We tip out of guilt. I literally freaking hate it, and I'm starting to tip less and less and prices go up.
Why should I tip you to pour me a drink? You are literally just doing your job. I don't call up my customers for a tip when I release an update to their program. I don't send them invoices with a TIP line and show how much 15, 18, 20% of the invoice is so they can add on to it.
Tipping culture is literally (1) employers paying their workers as little as possible and (2) preying on peoples emotions.
It's also a completely asymmetric transaction. How do I know if you are receiving below minimum wage or minimum wage/more? How do I know if you are getting healthcare, or other benefits? Yet I'm supposed to just assume you are being paid almost zero and give as much of my money to you as I can otherwise I will feel guilty.
I'm ranting in general obviously, not at you. But seriously people tip out of guilt and thinking people like you are not making very much money otherwise. It's the dumbest system ever.
It's interesting to me that two people can see the same statement from such different perspectives. To me, a statement like this shouts, "broken system!"
Imagine if the calculator program on your phone was always incorrect, but in the same way: it was always too low by 20%. And then someone told you, "you literally don't have to think about it. Just add 20% every time you use it. That's it." Would that sentence make sense to you?
Why are you complaining about inflation? Just pay 10% more, it's that simple!
You can't argue both at once. You literally say above that you prefer tips because even if they increased prices you make more because of tips (i.e., making people feel guilty and throwing extra money at you).
But then you tell me if it was 20% higher I wouldn't care. Both of those can't be true.
I know you and I are being exploited when they want me to add 20% to the current prices. You literally just told me you make more money when I have to tip 20% than if prices were increased. Thus that means the TRUE price would not be a 20% increase. Therefore I'm being taken advantage of. And you are being taken advantage of because the employer is putting the variable risk on YOU. If there is less traffic in a place, that is on YOU. Why should that be your concern? If you work 8 hours, you work 8 hours. You don't control who comes in to the place. That's the employer's concern to choose a good location, advertise or whatever. But nope.. you are perfectly fine bearing that risk and perpetuating this stupid system.
And you are correct- if they showed true prices with no expectation of tips and I know everyone is being compensated fairly then I don't care about the price. I lived the UK for many years. What you see is what you pay, including tax. People are paid, there is time off, national medical coverage etc etc etc. There's not a thought about it. And I hate the mind games here.
Tipping is OPTIONAL. Live with it.
In most every transaction these days, customers are guilted into providing wages for essentially unpaid employees, and I'm sick of the mind games.
For me, I want employees to be paid fairly by their employer, which would calculate how much an item/service should cost, instead of shifting this obligation to me.
Examples: going to a new coffee shop. In MOST places (in Vancouver at least), they'll just call you to the counter to pick your order. But some will get it to you. But you only discover that after having paid. So how to tip?
Ordering food for delivery. Giving X% of the order doesn't do, because you might have a cheaper order from a restaurant that's further away, or an expensive one 2 blocks from your place. And you don't know yet if the delivery person is going to be walking and take 30 mins to arrive, or bike. Or if they have a bunch of other deliveries on the way and the food will arrive cold.
So... I would like very much to just be told: it costs X.
I neither need nor desire the additional mental load of worrying about tips.
And I don't love the implicit argument being made in the article... the wealthy should subsidize coffee consumption for the less-wealthy. If you can't afford the full cost of a carry-out latte, perhaps make your own coffee at home? Or, alternatively, maybe Ferrari should slash prices, ask the wealthy to donate money to make up the difference, and we can all drive super-cars?
Tipping needs to be burned with fire.
Tipping and its history is dripping in classism, racisim, corruption, and the perpetuation of poverty. It grotesquely unevenly distributes wealth among the front-and and back-end staff in a restaurant. It turns many common experiences: dining, cab-riding, having your house cleaned, even renting a hotel room, into exercises in guilt-tripping, price manipulation and misleading advertising, and mental calculation.
It's also a slippery slope. The rate used to be 10%. Then it rose to 15%. Now it's 20%. Why? Because employers are taking advantage of tipping to justify refusing to pay their employees a living wage.
If there's one simple thing that would improve the situation for many service workers, it'd be making tipping illegal.
You are not special. Tipping does not exist to lift you out of poverty, or because your job is different in some way. Tipping was imposed out of pseudo-Victorian classism and full-stop racism in the United States in the 1920s, and has been maintained by your employer in order to avoid paying you a normal wage. They can legally pay you poverty wages because your job includes tips.
Again, tipping must be destroyed.
Edit: so I guess I'd ask what is the approximate reference price for your "A dollar" comment? Cause if it's a $5 can of beer, vs a $20 cocktail those are very different tips.