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#76. The Substandard on Tipping and Other Life Lessons
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Micro episode (10:55). All three hosts present.
Dudes Chatting — tipping etiquette and life lessons: Vic recounts being recognized twice from the podcast and Facebook Live in one week — once at a Fall Festival, once at Union Station. The main discussion is a life-lesson tip about hotel staff: Vic relays advice from Jeff Gedman to tip hotel housekeeping at the beginning of your stay rather than the end, so the staff know to look after you. JVL says he is generally pro-tipping in traditional contexts but objects to its expansion into new settings like coffee shops. Sonny and Vic both agree on tipping hotel housekeeping. The group also debates coffee-shop tip prompts on payment terminals.
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00Uh, I just wanted to see what that would look like.
Vic00:00:11Hello, and welcome to another micro-episode of The Substander, sponsored by HelloFresh. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a quick reminder that full episodes of TheSubstandard are available every Thursday at 11 a.m. And another reminder that this is not on Facebook Live right now, is it?
Sonny00:00:29No, we're not on Facebook Live. I don't see a camera anywhere. I made it very clear that I would not be doing the show anymore if we did it on Facebook Live. I really put my foot down.
JVL00:00:42See, I would have thought that their newfound celebrity would cause some of the people in this room to embrace the Facebook Live. Victorino, have you been recognized on the street because of Facebook Live recently?
Vic00:00:53Twice now. This is twice that I've been spotted, you know, my head and glasses from a mile away. Once was at the Fall Festival, which I mentioned on a previous show. And then the last one was I was walking in Union Station, going up to New York City over the weekend. And, you know, you pass those awful, horrendous lines for the Northeast Regional. You know, they're just, you know, it's the godforsaken line. We've all been there. And it's like no matter how early you get, it's like it just goes all the way down. So I'm walking past this line, not from my train. It was leaving earlier. And a guy jumps out of the, not jumps out, but he stops me. He's standing in the line. And he goes, oh, Bob. By the way, I kind of did think that your candy draft was weak, man. And he started laughing.
Sonny00:01:36Our listeners are the best. That's amazing.
Vic00:01:37And I stopped and I looked at him. I go, do I know you? You know, I'm looking at him and I'm like, wait, wait, is this somebody I know? And he goes, no, no, no, seriously, man. Great podcast. Great podcast. And I was like, hi. And I just said, you are? And he goes, oh, just a listener. Chris, just a listener. Not Chris Haberman, a different guy. And then he started talking about military stuff. Oh, you guys got to do that. Sonny apparently messed something up, some factoid between an F-15. Or an F-18 and different things. And it was just like carefully listening to the show.
Sonny00:02:03This person is obviously a psychopath because I've never made a mistake. He's just inventing things. That's true.
Vic00:02:08These are the people you encounter on the streets, by the way, the madmen. I was so taken aback by it and I didn't bother to ask how he recognized me. But I assume your look is inimitable. Well, you used to say this and I think Matt Cotton used to say this, but going to back in the day, going to Morton's that they would remember me and not you or something would become. Because I was the one who was like Asian with the glasses. And that's easier to remember.
Sonny00:02:33Yeah, that's me. Sure, that's what it was. Well, to be fair, you are also the most garrulous person I've ever met. Garrulous is a word for me, yes. You actually enjoy meeting and talking to people, which is very strange. I don't quite understand it. But when we go places, you will be chatting with the waiters and the bartenders and the maitre d's. Human beings. And it helps you in any sort of way. In any number of ways. Any manner of ways. You get great seats at restaurants. You get good service. And I have to say, it's not worth it. All of these benefits are not worth actually having to interact with people on a regular basis. But I admire it. I admire what you've done.
Vic00:03:17I thrive. It's sort of my life force. So again, I've mentioned about being alone. If Kate and the kids are away and I'm alone, I have to talk to humans and be around them. You are.
JVL00:03:29You are constantly running for class president. You have said this for 20 years. You have been doing it since first grade, I'm sure. Maybe even before then. No. That's just... I was the ringmaster in kindergarten circus.
Sonny00:03:40I say we table the Stranger Things talk for the main episode and instead just focus more on Vic Matus's personality. My skill, the art. Because here's... I do think... Bon vivant. We should actually offer up some life advice for the people who are listening right now. They can't watch us on Facebook Live because, again, I really put my foot down. But I think we can help them. How do you do it?
Vic00:04:04How do you do it, Vic? This is amazing because we're just doing this on the fly now. And the thing is, you have to genuinely want to listen and care to what other people say.
Sonny00:04:13See, this is one of the reasons why I've never been a very good reporter. Because you don't care. I'm an okay writer. Researcher. And I'm a decent editor. But I'm just not a very good reporter because I don't care about people. I don't care about what they have to say. I don't care what they have to say to me. I'm just trying to get through my questions to get to the next thing. But you actually want to know what they have to say.
Vic00:04:36That's no joke. But also, you get your practice. And I've certainly gotten tons of practice with Weekly Standard cruises back in the day. Because you have to remember, people pay good money to go on the cruise. Not just to listen and see you, but for you to listen to them and their ideas. And every single person, they have different ideas. How many good ideas have you heard on these cruises, would you say? Well, considering I'll probably never be invited to another Weekly Standard cruise, because I bring nothing to the table.
Sonny00:05:10It was tough already when I was in the office for them to find reasons. Jonathan is a coughing attack. Jonathan, are you okay over there?
Vic00:05:20You all right? Just recovering. You find interesting things. And I will say, let me think of good stuff here. Give me a second. We can edit this.
JVL00:05:29Do you want me to give you one that I bet you remember?
Vic00:05:31Pat Halloran, the test pilot for the SR-71. Oh, yeah, he was great. Fantastic. I learned a lot from him. There was a woman who sat at my table once who lived the time-life dream where she worked for Time Life in the 60s. And I had been randomly talking to other people at the table. With the drink cart? Yes. Oh, man. And she said, that's actually all true. I mean, I had heard the stories from Andy Ferguson, but to hear from somebody who was actually working there at the time in the 60s. And she said, they do a party called a pour. You work there for about three or four years. They say, it's time for you to have a vacation, and we're going to send you for a month to Paris. All expenses paid in the 50s and 60s. And before you went out, Time Life would throw a party for you, and everyone would get completely hammered.
Sonny00:06:17Honestly, I really do think that journalism is just paying for the sins of its past. I mean, honestly, the financial state and the economic ruin that is being wreaked upon the whole industry is just comeuppance for decades of nonsense.
Vic00:06:32The other thing I would like to say before I forget is, I learned this from Jeff Gedman, who is one of the masters of these things. Jeff is now over teaching at Georgetown and has his own outfit, but he used to be the head of Radio Free Europe, and before that, Aspen Berlin and AEI. And he traveled a lot, and his advice was, you go to a hotel, you tip people at the beginning of your stay, not at the end. A lot of people have this habit of tipping people at the end here, here's your bag that we kept for you, here's this, or here's that at checkout. Well, here you go, here's a nice tip. That gives you nothing. You walk, the moment you arrive into a hotel, the doorman or whoever, you give them a good tip, rest of your stay, they're going to be good.
Sonny00:07:14I remember once I read in Esquire, it was like one of these dumb lists that they used to do, like 50 things every man should do. And one of them, the one that jumped out at me, and I remember to this day, was check into a hotel for a week, every day, tip the guy at the front door, 20 bucks, and come back again a year later, and there's a 100% chance he'll remember you. Is that right? That's actually not bad advice. But do you have to keep on then for the next trip? Well, I mean, obviously you have to keep tipping. You got to give him his money.
Vic00:07:41I'll tell you one thing that I've learned. Here's another tip. If you're staying for several days at a hotel or whatever, leave tips for housekeeping. Good tips. Depending on how many people, you have kids or a bunch of guys in a room, leave a good tip.
Sonny00:07:57This is something I did not. I didn't know about it. I grew up in a house where there was no tip. I had no idea that you were supposed to tip housekeepers. I'm anti all of these things. You're anti tipping?
JVL00:08:09I am pro tipping, heavily pro tipping, in all the places where there is a broad social agreement that this is how the industry works. So like restaurants. The expansiveness of tipping, though, where tip your supervisor at your building at Christmas, tip your mailman. Tip the maid service at the hotel. I would say 90% of the time when I'm at the hotel, I can leave my Do Not Disturb sign on the door the whole time because I don't want anybody else in the room while I'm staying there. I want people to clean my room, make my bed, towels. Don't you want fresh towels? I will call down and ask for fresh towels, but I make my own bed.
Vic00:08:48And then do you barely open the door and the arm comes out and pulls the towel?
JVL00:08:51No, I'm actually like JBL.
Sonny00:08:54I want people around my things. I leave up the Do Not Disturb sign the whole time unless it gets real. Unless I'm in a room for like five days, and by the third day, it's just a train wreck. I don't want it. And when I need towels, what I do is I sneak up on the cart, and I just grab them out of the cart, and I run back to my room.
Vic00:09:10And extra shampoos, soaps, all sorts of things.
JVL00:09:13Look, tell me, what is the rate-limiting principle on tipping? Once you expand it to tip the doorman, tip the bellman, tip your barista, where should you not tip then? And I hate it. I don't like it. I want price transparency in all human economic interactions.
Vic00:09:32I will say restaurants and hotels. That's for me.
JVL00:09:35I don't do anything else.
Sonny00:09:36I do think that this is, again, I do think that this is a regular thing. People are, I don't know if, I see, but I say this even though I grew up not knowing this, that you're supposed to tip your maids. So I think that it is a thing that is commonly accepted.
Vic00:09:54They do a lot of things. They don't get paid very well. You should see the things they do.
JVL00:09:59I've never had maids, so I wouldn't really know.
Sonny00:10:01Well, no, I mean in a hotel. In a hotel.
JVL00:10:05I guess.
Vic00:10:07It's all making me very uncomfortable. I don't like it. But I'll tell you what I find annoying. Do you remember this JVL? In the old office, the new coffee store or shop opened up across the street on M Street. I forget the name of the coffee place now. It's a coffee bar or something. You go up there, and then you say, oh, okay, I'll charge with my card, and the prompt before you just hit a green light, or whatever, comes up is, how much to tip? Do you remember that one? And it'll be like 10, 15, 20%. This is standard coffee shops now. This is standard of coffee shops. I draw the line.
Sonny00:10:38Not at Starbucks. It's one of the great things about Starbucks.
JVL00:10:41No option to tip on a card. Not on a card. They have little buckets.
Sonny00:10:45I pay for everything on the card because I don't carry cash. No tips for them. And I'm sure they say, oh, well, it's fine.
?00:10:54Yeah.
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