Anyone have opinions, or know the proper etiquette, about whether tipping is expected for take away orders you pick up yourself?
The people who work there are generally poor so they and their children could use the tip probably.
Not likely in this case.
I’ve never heard of doing so.
There’s some discussion of it on Yahoo questions:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070123131331AAKtJ3v
I have waffled on this ever since tip jars became ubiquitous fixtures on every ice cream/snowball stand/coffee shop/etc counter a decade or so ago.
I have no problem with tipping for the traditional restaurant service, and I err on the generous side of 20%, but I really felt a little grumbly when the implication that I should tip for a $1 snowball started to show up.
I’m becoming somewhat used to them now, and–though I have no formula or standard–I tend to throw a buck in if the order was worth, I dunno, 8 bucks or better and if I thought the people were friendly or pleasant or otherwise deserving. But I don’t do it every time, and I try to ignore the sense of obligation.
I looked at the Yahoo discussion re carry-out orders, linked above, and I can see where it might be reasonable to leave a 10% tip for some orders.
You’re not obligated.
If you order a rush job, extras, or a huge order, then tipping is a nice gesture of ‘Thanks!’ or ‘I’m sorry.’ If you simply order and pick up without any ‘extra’ work, stress or consideration necessary, then the price is the price and you pay the price (probably with tax) and that’s it.
At least in my opinion.
Everyday on the way to work I stop at 1) a bagel place and get a bagel to go. The woman behind th ecounter is always pleasant and smiling (6:30 am) $0.50; and 2) a dunkin donuts - usally $0.06 or whatever change they hand back that’s not greater than 0.50.
In my town there’s a an ice cream place only open in the summer. No seats. High school senior girls behind the counter (he doesn’t seem to hire boys for the the counter). They have a tip container that says “college fund” and moos. Usually a dollar.
I don’t calculate if I’m not sitting down. I tip if they’re pleasant and I’m in a good mood.
The brain surgeons on the pick-up window do little or nothing in the way of food prep at most fastfood joints, so I don’t have any use for tipping them. I will tip when there has been some form of service provided beyond the cost of the food where they come and cater to me, but if I have to drive there and pick up my order then I don’t see any need to tip. They’ve done nothing to deserve the extra.
It seems to me to be something similar to where one gets an allowance for actually doing something, versus just expecting to be handed money on a regular basis, whether you’ve done anything to earn it or not. Tipping bowls for nothing irk me a bit.
djm
On Tuesdays I get chips at the local chippie. It’s always the same three guys. I go on Tuesdays to avoid the rush on Fridays, because Friday is the popular day. They’ve got a tip jar. Every now and then I put something in it. Not every time or even every other time, but when I’ve got enough change and am feeling generous.
Tip = gratuity.
It’s a way of telling someone “Thanks.” for a service well done.
I do NOT subscribe to the whole pity party mentality of: Because someone chooses to work a given job and obviously makes no money so you should feel obligated and tip them regardless."
Servers do indeed work for comparatively low wages when ranked against your average CEO. However, do NOT believe they ALL make small hourly wages. I have several friends who make well into the $12-$20 per hour as a base wage and still collect tips on top of that. When you factor in the reality that VERY few tipped employees ever report their true earnings and therefore are not held accountable to pay tax on it as well (unlike most of us regular Joes), that server you feel so sorry for may well make far more than you.
If the service sucks, there is no tip. If the food sucks there is little to no tip. If you have been given services or product that you are truly grateful for, then by all means tip.
A gratuity is exactly that.
If its an expectation (which seems to be more and more the case at fast food / snow cone stands etc., it is NOT a gratuity and should be built into the cost of goods or services already and paid to the employee directly. If it is not in those cases, then it is up to the employee to figure this out and seek a more equitable employment solution.
My 2 cents.
Flame on! 
I’ve a good friend who’s a nurse–or at least, she was, I haven’t seen her in years.
After she ate in a restaurant, she’d take a post-it note from her purse, write something inside of it, fold it in half, and leave it instead of a tip.
Finally one day curiosity got the better of me.
“It’s a medical tip,” she said, and winked.
I opened the paper. Inside, it said “Please don’t use colored toilet tissue. White is better, in the end.” 
–James
Tipping is for servers whose typical hourly rate is calculated based on the expectation of gratuity. A restaurant server/waitress/waiter gets paid a paltry hourly wage, and expects the majority of their take-home to be based on gratuity. A coffee-shop counter person likely makes a minimum wage, or close to it, which is significantly more than what a restaurant server makes.
The tip jar is there to guilt you into tipping. I don’t do it.
For reference:
In my state (RI), minimum wage is $7.40.
More reference for minimum wage
It varies, in Minnesota, food servers make the same minimum wage as the coffee server.
also http://www.dol.gov/wb/faq26.htm
Question: Is it legal for waiters and waitresses to be paid below the minimum wage?
Answer: An employer may credit a portion of a tipped employee’s tips against the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour effective July 24, 2008. An employer must pay at least $2.13 per hour. However, if an employee’s tips combined with the employer’s wage of $2.13 per hour do not equal the hourly minimum wage, the employer is required to make up the difference.
Do employers follow this? No, but it is set up keep them on level with the coffee server.
Really, I dislike bribing someone to do their job. If a doctor wanted a tip for his work, I would look else where. Yet when I belly up to the bar, the kind of service can depend on how I tip. I know that it is not how our society is structured, but I wish they would just tack the money onto the cost of the food rather than having to negotiate. But then, I don’t even like the “Need/have a penny, Take/leave a penny” cups.
The worst was Mexico, where you cannot take a leak without someone wanting a tip.
Oh, and just for fun
Emily Post
A gentleman scarcely ever “remembers” any of the women servants (to their chagrin) except a waitress, and tips only the butler and the valet, and sometimes the chauffeur. The least he can offer any of the men-servants is two dollars and the most ever is five. No woman gets as much as that, for such short service.
As a child I was a waiter. When I was a waiter I made $2.50 an hour and I didn’t make enough tips to come to minimum wage and my employer didn’t compensate. The reason I didn’t make enough tips weren’t because I was a bad waiter, but because the people who came into our restaurant (actually, we called it a “store,” but it was a restaurant) were generally low-income themselves.
I worked at a few restaraunts in my day. I really hated the fact that, as a cook, I busted my fanny for minimum wage and the waitress/waiter staff raked in $100 a day in tips. That was back in the 70’s and early mid 80s.
As for tipping, I probably over tip unless it’s really crappy service or the server is a lout. I’ll tip even more if we cause them extra work.
At the restaurant where we get take away the chefs do all the prep. I pick it up from the counter where they, the chefs, place it, take it to the cashier, who this last time attempted to keep $11.00 and some change for a $48.00 bill. This has now occured three times with different cashiers whose work consists of taking the order via touch screen computer which is transmitted to the chefs via computer. They don’t even have to write anything down.
sounds like a training issue 
People who leave notes instead of monetary tips (unless there was a legitimate cause–bad service, or otherwise bad experience) and think they’re clever are cranks. Really.
I understand the waffling over counter-service tip jars, but–by this point in history (speaking for the U.S.,) tipping is culturally correct. Those who decline to do so and tell themselves they have some respectable cause for the behavior are simply unwilling to recognize that they’re stingy.
Here’s the solution:
Ask the server what they ACTUALLY make. In fact, probably best to demand a check stub. Then also ask them if they are reporting ALL their wages when they file taxes. Probably best to again have them present a copy of last years return to be sure. then extrapolate from this whether or not they are A-truly making $2 an hour or something much higher (you will be surprised how many make more…sometimes MUCH more), and how many aren’t cheating on their taxes, and increasing the legal tax burden for everyone else.
Then calculate your tip.