"Mikiah Westbrooks, the owner of Brix, a wine bar in Detroit, said she worried that skipping signatures will affect her workers' tips."
May tips disappear next.
May tips disappear next.
The rest of the world does not tip (Europe & Asia). Only in North America is this awkward tipping practice still a thing.
This doesn't make sense in a society (like the US) where many (most?) people pay for dining out with a credit card.
I and many people I know carry cash infrequently because of the ubiquity of credit card acceptance.
Anyway, none of this is to disagree with you, but just to point out that your example might be less common in the U.S. than you think.
That would seem cheesy af to me. Like "Here have some money you poor thing!"
I have heard more BS excuses from servers on forums: "The government demands we pay tax on these tips, even when we don't get them". No, the government recognizes you're in a cash-heavy industry, and would like you to document things. If you do, you pay tax on the tips you get, not the default amount. Quick way to get banned from said forums? Ask if they are sure to supply documentation when they get tips above and beyond that amount to the IRS.
They also like to claim that "20% is cheap, you should be aiming for 25%"... eh.
The addition of sales tax and service charge is more a frustration than tipping to me, tis why I hate restaurants in Asia that are ++ (10% SC + 7% tax). I'd like to ask them a) under what circumstances do I not have to pay the tax? b) if service is crap are you going to remove the service charge, the answer basically point to everyone pays it. I prefer wysiwyg pricing and tipping for the real extra mile. Also note service charge is rarely distributed fairly to staff that are serving you.
My point is - in US not tipping felt like being an absolute asshole, to a point where people would be upset - they grew up in a culture that values money above all else and not being tipped is I don't know, an equivalent of being spat in the face? In UK I've never felt that way. I've had perfectly good meals that I didn't tip on, just like I did in France, Spain or Germany and it never felt like the server expected a tip. They might be a bit disappointed that they didn't get one, but that's their problem. I'm disappointed about a lot of things but that doesn't mean I'm entitled to them.
I'd rant about "this generation is so entitled" but hey that post says it all.
I have paid for the meal. At the end of my visit I was given a receipt and paid the indicated price - what else do you want? If the server is disappointed they didn't get a tip, then I think I know who is entitled in this relationship, and I have a very strong suspicion it's not me.
>> in fact nobody else but you can do anything about it
I pay my employees a good wage - so why can't the restaurant owner do the same? It's not up to me to make sure that a waiter is satisfied with their job - it's their employers problem, just like I have to take care of my own employees.
The restaurant owner in America does not pay a good wage, because tipping is a thing and the market adjusted. Not tipping for service is victimizing the least powerful person in the relationship. And the need to make it 'ok' is self-serving doubletalk.
A famous dude said "I will judge you by how you treat the least powerful person in the room"
The market would adjust itself overnight if everyone stopped tipping, and I'm sure even you can see that.
On my end, what can I do to stop this country becoming more like America in terms of tipping? Well, not tip of course, in which case it won't become expected and necessary to support shitty business practices. Amazon has "suggested" tipping for drivers now. Uber suggests tips. Deliveroo expects tips. It is imperative that if you live in UK you select ZERO on all of these. If you enter any value above zero you are sending a clear signal to Amazon etc that they can pay their drivers shitty wages because the customer is willing to subsidise them. Is an Uber driver going to feel sad they got zero tips that day? You bet they will - and I still couldn't care any less, their personal job satisfaction should not be subsidised by me.
But I've gotten away from my original point - yes, I recognize that in US the market is adjusted for tipping. But my original comment wasn't about US - it was about UK, where - to my relief - tipping isn't a requirement. Fortunately I can still pay only as much as the bill says and not feel bad about it in the slightest, because I know the person serving my table does not rely on my tips to survive. And like I said above - I do tip when the service is good at restaurants. I just don't want it to become a norm like in the US of A.
In Europe servers are paid more than the equivalent of $2 an hour because the cost of their pay is already factored into the price. I still tip for great service, but increasingly I cannot in any way begin most transactions in the US without hidden fees springing up the whole way.
I'm no millennial, but I've frequently not been able to leave a tip while paying for dinner in the UK because I've paid by card and had literally no cash on me. I've felt bad about not leaving a tip for good service, but I know that the servers will at lease make minimum wage before tips, unlike in the US. The whole point of this entire thread of discussion is about how people are switching to card-only payments in some areas and different/changing cultural norms, and while there could have been an interesting discussion about how this impacts other cultural norms like tipping, you instead just call someone an asshole like Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud.
Everybody on HN is of a different generation than me. Not rocket science.
Employers are supposed to make up the difference if the total with tips falls below minimum wage, but I don't think enforcement on that is very strict.
Tipping is a very in the face sign of inequality and really needs to die (as soon as the inequality is gone of course).
I don’t tip a lawyer $2 on a $2000 matter, but a $75 bottle of Scotch is proportionally similar (in fact, a bit smaller) and not at all inappropriate.
Also, from briefly working in a bar, I found that flashing cash around in the expectation of better service is a good way to get ignored -- developing an actual rapport with the staff, or just being friendly, works far better/is more valued.
Servers (I was one) love tipping because, generally speaking, though there may be ups and downs, you are making tremendously more money than you would be otherwise (in the kitchen, for example) and often tax-free.
A lot of complaints about the "awkwardness" of it pop up in threads like this, which just makes me wonder if the increasingly transactional nature of society makes people less socially developed. Otherwise, many of the comments are about "helping" the servers, who, I assure you, do not want this "help."
I would imagine you are right, in that the servers don't imagine they would earn as much without tips. But what if the choice was between earning as much as they do now (after tax), but predictably every month and without having to suck up to anyone?
Maybe some servers think trying to get extra tips are part of the fun of the job, but I don't see that this is a widespread opinion.
This is such a weird way of framing it, I don't really know what to say. As a server, I never "sucked up". I just tried to be personable and helpful, because I like helping people. Now that I'm a programmer am I "sucking up" because I am being personable and helpful with the customers here? Am I "sucking up" to my boss when I show up for work on time or stay late to help the team? It's hard for me not to see in this mentality some kind of aversion to normal social interaction or maybe some kind of pride. Unless you are already self-sufficiently wealthy, you're "sucking up" to someone. If anything, I could be (and sometimes was!) much ruder to a customer than I would have ever been to someone responsible for a multi-million dollar software contract or my direct supervisor.
And yeah, sure, if you could somehow guarantee me that I would make the same amount of money, except consistently on a daily basis, I don't see any problem with that...but why would servers deserves drastically higher wage than kitchen staff or management? Or are we going to mandate a massive hike in the minimum wage and simply suck it up now that going out costs much more, because now the cost of non-server labor dramatically increased? I'm all for a hike, but we're talking about a massive hike.
I guarantee you NO lawyer on earth is going to reject a 15% tip let alone 30%.
Next time you go to a Starbucks or a bar give a 100% to 200% tip and see if the barista/bartender is offended.
Whilst there's no way I'd ever subscribe to current mentality of tipping 10% when unhappy and 15-20% when happy I'm not sure I'd want to remove tipping entirely. It should be exceptional times when one tips, i.e. really got above and beyond - not just doing their job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_Stat...