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Comment by jelling | Hacker News Reader

ITT: people that are high wage earners in the industry with the highest potential upward mobility that want to argue about the basis and percentage of tips for people doing the work with the least possible upward mobility.

Tipping, at a minimum, is social grease, and to the extent that you want it to be, redistributive economics with near zero administrative overhead.

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>Tipping, at a minimum, is social grease, and to the extent that you want it to be, redistributive economics with near zero administrative overhead.

The "zero administrative overhead" also makes it massively unfair. Why does the waiter at a fancy restaurant make hundreds per night in tips, but the grocery clerk make $0?

Both took the job with an awareness of whether the job was tipped or not? I don’t see the issue; if the grocery clerk would prefer to be a waiter at a fancy restaurant, they should apply to such a role.

Yeah but something tells me that someone who's in favor of "redistributive economics" isn't the type of person who thinks "Both took the job with an awareness of whether the job was tipped or not" and therefore it doesn't matter what they earn.

Not every town has fancy restaurants. Most places in America probably don’t have anything much “fancier” than a chain like Outback.

Even if the fanciest restaurant in town is "Mom's Heartburn Diner," the waitstaff still expect to be tipped and the grocery clerk still doesn't.

I personally don't care for the arbitrary nature of it. I want Uber to cost more so that people on the brink of financial ruin aren't trading equity in their vehicle for quick cash. I want my restaurant bill to include the cost of a living wage for the staff. I do "tip" my 20%, even when the service is absolute dogshit, because the waiter didn't overcook my food, and the kitchen staff didn't forget my order.

> Tipping, at a minimum, is social grease, and to the extent that you want it to be, redistributive economics with near zero administrative overhead.

There are biases of course. Beautiful people get better tips.

My biggest issue about tipping is the arbitrariness of it. Why do delivery people get tips (pizza, waiter, porter, taxi, etc), yet other low income workers don't? If you worked low income jobs without tips, the entitlement of the tipping workers is off putting. Also this is an international audience that may have tips, but not the different minimum wages for tipped workers that is unique to the USA. Within the world of low income workers, there becomes a split of the untipped and tipped, and the tipped are basically the higher paid ones, which feels hypocritical when they complain about it while your sitting there without it.

Then you get into the naked racism, ageism and sexism that tipping exposes in who gets tips and what the tipping professions think of those various groups too.

Move on to later in life when you have better jobs, and the entitlement of the tipping classes and tipping alumni makes you eye roll inside because you never had that favor.

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