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Comment by mcphilip | Hacker News Reader

While I'm sure there are good waiters that do their best to treat all customers equally, I can confirm that their tends to be a snap judgement made about the tipping probability of a customer. In one place that I worked the waitstaff used the euphemism "Canadians" to refer to customers that weren't likely to tip (e.g. "I just got sat with a table of Canadians...").

That being said, I sympathize with waiters and tend to tip relatively well since I know firsthand the pressure of only making $2.15/hr + tips on an unpredictable schedule that ended anywhere from 11:30pm to 2:00am (depending on how long my last table stayed).

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I'm sure that euphemism is based in experience, but as a Canadian, I've found that most of my compatriots (myself included) feel it's only polite to tip at least 20%, and we're VERY IN TO BEING POLITE. :)

I'm not sure where the term originated at that restaurant, but it probably had nothing to do with Canadians' behavior since it was in a small Texas town that only saw an actual Canadian every once in a blue moon. :)

It may not be meant to make any sense. I worked in retail (probably like most people, ever) and we seemed to have a variety of signal-type words that made no sense to customers...or management. Makes the job more fun.

Maybe they were from Canadian, TX.

I'm pretty sure the origin is in irony because if someone overheard you calling them "cheap" or a negative stereotype there would be a problem, but if you we overheard calling them "Canadian" it's a lot more benign. I've heard "Canadian" used when working in restaurants outside of Texas, so I think it's fairly common in the US.

I've met Canadians that described the income they used to earn from tips in a top Vancouver restaurant as being far more than they could hope to earn in a mid-level professional job.

I am only guessing, but Canadians (on average) tend to tip lower than Americans. I have always considered 10-15% standard. In the U.S., they tell me that it is 18-20%. I could never bring myself to tip that much when I lived there. There may be a core of truth to Canadians appearing cheap to American waiters which may be where the euphemism started.

Are you sure they didn't use "Canadians" to refer to black people?

Because from my understanding that's much more common.

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