Which is why I don’t order on these things. I hope they’re happy with $0 tip and $0 order because it’s not worth the hassle, the cold food, the wait, and the whining
Cooks don’t care if FOH gets tipped. They typically get paid decently, and I’ve never worked a place that included BOH on tip pools or even tip outs, with the exception of bussers and runners at a couple places.
They aren’t risking their jobs and possible legal problems for something that doesn’t matter to them.
I’m in the US and I don’t tip a bartender for popping a bottle cap. If I’m sitting at the bar and they are making conversation and I’m getting mixed drinks then sure I will tip. But in no way is that similar to a Starbucks experience. Coffee shops operate no different than McDonald’s, do you tip at McDonald’s? No, so why would I tip at a Coffee shop?
Tipping culture is flawed to begin with. I already said I tip at bars if exceptional service is provided, but popping a bottle cap and handing me a beer is not tip worthy. You are not entitled to a tip just because you chose to work at a bar. And using your own logic a coffee shop is considered fast food, so your entire argument just went out the window.
Only assholes don't tip their bartenders when they know it is the primary way they make rent.
I am against tipping culture. I have repeated this in a dozen comments. But not tipping does not end tipping culture or hurt businesses. It only hurts the person serving you.
If you go to places where tips are expected then it is on you to pay a tip. If you don't want to tip, don't go to bars. You can save plenty of money drinking at home with friends. But to avail yourself of those services and then refuse to uphold the part of the bargain we are all aware of is trashy.
You hate tipping culture so much you refuse to participate, but not so much that you won't give those establishments your money? Please. Splitting hairs over specific cases doesn't change the ridiculous entitlement that comes with this position. You know what is expected, you know these people depend on it, yet you refuse. That's a selfish move. Do not try to sell it as some generous action in a great struggle to end tipping culture or whatever fairytale you choose. We both know you don't believe that it solves the problem.
Did I say I don’t tip at all? No, I said I tip for exceptional service as it should be. You handing me a beer from behind the counter that requires zero effort on your part does not deserve a tip. You pouring me a coffee does not deserve a tip. Also the hypocrisy of calling me entitled while these people think I should be supplementing their income for doing the bare minimum is laughable. If you are not getting paid enough and you require the kindness of strangers to pay your rent then you need to find a better job with stable income. Strike if you have to. Don’t sit here and try to guilt trip people into to paying your wages and then when we do tip you complain it’s not enough.
Sure, if I am staying in the establishment for a bit, they’re serving me repeatedly by themselves in glassware, offering samples of drinks I haven’t tried, making suggestions, etc. I’ll typically tip $1–2 per drink for that.
If a barista served me over a couple hours with nice mugs by themselves, I’d probably tip as well. But if I’m waiting in line, then give an order to one person, and have my name called out later by a different person who serves me a drink in a disposable cup, that’s not like bartending. That’s the model of Chipotle and Subway, and nobody tips at Chipotle or Subway.
Absolutely. If I happen to order a beer at the fair I’m going to tomorrow, I’m not going to tip because that’s beer to go. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone tip in that circumstance.
That's not a bartender/bar scenario, we are way afield of that. If you step into a bar and order a drink, do you ever not tip (aside from the obvious such as really really rude/nasty service)?
Yes, that is a bartender operating out of a portable bar, complete with bar signage. Their point of sale being outdoors rather than in a building does not magically change that.
If I were in an indoor bar that operated like Starbucks, I would not tip. Most do not operate that way, though. The indoor bars I have gone to all operated like traditional bars, so I’ve tipped there.
Dude come on. You keep dancing around this. I am talking about a standard-fare bar, what everyone considers them to be. Generally a dedicated space that serves alcohol with a year-round license. The last sentence you wrote is clearly what I am talking about. So yes, you do tip at bars for a beer.
The point is, did a bartender exert any more effort pulling out a beer and popping a bottle cap and handing it to you then somebody who made you a coffee?
Tipping at coffee shops is pretty culturally standard. I understand why you do not, but I am only trying to point out that whenever we start saying “I tip these people but not those people,” when clearly they all work a job that depends on tips to make it work, you’re just being inconsistent and are punishing one group arbitrarily over another.
No, as I explained in my very first reply, bars are part of the full service model, like sit-down restaurants. Full service establishments get tips.
Coffee shops are a pickup model, like fast food. Pickup establishments get tip jars.
As I said, if I’m at a bar using the pickup model, I don’t tip. If I’m at a coffee shop using the full service model, I tip. But I’ve never been at such a coffee shop, so the point is moot.
Find me one and I’ll gladly tip. I tip based on service model, which is 100% consistent.
“stiffing people” is language that implies they are entitled to the tip, which they are not as it’s a tip. Expecting a tip is falling victim to the propaganda that enables employers to maintain low wages. By continuing to tip because “that’s what people do” you’re only further cementing this culture.
If more people refrained from tipping or tipping excessively when not appropriate, then employers would have to increase wages. That’s how to solve the problem.
When I tip, I tip 20%, but I’m not going to begin tipping at a grocery store or getting a coffee unless it’s a small, local establishment.
But most people don’t so your individual effort without any effort to bring more people on board is you pretending that you’re somehow hurting employers, which you aren’t.
Why would you tip for a coffee? You make me stand in line to order, stand against the wall to wait for my drink, and you want me to give you more than the $5 you’re already charging for a latte? It’s insane.
Don’t worry though, I don’t stiff the baristas. I make better lattes at home.
$5 on a $30 meal is absolutely a tip. A pretty decent one at that (roughly 15%).
I tend to over-tip (20%+), but we also don’t go out all that often and I am only tipping wait-staff and barbers. None of this other new bullshit about take-out orders or anything like that.
Can you explain tipping a barber? A barber preforms a service that requires almost no one-time use products to complete and the service is done entirely, or almost entirely, by a single person. When barbers charge $15+ for a hair cut why should you be tipping them on top of that? The cost includes any work being done.
The main argument for tipping wait-staff is that the service they provide is additional from the kitchen (kitchen makes the food), and purely provides a service that is separate to the food (hence why I would argue tipping wait-staff is something that could be acceptable).
Barbers do have costs in performing their work but that can be reflected in the price, any tips to that is the same as tipping lawn care providers, car wash employees, etc.
Baristas and the person swiping your credit card for a takeout order is not. Nor the asshole selling you an overpriced T-shirt at a concert. Not your vet or your pet care place.
Yes, and my question is why is it standard, why should it be done? Just because something is standard doesn’t mean it makes sense, could you explain why it should be done?
Most barbers are independent and have to rent a booth from another business. The business usually sets the prices. So, they can’t just adjust their prices accordingly. Also, out of the $20 you pay them, they have to pay a portion back to cover booth rent, buy materials, pay for healthcare, etc. Tip is often their actual wage after costs.
I tip barbers, but I often wonder why tipping is a thing for barbers? Are they paid less than minimum wage? Since they have to have a license, I’m assuming they are not paid beneath minimum wage.
This actually seems a more appropriate time to tip? I’m a guy, I have a simple haircut. There are probably a dozen people on my block that that could do a suitable job giving me a haircut and for an actual barber I’m usually not more than 10-15 minutes in the chair. I go in, I say the same thing just about every time like you’re ordering a cheeseburger at McDonald’s, and my cut is about that level of difficulty.
My wife getting a $200-$300 cut and color is a half day long activity, at the least. She goes to someone who actually went to school for this shit, and then serves as a de facto entertainer for hours. Unlike my barber, who can turn over his chair every 10-15 minutes, the stylist doing my wife’s hair is spending 3-5 hours with her, and they approach the thing almost more like a collaborative project.
That’s another way to look at it. Though I’m pretty sure the woman owns her own studio. Or at least is her own boss. Seems like the $300 could just be payment enough. Or just charge $360.
It’s never that I don’t appreciate paying employees for their value… but the employer should be doing that. Charge more if you need to. Otherwise it’s just another hidden fee.
If the barber charges $15, I’d give them a 20 and call it a day. I am not going to be a cheap piece of shit for $5 if the barber does a good job. It isn’t just the hair cutting - it is typically a whole experience. They chat you up, they sometimes shave your face. It has been the tradition that barbers keep their prices low with the expectation that the tip itself brings their dollars-per-hour to a reasonable level. I’m not going to break that tradition if I went to one. But then again, I’ve been cutting my own hair for some 15 years now.
Also the way many barbershops are structured is that the barber rents out a chair at the shop. Not sure if they pay the shop per customer or by the hour, but it could very well be that the shop makes $5 out of that $15, so then only $10 goes to the barber plus whatever tip you give them. I do not claim to know the ins-and-outs of their cost structure so my numbers could be off, but I do know it is something like that.
Rounding out your cost to the nearest $5-10 can make sense. Especially when it’s an exact amount like $23 I’ll give them $25 because it’s just easier, but when you say tip the common amount of a tip is 15-25% would have you tip $3.50-5.75 on that $23 haircut. That’s more than I’ve ever tipped them because I’m already paying over $20 for something they completed in ~20 minutes without using anything that would cost them money (other than time).
Paying for the experience is not what I’m paying for, I’m paying for the service. Going to the movies I don’t tip the concession stand for providing me with the “movie experience” when they give me popcorn. And anytime they do extra stuff like shaving my face it costs extra. The haircut costs X amount and anything extra adds Y amount, it’s a service the same as all other services.
You are correct in that typically hair salons and barber shops will rent out the chairs to barbers, but this is done in 1 of 2 ways typically, the barber pays per month and they keep all of the money they make, or they pay a portion of every customer. Why does this matter to you as the consumer? If the barber isn’t making enough, the prices can increase. My local barbershop increased prices 2 times in the last 4 years. If they’re supposed to make their money on tips why is this? Their costs to run the business haven’t gone up because they don’t use anything to perform the service, so it must be to pay the barbers a better amount. Something that wouldn’t happen if it’s “meant to be a tipped position”.
If the barber charged $20 or the barber charged $15 with some kind of “expected” tip, fundamentally what is the difference?
Hair cutting is one of those professions, which traditionally (at least in the US) some form of tip is expected for a good job. That extra couple of bucks that one gives for a good haircut is well worth it to build that relationship. They might squeeze you in on an otherwise busy day if you have an interview the next day, or something along those lines. You can claim all you want that you aren’t paying for an experience, but the reality is that you are. The cut itself is only part of the whole process. The vibe of the shop - the music they might play or the game they are playing on the TV. Or maybe the opposite. Maybe it is a quiet place and you can go in there and relax in silence for a bit. It is all part of the experience. When I used to actually get my hair cut, it was probably once a month. That extra $5 means nothing to me in the end. If $60/year worth of tips is too much for some, then they might want to look at cutting their own hair.
I don’t understand why people are arguing this point. If collectively barbers said they are raising their rates but tipping isn’t needed anymore, than that would be great, but that’s not reality. Until that happens, I absolutely would tip a good barber and not think twice about it.
It doesn’t make sense to you because you’re reasonable and half the people in this thread are cheap and selfish. I’ve seen people say they don’t even tip their bartenders.
I bet the same people who don’t want to tip, are also the same type of people screaming for $15/hr pay for no-skill jobs. Yet they don’t want to pay people who have learned a marketable skill their fair share?! They can complain about tipping till the cows come home, but if the system in place now mean their income is based on getting a certain amount from tips, then arguing about tipping these people means you’re a cheapskate.
I don’t understand how it’s “cheap and selfish” to go to a bar, see that it says $7 for a drink on the menu, and choose to pay $7 for the drink that says $7 on the menu.
As a customer, it’s not my responsibility to know nor care how much the employee of the business makes. I see a sticker price for the thing I want, and I pay that price. What’s “selfish and cheap” about that?
Historically they have always been the same receipt as regular dine-in orders, so the area to write a tip has probably always been there. If I have to go there and pick it up, I sure as hell ain’t tipping. I mean unless it is some huge order or maybe some last-minute deal. Something out of the ordinary.
this is a big reason I’m glad corporate chains are starting to remove tipping options in the first place on non-waitressing orders, Domino’s is the most recent one to purge it, you can only tip on delivery now, where it used to give the option for carryout and dine in.
Don’t get me wrong, I tip 20% for dine in but for some things it doesn’t make sense to tip
Y’all are entitled as fuck. People don’t get paid fairly for their day to day service jobs in the US no matter what they’re doing. If they were, the food would cost about the same as it would including a tip. You always tip, that’s how it works. Otherwise you’re an asshole. It doesn’t matter if it’s “the employers fault for not paying more.” You’re not fighting the system, you’re just being a cheapskate and depriving an underpaid worker.
Lol and what would be wrong with food costing the same it would with a tip. That’s exactly what the person you disagree with wants. Why wouldn’t you want that?
I do want it. But that isn’t how it works, so refusing to tip on those grounds is just stealing from the employees. It’s like going to the store, buying something that costs $10, and then handing the cashier $5 and walking away.
If I go to the store, then I’m paying exactly as much as is required for the product I’m willing to buy.
If I go to a restaurant, then it is exactly the same. It is already that much pricier than ever before and I should pay even more, just to grovel before entitled pricks like you who are trying to guilt me into it by saying it’s stealing? Any sympathy you wanted is out the window with your behavior.
In what world does a cashier get to keep 50% at the till? If a customer shorts them they get their manager and the house takes the hit. If they miss it and their till is off maybe they get in trouble? But what idiot is going to accept $5 for a $10 transaction and not escalate?
I’m confused by the grocery store example in multiple ways. But I’ll keep it simple and only ask instead if paying $10 for the $10 item at the grocery store would be theft too? What about $15 for the $10 item? Because I just want to know how much this steak costs so I can decide if I actually want it or not. I’m not sure what is ‘fair’ and certainly don’t have some advanced economics degree … but I only got $11 on me. Can I get it or not?
that’s not really how it works either, depending on what state you’re in people can be paid different wages for different types of work if tips are included or not included it’s a bit more complex
Working at a business that relies on tips to pay their workers is not begging. It’s pretty clear that most of the people here have never worked in the service industry or been in a position where they needed to rely on that income to live. It’s entitled AF and makes y’all seem petty and cheap. Quite frankly, in my edperience every single person who complains about tipping is someone who can easily afford it.
I stopped going to a restaurant after the employees said I was a shitty person for not tipping a girl who walked the food to my car $5. It was a $15 order. All she did was walk 50 feet. I get $10 an hour to break my back all day. Fuck you.
A an European, where mandatory tipping is not a thing, I find this practice of outsourcing the payment of restaurant employee's salaries to customers absolutely stupid.
I really can't understand how either customers or employees are letting this go on.
If one isn't able to pay their employees a living wage they should just pick another fucking thing to do tbh.
At the very least this needs to be spoken out loud and understood by everyone.
The customer is forced to subsidize the employer and those that suffer from this, the employee, typically blame the customer. The employer is the problem here, not the customer.
The employer is the problem here, not the customer.
That’s the first place I would apply the blame to, but, also a little bit on the employee, for either not being able to negotiate their salary better, or for not being part of a union that can do the negotiation for them.
The employer should share the wealth better though, that’s for sure.
Employees actually fight to defend their tips, as they mean a much better income than the wage they could negotiate, even with unions. Customers are the most impacted here, and can’t do much to change anything, except either stop using the service altogether, or stop tipping.
Mandatory tipping isn’t a thing anywhere at all. And if it were, it wouldn’t be tipping at all…it would just be a component of the price. It’s socially expected, but not mandatory.
I also don’t know how people let this go on though. The craziest part is tippers think they have the moral high ground over a person who doesn’t tip, when in fact it’s the opposite. Tipping is fundamentally unethical.
Not true, I’ve been to several restaurants that have small print on their menu along the lines of “a gratuity of X% will be automatically added to your bill”, sometimes for parties over Y, sometimes after Z o’clock, sometimes just in general
Just consider that a “hidden fee”. You’re probably already paying hidden fees on your cellphone bill, ISP bill, flights, hotels and Airbnb’s. Shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to get over it.
Gratuity is a fancy word for tip. It’s a separate line item, no different than if you’d written it yourself when paying by card, except it’s not voluntary.
My point is the actual definition of both gratuity and tip requires they be optional. Those businesses are using the word incorrectly, but that doesn’t change the definition.
As an European, I have made the mistake of leaving a tip… and I have been given a tip… and have talked to others who got tipped… and our consensus is that it’s an offensive way of attempted slavery.
If I do a job, I’m doing my job as specified, for the agreed upon price, take it or leave it. I’m not lowering the price to lure a customer, expecting they’ll suddenly appreciate my work so much that maybe they’ll decide to pay me more. If they don’t think I’ll do a good job from the beginning, they can go elsewhere. If for some reason I don’t do a good job, they can have their money back, that’s on me to make sure it doesn’t happen. If I did a good job, and they don’t think so, we can meet in court.
This whole thread is people railing against a strawman/implying they're somehow sticking it to businesses to justify their not wanting to tip. It's pathetic.
That anger would be better directed at the corporations who have used propaganda to get people to subsidize the wages of their employees further and further.
The person you’re shitty with is just trying to get by, same as you.
I mean, two way street wouldn’t you say? Even with that perspective I wouldn’t go back to a place that shames you for tips. I’ve never in my life heard of giving a tip for curbside pickup, every major restaurant chain is doing it free these days. By all means I’ll tip a driven delivery or waited table, but curbside pickup?
Then why would they direct their anger towards him for not tipping? It’s not his fault. It’s not like they’re forming a union and demanding appropriate wage. At this point, steadily increasing tips are just shifting more corporate responsibility onto consumers.
See, even this argument, while it makes sense in that I should utilize my money to further businesses I have moral agreement with, is another way to put the onus of paying a living wage to employees back onto me.
I sympathize with everyone pulling down a working wage, but… When I need vacation time or cost of living increases or healthcare, or whatever… Are food service personnel expected to drop what they’re doing and join me on the picket line?
The only solutions I can think of would be far more universal than me not visiting a certain taco bell or tipping 40 percent. There are billions of us. Maybe it’s time for a universal union or boycott brigade or something? Change needs to happen on a grand scale, not be argued about on Lemmy. But, we all have shit to do and it’s almost the weekend.
If there is a massive mobilization effort for enough people to stop tipping collectively I'd be on board but that doesn't exist. So the people refusing to tip yet continuing to frequent these establishments while claiming moral highground are just hurting hard working people. I hate tip culture too but to not participate on an individual basis is inherently selfish once you understand how the system works.
Comb this thread. Find one acceptable comment explaining why they refuse to tip and how their actions help in the slightest. I agree the burden shouldn't be on us but the solution isn't to turn it around on other victims of this system.
Isn’t it though? If the only thing keeping that whole system running is my subsidy, which, to remind you, is intended to be a gratuity based on how I felt about the services (which people seem to forget is what the definition of a tip was supposed to be based on rules we agreed on as a society), then why not remove it and let the system topple?
For what it’s worth, I worked deliveries for quite some time, and dealt with douchebag customers and muggings, etc. I never tip under 20 percent unless you do something to thoroughly piss me off. But posts like this are ridiculously entitled to money that I frankly don’t owe anyone based on social contract.
I think you’re missing my point, but in your defense, a lot of people are. My saying that stiffing people their tips is wrong does not mean I support the system of tipping. I would be very happy to remove it. But as it stands, it’s still the law of the land. It’s literally baked into US tax law. To not participate does not tear it down, it just punishes people who depend on it. So I don’t accept “I want to end tipping. Therefore, I don’t tip“ as a reasonable stance.
People are conflating my stance of “don’t stiff people on their tips“ with “I support tipping culture.“ That is not the case. Businesses should pay a living wage. This $2.13 nonsense is absurd.
I think it would be uncharitable to describe the crux of your argument as pro-tip given what you’ve said so far. Honestly, I’m in the same boat as you, since I still tip in spite of my own feelings about how it’s affecting us because I’m powerless to change current doctrine.
However, I would like to point out that your argument does come off as an appeal to Nirvana in my mind as it is essentially advocating we do nothing but maintain status quo because there’s no current perfect solution. I think we can both agree that if we all decided to cease tipping, this would not be an issue within a year (granted it would take untold amounts of human suffering in that short time). Of course, it also would work if we simply boycotted every establishment dependent on tips.
But, again, both of these solutions are completely dependent on us stepping in to change conditions for restaurant employees on their behalf.
To be fair, I’m somewhat in the weeds here. My primary opinion is that no one is entitled to a fanciful tip, and I’m not really here to destroy tipping culture. I’m just getting fatigued by ever increasing expectations.
I understand how it comes off as supporting the status quo, but I assure you, I do not. I am more pointing out that an individual not giving tips without any sort of a larger plan in motion is just cruelty.
To give a real world example, there are more restaurants here opening up that incorporate a service charge straight into the bill. They often itemize it very clearly for you and clearly label the tip as “additional tip.“ I’ve even had some servers point it out to us to make sure we see that. My response has been to seek out more of these restaurants when I can, because I want to reward that behavior and help institute a change.
The best thing I can do as an individual consumer is help support the restaurants actively trying to avoid tipping as we know it. It’s realistic and I get to not participate in tip culture without hurting the people who depend on it. Going “I don’t tip because it will get workers off their asses to find a better job or organize against their employers” (yes a real argument I’ve seen throughout this very thread!) is absolutely insane to me. All I can assume is they are looking for a palatable excuse for why they don’t tip without outright saying they simply don’t want to.
It’s just so ridiculous seeing all these people justify it while also saying they are totally cool to go to these places that expect you to tip. If they want to undermine these businesses then they have to stop giving them money. It’s a big ask! Don’t get me wrong. But refusing to tip and claiming it helps to end tip culture is absurd. To look at it from more from my framework: I’m not telling people never to go to these places, I’m saying “if you are going to go to them, then you need to tip.“ The only reason I’m even saying to not go to these places is because they are allegedly in favor of punishing these businesses. Well, stiffing servers their tips is not going to accomplish that.
I like how you talk, and carry yourself through this type of conversation. You word things in a way I could never come up with. If there was a way to subscribe to users’ comments, I would yours.
She probably got paid like $4 an hour to serve people food.
You’re not wrong for not tipping $5. She wasn’t wrong for wanted/needing/hoping for a 33% tip.
The employer is likely in the wrong for running a restaurant where it’s staff are specifically underpaid to put the burden on their customers to pay them so don’t go broke/stay broke.
Is there some world where the cost of increasing employee pay isn’t also going to “burden” the customer with commensurate higher costs for the service/goods? Getting rid of tipping is a fine idea for many reasons, but not because it’s a cost burden for customers. The customer will partially pay the wages of employees for services they use and goods they consume, either through tipping or increased costs.
The reasons to get rid of tipping is not to save customers money.
The burden I meant wasn’t the money spent itself but the responsibility to cover it directly.
In the context of wages not rising with the costs of living, employers increasingly are passing the responsibility to pay their tipped employees onto consumers, intentionally or not.
If the employer pays their employees a living wage and increases their costs, then they are taking direct responsibility. In that environment you don’t even need to eliminate tipping. Tips would be the bonuses they’re (culturally) intended to be.
So you’re not even actually talking about tipping at all. You’re just saying you want a minimum wage to be a living wage. Unless you’re implying that minimum wages jobs that don’t pay a living wage and that you don’t expect to tip are fine, and I’m confident that’s not what you mean.
It shouldn’t, no. But there’s a $2.13 an hour minimum wage for tipped employees. Employers have to fill the gap to $7.25 if tips don’t cover it, but the simple matter is the law facilitates the expectation customers pay tips.
In some states, if reported tips don’t make up the gap between the tipped minimum and regular minimum then the employer is required to cover the difference.
Dude don’t be an ass you know what I am saying. 43 states don’t do what you’re talking about. 7 do. That’s not “many” and many of don’t live in those places.
I mean, I don’t. I know people who have had to work terrible jobs serving food because there are work requirements to their medicaid benefits and such.
It’d be great if exploitative jobs were eliminated. But the legal minimum is generally what the market pressures businesses to run with.
So don’t work that job. Shit pay should result in nobody working there.
Oh yeah everyone can just go to the job store and get a new job at-will and there are absolutely no external factors that could impact that. Clearly they work for minimum wage + tips at a thankless job serving people like you out of their passion for the work.
One of the unsung reasons that Americans eat so much fast food is because, somehow, the tip crap didn’t get into that business model (yet), so if you have $8 for lunch and the McValue Meal costs $7.50 you have lunch money and change coming back, end of story. No tipping, no percentages, no shaming, just buy your food like a regular item and go. It would seem like every place outside the US acts like that, so no wonder we love McDonald’s and shit.
Knock wood and touch brass for luck that it stays that way. I am not tipping at Taco Bell.
I… I think I just managed to actually quit nicotine over this shit. The vape shop suddenly had a tip setup starting in 2020, and the clerk had to push some sort of button to get past me putting “no tip” into the screen, because absolutely not. Now I’ve stopped, and that’s one less tip screen in my face.
I’ve been following inflation and wage growth closely, too. Wage growth has leveled off, inflation is slowly, begrudgingly coming down. Cash money says these tip screens aren’t going away, no matter what.
Don’t you still have to tip your government? I always hear about how USA prices don’t include the tax, so you are going to have to calculate percentages no matter what.
that’s because it’s too hard to calculate state tax before checkout. it’s much easier to calculate it at checkout. if only computers could help with this
It varies from place to place. In the city I used to live in the sales tax would also change when there were special municipal projects that needed funding, like a stupid ass arena…
Highly variable depending on where you are. Often the next town over will have a different sales tax. There’s a state sales tax rate, which differs state to state, then there is a county/town sales tax added to that, which will vary within the state itself.
There’s a state sales tax rate, which differs state to state, then there is a county/town sales tax added to that, which will vary within the state itself.
That’s pretty standard, what confuses me about American taxes is how often they seem to change, from Americans’ accounts.
Most companies try to squeeze every penny they can from you; they aren’t gonna absorb anything. That’s why the common people pay sales tax anyway, instead of the companies that sell the product!
As an Oregonian, i was wondering the same thing: we don’t have sales tax. So the item on the menu costs the same as it does on the bill, but i travel out of state enough to know better than assuming getting rid of tip means there’s no more surprises on the bill.
So long as there is the option of unionizing, there is no excuse to belly ache. Most industries got underpaid until they unionized. Service industry is no exception. If they don’t, that’s on them.
My main problem with anti tipping culture is that people seem to think they are helping by not tipping. You know what actually helps? Forcing real change by making their boss pay them more. Trust me, real and true, the people paying these workers don’t give a shit if you tip them or not. They will continue to pay them the same shitty wage until they are forced to pay them more.
I love how service industry seem to think their rights are beyond everyone else’s of forming a union. Here they passive aggressively expect customers to go and form the union on their behalf. It’s not going to happen. It’s never going to happen. Because it is wrong, unrealistic and irrational.
You are taking what I said a bit too literally, which to be fair I could have phrased it better, when I said that what I meant was let the employees know how much they are being screwed over, or boycott the business, etc. It’s not for normal people to pay a living wage, but not tipping only, and I do mean ONLY, punishes the employee. Not only do they not get to pay the rent this month but they either feel like they are bad at their job or that you are an asshole. Very rarely do they blame their employer even when they should.
Very rarely do they blame their employer even when they should.
And there in lies the fundamental problem with tipping. It only enables this misconception even further. And it’s the employer who benefits the most from them coming to their job so yes, it is on their boss to compensate for the value LIKE EVERY OTHER JOB.
I agree, but the employer isn’t going to care if they still get their money. The employer will be the same greedy SOB whether you tip or not. If you really want to do the employees a favor tell them to look for a job that actually pays them what they are worth instead of replying on the kindness of strangers.
Exactly. That should always be up to the business if I remember correctly back in the day they used to give less wages to waiters because the owners knew they would get tips
Currently the minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.13 which the employer pays if the employee tips bring them to minimum wage. If not they’re supposed to make up the difference.
Varies by state of course. Example: Colorado, the tipped employee minimum wage is $10.63.
Mfw I recognize a problem in society by it’s symptom, but take action neither to ameliorate the problem or symptom even when it’s considered socially unacceptable not to
You agreed to a wage when you took the position and make the choice to maintain that with your employer, but its everyone else’s responsibility to fix it?
No, there is a social expectation that customers will tip. This varies by location. The social expectation is baked into the exploitative labor relationship. A person who knows this and doesn’t tip is acting anti socially.
It is not a protest against the oppression servers experience in their exploitative jobs to deny them part of their pay. That just hurts the server.
It is a callous, self centered, entitled statement that tells everyone else you don’t believe the expectations apply to you.
If you want to make a change in the social expectation, consider organizing with service workers in your area.
So I have to organize for them, they are incapable of doing so themselves? I already tip, which is why I know the cost of the practice, and the social stigmas not giving in to servers begging comes with.
My experience is servers like the status quo because they make 2-3x what the kitchen staff does. What incentives do servers have to support the kitchen staff they’ve sold out in fighting for better wages? Servers do not do any more work than the people actually making the food.
The social expectation is baked into the exploitative labor relationship.
I agree, servers have been on the abusing side of the exploitative labor relationship. They choose to take less wages so they can expect the customer to pay more or bear the social stigma, giving the employer more savings and themselves significantly more than the kitchen staff. In the end both parties expect to exploit the customer.
I suggested your activism to end the tipping system would be more effective if you organized with service workers, not for them. Of course, often there are many more pressing matters than taking on the myriad changes even one place has to go through to remove tipping, so you will likely find that no one is interested in doing a complex, difficult project just so you won’t have to tip and may in fact be hostile to you unless you’re very careful in how you present yourself.
You know, because you selfishly view performing your duties under the flawed labor relation you take part in as optional.
E: I completely forgot to pound this point home and it’s a prime example: if you don’t tip, you’re a bad person!
Lol just dripping with entitlement. I do tip, which is why I know the associated cost and how much more expensive servers have successfully guilted us into making our restaurant experience in the u.s.
I’m finishing up a vacation to an island nation in South East Asia and this afternoon I had some amazing ramen and thought of you. I walked in and ordered from a kiosk and then a few minutes later grabbed my food from the order drop, made by employees who earn a living wage and do not expect tips for doing their job as a means to try to earn more than the kitchen staff. The food was amazing and despite the markup of being on an island was cheaper than I could get it from the restaurant in my home town after the server tax.
Weird how nowhere in that engagement did i have some entitled person expecting a generous markup on my meal for bringing it and maintaining my drink. In fact thats been the experience this entire trip, even in instances where there was a server involved. Pleasant people who earn a living wage and do their work just like the rest of the staff in the restaurant. When it was appropriate we left more, the difference is it was a reward for excellent service, not just showing up.
So wait, the person who correctly recognizes your antisocial behavior and your server who expects you to uphold the expectations of your dining interactions are the entitled people here, not you who feels like you shouldn’t have to even though you know it’s expected and that you’re only harming your server when you don’t?
You are describing feeling entitled to receive the servers (and kitchen, some places split tips) labor for a lower rate and justifying it because you don’t feel like the social system that labor relation exists under is right.
It’s not right, but that doesn’t make you not a bad person when you don’t tip.
To go a little further: you describe servers doing all these things themselves, guilting everyone into paying more, expecting (all by themselves. as if everyone you dine with doesn’t expect you to tip too!) to be paid for their work. At no point do you place blame with or advocate taking action against the forces and structures that uphold tipped wages as a system. If you had an analysis that didn’t hinge on blaming the server for wanting to be paid I could look past it, but it’s germane here as another example of your entitlement to their work for a reduced rate.
Out of curiosity, what was this south Asian island nation?
It’s actually the other way around. Only a bad person would endorse and support a system of inconsistent unreliable wages. A system where one asshole customer can just fuck over their server. Why would you support such a harmful system? Because it benefits you, the customer? That doesn’t sound too ethical to me…
No, tipping encourages a system where servers don’t have consistent/reliable pay. They have no way of knowing what their income will be at the end of the month. And that makes things like paying rent tricky.
Part of my goal is making them quit and find a better job with a consistent income, even if outside the industry. This would positively benefit their life and the industry as a whole. This is what will end tipping and what anyone who disagrees with tipping culture should do.
If you’re serious about this: consider verbally and physically abusing your servers, lying about them to management, applying the methods outlined in the CIAs manual for disruption of organizations and even stoicastic violence.
Surely you could be doing more to hurt your server enough that they find a job you approve of!
For anyone reading this comment: if you don’t tip you’re a bad person exhibit a.
My goal is not to make all employees quit any and every job. I only want those unhappy with unreliable tip based income to quit, and I want them to communicate that with their employer.
If someone is happy with optional tipping, then I don’t want them to quit. But such a person should have no real problem with a $0 tip since they support optional tipping, right?
It must be so difficult to make the decision wether or not to tip then, since you need to extensively vet your server before even ordering.
That is of course unless you don’t make sure your server is unhappy with their tip based income and is communicating that with their employer before you don’t tip and are simply looking for a cover for your antisocial behavior.
Sorry, I don’t follow…can you clarify? I already pointed out that if someone were unhappy with optional tipping then they wouldn’t have any reason to be upset with someone deciding to tip $1000 or $20 or $0. That’s what optional means, having an option. So anyone who would be upset by an optional tip of $0 must be unhappy with their inconsistent tipped based income, obviously.
Because honestly it’s really not a hard decision at all, I just literally never tip.
If part of your goal is to make them quit but you only want people who are unhappy with their tips to quit then you gotta target the people who are unhappy with their tips otherwise your not tipping will make someone who is otherwise happy with their tips to become unhappy with their tips and you will have actively harmed your otherwise perfectly fine server.
You can always just admit that the justification you used is a cover for your antisocial behavior.
Because I want to convince others not to tip as well due to it helping people. And it seems to be working if it’s upsetting people who endorse giving or receiving tips.
Same reason you can’t say “I endorse tipping despite the harms it causes to those I directly (and indirectly) interact with, because it makes me feel good as a tipper and/or I like it when I get big tips sometimes”.
I have yet to hear an actual argument, even a weak one, as to why an inconsistent unknown income with a unreasonably low base wage is better than a fixed and fair one. I’m always open to changing my position if providing a convincing argument though.
Do you know that it’s having that effect? What kind of follow up interviews have you conducted to make sure people are getting the message and your not tipping is effective?
So like I said, if you really believe you’re helping people by pushing them out of jobs you don’t approve of, consider abuse, false reporting and bullying as well. You’re really limiting your ability to force people out of jobs you don’t approve of if you only vote with your dollars.
I have already addressed this point and you ignored it entirely. So I’ll just requote this to make clear you are unable to provide an answer.
I have yet to hear an actual argument, even a weak one, as to why an inconsistent unknown income with an unreasonably low base wage is better than a fixed and fair one. I’m always open to changing my position if providing a convincing argument though.
So I never said any of that and I’m not arguing for it against it. It’s not the topic of our thread of discussion, which I’ll restate for you:
If you don’t tip you’re a bad person.
Not to get all uno reverse on you, but I never got a response to my reply directly to what you did say and what is the topic of our conversation which you claimed you addressed but I for the life of me cant find it so I’ll repeat it here:
Do you know that it’s having that effect? What kind of follow up interviews have you conducted to make sure people are getting the message and your not tipping is effective?
Tipping itself supports a system of tipping. So anyone who tips is in support of tipping. It’s very very simple.
So if you don’t support the tipping system, you won’t tip. But you do support the system, and this tip.
I don’t need to follow up on interviews to know that lowering the average amount of tips received will push people toward pressuring their employers for fair wages. It’s the obvious result.
So you don’t know if what you’re doing is effective but you keep doing it.
Maybe next time you have a nice big meal with drinks appetizers and digestif, after you pay the bill without tipping, ask your server if your not tipping every time you visit that restaurant has caused them to approach management about abolishing tipping or caused them to pursue a job you approve of.
You could even make a list of jobs you think actually deserve their pay in case they ask you what jobs they should drop everything and pursue!
It’s important to check that what you’re doing is having the intended effect, especially when you’re one of thousands of diners in even a small town and one of dozens of tables a server might have in a day.
When your own own dollar-voting is dwarfed by the massive amount of cash sloshing around, it’s vital to check in, otherwise, you know, you’d only be harming your server by denying them part of their pay you’re responsible for.
Complaining about tipping culture and then giving money to the people who perpetuate it while shafting employees making $2.15/hr in an effort to end it is truly insane.
How the fuck am I supposed to know you make $2.15? And more importantly, why in the fuck would you ever agree to that?
A wage that low would literally be illegal in my (presumably more civilized) country where minimum wage is well over $12usd currently, servers included.
Do you think by not tipping you are improving the lives of those who depend on tips for their income? Do you think that by not tipping you are hurting the employer/ending tipping culture?
Lol what was the point of asking then? I thought at least you’d attempt to justify why you disagree with me if you did. But if you can’t justify your position, I guess I get it.
Service people: “I hate when customers stiff me on a tip or leave a really lousy one.”
Me: “Ok, let’s eliminate/discourage tipping then and just factor a percentage increase into the item prices on the menu instead.”
Service people: “No way, I’ll make less money that way!”
You can’t win, man. I’ve tried to argue with them before. They get one table in a blue moon with added gratuity plus somebody who tips really well on top and they don’t want to let that go. Bartenders are especially contentious about giving up tipping because whale drunks subsidize their entire paycheck.
Essentially, they want all the upside of guilting people into leaving a bigger tip without the downside of occasionally getting somebody who decided that the price on the menu is exactly what they’re going to pay when the bill comes.
Seriously. If you ever want to reconsider your job, ask a waitress how much they make (when they’re not on the job). I was an ugly overweight nerd and still made about $30/hr averaged over the week, working as a part-time uni student. It’s some of the best short-term money someone can make without a degree or connections.
Doubt. Unless you were working at a high end place or a really high traffic place.
Best I ever hit was 12/hour, which sure. Over minimum, but not over what minimum should’ve been at the time. And for the most part it was like 9/hour. Still over minimum but previous point still stands.
Current minimum wage should be slightly under what you’re claiming you made, based on inflation and such. So to fix the tipping problem is a two point issue, raising minimum wage to reflect an appropriate wage based on inflation since inception, and then removing the minimum wage nonsense for tipped employees.
You people that keep claiming they’ll make less with this change is what helps keep this nonsense in pepertuity. It makes the employees think that the employers are the ones that are actually helping them by giving this deal. And painting the customers as the enemy.
The real enemy is corporate. Worker wages haven’t raised since Reagan, but upper management wages have gone through the roof. Because they just pay a modest amount to Congress to keep worker wages stagnant so they can reap huge profits, and then they perpetuate class nonsense like your spewing to keep the target off of their back and onto your neighbors.
Sounds like you were a bad waiter or at the very least worked at a slow restaurant. I worked evenings and bar tended once a week at a national chain that rhymes with Boutack working in the evenings in a college town about 25 hours a week. I said nothing else about minimum wage, etc. so I won’t respond to the rest of your comment but I’ll tell you that no one wants to keep tipping culture more than servers
My hourly pay as a waiter was nearly doubled that of my first corporate job in the same city. Granted, it was fine dining.
Still worth the switch. The job was soul crushing and the 2nd shift, underachiever drug culture wears thin. Everyone should wait tables for a year. Nobody should wait tables for 10 years.
Whale drunks, I watched a bar tender at a concert make a killing on tips because most people use a credit card and the payment process gives you only so many options, easy to click options besides no tip. 18-22% tip on top on drinks that cost 3 times more than they should. When I use cash and buy drinks you get a dollar if that from me, less than ,10% tip.
And you know what’s the worst part. It’s the owner refusing to pay him proper wages that forces this tipping culture in the first place. It’s absolutely atrocious and we shouldn’t even be responsible for making sure they get a living wage. That should always be up to the owner
The owner will 100% always raise wages versus just pack up shop and go out of business entirely if forced. But not out of the goodness of their heart lol.
Yep. California pays their servers the state minimum wage of $15 an hour. They still get tips, and basically no restaurants went out of business when they “suddenly had to pay minimum wage.”
And to the few that did go out of business, I don’t have much sympathy. If you’re unable to run your business in such a way they you make money while paying minimum wage to your employees, go find another job because you weren’t very good at running a restaurant.
If you want to protest the owner’s business model then boycott businesses that have tips. But refusing to tip at a tipped business is still giving 100℅ of your money to the owner, supporting their business, and leaving the employees out to dry. It’s not morally righteous, it’s cheap.
For the downvoters: Any argument against this? He’s clearly right, if you patronize the restaraunt they still get paid and they still don’t have to pay the server shit. “Not tipping” that person didn’t change the culture, it didn’t even hurt the business, the business responsible for this shit to begin with, who got their money. Our only recourse is then to A) Stop eating out all together until the industry collapses and rebuilds tipless, or B) Only go to “no tip” restaraunts if there are any in your area. Any of this half-assed “well the industry needs to just change but I’m not going to do my part to help, I’m just gonna piss off servers and do nothing” bullshit won’t accomplish anything.
Servers want the status quo because they make more money expecting the rest of us to pay 20-30% markup as a tip with the risk of getting stiffed from time to time. Let them demand whatever they feel is a compensatory wage for their time just like the rest of us. They were fine when the scales tipped their way.
IMO servers sold themselves down the river because it allowed them to make more money than back of house staff. Now that everyone is getting tired of this shit it’s the responsibility of the customer to negotiate them a better position? Laughable.
As someone that worked the kitchen and made less than servers while doing as much if not more work, hard pass. Servers are just mad people are getting tired of this shit and they can’t easily double or triple what the person that actually made the food makes.
There’s a difference between “responsibility” and “reality.” Should politicians for instance vote to give themselves term limits and stem their own insider trading? Yes. But if you expect that to happen, “wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which fills up first.”
Similarly, should servers fight for higher wages? Yes. But in reality they have no power in this situation, the customers have more. Even if they unionized, you’re arguing here for crossing the picket lines and continuing to support those struck businesses who then make money to hire scabbers, and wondering why nothing is changing. Even if you’re right and all this falls on servers to magically fix, you’re still then part of the problem. You’d arguably be even more of a problem then.
You may not want to make personal sacrifices to change a system that you want changed, but anything worth doing takes hard work and sometimes sacrifice, it just is what it is.
Go get a better job if you’re unhappy with the responsibility of fighting for your earnings as a server. If nobody chooses to work serving jobs… then restaurants would have to do something more to compensate to bring in servers. Instead servers like the status quo because they make more money by culturally shaming people into donating to them.
they have no power in this situation
Quit. Find better employment. Go be a cook, though they don’t usually make as much as servers despite actually making the food. Funny how that works.
anything worth doing takes hard work and sometimes sacrifice
Just not by the server though right? It’s the customers responsibility to manage the terms of employment for the hapless server in your scenario?
Go get a better job if you’re unhappy with the responsibility of fighting for your earnings as a server.
I did, I was chased out by people like you not tipping, so you did win on that one, even though I’m the only one who suffered for it, the business is doing just fine. Congrats, if your goal was to make it so that I could barely afford rent and food you did a good job, now get to work on making the poor sap who took my place suffer until he quits, and then the one who’ll take his place, and the one who’ll take his…
If nobody chooses to work serving jobs… then restaurants would have to do something more to compensate to bring in servers
Like have you order off a touchscreen? As long as they’re able to find a way to make money off of you they will, and the corporations will just cut out the already thin human element, it’ll be a screen at the table and foodrunners at applebees type shitholes. Most mom and pop places will either just close or become counter service style restaraunts with no servers, like how they run Chipotle. Some will raise prices and try, and hopefully make it, but only time can tell. Of course you’d have fine dining actually pay employees well because they can afford to and their customers can take the price hike and an air of exclusivity to being served by a human rather than a machine.
It’s the customers responsibility to manage the terms of employment for the hapless server in your scenario?
Well, no, I suppose not. If you want restaraunts to not just all be mcdonalds and chipotle clones, then you can continue patronizing them undermining the efforts of servers who do quit, or would theoretically unionize, and there would be no “consequences” from this as you’re in support of souless corporate food giants and counter service only. If however you did want servers then yes, as the restaraunts source of income you would then share in the responsibility in participating in a boycott as they do in either quitting or striking.
I just think it’s crazy that people believe if Steve owns Steve’s Place and Dan works as a server, hurting Dan to spite Steve while still paying Steve the price he requested does anything lmao. It doesn’t and never will. Dan may quit and Cheryl will take his place, then it’ll just be the counter with Bob behind it handing you your card that says “65,” then “Screen” will take his place and the cook will just start yelling “SIXTY FIVE” and having you grab it, don’t forget forks, they’re next to the vending machine.
Funny you assume I don’t tip. I do, and well, unless the service is dog shit. Which is why I know how much more things cost because of tipping. The problem is instead of it being a bonus for quality of service, its become the expectation to make up for the fact that servers choose not to throw their lot in with the rest of the staff and argue for living wages collectively.
Servers have been privileged with making 2-3x more such that the idea of making what the kitchen staff does is seen as being abused. You just don’t want to accept that the employer abuses you, and instead you abuse the customer with your expectations of having them supplement the poor wage you took expecting the customer will make up for it. Meanwhile the kitchen staff has always been abused but you didn’t mind because you got yours. Maybe work together and demand a better lot?
And here’s the scenario you didn’t care to consider. You quit, they don’t get servers because they don’t pay well, and the business shuts down making room for another that can try again with a better model. Dan can seek an employer that doesn’t treat him as a slave to minimize their costs, and Steve can choose to serve food himself or pay someone appropriately to do the work or close up shop. None of which relies on an expectation of a tip because the wage increase you collectively bargained for is baked into the price. So then when a tip is deserved it can be given, but there is no expectation of 20% for refilling my water at a buffet that I served myself at, or less.
I appreciate the discussion, hope you have a good day bud.
Funny you assume I don’t tip. I do, and well, unless the service is dog shit.
Well duh, you’re so adamant against tipping I figured you practiced what you preached. Kinda odd that you do tbh with all this arguing against the practice.
The problem is instead of it being a bonus for quality of service,
Actually, I’d argue that:
I do, and well, unless the service is dog shit.
Means that tipping is still correlated to quality of service. To your point actually, when people used to stiff me for giving them great service, I would be thinking “what the fuck did I do to you? My service was great, I sped like a bitch to get here I know I wasn’t slow, I went like 10mph over (15 is reckless driving)” until of course they just order 2x a week, taking up valuable time I could be getting tipped, but nooooo that dude doesn’t have $3 to let me know he appreciates fast service, so I guess he doesn’t care how long it takes.
its become the expectation to make up for the fact that servers choose not to throw their lot in with the rest of the staff and argue for living wages collectively.
Irrelevant. You would just cross the picket line undermining all efforts those people make. Until the day comes where the customers strike with the bottom-rung empliyees you seem to think have all the power no ammount of striking will change it.
Servers have been privileged with making 2-3x more such that the idea of making what the kitchen staff does is seen as being abused. You just don’t want to accept that the employer abuses you, and instead you abuse the customer with your expectations of having them supplement the poor wage you took expecting the customer will make up for it. Meanwhile the kitchen staff has always been abused but you didn’t mind because you got yours. Maybe work together and demand a better lot?
Idk where you work, but this isn’t the case where I worked. Idk if it’s egocentrism making you think everyone is the same as you, or what, but sorry to break it to you my cook made more than I did, and I got $8/hr plus tips, which in my area is unheard of for drivers, ususally it’s $7.25 in store and like $5 out of store. And another thing, I was using my own car (as delivery drivers usually do) so I had to worry about my gas and extra wear and tear on my car, another reason to give the nice man who just drove your drunk lazy ass a pizza like three whole dollars (I know, we’re asking for SO MUCH, such a burden huh?)
And here’s the scenario you didn’t care to consider. You quit, they don’t get servers because they don’t pay well, and the business shuts down making room for another that can try again with a better model.
Or the business that opens up is the exact same and the cycle continues because you keep patronizing the businesses that you feel have unethical practices. Why does the business have to do something anti-gay or anti-trans or racist before people boycott it? Aren’t your economic principles also important? Not important enough it would seem.
refilling my water at a buffet that I served myself at, or less.
Where the fuck do you live lmao?! Buffets have the damn soda stream machines, usually the big red Coke one with all the flavorings you can choose, and you pay at the counter. What fucking “buffet” has servers, “Warren Buffet?!” Do they come talk to you like John Pinette lmao? I’d believe the counter has a tip jar or the receipt has a line for tips, but I don’t for a second believe they have a server. I mean, for what?! “Hi welcome to our buffet, I’m Julie. This is usually when I’d take your order, but since this is a buffet you’ve already paid and now are expected to serve yourself, my being here is meaningless. How 'bout them Steelers huh?”
Exactly, additionally isn’t the entire appeal of tipping because you will on average attain more and higher tips by being better at your job? How can people not see that it inherently means your paycheck will fluctuate, it may be higher or even lower than last weeks.
Servers should be paid fairly, and they arent in a lot of places right now but that doesnt mean they should feel entitled to x percentage of the bill every single time.
I live in a culture where tipping is not expected. For most of my life, there really wasn’t a way to tip, unless perhaps when paying in cash. Which almost nobody has done in decades.
If I got shitty service, I would tell the management. I don’t remember ever having to do that. It turns out that people can behave without people waving a bunch of bills in front of their eyes.
The issue with tips in USA is that they’re not used to reward good service, but the people getting tipped literally need them to live, cause they aren’t getting paid enough with their base salary.
So businesses need to just keep increasing payroll because the government let’s inflation run wild? At what point do we draw the line? If $30 an hour ends up not covering cost of living do we just raise it to $40? If businesses can’t keep up they should probably close, leaving more workers without a job. Hyperbole for sure, but hope you get the point.
If your business can’t afford to pay workers a living wage, it doesn’t deserve to exist. Full stop.
A business cannot exist without its employees and if its employees can’t afford to live on the salary it pays them, then it shouldn’t continue operating.
So your solution is to just keep paying workers more and somehow businesses will figure out how to magically make money appear rather than fixing the problem of prices continually increasing? Seems kind of short sighted. You should be concerned with a business being able to succeed because that means families are getting fed. What happens when no business can afford one employee? We all just starve? We should be trying to fix the source of the problem, not the symptom.
Spoken like somebody who knows nothing about economics. If your economy is growing, so are wages, so are costs, so are prices. No inflation = no growth. That’s why the US Fed targets 2% inflation. Below that, it tries to stimulate the economy. Above that it tries to slow it down. So prices are always going up and so are wages. That’s how it works in all the non-tipped industries, why the f should it be different for restaurants?
You should be concerned with a business being able to succeed because that means families are getting fed.
And that’s the problem. If I need to tip for the service workers to get enough money to live, then it’s on me to make the business successful by your definition, which doesn’t sound like the business is really succeeding. It’s succeeding because I’ve chosen to tip the right amount. I’m not going to withhold somebody’s wages just because service was poor: they need to feed their family. Let’s cut this “do a good enough job and I’ll tip good enough” bullshit out and make sure we’re actually feeding families?
No one said it was going to be easy. it’s also not an argument against tipping vs livable wages.
CUSTOMERS ARE NOT AT FAULT HERE. THEY DO NOT SET THE WAGE. THEY ARENT THE FINANCIAL MANAGERS. THEY ARE NOT YOUR UNION MANAGER. THEY ARE NOT YOUR ENEMY. THEY ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO PAY OUT GREEDY PEOPLE JUST SO THEY CAN AVOID UNIONIZING FOR MORE MONEY.
It’s been a few years since I worked in the service industry (bar) in Canada. Tipping was never really controversial. Some didn’t like it, most tipped, even if it was the bare minimum of their change.
Whatever. You’d complain to your co workers occasionally, call someone a cheap bastard and that’d be the end of it.
I never saw much of this “$1 is not…” and so forth entitlement. Seeing this I’d just assume you were fuckong awful at your job. Canadians typically will tip just fine for good service and leave nickles for shit.
Enjoy the nickle.
But, all that aside, a livable wage and the eliminating of shit like living on your tips needs to end. It should have never been the case or wait staff would be working on full commission.
Were you paid $2/hr aside from your tips like is the minimum wage for tipped workers in the US? If not, you didn’t need to worry because you weren’t relying on them to pay your bills. American tipping culture sucks and ruins the experience for both customers and service staff, but it saves BUSINESSES money! So here we are.
This shit is still happening, yet people are still complaining about the restaurant industry crumbling.
Where I live, there isn’t a separate minimum wage for servers, bartenders, etc. Minimum wage is minimum wage across the board. Despite this, tips are still expected because of the US, and certain people complain that the new normal should be 30%.
I’m not broke, but I’m also certainly not rich. If the only options are to throw away money to people earning about the sams amount that I make, or not going at all, I’m not going. I’ll tip well for good/decent service, but an attitude like the one in this post would guarantee that I would never return. I work too hard for my money to be obligated to give it away.
I’ve seen so many articles about Millenials/Gen Z killing various industries. They want us to pay for all of these extras, but with what money? Of COURSE a lot people are going to eventually stop going to these places. Places that tend to have this general attitude close pretty quickly in my city, because there are many places that don’t have that attitude, and are also inviting to customers. Those places get the tips.
I’ll tip a complete stranger before I ever tip someone for being snitty.
I think the restaurant industry NEEDS to be culled. By about 80% We reached 100% restaurant saturation a couple of decades ago. You can’t swing a cat without hitting the side of a McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s or pizza place.
Tipping culture in the U.S. is fucked. Who does it benefit most? The employers who are able to underpay their workers. (Even minimum wage these days is horrifically low.)
The companies are able to externalize the wages they should be paying to their customers, who really pay huge portions of the employees’ “wage”. (E.g. I’m a gig worker doing deliveries, and more than HALF my pay comes from tips.)
If you don’t tip or tip very low, you’re using the employer’s negligence as an excuse not to pay the service workers a living wage. For this reason, when considering engaging with the service industry, you should assume you will pay a healthy tip, unless the service worker truly and massively drops the ball. If you can’t afford a healthy (20%) tip, then you can’t actually afford the service.
If you don’t tip or tip very low, you’re using the employer’s negligence as an excuse not to pay the service workers a living wage.
If you can’t afford a healthy (20%) tip, then you can’t actually afford the service.
What are you getting at, really? The tipping culture is fucked, and yet it falls on us, not the employers, to unfuck this shit?
Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who acknoledge climate change is due to the big corporations, but it is the consumers’ responsibility to save the earth.
I’m not from US, and when I’m from, we’d pay only as much as we’re legally obligated to, unless the service is really good.
Maybe we all should stop going to restaurants. Seriously, do we really need it? We can cook at home or buy refrigerated meals in the supermarket if someone really can’t cook… Just until the industry collapses. Maybe what rises from its ashes will value the workers more…
Lockdown did kill a lot of restaurants; the ones that survived perfected takeout. It also produced a ton of ghost kitchens serving exclusively takeout.
Governments at every level opened their wallets literally to keep restaurants open.
I cook almost every meal at home myself and I get along just fine. This is a skill issue.
Lol, it’s not a skill issue, and this is an incredibly short-sighted take. My wife and I are not only capable, but quite enjoy cooking, and we still go out to eat frequently. There are a number of reasons to.
For one, restaurants are social. At least once a week we are getting out of the house to meet up with friends for happy hour. No one wants to host that at their house. The whole purpose is to go out. And no one on a first date is going to go to someone’s house for a dinner date.
For another, if we don’t want to put in the effort for a good dinner, the pre-made stuff from the supermarket is rarely a good substitute, especially as a regular meal. So much is just processed ingredients or allergens my wife can’t have. If we want a good, fresh meal, a local restaurant is gonna be better, and for something like an anniversary or even just a date night it’s definitely gonna be better than what we can make at home.
And that’s not because we’re not skilled. It’s because good food takes effort. I can and have made beef wellington, or sushi, or duck confit, but I’m not cooking at that level regularly so I’m just simply not going to be doing as good of a job as a professional cook. It’s fucking work and sometimes I don’t feel like spending 2 hours making an incredible meal after getting home from 8 hours at work.
Restaurants just have more resources and capabilities to make foods we simply cannot make at home. I do not have the time or tools to do 16 hour smoked pork. I can’t source fresh squid. I don’t have the equipment for Korean BBQ. Should people just be deprived of other cuisines simply because they can’t make it at home?
Restaurants also fill a critical need for people travelling, whether for pleasure or for work (but especially for work). Most hotels don’t have kitchenettes, let alone kitchens, so forcing the millions of people who travel for work annually in the US alone to either eat fast food, eat only cold food that doesn’t need to be cooked, or go hungry is unreasonable. And food is such a fundamental aspect of culture that denying the culinary experience to foreign tourists is depriving people of a valuable cultural experience.
From the other side, bars and restaurants serve a valuable role in providing (potentially) livable-wage jobs that require little formal schooling or training and are resistant to automation. For many people they can be a lifelong career.
There are more to restaurants than just shitty chains like Applebee’s, and more reasons to go out to eat than an inability to cook. The industry certainly has problems and could be improved in many ways, but the idea of abolishing it in its entirety is both short-sighted and problematic for a multitude of reasons.
If places to eat food made by people that know what they’re doing and have all the right equipment to do it went away, I’d never experience 99% of what’s possible in the wide span of our planet’s amazing cuisines.
If you think average home cooking or microwave meals can compare in any way, you’ve been going to the wrong restaurants.
Honestly, it just sounds like more lower class suppression. The higher classes would be able to afford their own chefs, but the rest of us would be cut off from the wide world of amazing food, and told that microwave meals are good enough. No.
Tear down those class walls, don’t build more of them.
Exactly… I go to restaurants only on my holiday and I tip only if I find the service worthy. For example I was in Greece and we tried 4 restaurants there and ended up going only to one cause you could really feel the difference. And even there we tipped not percentagely but as a final sum. 4 people, spent around 100£ and we tipped 10£. And the waitresses were so nice and happy, always smiling, they even hold “our” table for us later on. In other restaurants they looked at us like idiots as: really only 5£ tip…
I cant imagine paying 30£ for spending 100£ as a tip, that’s crazy.
To explain the joke: That’d be 30%, income tax is ~30% of your income, but “a good tip” is only expected to be 20% of the bill.
To explain my feelings on the situation: Idk Greece but for America where tipping is like, a thing, this just means you got the server to work for free since the dickheads you’re supporting with your business barely pay them. The business however got their money and couldn’t care less about the server. The only way to fix it would be for people to stop eating out and collapse the entire industry, otherwise they’ll just keep rotating kids out or finally take the jump to automation. Once the industry collapses and rebuilds maybe, but until then, not tipping only hurts the “little guy,” the individual server (or servers if they split tips), and is frankly scummy as shit.
Again, because if I don’t say it a good 300 times, I’m talking about America where the tipping culture is already pervasive, you Europeans have a different set up over there and that’s great, “we ain’t talkin’ 'bout you.”
The government doesn’t have to solve all your problems for you. It’s still on us, but culturally rather than politically. Honestly, especially with American deadlocked politics, it’s probably easier to change people’s perceptions yourself than to beg the government to force people to do what you want.
For instance, if one person says “know what? He’s right. I’mma learn to cook. Fuck restaraunts” to what I’ve said, I’ve made more of a difference than “pleeeeeeeeease pelosi do something, save us!”
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