Counter Service Tipping: Who Gives?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It's not like people who do tip are even tipping everyone underpaid who helps them live their life - no one is sending extra cash over to the kid that made their phone or the poor worker who picks their food.
And specifically for counter service as described in the article, tipping makes even less sense. How can you possibly know what service you will receive before you receive the service? If the tip isn't conditional on the quality of the service, surely it just becomes a tax.
I'm glad I never worked at a restaurant where pay is supplemented by tips. That's an unacceptable practice.
At Starbucks, tips were in excess to wages, so anything people gave were a really nice bonus.
Tipping should be done out of generosity. Do you value that person, their time, the level of quality they bring you?
If you look at Japan, tipping is not a thing. In some places it might even be considered an insult to tip because that level of quality is a deeply engrained part of the culture, not something to be rewarded extra for.
However, I see it as a way to show my appreciation, my gratitude.
Yes, I believe that people who have the means to tip who don't, yet greedily eat up high quality service and goods, are being stingy in the worst sense. Just from my experience at Starbucks, it seemed like those who tipped most frequently were the people who might not really been able to afford it.
An extra dollar from 100 customers, for whom that is less than 1% of 1% of their net worth means $20 for a 5 person shift. That extra $20 usually is gas money, college supplies, or a couple bucks to spend for something fun.
However, we completely and utterly lack empathy. So many people DON'T know what it's like to be on the other side of the counter and they completely forget that those people are thinking and feeling humans like they are. That those people have dreams and ambitions just like they do. That they are working because they have SOME goal. There is more depth to the person than the apron they wear, the smile they put on, the job they do. We forget that. We view them as objects and we devalue their existence.
But those who do tip, those who don't necessarily have the means to but still do, they have not forgotten. Perhaps it's because their situation isn't too far removed.
I think Steinbeck said it well:
"If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones."
I hate these arguments about gas money or college blabla since why would someone working in warehouses or supermarkets be in any other position. It's always bartenders and similar feeling special
This means your tips are largely not going to the employees, but instead are simply allowing the business to lower their payroll costs -- at least until tips exceed the real bare minimum the business is allowed to pay their employees.
"Would you like to increase Starbucks' profit margin or look like a jerk?"
It's the 15% starting default and anti-patterns that really turn me off from tipping.
This is why I typically tip with cash only, and view these credit card-based counter service tips as a form of price segmentation, where I can pay more if I want to support the business.
> nor is it something I want
Agree on both points. You shouldn't have to, but if you live in the US you very often so, because customer service staff are chronically underpaid.
The full answer is legislative, so make sure these people are paid appropriately. The short term answer is that yes, until the problem is fixed we do have to concern ourselves with how other people are paid.
The driver delivering your food or groceries typically gets a tip, but the driver delivering your package doesn't. It could actually be the same driver since they are now both gig-economy jobs.
Warehouse workers, retail store workers, even the cooks and dishwashers at those same restaurants make less on avg. than waiters/waitresses, and yet don't get tips.
Tipping is mostly tradition, it has to do with how 'close' a job is to an end-user. There is little logic to it.
Underpaid based on the amount of money required to live life.
Pass laws that make sure customer service workers are paid a fair wage. Then you can stop tipping.
The options are usually absurd, too. For example, three large buttons labeled "20%," "25%" and "30%." Then a medium sized-button labeled "No Tip" and a barely readable one that says "custom amount."
Ironically, tipping counter service at creates an additional caste rather than decreasing inequality.
To steal a concept from Reservoir Dogs; You can't tip at McDonalds, Chick-Fil-A, Burger King Wendy's (by company policy), but yet we've proceeded to create competitors where it is societally expected to tip.
What's likely the case is the niche food counter doesn't hire the minority single mother/father but passes them up for the urban hipster with personality; based on "culture" -- and at best case, a reason an employee would choose the niche counter over McDonalds is because they can already afford the risk.
Sadly, it's also more likely the niche counter is small, skirting employment law w/ illegal servers wages for their cashiers compared to McDonalds who is going to have a full range of benefits.