Youp van ‘t Hek never tips in coffee shops. The PIN machine that asks for it invariably gets an ice-cold ‘no tip’. “Why 5, 10 or 15 percent extra?”, the former comedian asks.
It is common in many coffee shops: you order your coffee at the counter and a selection screen immediately appears on the payment terminal. Five percent tip? Ten? Fifteen? You don’t even have the coffee yet, you have to pick it up yourself, take it to your table yourself and take away the empty cup yourself. But the device wants to know how generous you are.
No tips
Youp van ‘t Hek does not choose any of the options. The man who filled sold-out theaters throughout his career and thus became a multi-millionaire simply presses ‘no tip’. He is annoyed by those ‘begging PIN machines’, he writes in the VARA guide.
He points out that you don’t get any service in coffee shops. “You have to wait for it because you have to bring it to your table yourself. And when it’s gone, they also expect you to put the empty cup somewhere in a hard-to-find rack.”
15 percent
The coffee itself is often ‘not a small amount’, according to Youp. “And the pin machine starts beeping whether you want to deposit an extra 5, 10 or 15 percent. Why?”
Youp recently ordered tea. “I had to pay three euros fifty for that and even then the device wanted more. I pressed the No tip button, and the girl looked at me quite grumpily.”
Kneeling
But Youp can easily miss that 5, 10 or 15 percent, right? “Don’t think that I have become a wimp in my old age, but I would like to decide for myself. And I want to give it to the waiter himself and not to his or her boss.”
According to him, everything is better organized in his second home country Italy. “You cannot pay your tip there by card. The government does not allow it. You can only pay the amount stated on the receipt with your card.”
“Life is actually so simple: children who ask…”