Tipping for Take-out

If you missed it this morning, I told the story about how I was chastised for not tipping when I picked up a take-out order Friday night. As I headed toward the door, after signing the debit receipt, I overheard a waitress ask the cashier if I tipped. When she said "No," the waitress screeched, "Unbelievable...what a jerk."

Jerk? Me? Why because I didn't offer up 15% of the bill for a TAKE OUT order? Hello. All she did was place the food inside a Styrofoam container, place it in a bag, and bring it to the counter. She didn't ring it up...heck she didn't even put napkins or plastic utensils in the bag. She simply carried it from point A to point B. For that I'm supposed to tip? Sorry...ain't gonna happen.

Now had I sat down and had dinner at a table, and she had actually waited on me...as in brought drinks and food to the table, provided re-fills or answered questions about the menu, been polite and attentive then she would have gotten no less than 20%. However, for the service provided I didn't feel a tip was in order.

The overwhelming majority of people that called, e-mailed, and sent Facebook messages this morning in response to the story actually agreed with me. There were a couple of people that thought I should have tipped regardless of the situation. One waitress said it's customary to tip 10% on take-out orders.

Curious about this...I decided to do a little research but couldn't find anything to support her claim. As a matter of fact, most of the articles I read said just the opposite...NO tip for take-out is perfectly acceptable.

Tipping is one of those things that everyone has an opinion about. Heck you know it's a big part of pop culture when it shows up in the opening scene of a movie (Reservoir Dogs) and we spent half an hour talking about it this morning, and here I sit blogging about it almost 12 hours later.

Did you know in Iceland it's considered rude to tip?

For more on tipping check out this website: http://www.tipping.org/tips/us.html.