Ranting On Tips, Service Fees, And Other Hidden Costs

Slate - Cabs in New York City used to accept payment exclusively in cash, and tipping was governed by informal norms. Then they installed touchscreens that display advertorial content and also facilitate credit card payment. When you pay with a card, you can manually enter a tip number or you can select one of three default options, and Joshua Gross notes that the defaults make an enormous difference: During payment, the user is presented with three default buttons for tipping: 20%, 25%, and 30%. When cabs were cash only, the average tip was roughly 10%. After the introduction of this system, the tip percentage jumped to 22%. Those three buttons resulted in $144,146,165 of additional tips. Per year. Those are some very valuable buttons. 

This tipping of cab-drivers thing has always driven me nuts.  You know what my tip for the cab driver is? Rounding to the nearest $5 in whatever I'm paying him. If I owe $22.15, he gets $25...that's it.  Yea, on occasion if its like $24 and change, I'll toss in a couple of singles, but otherwise, what am I tipping for? I don't tip bus drivers and subway conductors, do I?

I hired this guy to drive me from point A to Point B. You've agreed to charge me a set rate...that's what you're getting paid. If that's not enough then work to raise the rates. Plain and simple. Short of defying the laws of time and space and teleporting me to my destination, there's not much a cab driver can do to make me go out of my way to tip them extra...they're certainly not making up for it with their conversation skills. 

In fact, I think that'd be a good rule for our society as a whole going forward, just charge me what you think is fair. Don't make me sit here and think about how much the service I just bought from you should cost, I'm already paying you, you do the work. And don't hide or re categorize charges as fees or whatever bullshit term you want to come up with, just tell me the frigen price. Bottom line it for me. 

Like I stayed at Foxwoods a couple months back...the listed room price was one price, the final bill was another entirely, with random tax charges, and something called a resort fee! Honestly guys, what the fuck is that?! How is that not part of the room fee? Is it optional? If I agree not to go to the pool or get massage or something because I'll be spending the next 24 hours drinking and gambling can I get out of it? No. No, I can't. So put it up front in the original charge. Fucking crooks. 

There's plenty more. Delivery charges for takeout food...safe to say if you're charging me for delivery, I'm not tipping your driver more than $2, and that's just because I feel like a dick when I go to the door and don't give him anything. But to me the delivery charge is the tip. I don't feel so much as I'm being taken here, as this needs to get more publicity and become a social norm. I feel like not enough people pay attention to this. People, if you're charged a delivery charge, its the same thing as when a restaurant automatically includes 20% gratuity for large parties. You're under no obligation from that point forward.

Lets keep going. Meals tax on snacks. What the hell guys. If I buy a snickers bar downstairs at our cafe, I shouldn't be charged 6.25% more than if I buy it upstairs in the vending machine. Same goes for my Vitamin Water-Zero. This is just asinine. Same company, same building, different room, different charges. 

Rolling right along...Convenience charges when buying tickets online, when I PRINT THE TICKETS MYSELF...my ink, my paper, your convenience. I get it if I'm having them mailed to me, hell, I'd get it if I picked them up at the box office since that requires you have staff present. I will never for the life of me understand how the fuck these guys get away with charging me for printing my own tickets. This is the most confounding racket going today. And they get you both ways, coming and going! Because if you decide you're going to turn around sell your ticket, say on stub-hub, you get hit with a selling charge. A percentage of your profits...So not only did you pay above face value for your tickets, but now, when you go to sell them, you have virtually no chance of recouping your money, because even if you charge the $10 or so above face value that you paid for your tickets (because of the fucking inconvenience fee), you've still go to give back a portion of those profits for stub hub acting as your broker. IT'S ALL A SCAM...You cannot win when it comes to buying event tickets. 

That's all I got for now, but this could easily become a regular installment. Bottom line, all I want is for places to just start pricing things for what they actually cost, no more hidden fees, no more service charges after the fact, and make those goddamn convenience fees illegal. I'm not cheap, I'm perfectly happy paying what I owe, I just like to know what that is.

Thoughts, Observations, and Lessons Learned from a Christmas Weekend in New York

Yes, you read that correctly, I willingly, and of my own accord, took time this weekend to travel south to get the Christmas in NYC experience, for the first time. A sort of pilgrimage for east coast Christians who celebrate and worship the commercialization of Christmas, so sort of like the Muslim's and their Hajj to Mecca. And honestly, it was a worthwhile trip, some ups, some downs, but a good experience all in all. Without further ado, a few thoughts, observations, and lessons learned from the weekend:

- The trip centered around Mid-Town, and specifically Rockefeller Center and Times Square. Given the location, I had two people I really wanted to bump into, 1) the Naked Cowboy, and 2) Tina Fey. Sadly, I saw neither. In fact I didn't see anyone famous, at all. I get the feeling the feeling that famous people avoid the tourist trap that is Mid Town like the plague. 

- But that wasn't the biggest disappointment. The biggest disappointment was being informed that TRL is no longer located in Times Square. I'm not even kidding when I say, I was like a kid in a candy-shop when we entered times square, all prepared to be waving and jumping outside of TRL, trying to catch Carson Daly's eye. Even brought a selection of 3 posters so I'd be ready for whoever the guest was (I assumed Britney, Nsync, and Eminem still take turns appearing on the show). Boy was I the goose. I stood outside cheering at what turned out to be some kind of studio for the Lion King show until I was informed that TRL, and Carson Daly, no longer work there. And just like that, 14 year old CW's dreams were shattered. 

- The tree isn't as disappointing as I'd expected it to be. This isn't to say I haven't seen bigger, I have. But there was something something special about the whole scene. I think it was my affinity for Home Alone 2, to be honest. The whole time I was begging my girlfriend to help me play out the end scene where Kevin is reunited with his mother, sadly we couldn't get the crowd to clear out so I could relive this magical moment (ps, watch that clip, its the only one I could find, and I'm pretty sure the guy bootlegging it is crying at the end, its touching and hilarious). 

- I still haven't been to the Empire State building, I was literally two blocks away at one point, didn't make it. This is killing me inside. I'm obsessed with that building, if my readers were my pyschologist right now, you'd be telling me I'm avoiding it because I'm afraid it can't live up to my expectations, and you'd be right. That's right folks, I'm afraid a building won't live up to my expectations.

- Pretty sure our group was in the background shot of the opening scene of a porn. We were in some trendy bar/social club, they were filming something in the lounge, it started out with some platinum blonde girl with a painted on white dress chatting it up with some brunette chick, and then all of a sudden a guy appeared and schmoozed with the two of them, before leaving to go up to the hotel. The camera men gave some vague answer about it being some Bravo reality show, but it wasn't Millionaire matchmaker and it wasn't any of the real housewives, so I think he was just covering. 

- NYC Cabs SUCK. Worse than Boston. That's a fact. First of all, there's 1000's of them, and getting one to stop is impossible. Secondly, when they do stop, they play every trick in the book. One guy told me he didn't know how to get to Brooklyn, he legit said "do you take the Brooklyn Bridge?" I legit said, "are you fucking kidding me?" and got out. Another asked if I had cash because his meter wasn't working, I told him I see it and its working, he said it doesn't matter, I told him to take a hike. The third, and final one, made it from Mid Town to just over the Brooklyn bridge in about 7 minutes. I was in the front seat fearing for my life the entire ride. 

- The MTA < the MBTA, and that's a fact. They don't have electric boards or loudspeaker announcements at the stations! Its unbelievable. We stood from 1 AM- 2AM waiting for a train to arrive, that was never coming because it wasn't running that night, only the only way you'd know that is if you looked at the 11x11 piece of paper all the way back up stairs, announcing the stoppage in service that night. And it's not like we were the only ones, there was like 25 of us just waiting. Not that the sassy black woman in the booth helped us at all. I get that sitting in a bullet proof booth for the 12 AM- 7 AM shift may not have been your career ambition, but how about not letting 20 people all go down and wait for a FUCKING HOUR in the middle of the night, for a train that is not coming.  I never thought I'd miss the MBTA.

- You probably shouldn't buy tickets to some comedy show from some guy who looks borderline homeless on the street. The tickets were real, but 95% of the show I was cringing instead of laughing. The first 3 guys just made jokes about how they're in their mid 30's and how Pot has ruined their lives. Great, thanks for depressing the fuck out of me. The drink we ordered was made with straight rubbing alcohol, and at one point some French guy got on stage, and his whole act was, I shit you not, saying things like "I'll Tea Bag You So HARD (in french accent)." Traumatizing.

- A 38oz. steak is exactly as big as it sounds. It's also delicious. 

-Anyone that works in an office at Times Square that manages to get anything, is a borderline miracle worker. You'd absolutely find me staring out the window and watching commercials on those brilliant HDTV's all day. 

- Getting out of NYC is still the worst driving experience one can have. It took an hour to exit the city limits, an hour. There is a bridge for just about every exit plan, except for those of us looking to get the hell out of New York and through Connecticut. Build another Bridge and reserve it for Massachusetts drivers only. Please.