People that get tips should make at least minimum wage like everyone else. The employer should not get to pay less because someone gets a tip.
I always try to tip in cash. First so the person getting the tip can decide if they want to declare it as income. Second so it goes where I intend it to go.
20% is a good tip. More is not necessary.
I always decline tipping on the screens.
Never pre-tip. Tipping should always happen after service. You won't get a refund on that tip if the service is bad.
not addressing you in particular, but this is different for getting delivery. tip based on restaurant distance and climate conditions. gas costs aren’t dependent on how much you ordered, unless the order is huge and takes multiple trips from car.
well, generally delivery drivers aren’t employees and signed up to be an independent delivery contractor instead of a W2 job because this is side money and they have other ambitions and they don’t want to be employed by any particular gig app. part of the bright size of it is being able to choose when you drive, where, and being able to say no to any offer at any time, and cherry pick the best offers among all the apps that compete with each other for drivers. being an employee takes away all of that. most politicians get this very wrong. what is important among actual drivers is tip/pay transparancy. don’t hide tips or let drivers be tip baited by people.
because most delivery drivers these days don’t work for any restaurant. only chain pizza places like dominos/pizza hut usually have in house drivers anymore. far better to sign up for multiple platform apps and be available to take deliveries from any restaurant, anywhere, at any time. this means being able to turn down offers that don’t have a tip high enough to cover gas costs and make a profit. these orders often end up being canceled, or subsidized by the app company itself, possibly at a loss.
to your point, they actually do pay a base fee based on delivery distance, but it’s not really enough to make up for the fact that the further you drive from a restaurant the farther you have to drive back to your zone to get another order. making short orders far more desirable because they put less miles on your car as well.
Uber actually does list gas station prices in the area for its drivers, making it easy to see the cheapest places on a map. door dash implemented something similar to this also, although not nearly as good. but some people deliver in electric vehicles or even ebikes so they don’t need or use gas.
I fully agree with you on the they hide behind “you’ll get tips” to not pay a decent base fee though. and what’s more they take advantage of tipping customers by batching their orders with non tipping customers to make the offer more desirable, so their food gets there later.
yes to all of this. you make a good point. but honestly since the gig apps don’t actually employ anyone and there are people who for some reason will end up taking the bad orders anyway, I don’t think this type of innovation is ever going to happen.
Gentle request to still tip if you think service was bad. The employee could be having a bad day, something could be out of their hands, or even if they’re just a shitty worker, they can be let go after enough fuck ups. Denying someone their tip because you think it was “bad service” is part of that bullshit master-slave dynamic. Normal employers can’t deny wages if someone shows up and doesn’t do the work - they have to be fired or sent home
Gentle request to pay employees properly instead of shifting that burden to the customer and laughing on top of the pile of money you saved.
Denying someone their tip because the service was bad is the exact purpose of a tip. Making it anything else is exclusively helping shitty employers and literally no-one else.
Yeah, and tips are the thing shifting burden onto customers…so denying servers or whoever a tip as long as that system is in place just hurts employees, not employers. If you want to hurt employers then help employees unionize. They kinda need tips to build emergency funds and shit during that process, unless you want to go the route of voting unions as requirements in the meantime?
Edit: you could also not go to stores that rely on it to begin with
It doesn’t matter who I hurt by not tipping. It matters that I help shitty employers keep up a shitty system if I do. Employees are being hurt whether I tip or not. But my money will not go into some exploitative asshole’s pocket, regardless of your appeals to emotion.
You’re telling me, the customer, that I should help the employees unionize? Are you all up to date with the respective responsibilities of parties here? I believe it’s the employees who should drive unionization, not customers who are entirely unable to do anything about it.
Also, was the suggestion that tips go into emergency funds meant seriously? Do you know how unions and emergency funds operate?
Most businesses don’t advocate that they’re exploiting their employees, so your suggestion to just “not go to stores that rely on it” falls a bit flat.
You’re seriously suggesting that the way we end tipping culture is to tip everyone even more for an indeterminate duration of time so the employees receiving those tips can… save up for strike funds to strike against tipped wages…?
If customers tipped so well that employees could make that kind of money, no one would be striking to end it. All you would have accomplished by this is twisting the arms of customers even harder than before. This is the exact opposite outcome everyone downvoting you is seeking.
If I’m being frank, I think the only way to truly rip off this bandage for good is to stop tipping, and squeezing employees. Make these jobs so unpalatable to work at that no one will willingly take one. Starve the employers that normalize subminimum wage of their labor pool, and either force them to adapt and offer living wages or drive their unviable business models out of business.
Of course, that solution is horrendously machiavellian, requiring that things get much worse before they get better. Far worse than any human with a drop of empathy would allow. So, yeah, while I do think it’s the most realistic answer, it’s obviously a bad answer.
The next best thing for customers to do is simply not give these places business, as you suggested in your edit. That’s my strategy right now. I do tip at expected rates when I am in such places, because I’m not an asshole, but I minimize my trips to them as much as possible.
More unions sounds like a great idea! It’s the less machiavellian and more organized version of the “drive the ones that don’t comply out of business” idea. I’m all in. But it’s unclear exactly how random passing customers should help create unions. All I can note is that expecting us to give more patronage to the business that has every incentive to bust the would-be union while also stopgapping one of the major issues that would drive the formation of the union in the first place by tipping harder is probably not the way.
I’ve seen people too because their food came out slowly, even if it was hot then they got it… which is entirely beyond the control of the server, except if perhaps they lagged on turning in the order. Pretty lame if the place is just slammed and they end up doing twice the work for the same amount of tips.
My fear of not tipping before I get my food/product is the fear of a resentful employee tampering with it before I get it. So then I’m left in a situation of feeling like my food is being held hostage if I don’t give a tip. It really feels like a shakedown, and I don’t appreciate it. It has made me stop frequenting places that ask for a tip before I even get my food.
That doesn’t happen. The companies want you to think that happens, but anywhere that you’re tipping before receiving service is a place with employees that don’t get paid in tips individually. It’s either split evenly or the owner takes a large cut of what you “tip.” So the employees really don’t care enough to fuck with your food, which could get them fired or prosecuted.
Tips like that are an excuse for the owners not to pay their employees a fair wage and tell them during hiring they could make “up to x” amount.
I’ve started giving 1 star review for anyplace that asks for tip for preorder before I’ve even received anything or for drive thru. Please join me… They use shame and guilt as a weapon. We can also.
It was never not broken. It’s always been broken and flawed. It simply went from bad to worse and SUDDENLY people wake up and realize it was stupid all along. The fact people ever bought into tipping of any kind and felt it was justifiable is pathetic. Anyone who defends tipping is an idiot. Paying fair wages, expecting the same service every time, and having clear prices makes way too much sense to ignore. Tipping has variability that makes no sense and is not justified.
It always amazes me how business owners are portrayed as greedy monsters instead of the pants pissing cowards they most likely are. If you need to raise the prices of your products to give your employees good wages, do it. And customers need to understand that better paid employees means higher prices.
That’s the thing. They don’t need to raise the prices to be able to give good wages, they just bribed all the politiciants to make restaurants to be excluded from minium wage requirement to able to pocket all the money themselves.
No no, don’t you know that it is your responsibility as a customer to make sure other people’s employees make enough money to live? What are you, some kind of europoor?
Customers unable to give their money to a business due to understaffing as a result of shit wages and people refusing to tip sends a much stronger message
And subsidising shit wages just helps employers keep up a shitty system that only they benefit from. Sorry if this sucks but maybe some workers should get behind this idea as well instead of always playing victim.
But what I said applies to everyone - just refuse to do business with these places. Don’t give them your money and then refuse to tip. That’s psychotic lol
Except it’s complete bullshit, isn’t it? Believing something is entirely different from accusing someone of something but a great philosopher like you is surely aware of that, right?
You made up a stupid principle on the spot after being called out for talking bullshit because you couldn’t find a suitable counter argument. It’s neither personal nor the internet, it’s your weak attempt of worming out of something dumb you said. Don’t worry, I was 15 once, I remember what it feels like. Your brain just isn’t there yet.
You’re just helping their boss steal income from the mouths of people forced to serve you for poverty wages. If you actually gave a shit you’d stop giving their oppressors money in the first place. But you don’t. You want your treats.
The workers need to stand up to their employers. As long as you have waiters defending tipping culture with “But I make more money like this” it will not change
The workers don’t need you to bully them into standing up to their employers. That’s basically accelerationism - the idea that if the workers suffer enough they will be forced to fight back.
How about not tipping? I’m not American so maybe I misunderstand something, but it seems to me the obvious way to get rid of tipping culture is for lots of people agree to not tip - then employers would be forced to increase wages. It’s voluntary isn’t it?
In the short term it might, but ultimately the moral burden is on the employers, it shouldn’t be pushed on to the customers. Stop going to those businesses is fine as well but I think it would have the same effect.
If you stop going to those businesses you aren’t partaking in the exploitation of workers, and furthermore, you aren’t literally giving money to the exploiters.
From the worker’s perspective there’s quite a difference between “I didn’t make tips today because no one came to our business” and “I didn’t make tips today and still had to work my ass off to serve no-tip customers”.
From the employer’s perspective, too, there’s a difference between “I can’t find anyone to work for poverty wages without tips” and “I can’t find anyone to buy my shit” even if both result in their business collapsing.
You aren’t going to change Applebee’s from the inside.
Well like I said, I’m not American so it’s not really my battle anyway. I’ve only heared about the broken tipping culture in the US, and it always surprises me that threads complaining about it are often still filled up with comments like “but make sure you still tip generously” when that sounds like the most counter-productive thing you can do to deal with the problem. That’s the extent of my observation.
That’s why I said we have to stop visiting these businesses in the first place - that’s what’s really counter productive, because it literally gives money to the businesses that exploit their workers.
But if you still do business there and then just refuse to tip, you are not hurting the business. You are only hurting the worker. Sure, maybe if the worker is hurt badly enough they’ll stop working there, but maybe they’re so fucking desperate that they’d rather work for $2.50/hr without tips than stay home.
It’s like, you could technically hurt these businesses if you slashed all the workers’s tires. Maybe don’t do that tho
I don’t know, you seemed to think I knew about Applebee’s earlier, I had to explain I’m in a different country in some way because you didn’t pick that up and assumed I was familiar with your local brands. You said “tip generously or stay home”, that was what I was responding to, I stand by my assessment that tipping generously seems counter productive, you can choose to make boycotts or lobby your government to make changes in your country but that’s none of my business (besides internationalist worker solidarity which can only go so far).
Owners don't want to charge more for the food that people eat at Restaurants fearing it will tip the scale and less people will eat there, so they lowball the menu prices, and leave earning up to each individual server for each individual table instead of paying wait staff a living wage. This is further exacerbated by serving staff being allowed to be paid far less than the meager minimum wage in most, but not all (CA) states.
I don’t believe that’s really true. Don’t get me wrong, I know they’ll raise the food prices. But it’s not because they’re using lower wages to buy better ingredients. Don’t let them convince you paying people a liveable wage isn’t possible. Somehow other countries all around the world are able to do it just fine.
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