Don't Say I Never Taught You Nuttin'

Tipping Tips From Experts
BY LORE CROGHAN
DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER

It’s hard to know when and how much to tip.
From a customer’s point of view, tips are a reward for a job well done.But for service workers in the city’s low-wage jobs, tips make the difference between earning a living - or not. Some workers are counting on you to make their hours of standing on their feet, wiping your children’s noses, fixing a burst pipe or cleaning up your cuticles pay off.

But what is right?
The rules are more elaborate than you might think.

FOOD
- Restaurant service: The average restaurant tip in New York City is 18.8%, said restaurant-guide guru Tim Zagat. Leave 20% if you’re really happy with the service, 18% if the service was good and 15% if you’re unhappy, he advised. “Tip because you want to say ‘Thank you’ - reward good performance,” Zagat said. Even at modest coffee shops, where New Yorkers used to leave tiny tips for sit-down service, they’re now putting 15% to 20% on the table. “People have more money in their pockets - they’re feeling more generous,” he said.
- Drinks at a bar: 15% to 20%.
- The worker who makes your take-out salad or sandwich: Put money in the tip box only if you want to. “Do what you feel good about,” Zagat said.
-The Starbucks barista: Needs no tip - at least that’s what management said, ”We don’t expect our customers to pay anything extra to receive our legendary service,” Starbucks marketing manager Dan Lewis explained. The tip boxes at Starbucks registers are there “to avoid loose tips on tables and counters throughout the store,” he said.
- Pizza or other restaurant delivery: 10% - or 20% if you live on a high floor of a walk-up, said Joe Pasquale, the owner of Joe’s Pizza in Greenwich Village.
-Grocery delivery: $5 is fine, $10 is generous.”It depends on how heavy your stuff is, and how far it was carried,” Zagat said.

TRANSPORTATION
- Cab rides: 20%. “Taxi drivers depend on tip money to earn a living wage,” said Bhairavi Desai of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
- Parking-garage attendant: $1 or $2 if you park at the garage once in a while. If you have a monthly account, give the manager $20 to $25 each month to divide among employees - and for a Christmas-holiday tip, give each person $100, an industry source suggested.

BEAUTY SERVICES
- Hairdresser: 15% to 20%, whether it’s for color or a cut, for men’s or women’s hair, said Liz Russell, co-owner of the Jeffrey Stein Salon on Third Ave. And don’t forget - give the person who shampoos your hair $3 to $5.
- Manicures and pedicures: 20% is standard, said a staffer at Bliss, the SoHo spa.
- Leg or lip waxing: 20% is good for these as well, the Bliss staffer said.I

IN YOUR APARTMENT
- When the doorman unloads the car and carries luggage or shopping bags to your apartment: $5 or $10 is a nice gesture.”Building workers feel they’re well-paid, and they get holiday tips,” an industry source said. “But they appreciate the ‘Thank you.’”
- When the super does repairs in your apartment: Again, $5 to $10 is fine - or $20 if the repair project takes a long time.

IF YOU HAVE KIDS
- Baby-sitter: Not your full-time caregiver, but the person you hire for a night out or an emergency. One hour’s pay, or if the assignment was short, cab fare to get home.” The sitters are always happy with either one of these,” said Stephanie McComb, founder of a baby-sitting service called To the Rescue, Mom.
- Day-camp counselor: Tips range from $20 to $100 at camps that allow tipping. Some camps don’t.Wait until summer’s end - and be discreet - if you do tip, said Jon Libman of Camp Hillard in Scarsdale, where families from Manhattan, Brooklyn Heights and Riverdale send their kids.”The counselors work very hard - and take very good care of the children,” Libman said.
************************************************************************************

Did anyone know they were supposed to "tip" their building super? I mean I thought it was his job to fix stuff in your apartment?

Anything else strike you as weird on this list? Or maybe too much?