Hacker News Reader

Comment by MithrilTuxedo | Hacker News Reader

How is this going to affect how often I get asked to tip? I want to see less tipping, not more. Square seems to be one of the primary offenders in introducing bribery to transactions where I don't really want to rate how much I was pleasured by the personal performance being put on for me. Getting coffee shouldn't be embarrassing, and don't prompt me to tip you before you give me what I'm paying for.

View on HN

On many Square instances, when you choose No Tip on the screen, tapping New Sale after it says Done! in the top right will clear the “no tip” indicator. If they go into the transaction history then it’ll show there still, but that takes an admin PIN and is annoying and so no one will.

(I tip, but that’s no excuse for someone else to suffer social pressure.)

That's not how tips in the US work. In the US, tips are simply shifting employer responsibility for their employees to the customer. If you are in the US, tip or avoid business that utilizing tipping.

That's certainly true of restaurants and some other professions, but is it true of coffee shops too?

This won't affect it because it's a merchant setting. What you can do though is complain to management and let them know. They can easily turn of tipping or lower the pre-set tip amounts.

Mr. Pink: “I don’t tip”

Tipping helps pay for a worker's living. If tipping didn't exist, the cost would just go back into the base cost of the drink. One way to get out of the embarrassment you feel is to tap the preset tip button and go on with your day.

Tipping isn't bribery. If your barista is making your coffee differently based on a tip, they're a bad barista.

> If tipping didn't exist, the cost would just go back into the base cost of the drink.

So the advertised cost would actually be the honest that you would pay for the product. What a horrible world that would be!

One thing to keep in mind is that in many states tipped minimum wage is significantly lower than hourly minimum wage. As low as $2.50 an hour. Tipping is bad for everybody, including the workers involved, but framing tipping as purely a response to “performance” isn’t always the whole story.

In no state is the minimum wage the employee takes home lower than $7.25 an hour. The employer can pay them less only if the tips make up the difference, down to $2.13(!) an hour. Of course, most waiters and servers end up making quite a bit more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage

You’re right that employers must make up the difference by law, and I’m sure that many workers with tipped wages may take home more than their minimum wage equivalent, however that is not the norm, and the tipping wage has significantly worse outcomes than the standard minimum wage. Regardless, my point was that tipping cannot simply be boiled down to “I am being guilted into paying for a performance” and is significantly more nuanced for all involved.

Summary of relevant research: https://www.epi.org/blog/seven-facts-about-tipped-workers-an...

In particular, point 5 from the linked summary makes a strong case that a significant portion of workers making the tipped minimum wage do not receive the difference from their employers.

This is not legal, but often if you're a waiter/waitress and report you're making less than minimum wage and want to get paid the difference they take that as you're not performing well enough and will fire you.

As someone from a place where tipping doesn't exist, the whole concept of tipping seems crazy to me.

As someone from a place where you tip just about anything, it is crazy to me as well. I want flat, upfront prices.

Tipping is 99% of the time guilt-based.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com