There are only two ways to take care of the check. Either one person pays, or n people pay equally like the opening scene in American Psycho. Any sort of bookkeeping at the dinner table is really bad manners.
EDIT, more etiquette hints:
when looking at the check, make at most a quick glance. Ideally don't look at the check at all. If you can't trust them to prepare a check you probably shouldn't trust their cooking either.
How do you figure out who picks up the check?
- if you are dining with the boss, you're the one who pays
- if you're dining with customers, you're the one who pays
- if you're dining with your girlfriend and her female friends, you're the one who pays
- if you're the host in any sense, you're the one who pays
- if you're dining with students and you're the only one who has a job, you're the one who pays
- if you're the one who went deep on the wine list, you're the one who pays
There aren't many times that a check gets split, or any sort of turn-taking applies. For the most part, you're the one who pays.
- if you are dining with the boss, you're the one who pays ------ No unless you invited them. - if you're dining with customers, you're the one who pays ----- Yes but hopefully your company reimburses you for that. - if you're dining with your girlfriend and her female friends, you're the one who pays ----- Maybe in 1980's, in my experience most people want to go dutch nowadays. - if you're the host in any sense, you're the one who pays ----- Yes but thats not the kind of situation that this would be used in. - if you're dining with students and you're the only one who has a job, you're the one who pays ---- Only if you invited them. If you made plans for dinner and they couldn't afford it, they should have made it clear before going out. - if you're the one who went deep on the wine list, you're the one who pays ----- If your the only one drinking wine, your doing it wrong.
Do you think credit card roulette is bad manners? This is basically a fairer version of that.
When I was in college we had a sink full of dirty dishes until we had a rule to always wash one more dish than you dirtied. It worked even though the math major refused to participate. The problem wasn't an individual free rider, the problem was that humans were involved, humans make mistakes, and the errors accumulated in the sink.
Paying more than your share is a good habit that has good effects elsewhere in your life. Can you fairly split all the little schleps among the founding team of a startup? Best results are obtained when each person does (what feels like) more than their share. Both members of a married couple should make (what feels like) more than their fair share of compromises. As parents we'll make nothing but compromises and be repaid in resentment. But it's one of the most rewarding things we do in life.
Make a game out of finding ways to pay more than your share, sneak it past the anal retentives and militant obsessives. Extra points if they never notice. It's harder than you might think. But it's good practice for the rest of life.
"Hmm, why do my date nights get bigger and bigger? Last time we had ten of her friends show up!"
Start with any item on the bill. The person who ordered that item pays the bill with probability equal to the cost of that item divided by the subtotal. Flip the appropriately biased coin; if that person is it, then you're done. If not, then subtract that item from the subtotal and repeat, recursively, with another arbitrary item. If you start with expensive items then you'll probably find the person who's paying after a handful of items, but it doesn't matter for fairness what order you pick things in. You won't have to figure out all the confusing drinks and appetizers (yet the outcome is as fair as if you had!).
There is the completely rational mind and then there are humans - this represents a separation point :)
But it's so the Right Way to do it! I guess it's like trying to get Americans to use the metric system. It would be worth it if it actually worked...
Another downside is the liquidity requirement. To adequately participate, you need to be able to pay for a fairly large number of meals.
"A common complaint about stochastic schemes is that they’re “only fair if you do it repeatedly with the same group of people”. That’s true if you insist on ex post fairness. We’re usually happy with ex ante fairness. Consider selling me a (perfectly fairly priced) lottery ticket for a dollar. That’s guaranteed to be unfair, ex post. Either you sold me a worthless piece of paper for a dollar, or I got a million dollars and only paid a dollar for it. But the fact that none of us knew which would happen made the one dollar price fair. Same story with venture capital investment, for example. You may need a gambling mentality to be down with it, but it’s quite fair even if only done once. The fact that it averages out in the long term to be perfectly fair ex post is icing on the cake."
Thinking about it, I think I have a faster way to do it: 1. generate a random number between 0 and bill amount. 2. "Count" that much money down the bill. 3. Whoever ordered the item you stop on pays.
One method I found which seems to work quite nicely is each person puts in what they think they owe, and any difference between that and the total bill is split evenly between the group. This tends to work out nearly-equitable and is very fast.
I generally offer more if I feel I've consumed more - "hey, I had four drinks and you had two, you don't have to pay for me" - but if they insist on splitting evenly I am OK with that.
Same thing if I'm the underconsumer - I don't want to show up at 2230, have a beer, and split a check that's been open since 1700, but if the differences are small then even split is just fine.
Why wouldn't they do something like:
1. Enter the subtotal (becomes permanently printed at the top) 2. Enter successive item amounts, after each entry the app says 'pay' or 'continue'
UI improvements welcome! Bethany has it on github: https://github.com/bsoule/Expectorant
You gain efficiency, at the loss of acquiring short term risk. Might be a useful exchange in some cases.
One good example: in a traffic jam everyone decides to maintain a minimum of 50ft between them and the car in front of them.
Is this really that difficult?
How about just toss all the credit cards in a bag/box/etc and ask your nice waiter to pick one at random.
