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Comment by post_break | Hacker News Reader

Welcome to the terrible world of tipping. Subsidize the wages so the employer doesn't have to. I got out of my way to avoid any type of business or service that has tipping. It's getting so bad out there I've seen people talk about getting asked for a tip in a drive thru. Do I tip when I eat out? Yes. But that's cut down to a minimum now. I think we're headed towards a breaking point. Profits and cost of living cannot continue to skyrocket while pay stagnates.

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Technically the customers are always paying the employee's wages.

I have 3 complaints about tipping:

- It gives bad customers unfair power to dock employee's wages

- It is inconvenient and an embarrassing social interaction. I don't want to think of myself as responsible for someone's pay over lunch, I want to think of myself as eating a taco.

- It hides information from customers, because the tip is not included in the price

Hiding information is the same bullshit as Instacart saying "Same price as in the store!" before adding 50-100% of the order price in fees.

Transactions should start with the highest possible price and add discounts. Starting with a low price is a sneaky backdoor for false advertising, because it gets you to start a transaction with a less-scrupulous company that looks cheaper, and then you begrudgingly complete the transaction even though you realized it actually costs more, because now it would cost too much to switch.

> Welcome to the terrible world of tipping.

While I agree, I remember bartenders making $10/hr + tips when I worked in a restaurant... in 1998. I could make $10/hr washing dishes (always the most hard-to-staff position) but wouldn't do so until after the restaurant died down because I made more busing tables with tips.

Let's just call this type of employment what it is: wage slavery. People are used to there being a class of people willing to take these jobs.

> in 1998. I could make $10/hr washing dishes

Most dishwashers were only making minimum wage back then ($4.25 in my state)

No way anyone outside of LA/SF/NYC were paying dishwashers 10+. I made 5.25 (i think) around that time period (98-00) washing dishes. It sucked ass

Central PA, it was a busy restaurant next to Hershey Park. I believe dishwashers started at $7.50 or $8... but on a busy Saturday night the managers would have to go around begging someone wash dishes. I doubt they would've let me work full time at that rate, but they let me clock in/out to my advantage when they needed it.

Hosts/busers started around $5.25 or so... I think I eventually worked it up to $7.50 or so, but with tips it was much more. My point is that even then it wasn't worth it to me to work for $10/hr.

If I had to guess, the wages probably aren't much more now than they were then.

I wouldn't lay this all on the world of tipping. The author was working as a bartender in a movie theater making $10 plus split tips. People don't see movie theaters are a tipping environment, especially for the vast majority of the positions that aren't bartending. These are the epitome of minimum wage "low skill" jobs that we apparently demand exist, but don't want to pay the cost for.

I don’t think the issue is that people don’t want to pay I think the issue is that people are expected to pay meanwhile those running the companies earn a disproportionate wage.

Other counties manage to have services that don’t depend on tips to pay their staff’s wages. I don’t see why the US can’t as well.

The reason the situation sucks is entirely down to the greed of the companies.

Nope. When I worked tips were way preferable. A busy night could get me $50/hr just in tips. Maybe $500 in a night if I was lucky.

You could boost me to 2x minimum wage and I’d still make less.

There is a reason why the tipping system still exists.

That is highly dependent on the type of restaurant you work at. Someone I know would make 100-250 a night a one place. Moves to another one, she was maybe getting maybe 20 total a night. Moves to another one 80-150...

I worked at a popular pizza chain for high school and got maybe $10 in tips my entire time there. My pregnant coworker meanwhile averaged an extra $50 or more a night. Given that I was paid minimum wage at the time ($4.25 IIRC), that extra $50 in tips was a significant boost to her income.

Now on one hand I think it's fair that a pregnant woman needs more money than a high school kid who's saving up for extra toys (a DSLR in my case), so I'm not complaining about my pay. But then again literally no customer actually knew that; for all they knew I was supporting my poor family with extra income. The arbitrariness is troubling. If tips are a significant chunk of your pay, then you're dependent on either customers feeling bad for you, or generally liking you in order to make a good wage. And heaven help you if you're in a demographic group that's disliked for whatever reason.

Very much so. It is situation dependent and in your case time dependent. 4.25 was nearly 25+ years ago at this point. Tips have unfortunately morphed into this 'this is how I get paid', instead of 'I like you, here is some extra'. We went from a system that was semi fair to one of capriciousness and pettiness. I once watched a dude dump out of a tip because the server didnt bring him a straw.

> 4.25 was nearly 25+ years ago at this point.

Nope! The minimum wage in Ohio was $4.25 in 2005, 17 years ago. It has however gone up since then significantly to $9.30 today.

I agree with the rest of your post though. The capriciousness and pettiness is very real, and doesn’t reflect super great on our society imho.

I hate the tipping culture in the West (as opposed to places like Japan, where there is almost no tipping at all) mostly because the tip was initially meant as an exception for service above expectation, not as a regular component of the pricing. From my perspective even regular service deserves no tip, I expect to be charged for the service and tip only for exceeding expectations, but it does not work that way for a long time.

My first night in Tokyo with a group of friends, we had an amazing multi-hour meal with loads of drinks and generally catching up. We knew we didn't have to, but we tipped generously by American standards. We got chased into the street by two of the waiters and had a large argument with neither side wanting to take the tip money. I assumed tips would be "not expected, but quietly accepted" which turned out to be not at all the case.

I can understand why this is the case. There are no social norms for accepting tips. How do you split it? What do you do if other servers ask what you did with the money? It would be shameful to accept this if the social norms prohibit any sort of tipping.

"We knew we didn't have to, but we did it because we are Americans and we don't care about other cultures". Not a quote, but how many people will read that. I think they are somehow right. In Europe and Asia the American tourists have some bad reputation, for a reason. In Paris (France) we asked some waiters about this and the answers were very strong (I was with some locals, so the waiters were very open to speak up).

I agree that’s a somewhat correct reading; we (obviously?) didn’t do it on later meals. I think it’s fair to say there’s a reasonable gap between “you don’t have to” and “you really ought not”.

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