has an extra fee tacked on to the cab fare when the drive handles bags. If that's the case there's no need to tip more on top of that.
Ura, that is the kind of service you complain to the manager about, nice guy or not she didnt deserve your hard earned dollar.
Last time we went, the place was empty, like 2 other groups (small groups) there. Despite this, the service was slow, I got a glass of coke with a piece of squashed tomato on the bottom, she brought us Garlic Bread but no plates to eat them off, we had no cutlery so she brought some by hand and put them on the table and the cutlery wasn't cleaned properly.
She seemed to mean well but someone somewhere was dropping the ball and even if they arent cleaning properly in the back it doesnt excuse her bringing loose cutlery over to us or not bringing basic plates.
If it was busy I could understand but it wasnt. So no tip.
Tipping isnt as customary here though so we dont feel bad over it.
As far as places to go, as was mentioned before the museums are all great. I'm fond of the Field Museum myself, but I like history. Your mileage may vary. Make sure to walk along the lakeshore. It's quite beautiful. If you have the chance, check out the Irazu restaurant. Very good food and their horchata is the best I've ever had.
Other than that just make sure to stay out of the bad areas of town and you'll be set to go. Enjoy your trip.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
This really caught me off guard and Im not sure why Americans do it this way. I'd be looking at a price, think its reasonable and then see theres an extra 2 dollars on top for my fish and chip meal.
The goods can be advertised at the cheaper sounding pre-tax price.
I know, but I just wanted to get out of there and play some video games. The worst part was that a new group of people came in, and she was already taking their order before they were sitting down. So maybe she assumed she wasn't getting shit from us so she abandoned all hope.
Plus sales taxes aren't the same across the US or Canada, so it's just easier for marketing and other purposes to focus on pre-tax price.
But to Americans theyre gonna be savvy enough to know the listed price isnt the actual price so that trick wouldnt work on them. You guys really need to get some standardised wages and tax in there.
You'd be surprised. People may consciously know that it's not the full price, but they'll still instinctually feel that a $20 item with sales tax is cheaper than a $21 item including tax, even if the latter actually comes out to less. It's the same psychological reason that companies price items at $9.99 instead of $10.
Minimum 2 dollars unless they sucked/were slow.
Take the first number, double it.
If somehow you manage to eat more than a 99 dollar meal, take the first two numbers.
If it comes out to like 18.99 or something, add a dollar if you are feeling nice.
Also, a lot of small eateries in America feel the impulse to put the tip line item on EVERYTHING even though they don't actually serve you. If you have to stand in a roped off line for your food, don't tip.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
You're going to be fairly close to the Publican. It's definitely worth a visit.
The only time you'd ever tip someone in the clothing store is if they're a personal shopper who are NOT working for the store. But you're probably not going to be getting your own private personal shopper.
Convincing Canadian provinces to standardize tax rates would be hard enough. Standardizing tax rates across the 50 states is an impossibility and would probably cause a second Civil War.
This, considering some states do not have nor will they ever change not having a sales tax (NH), other states high taxes but offer subsidies (WA), some tax clothes (MD), some don't (NJ). Not to mention that some states have areas with extra sales tax to fund specific projects (Wildwood NJ for the new convention center) or a lower tax to boost economic interest (Vineland NJ). Don't even get me started on property and state/local income tax across the states.
I learned this the hard way, and it's definitely something to watch out for. Do NOT let them load your bags for you. Last time I took a cab ride I started at $5 before we left the curb.