I go to the same Starbucks location essentially every morning. When the weather is hot (as it has been for the past couple of months and will continue to be for the next couple of months), I prefer iced coffee to hot coffee. So, every morning I get the same venti* iced coffee. Every morning it's $2.98. Most mornings I pay with $3.00 even (sometimes with a larger bill), so most mornings I get exactly two pennies in change.
My question is, should I throw those pennies into the tip container they have on the counter by the registers? From the standpoint of satisfaction with service I have no problem with the concept; the workers at that Starbucks are always courteous and get orders out quickly despite lines that are often long in the morning rush. But what I mean is, is it rude to tip two cents? You'd never leave a two-cent tip at a restaurant unless you were trying to convey the message that you thought the service was shitty, which obviously isn't my goal. But on the other hand, I don't really need those two pennies (other than last night when my tab at Walgreen's came to exactly $6.02), and they jingle against my keys in my pocket all day long until I bring them home to put them with the rest. On top of that, I feel a little bit stingy when I take them and put them in my pocket rather than just throwing them in the tip jar. So, should I tip with those pennies every morning? I'm leaning towards yes, but I'm open to feedback.
Note: For what it's worth, I do tip at Starbucks if I order something more complicated than an iced coffee, or sometimes when I order the iced coffee but pay with a $5 or more.
* I'm not going to go into the obnoxiousness of "venti" here; conclude what you will from the fact that I saw fit to include this footnote a
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my initial reaction is to say you're overthinking this, and i only feel allowed to say that (b/c i'm aware it's a little rude) b/c it takes one to know one -- i overthink EVERYTHING. :-P i think the appropriate thing to do would be to give the two pennies, b/c even though it's not much, it's probably better than, "did that guy SERIOUSLY need those 2 pennies?" by the end of the day the change will obviously accumulate and it will still just be two of your pennies but part of a larger sum they get to split while it really just ends up being two pennies to you (unless of course you take your change to one of those machine things in the bank and deposit all that extra dough into your bank account... if that's what you do, i say keep the change) (really tempted to add "you filthy animal" there, a la "home alone" but i thought it would be rude :-P)
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