I mean on the one side I'm cringing with embarrassment, on the other... the fuck?
I mean, the root cause is similar: low wages incentives the official/waiter to ask for more money directly to a citizen/client, or else.
There's no tips where I'm from, so tips have always been strange and unecessary to me.
Genuinely wondering. I have no fixed opinion.
Edit to add: also a root cause is that both practices are generally accepted in some areas.
The idea behind tipping is that the wait staff will do a better job if part of their salary depends on impressing the customer. How well this actually works is a different conversation.
With police corruption they are purposely doing a bad job to get the bribe, and getting the bribe encourages them to keep doing a bad job.
I wish wait staff were paid better, or atleast got an automatic gratuity everywhere, then we wouldn't need tips.
Edit: OK, there is one big difference: tipping is encouraged by the employer while bribery is not.
If tipping is a form of a corruption, it is the boss—which neither gives nor receives the tip—who is the corrupt one.
I'm American, I grudgingly accept that tipping is how things are done and not tipping would be unfair to wait staff, but even before COVID I was mostly choosing restaurants that don't have table service just to avoid the 20% tip tax.
I am not sure why only car sales guys get bad rap when restaurants always looking to hide true cost to customers in advertisements.
Today, tips are paid because wait staff are paid below minimum wage. This is legal - as tipping is baked into their compensation. It's stupid and anachronistic, but it's not the fault of the staff (though GOOD waiters will often express support for the system because they fear going to fixed wage w/ zero tipping will reduce their income).
I'd much prefer a living wage with optional tips for extraordinary service (which seems to be the norm in much of western Europe). Here in the US, 20% gratuity is pretty much expected. And FWIW, I'll pay 25-30% for good service, and to get less than 20%, a waiter would have to be downright awful.
So, a waiter should always earn at least minimum wage, but can earn more if tips are good.
However, in practice, there are problems with this system. First, waiters who don't earn lots of tips usually get the bad shifts, then fired. Second, lots of room for wage theft.
At bars on the other hand the 'corruption' is much clearer. Tip badly for a round of drinks and you'll get slow/bad service for the rest of the evening. Tip well and you'll get priority service and perhaps even free booze. Especially with spirits and mixed drinks the corruption is obvious. Tip well and the bartender will pour you a double while charging you for a single, essentially 'stealing' from his employer and selling you the stolen goods at a discount under the table.
It's not totally implausible that the owner is fully aware of the situation and accepts the status quo as a local maximum of profitability, why mess with standing social norms -- much how most restauraunteurs in the states wouldn't dream of paying a living wage for their wait staff because they know customers are going to tip sufficiently regardless of wages and that enough potential employees are fine with the situation (or prefer it) that they won't have staffing issues.
TLDR: It’s remarkable what tipping and basic human decency can do to the quality of service you receive at a bar.
Of course we now need an experiment to disentangle those two variables! One team tips very well, but treats the staff badly , one team treats the staff with plenty of human decency, but doesn't tip. Then we measure the quality of service received by the two groups. I wonder if I can apply for a research grant?
The point is, fundamentally the current way tips are collected in the US is like corruption. And like corruption, it should be made illegal.
For those who think people can’t survive without tips, first it is a problem that they are mistreated by their employer, second make it legally binding to mandatory add 20% or whatever to the meal and pass that to the directly (again legally binding).
If you think tips encourage good quality of service, other places without a culture of giving tips have our ways of providing good quality of service. You don’t need tip for that.
I once heard tips people gave, that when checking into hotel rooms, you should hold a 20 dollar notes as hint of tip and then ask them for upgrade. If they do, then you give them the tip. This is bribery, one of the many examples how tip culture can be used in a way indistinguishable to corruption.
Of course.
With a government agent, you are not necessarily supposed to be paying them. Typical bribes are dependent upon an implicit threat of abuse of power rather than being a normal purchase of goods & services.
Tips are not a "lesser form of corruption". Unless you were somehow buying something with that tip that would otherwise be off-limits but in that case I think people would call it a bribe.
That said, it's up for debate whether this is a valid expectation either in the context of public services provided by the government, engagements with private parties, or both.
In the US, servers can make much more than minimum wage. Cash tips weren't reported for taxes. Reference: dated waitresses
I would never try that sort of thing with an officer attempting to solicit a bribe though :]
Unless by bad service you mean something like spitting in your food or calling you a slur, you should just consider a 15% tip a part of bill for anything where you sit down and have food brought to you. 20-25% for good service.
American workers who can't receive tips in practice don't need to be paid the minimum wage, for example. (In theory there's a process to correct if theyre still below it after tips, but in practice that's regularly flouted).
Honestly, American restaurants shouldn't even bother putting prices on the menu. Between the tipping culture and the taxes it's impossible to guess at the true price of an item.
I usually tip generously but bad service deserve a 0.1$ tip. They choosed to work in the restauration industry and they should know that tip is given for good service, so they are suppose to know that if they want the full salary, they should provide some minimally adequate level of service.
If they don't like this they can work in another sector, if the USA is anything like Canada, big boxes shop like Wallmart and BestBuy are hiring in almost every locations. Those place are more apropriate for service worker that don't want to actualy serve the customer.
You wouldn't want to reward bad work now, would you?
I will happily give 15-20% tips for great service, but that is a additional and is given freely - not what is to be expected.
Some of these people also avoid travelling to the USA (and Canada) for similar reasons. Am I supposed to tip for this? Is this a $1 tip, or $5, or 15%? But the card terminal is giving a choice of only 20% or 25%... and is it better to leave cash anyway?
(I'm sure you could explain every situation, just like an Indian can explain all the situations in India.)
You are describing a Hippie taking a holiday, perhaps.
I am in India and I never bargain, hate the pressure. You never have to bargain unless you are in a known tourist trap places, wanting to buy trinkets.
Fixed price markets and services like Uber are a welcome improvement, but there are still plenty of recent articles (mainly blogs) aimed at tourists concerning bargaining in India.
("Hippies" on holiday in most of Europe don't have to bargain.)
What kind of weak-ass restaurant hygiene laws do you have there?
I've lived in the US all my life, and I'm still confused at when tips are required and when it's just a nice thing to do. Even order-at-the-counter places now ask for a tip (often pre-filled to 15%) at checkout. Are their employees being paid below minimum wage? I don't think so, but they know it's ambiguous enough that they can exploit the weird culture around tips.
Where is the line for when a tip is required? If I pick up my food at the counter but they clean up the tables when I'm done, are those employees making less than minimum wage? If I order at the counter but someone brings me the food? The sit-down restaurant with a dedicated waiter is the easy case, but it's not the only case.
There are a ton of ambiguous edge cases, and many, many restaurants are deliberately exploiting the uncertainty. The whole thing is a mess, and I totally sympathize with Europeans who get confused and just give up.
(Not that it's okay not to tip as long as we have this confusing mess of a wage system. You just can't say that it's an easy social norm to understand and follow.)
We live in a society.
There's no plausible scenario where some sort of mass collective customer driven action requiring coordination is going to be effective.
Tipping culture will change when restaurants change their compensation structure.
A restaurant can commit to paying the team a fair wage, include the costs in the menu pricing, prohibit tipping, and loudly market that it's what they are doing. It's happened in many places and it works. Danny Meyer in NYC seems to be doing pretty well with this plan for example.
Depriving the least powerful people in the whole equation isn't a solution. Lobby the business owners who actually make the decisions.
> you should just consider a 15% tip a part of bill for anything where you sit down and have food brought to you
No. If it’s part of the bill, put it on the bill.
It’s even worse if they ask for a tip up front like seriously, what?
No one is making this as a decision. Restaurant owners that have tried to put in place a no tipping policy have customers tip anyway because Americans are uncomfortable not tipping. They then think, somewhat accurately, the restaurant has high prices. We are stuck with a bad system.
There should be a note on American menus that says "We underpay our staff, so 15-20% tipping is expected." And European menus should read "We compensate our staff sufficiently, so tipping is not expected."
In reality, both of these are never written out, and everyone is expected to learn them culturally. Which ultimately leaves tourists in an awkward spot.
That's why I started this by saying I'd have an issue with someone who kept not tipping after being informed about the issue.
But I'd be hard pressed to come up with a reason that "customer -> staff" is objectively better or worse than "customer -> owner -> staff".
Same money, gets to the same place.
I was recently in a restaurant that had exactly that. There was a fine print note at the bottom of the menu explaining that because a state law prevented servers from splitting tips with the kitchen staff, a 3% surcharge would be added to the check so that non-tipped staff could "earn a living wage".
https://www.squidlipsgrill.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Sq...
In Britain, bills usually say "Service charge" or "Service is included" [1]
But I think these are exceptions, and I wouldn't expect it in general -- just like it doesn't say "Service included" when I buy a buy shoes in France or Britain, even though the staff usually have to fetch them from the stock room.
It does more than confuse tourists, it locks every restaurant into the system whether the owners wish it or not. That’s why I think the “we underpay” with its pejorative tinge is inappropriate.
Interestingly, people have been (wrongly) arrested for not paying tips in the US. They were quickly released, but I think that misconception indicates how strong of a norm paying at least something in tips is.
Long term, tipping just means these employers can compete for labor against other (non-tip) industries forced to pay higher, and without having to reflect that additional cost in their prices to the end customer.
The idea that the employer is the one getting the tip is a myth, and a well bolstered one for obvious reasons.
The same thing is true for the sanctions on Russia.
Nonetheless they are the only tool at my disposal.
People should get paid decently, and not rely on tips to make a living.
It’s basically a standover extortion at that point.
Unfortunately the US has a tipping culture enshrined in law. So businesses can legally pay their employees who may potentially receive tips far below minimum wage.
People cant separate the cultural expectation of tipping from the reason the expectation exists. I find it mildly infuriating that the reason tipping exists isn't even present in my state but I am still expected to tip.
It's not that simple. I fully agree that in cases where the establishment is allowed to under-pay, it's our job to tip. But I've lived in the United States all my life, and there are still enough edge cases in the restaurant industry alone to be terribly confusing. That doesn't even get into questions of barkeeps, hotel staff, taxi drivers, and whoever else.
What if I order at the counter, then I sit down and someone brings me the food? Are the employees who bring me that food making less than minimum wage? How do I know one way or the other?
Even more confusingly, order-at-the-counter restaurants have started asking for 15% tips at checkout. I'm relatively confident that they're not building tips into the wage structure, but how can I be sure?
It's definitely not the fault of the workers that this system exists, but it's a horrible, opaque, and confusing way to do business. At a minimum, restaurants should be required to make it explicit when their employees need the tip.
I have. I went to a Chinese buffet in Raleigh, North Carolina, with my family. We finished eating, went to the cashier and paid, then we left.
As we were getting into our car the 'waiter' who had sloshed lemonade into out glasses ran up loudly complaining that we hadn't left him a tip. Why such people should be tipped is beyond me.
Anyway, I further insulted him by handing him a single dollar bill, with a smile.
Because that person is paid $2.50/hr for their work.
If you don't want to tip, you should boycott the restaurant until they implement a fair wage policy.
This is an illegal wage according to federal minimum wage laws. I can't imagine the GP commenter should be responsible for labor law violations beyond reporting it to the relevant local agency. Many states go even farther, requiring the same minimum wage (excluding tips) even for tipped employees, but the federal law already requires minimum wage including tips.
Unlike boycott this way customers are given ample chance to behave even if they are not local and visiting first time.
in that vein, is there a list somewhere of American eateries which pay non-poverty wages and therefore adopt tipping practices which are less morally reprehensible to us foreigners? I'd happily go out of my way when in the US to avoid this particular cultural norm.
There are really 3 relevant parties here: the restaurant owner, the restaurant staff, and the customer.
The owners have lobbied for and gotten exceptions to most minimum wage laws, to the effect that they can pay their staff under minimum wage, with tipping making up the difference.
Consequently, if staff receives no tips: the restaurant is required to pay them minimum wage (US$7.25 / hr), or applicable local minimum wage if higher [0].
If staff receives tips, the owner is allowed to pay them a much lower wage (don't remember offhand), with tips making up the difference to meet or exceed minimum wage.
Some of this may be changing due to worker shortages, but restaurant margins are always pretty thin.
Tl;dr - restaurant workers make over minimum wage only if tipped
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minimum_wage_by_state_b...
> Tl;dr - restaurant workers make over minimum wage only if tipped
Your tl;dr doesn't match. According to you workers make minimum wage irrespective of whether you tip (unless the owner breaks the law), and all your tips do is directly offset owner costs.
It was extraordinarily rude.
But, if you're paying as you go, then yeah, you'd tip the bartender each order.
You said waitress, which implies table service. That would normally be tipped when you pay at end of evening. I've never been to a bar that requires paying per drink when seated and getting table service.
It's not helped by the fact that every order-at-the-counter restaurant now asks for tips as you pay. It's almost to the point where I assume that a tip is needed if and only if I'm not asked for one. No wonder it's confusing to visitors.
There are a couple of exceptions, but only really if you weren't paying for your drinks, like at a casino. In those cases, yes, you should tip per drink.
I know it's just a different culture and I try to give a decent tip when I'm in the states as my lack of understanding will not improve the situation but it's still fubar.
If you're on a tab, you tip at the end, but a slightly larger cash tip on your first drink will get you much faster service the rest of the evening.
Also Americans should just get rid of tipping culture already, and pay employees what they deserve. You're a democracy, right?