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Comment by curiousgeorgio | Hacker News Reader

Count me as firmly in the anti-tipping camp. The article fails to mention the fact that tipping actually creates an environment where more prejudice (not less) can be exposed. If you aren't a stereotypical "good-looking" female server, you will statistically earn far fewer tips. The same goes for people working in the kitchen (as the article mentions).

If your servers (or anyone working in the restaurant) demand higher wages, pay them the fair wage and charge what it costs to operate at that level. The expectation of a tip feels similar to the hidden fees charged by wireless carriers so they can advertise a much lower rate.

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One thing I have never got my head around as a European is that tipping with the Americam interpretation is self defeating its original purpose.

When I tip (outside the US) its done so as a genuine expression of gratitude for good service. It's my way of encouraging and rewarding good service. If its done under compulsion than its no longer a tip, it's a charge and good service is relegated as less meaningful.

"When I tip (outside the US) its done so as a genuine expression of gratitude for good service. It's my way of encouraging and rewarding good service. If its done under compulsion than its no longer a tip, it's a charge and good service is relegated as less meaningful."

That's interesting.

When in Europe I've found it pretty common to see a "tip" section in the bill, where the tip is already added on to the bill by the management and counted in to total you have to pay.

That's rare in the US, where at most one sees a "suggested amount", and usually tipping is completely optional.

What's the point of separating it?

Why not just increase the price of the food and service charges to compensate for the salaries?

It feels like some kind of psychological hack where they want price of food to appear cheap on paper till the moment you pay.

The point is you don't have to pay an optional tip if you are dissatisfied.

But you do have to pay the full total of your meal regardless of how you felt.

That's why making "tips" mandatory is the scam. It's not a tip if it's mandatory.

Most restaurants that do try to eliminate tips end up having an explicit service charge, rather than trying to bake it into the price of food, simply because otherwise all your food is suddenly 15-20% more expensive than the competition.

>When in Europe I've found it pretty common to see a "tip" section in the bill

I can't recall having ever seen this despite having travelled, and indeed continuing to travel, Europe extensively.

A denoted service charge is not uncommon, but I would be interested to see where exactly you believe the above to be commonly experienced.

"I would be interested to see where exactly you believe the above to be commonly experienced."

In the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Czech, I've found it to be pretty common. It could have been other countries as well, as I traveled relatively widely, mostly in Northern and Eastern Europe myself. But unfortunately I didn't keep a log of exactly where this happened. Just noticed it happened a lot, and was more the rule rather than the exception.

It is quite uncommon in the Netherlands. I see it on maybe 3% of all restaurant bills.

Well, maybe they've changed. I admit it's been more than a decade since I visited, so I wouldn't be that surprised if they started doing things more like Americans over time, as part of the McDonaldization of Europe.

I think tipping in Germany is quite established as well, not as a genuine expression of gratitude but because not doing it "looks bad".

I agree, but what is the best path to end this ridiculous custom? Simply not tipping is unethical, as tipped employees generally make less than minimum wage.

You've answered it yourself

> what is the best path to end this ridiculous custom?

> minimum wage

Do you really think a higher minimum wage would end the expectation of tipping? Asking honestly, because I just don't see that as a solution to this problem. There's a discussion to be had around minimum wage, but that feels like an entirely separate issue.

Yes, it would. Civilized states have done away with tipped minimum wages, so employees can no longer complain about being taken advantage of by employers not paying them for tip totals not getting them to minimum wage limits.

There are different minimum wages for people in e.g. restaurant service, which is to me the quintessential tipping experience. If that went away, it could perhaps pave the path to less tipping overall

But I'm not defending the argument, just adding to the debate. I'm fine with tipping, personally, because I think it aligns incentives to encourage good service. That good looking people get better tips doesn't bother me in the slightest—life isn't fair.

1. Everyone stop tipping.

2. Greedy enployers can't use the promise of tipping as an excuse so they start to paying minimun wage.

3. Government intervenes making sure minimum wage is paid.

It starts with (1).

I'd say it starts with 3 otherwise all people in tip-funded service industry get screwed by the more wealthy people using their services.

The tipping hasn’t stopped even in states and cities the government has already done (3).

But what to do about all those waiters/waitresses that previously made money like some senior engineer and now get paid only minimum wage?

They wouldn't get even minimum wage. Servers earn less than minimum wage in many places, to compensate for the fact that they get tips.

Starting your movement with "don't tip" is a great way to punish workers without much chance of being successful. It should probably start with the restaurants, or even regulation.

AFAIK almost everywhere there's a law that makes it illegal to pay below minimum wage. And if they don't like it, they're free to find a better paid job for an unskilled worker elsewhere.

I still tip for the reason you mention, but I believe the change either needs to be made voluntarily by restaurants (as some are starting to do) or through legislation.

The west coast of the US has the same minimum wage regardless of tipping, and yet it’s still the norm to tip.

Right, which is why the minimum wage doesn't solve the problem (it may affect other things, but doesn't directly solve any of the issues with tipping). I was referring more to legislation that would limit/discourage restaurants from receiving tips (or at least communicating the expectation of tips).

There's certainly a lot of path dependency. Freakonomics has done some episodes on this. You can prohibit tipping and increase server wages. That part's easy. But: 1.) Your advertised menu prices are now higher than the competition. 2.) Servers (especially those in demographics who get tipped well and/or working at busy times) are now probably making less money than they would down the street.

Here in Ecuador restaurants typically add a 12% service charge to your bill. That seems better than just just increasing the price of the menu items and re-assures the customer that they are paying what would be the tip, and don't need to leave an additional tip.

That's common in many places in the UK as well. And, in the US, it's pretty standard for a mandatory 18% to be added to the bill for groups. (The thinking is that a server could be really screwed if they worked all night for a group that under-tipped, as is easy to happen with a big group splitting a bill.)

I don’t think anyone has a problem with that, as it’s clearly stated on the menu that there is an 18% charge.

I wouldn’t have a problem if the menu stated all items will have a mandatory extra 18% charge for gratuity. I would gladly pay it. I simply want it to be clearly stated and transparent.

I think any mandatory charge should be included in presented prices... Maybe that is just coming from country where I don't really need to calculate any of added taxes and so on.

True I think ideally menu prices include everything. However if you're trying to transition away from tipping, calling out service separately reassures customers that they don't need to tip on top of what they see on their bill, and that the overall cost hasn't changed, assuming they would have paid the service charge voluntarily as a tip.

Vote to remove the ridiculous exception from minim wages in restaurants. It really is an exception to let restaurants count patrons money as wages.

They are few and far between in the States, but some restaurants explicitly ban or discourage tipping and pay their staff a higher baseline wage. A good start would be patronizing such restaurants more frequently.

I agree with you, but the problem is most servers themselves are against overhauling tipping for higher minimum wages.

Source?

It's that so they can fiddle their taxes?

Why [else] would you not want to get the same money, on average, as a wage instead of having a high per diem variance?

Because, for one thing, absent tipping, pay would probably tend to be more egalitarian across front of house and back of house. And some servers (especially young females working busy shifts) would definitely lose out with a switch to a straight salary. This has been studied. Might check out the Freakonomics episodes on the topic. But restaurants that have tried to make the switch have largely gone back.

The number of attractive waitresses as proportion of all restaurant workers has to be a minority, surely? I can understand that a few will miss out on the possibility of flirting to get a higher wage, but that wasn't the OC's assertion.

Also, aren't most young women feminists, they should be against such things ...

The vast majority of "no tipping" policy restaurants I've read about fail in large part at the protestations of the staff. Maybe there's a lot I haven't read about, but I encourage you to look at the case histories. This does not mean however that it could not be accomplished by fiat as state policy, albeit with significant grumbling I'd assume.

First reason is that everybody likes to believe they are exceptional and will earn above average tips. Second reason is they want to evade taxes.

In practice, if you literally replace a 20% tip with a 20% service charge, gross wages for staff decline significantly -- this is a consistent pattern. This strongly suggests that they are not equivalent from the perspective of customer psychology in some important ways, changing customer behavior. Many restaurants in Seattle have tried this and it plays out the same way every time.

The consensus theory among my industry friends is that Americans are more generous with their spending when there is a perception that the money is going to a real person -- tipping -- whereas a service charge goes to the restaurant company. Customers attribute the cost of the meal differently in these two scenarios and they are not as willing to spend more money if it goes to some faceless company instead of a person they interact with.

Could you cite a study or other statistical evidence? I'm surprised to find that the median server gets tips >20% averaged over all customers as a voluntary contribution. It would be interesting to see a break down of the range of tips send which restaurants were in the study, etc..

Presumably other areas of devices, like clothing or general retail are getting demands from unions to move over to voluntary tipping to tap that generosity?

In UK it's relatively common to tip some hotel workers and taxi drivers -- do USA hotel room cleaners also benefit from this effect of tips>>charges?

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