Liveaboard Tipping

[beautybelow]

I find it hard to beleive that the Aquacat crew only get about $100/week. I have done 10 trips with them, and there is always at least 20 divers. with 8 crew (it is usually 7?), that would mean the average tip given by each diver is $40 for a week of diving. I don't think that is the case.
(Or were you saying that $100 is the salary from the company?)

I'm pretty sure they are making more than $100/week too. I don't know as a fact, but I would imagine, especially the instructors and up do better than that salary wise.

 

[deepstops]

About three years ago, I went on the most screwed up liveaboard I think that existed.

The captain lied to us, didn't take us where we contracted to go on the trip, and was drunk half the time and lots of safety issues. (thank god they are out of business now so they can't screw others).



Still, I tipped the crew because I felt they "mostly" did a good job, even in light of how the Captain/owner screwed us. I just simply didn't see it right to take it out on the crew by not tipping them because they had a bad boss.

Gulfstream Eagle?

 

[mike_s]

Gulfstream Eagle?

 

[deepstops]

Tips are not part of the cost. People who work for tips do so at their own choice. One is not cheating by failing to tip. Everyone who tips is making a voluntary additional payment that he or she need not make. Even though the vast majority of [-]North[/-] Americans tip regularly, it is attitudes like those expressed above - that not tipping is either cheap or cheating - that is the worst outcome of our generous history of tipping. It breeds expectation instead of gratitude and extra effort.

There's an old joke about tips I still hear often in P'tit Quebec (aka Hollywood Beach, FL):

Question: What's the difference between a Canadian and a canoe??

Answer: The canoe tips.....

 

[mike_s]

Using a "service charge" as an example in a restaurant isn't a good example. More than likely the waiter only gets a percentage of that charge.

It should be distributed throughout the kitchen staff and all then the owner takes the rest usually. Sometimes fairly, to cover increasing costs and not raise the prices or change menus.

I'm betting you're right. They prob spread it out some.


I've been to a few restaurants in the US that put a "set fee" gratuity on the bill. I mean for 2 people for example... not the "parties larger than 8 people we add 18% gratuity" which is more common.


One was at a place in New Orleans. I asked the waitress why the tip was automatically added (15%)??? She said the owner did that... I said "well that sucks for you as it screws you out of a better tip". She replied with "oh, it's worse than that. He keeps 5% of the tip and we get 10%."

I asked how he kept employees. She said she didn't know. She'd only been there three weeks and was already looking for a new job. she said turnover there was very high.

 

[theduckguru]

Hmmm. I wonder if the aliens are from a tipping or non-tipping culture?

They either shoot you with a ray gun and eat your brains, abduct you for experimentation, or inhabit your body. No tips unless you are inhabited and they are trying to blend in.

 

[koozemani]

They either shoot you with a ray gun and eat your brains, abduct you for experimentation, or inhabit your body. No tips unless you are inhabited and they are trying to blend in.

In which case they should tip me.

 

[RJP]

I find it hard to beleive that the Aquacat crew only get about $100/week. I have done 10 trips with them, and there is always at least 20 divers. with 8 crew (it is usually 7?), that would mean the average tip given by each diver is $40 for a week of diving. I don't think that is the case.
(Or were you saying that $100 is the salary from the company?)

$100 in salary. I've heard the $100-$150/wk salary figure before as well.

 

[yogen]

$100 in salary. I've heard the $100-$150/wk salary figure before as well.

Even at 150$/ week, it works out to less than 2$/hr . Whatever kind of pay structure or model you might use - this is exploitation. Is the customer here is cheap bastard as BigBrother puts it?

There can be no justification for this kind of salary level for a job. There is a fundamental problem if boat or shop owners absolve themselves from paying a fair wage and make it purely customer dependent.

 

[fred3798]

Interestingly, our williingness to tip automatically actually helps perpetuate the problem. Our tipping protects the owner from market forces. Low wages should lead to employee dissatisfaction and commensurate lack of service that should cause employee and customer defection unless the owner pays a proper wage. We have, in effect, taken on the burden of paying the employees and every dollar of tip is just saving the owner from wages ie increasing the owner's profit. My kids went to two different private schools. At the non-profit school, I particpated in fund raising to improve facilities. But at the for-profit school, fund raising was just enhancing the owner's profit by decreasing his burden to provide the needed capital expenditures for competitive facilities. No charity for private owners.

So, we tippers are actually perpetuating the problem by preventing the market from taking its toll on those who under-pay.