I don't carry cash these days - with the rise of contactless I have taken to using my card for even very small payments, and with the pandemic the use of cash has fallen massively out of favour in general. This occasionally causes problems with things like paying for parking, though I mostly deal with that through the medium of being prepared (that is, I take coins with me when I know I'm going to need them).
Unfortunately, this left me in a moral bind last week - LC and I went out to dinner, we had a great time, and then the bill came. "Service not included" was printed on the receipt, and there was no option to add a tip at the card machine.
Which sucked. It was a good meal, and those who produced it deserved some recognition of their work. But I can't give a tip in cash if I don't have any cash, obviously.
There are, of course, solutions to this. The best is actually to abolish tipping - it's radical, but restaurants could actually pay their staff appropriately and set their prices to match. Failing that, the ability to add a tip at the paypoint could be made available as standard. And failing even that, add a contactless point somewhere in the restaurant for electronic tipping.
In the meantime, it's tricky. Ultimately, I couldn't give a tip with cash I didn't have, I felt bad about it, but there it is.
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