Tip Calculators
Posted July 21st, 2008 @ 09:08am by Erik J. Barzeski
Tip calculators are now available for the iPhone.
Seriously, is rounding, doubling, and moving the decimal one place that difficult that people would rather pull out a phone, click a button, slide their finger, scroll to the right page, tap an icon, type some more to enter the bill's total, and read a result from a chart?
If you want 15% instead of 20%, either take 1/4 off or just move the decimal over one on your bill and add another 50%. I usually just try to tip to the nearest whole dollar between 15 and 20% unless an adjustment for poor or spectacular service is needed.
Come on! How stupid do you have to be to need a tip calculator? I'd say lazy, but it's lazier not to use a tip calculator.
Donate Life
Posted 21 Jul 2008 at 9:43am #
They're really useful when you're.. um.. inebriated.
Posted 21 Jul 2008 at 9:47am #
Thanks for calling your tip calculator using readers stupid.
Posted 21 Jul 2008 at 11:08am #
The only argument I've heard for this was the situation of "we all shared the nachoes, bob and nancy bought the second round, you had your own, and we each had an entree" type of thing. None of the tip calculators I've seen on the itunes store do this though.... Course in that case I've generally just added things up and thrown money into a pile until it looked like it worked out.
Posted 21 Jul 2008 at 11:17am #
actually I was being sarcastic by the way.
Posted 21 Jul 2008 at 1:17pm #
Actually, I can imagine it being really useful for someone like myself...coming from Australia [or any other part of the world where tipping is considered a poor substitute for paying people real wages - I generally have to think long and hard. That's not because the math that's involved is difficult, but sheer ignorance of "what tip is right" due to a lifetime of paying exactly what's on the bill without thinking "how good was the service? was the meal cooked right? etc..."
I've visited the USA on average once a year for most of the last decade, but that may be about to increase - so for visiting ignoramuses like myself? Yep, I'd probably use a tip calculator 😕
Posted 21 Jul 2008 at 3:06pm #
Some of us aren't so good with numbers. The process you described may sound simple, but it just confused me.