What's the "problem" with tipping?
Now if you bring up the "service" provided argument, That is literally their job. If they are getting paid a decent minimum wage or little bit more than that, i think it's fair. Do you tip McDonald's employee? Do you tip your garbage men? Do you tip the people who helped you at the clothing store?
Because you can afford a $400 bottle of wine. It’s a wealth-based sliding scale.
If you don't want to participate in the culture, don't go to places you would be upset doing so.
A lot of good waiters make more with tips. A "fair wage" from the restaurant owner's perspective would be a bit less than how much they pay a line cooks (~$14/hr). A waiter at a semi-popular restaurant can make much more than this because the customer doesn't know fair value of their work and usually overcompensates. Waiters can also cheat on taxes a bit when people tip in cash.
my perspective as an employee: I definitely would remember which customers tipped well. anyone who walked into the restaurant would at least get the minimum treatment my boss expected, but I would often go above and beyond for people I knew tipped well. I usually averaged around $12-15/hr after tips, in a state where the minimum wage was $8.50 or so. this is just speculation of course, but I really doubt I would have made that much money if it had to come direct from the business (ie no tipping culture).
my perspective as a customer: tipping allows me to decide whether I want to pay extra for good service. if I just go to some restaurant occasionally, I'll just tip 18% or whatever and they at least won't spit in my food. on the other hand, if I go to some place all the time, I can tip 25% or more and get great service every time I go.
tipping allows people who care about good service to pay for it, and it allows servers to allocate more of their time/attention to their best customers. having experienced both sides of it, I'm really not sure what the problem is, unless you're just visiting and don't understand the system.
And i like how you conveniently ignored the last paragraph. Do you tip any of the people i mentioned? Because, frankly a garbage men's services are way more useful and needed than a servers. Why do servers deserve a tip and not people working at clothing store? Or people working at Walmart?
first of all, mandatory tipping at a coffee shop or takeout place is dumb. afaik, these are not legally considered tipped positions and the employer is not usually allowed to count tips toward minimum wage. that said, I certainly recommend you throw a little extra in their tip jar if they actually provide outstanding service.
> Do you tip any of the people i mentioned? Because, frankly a garbage men's services are way more useful and needed than a servers. Why do servers deserve a tip and not people working at clothing store? Or people working at Walmart?
I don't claim that the tipping system is inherently moral or immoral. my claim is that it is a practical way to align incentives in a particular set of situations. in a restaurant, the difference between acceptable and great service is quite large. if I'm handling several tables, I'm usually going to get to the tables that tip well first. I'm going to make sure they're not in the middle of a deep conversation when I go over to check if the food is okay. there are tons of subtle things that a skilled server can do to improve your dining experience if they are incentivized.
garbage men, on the other hand, either pick up your trash or they don't. idk what the difference between a good and a great garbage collector is, maybe the great one takes the time to leave my can sitting upright? a cashier can ring you up fast or take their time, but can't really affect your experience other than that.
I do actually agree that maybe some retail positions should be tipped. I find that usually Walmart employees don't give a shit whether I find everything I'm looking for. occasionally one of them is super helpful and saves me 30min or more of hunting around the store. in these situations I try to slip them a couple bills. if they refuse, I make sure to find their supervisor on the way out and explain that they made the store a lot more money by helping me find my things.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tipping-doesnt-reward-good...
https://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...
I suspect the causality is reversed. rather than good service being rewarded by good tips, people generally tip the same amount wherever they go, and after a while they start to get recognized and receive better service.
Compare the quality of service of people that do "their job" to those that are rewarded for doing their job exceptionally well on an individual basis. Serving food table-side is participating in one of the most intimate rituals of human existence. It's in a whole different tier of customer service than fast food, clothing, etc.
Do you have any idea how much restaurants would have to raise their prices to pay a "fair wage"? Enough to where the number of servers they could employ would fall dramatically, not only disincentivizing great service, but also the pure availability of it. There are razor thin profit margins on food.
- The system we have is internally consistent, which your comment very ably pointed out.
- Restaurants are incentivized to employ workers whose pay falls under the "tipped workers" regulations.
- Americans are used to tipping, and we understand the trade-offs, and those of us who don't work for tips (like you and me) generally like a tipping-based system. What's not to like about a system that gives us the power to control or punish service workers according to our whims? ;)
Finally, citing profit margins as the reason to artificially depress payroll obligations of employers to employees might be accurate, but it's also a great example of how the system is broken: Why do restaurants exist that can't afford to pay their workers a fair wage?
In places like Miami where English comprehension is very low, mandatory gratuity is added with a further line item for tipping
Disparate hospitality minimum wage excecptions across the country exacerbates the level of research and discretion needed to adequately consider tipping. With some places paying a seperate lower minimum wage to restuarant workers and some places like California (where over 10% of the country lives) having normalized minimum wages but the same compulsory guilt driven tipping expectations.
It is essentially a trick to get people to not think about how much money they are spending.