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The regulars Walk with Judith Lucy: ‘I’m a bit over getting so much material out of my life’ The moment I knew: For Valentine’s Day he gave me a heart covered in fake blood. I was appalled – and thrilled Leading questions: ‘I’m in my late 60s and in a situationship with a man I really like. I want more but I’m scared of losing him’ Supermarket mustard taste test: The most intense is ‘an excellent torture device’ We can’t stop talking about: gratuitous gratuities Alyx: You’ve been thinking about tipping for a few months now, and wrote about it this week .
What first sparked your interest? Isabella: I came across a post in a bartenders’ Facebook group from someone asking if their experience of having tips withheld was normal. The comments shocked me!
There were more than 30 responses, with the majority of them calling out venues where they’d also been denied their tips. It made me think, if this practice was so common, why hadn’t anything been done about it? Alyx: When you did some more digging, what did you find out?
Isabella: I reached out to Fair Work to ask what legislation there was around paying out tips to staff. They told me there is none. So the original poster hadn’t experienced wage theft because the employers weren’t actually breaking any rules.
It’s not just management who can dip their hand in the tip jar. Cashless payment systems take a percentage from every transaction made too. It’s pretty cheeky that the systems that allow a business to ask for tips – which changes customers’ decision-making behaviour – also get a cut.
Alyx: Now we’re being encouraged to tip seemingly everywhere. How do people feel about it? Isabella: Patrons seem to hate it.
To get a feel for the general consensus I looked on Reddit. It was one of the few subjects where more people were agreeing with each rather than arguing in the comments. One of the biggest reasons for this is that Australians think tipping is a US import and not many people want to be associated with those practices.
For people in jobs where tipping has become more common, it’s a bit more complicated. While they say it is nice when they do receive tips, the logistics around paying it out and uncertainty about who will actually receive it make tipping difficult to fully get behind. Certainly, tipping isn’t applicable to every situation where you’re prompted to do it – like getting a beer, or after a $600 hair appointment.
Alyx: Did working on this story change your own attitude to tipping? Isabella: I’ll be honest, Alyx, I rarely tip. One, because I don’t really go out and two, if it does come up it’s never appropriate to do so – am I really going to pay an extra 5% on a meal I ordered myself via a QR code?
So my attitude didn’t change too much. In some ways I feel more validated in my behaviour, considering tips don’t always make their way back to staff. The main thing that has changed though is that if I want to tip, I would probably tip cash.
Your week ahead Photograph: Isha Shah/PA What to watch | Does Australia need another small-town crime drama? Probably not. But if we must have one, at least it’s the “rock-solid, socially conscientious” Dustfall , starring Anna Torv.
Out Sundays on ABC and available to stream on iview. What to read | The internet’s poet laureate, Patricia Lockwood, is back after a decade spent mostly writing prose. Agate Head/Stone Soup is spikier than some of her previous works but it’s still funny, devastating and relentlessly weird.
What to play | Sophia Stel’s hazy electro-pop comfortably traverses both clubs and mornings after. Her new record’s title, The Greatest Album of All Time , might be tongue in cheek but it’s certainly a worthy ambition for a rising star. Speaking of greatest albums, Fontaines DC’s latest, Dopamine Chamber, earned a five-star rave from our critic Laura Snapes .
“In the midst of headlines about AI destroying humanity, the idea of listening to music submerged in precisely this shade of doom might sound like, well, hell,” she writes, but: “If anyone can thread that poisoned needle, it’s Fontaines DC.” What to cook | Cabbage is still having a moment at fancy restaurants abroad, and locally its affordable and abundant. Alice Zaslavsky’s clever one-pot unrolled cabbage “rolls” are more quick and easy than hard and cheffy; with impressive end results. What to book | Paddington the Musical is coming to Sydney next year and the ticket waitlist just opened .
When I saw it in London, I cried in the queue into the theatre because they had countdown clocks, like on a train platform, which made me think about that little bear on his own at the station. Then I got into the theatre and continued to cry until intermission. During the second act, would you believe, I cried the whole way through?
Then at the end, I cried. Steph Harmon Wishlist Photograph: Wah Wah Australia The jumper brand Wah Wah’s collaborations with Kaylene Whiskey have been keeping people with directional haircuts warm for several winters. Early next year they’re releasing a summer drop made of cotton .
Preorder it now, wear it to an art opening later. Open tabs The Lena Dunham revival movement reached a new apex this week with the announcement of a Girls reunion season . If you’re not excited about that prospect, Louis Staples makes a great case for why you should be .
Alyx The closest I will get to working in Wall Street is being on Wall Street, so I appreciated Good Work’s investigation into the secret network that powers the finance world : Bloomberg terminals . Beyond explaining what they do, the video reveals how these highly specialised tools are also an unlikely third space for middle-aged men. Are they the solution to the male loneliness epidemic?
Isabella skip past newsletter promotion after newsletter promotion Inside your button boxes Last week we asked for pictures of your button collections. Rose sent over the picture above – and I’m very envious of the box they’re stored in. Here’s about half of Sue ’s collection.
She says she’s always loved buttons. “The older the better!” Most of these “have been recovered from clothing or found in op shops ... Some are ornate and very beautiful”.
Tell us: where’s the most egregious place you’ve been asked to tip? I was visiting family in the US this year and spiralled frequently over tip prompts. Would I be denying this yoga teacher a living wage by selecting “no tip”?
I went with 20%. Have you been prompted to leave extra somewhere unexpected recently? Let me know by replying to this email or contacting me via savedforsunday@theguardian.com.
Source: The Guardian
