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Comment by 40acres | Hacker News Reader

I think tipping is ingrained in American culture because of the lack of price transparency throughout this economy. This has been a recent topic of discussion in regards to healthcare but it also shows up in retail, where the shelf price is not reflective of sales taxes, and when booking services like flights and hotels where "resort fees" and "baggage fees" rear their ugly head last minute.

I've even seen "no tipping" restaurants do the same with a fine print saying that a 15-18% gratuity will be charged on top of my order, well.. why aren't all the dishes simply 15-18% more expensive then?

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> I think tipping is ingrained in American culture

Tipping is ingrained in American culture because there's an insane disparity between rich and poor and it makes the rich feel better about themselves (and those who do it but wish they didn't then peer pressure their friends into doing it. See the current wave of articles about tipping hotel staff claiming that its the norm even though only a third of people do).

Its stupid and simply shouldn't be a thing. Especially since it means employees' salaries effectively end up at the mercy of customers, and customers are not regulated (eg: there is NOTHING stopping customers from being racist/sexist/bigoted/whatever like there is employers, so pay could theoretically vary drastically and there's fuck all they could do about it).

It's not about making rich people feel better about themselves. In the case of restaurants at least, in the US servers are often paid below minimum wage, because the employer claims that the bulk of their employees' wages come from tips.

That's not anyone making anyone else feel guilty or good or bad about themselves, rather that's an entire industry that has been allowed through actual legislation to shift the burden of paying their employees from themselves to their own customers. That's the root of it. And those customers have no obligation to actually give anyone any money. It's a really screwed up system, and like you say it's completely unregulated and opens the door for all kinds of awful dynamics around racism/sexism/etc.

So, if someone stiffs their server in a restaurant in spite of their friends trying to guilt them into tipping, the person stiffing the server is truly the asshole in that situation. Yeah, the whole system's screwed up, it shouldn't be like that, it's all a big scam, but the service industry people shouldn't be the ones to get screwed over it. I'm not accusing anyone here of doing this, it's just something I've witnessed. I.e., someone who thinks they're really teaching someone (not sure who) a lesson about how much they detest expectations around tipping by stiffing their server or always leaving lousy tips. Whenever I've seen this happen, all I've seen was a rich person being shitty to a poor person to send a message to the poor person's employer that the employer never receives. I'm as annoyed by expectations around tipping as anyone, but hopefully everyone realizes that the restaurant server situation is very different from most other situations (valet, hotel employee, etc.).

> In the case of restaurants at least, in the US servers are often paid below minimum wage

As mentioned in a lot of industries outside of restaurants people behave the same way even though it's not true. A lot of restaurants pay at least minimum wage, and not all states allow lower minimum wage, yet the culture is EXACTLY the same. Plus, anecdotal, but I know plenty of folks who will fully admit to tipping because they feel it makes them better people (though not in those words). And try never tipping for a few weeks, you bet your ass some people will try to make you feel bad. I've seen people genuinely forget and the servers would run out of the restaurant to tell at them.

Yes, in some industries people are paid less than minimum wage but the culture would be the same either way. It's also a chicken and the egg situation.

I don't think that's the problem. I'm American and I'll generalize a bit and say Americans are generally comfortable with tipping as long as the service is a differentiator for what you receive (full service restaurants, hair stylists, drivers, bartenders). The recent frustration has been the explosion of tipping where service has nothing to do with the experience, like fast food restaurants or low cost coffee shops.

No we are not comfortable with tipping. Many people like me do not tip even though we get weird looks or the occasional angry waiter.

Even if you aren't comfortable with it you ought to do it in America. Your protest only hurts the underpaid laborer.

Here's a good, brief article that sums this up pretty well: http://www.grubstreet.com/2019/04/how-to-tip.html

Until I read that, I honestly didn't know that people tip on top of the tax. I was firmly in the "tip 18 percent, before tax" camp and assumed I was leaving a good tip by doing so. I'll admit that I was a bit outraged after reading the article because it made me feel like a cheapskate over something that had never even occurred to me before.

What other tipping faux pas am I unknowingly making?

I believe it doesn’t. I go to expensive restaurants and bars mostly where waiters and bartenders get way overpaid due to tipping. If it has any impact, it will help smaller waiters/bartenders that do not work in busy places and suffer from their employers not paying them a normal wage.

When I'm king this will count as false advertising. The biggest printed price must be the price you pay, by default, unless you specifically ask for something unusual.

A bunch of restaurants actually include the tip in prices, there are lists online and you can encourage this practice by eating out there.

IMO you can also encourage this practice by not tipping.

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