Deciding who is supposed to get a tip and how much they deserve can be tricky. A lot of it depends on the type of service and how the customer is treated.

In general, waiters should be tipped 15 to 20 percent of the bill, pre-tax, while wait service at a buffet get 10 percent. There is no obligation to tip at a restaurant for take-out, but up to 10 percent is reasonable if the server or cashier went above normal service.

Hair dressers, manicurists, tattoo artists and body piercers get 15 to 20 percent, and taxi drivers deserve about 15 percent, plus an extra buck or two if they helped with bags. Gas station attendants in Oregon should be given $2 to $5, but only if they go above and beyond filling your tank, said Lizzie Post of the Emily Post Institute.

Hotel housekeepers are supposed to get $2 - $5 per day. Post said hotel cleaning staff pick up some bad messes and deserve a few dollars for the trouble.

“They are the people that are typically not paid as well, but they’re there day in and day out helping you,” Post said.

Other service industry people get tipped, but only for the holidays, Post said, including baby-sitters, newspaper carriers and doormen. Employees of supermarkets like Safeway in Coos Bay and North Bend can’t take them.

At Bandon’s Sunset Lodging, a 72-room inn, housekeepers clean an average of about seven rooms per day.

Out of those seven rooms, three will typically leave a tip, said Cherie Bell, the assistant head housekeeper.

“You see a lot of fives, and it depends on the length of the stay,” Bell said. “If they stay here longer, you see fifteen, twenty dollars.”

The amount is often determined by the housekeeper herself, she added. Some days, she’ll leave work with as much as $40 in her pocket, in addition to her pay.