A different tipping culture compared to a few years ago
cnn.com
cnn.com
The whole "spare the edge" attitude just protects the core, which is by definition always protected by its edge.
Also, it's just a matter of empathy.
Total expected compensation includes tips. Employees that don't get what they need will either 1) ask for more salary, 2) work elsewhere, or 3) expose the system as some kind of slavery.
Any of these are only set in motion if you stop coddling management's bad decisions.
Empathy is being weaponized in order to shift the responsibility of wages from the employer to the consumer. In the article, customers are feeling pressured and guilty and are even walking away from the tipping screen.
Part of the solution is to first realize what is going on and not feel guilty about that.
I wish tipping did not exist, but as long as it does, it's not an appropriate way to register complaints with the business as a whole.
It's important to note that this system also unduly pressures customers, who see these tip screens, and if they therefore believe other people are tipping, but they choose not to, there is a fear of retribution or poor service by the employees who, like waitstaff, have come to materially depend upon (or at least expect) tipping, bit by bit. This is especially stressful in cases where the tip screen is shown at the time of ordering.
In practice, a small amount of people will not tip in protest, leading to the employees to make less money, and management will not care.
But the question is now: What is an appropriate amount?
Is it the amount that was appropriate for generations, i.e., in a full-service restaurant, 10% for mediocre service, 15% for excellent service, and 20% for truly outstanding service? Or is it the 20/25/30% scale, or the 20/30/40% scale I've seen at a lunch counter, where previous appropriate was nothing or if they had a tip jar, toss a couple bucks? It's an open question, and a screwed-up interaction either way.
How to break the cycle? Comments alone will not work. Put yourself in the chair of a sociopathic corp executive. From that seat, they're still getting maximum profits, still paying the employees the minimum, the suckers\\\customers still pay the outrageous tips so the employees aren't rebelling or quitting, and the comments are mere noise (if they are ever even read at that level).
As much as it sucks for the workers short term, it seems that the only way to effect change is to universally reject the bogus tipping 'culture' superimposed on us by the corporate overlords, which sucks for the workers. It has to suck so bad for the workers that they universally quit. Only then will the executives see any problem and the need to adjust their policies on pay, pricing, and tipping.
I don't like to make things suck for workers either, so if you see another way, please let us know!
Theoretically this may be true, but it's not how it will play out in practice. A few people will not tip in protest, the staff will think they're jerks (which they arguably are), and nothing will change.
If you're looking for an easy magic happy way to enact social change where everyone likes you at every step of the way, you'll be looking for a long time.
All you can really do is raise a stink and encourage others to do the same. Fortunately, it takes fewer complaints than you might think to get even a large business to pay attention.
If we don't want businesses to passive aggressively pass their labor costs to their customers, here's a plausible course of events.
1) Angry customers, encouraging each other over social media, start tipping zero and writing angry comments about why. (A sibling commenter's idea to underscore in your comment that you're going to take your business elsewhere because of the policy is excellent.) Because of the people who refuse to tip, angry employees also start making noise, sometimes to the customer, but just as often to to their manager because the manager is there every day. Now everyone's angry, the negativity is spreading, awareness is being created.
2) A news outlet picks up on the trend because news loves everything negative. They trump it up and claim it's an epidemic across the nation of Americans rejecting tipping culture because greedy corporations took it too far. It's now in the news cycle and it's a real PR issue for some corps.
3) A clever corp that likes to make a big deal about treating their employees right realizes that their policy of passing off labor costs to the customer is generating more bad PR than it's worth. They realize they can generate GOOD PR for themselves by changing this policy. Maybe some smaller business owner is gutsy enough to use this trend to actually pay their employees a living wage and stop asking for tips altogether. That gets headlines, generates more attention for the trend, and helps them get more customers.
4) The revolution is in full swing at this point, because the issue has entered the public consciousness and at least some businesses have changed their ways under pressure. Does tipping culture get abolished nationwide and replaced with businesses actually paying people what they're worth? Probably not, but it becomes harder for businesses to pass their labor costs to customers via the deceptive practice of tip inflation. The world is improved because people were angry and unreasonable.
If you think about it this process happens all over the place within our society. It doesn't take 100% of the people shouting to compel action. Outcomes are a function of the number of people who shout multiplied by how loudly they shout. So yeah customers are well within their tights to tip zero and be explicit about why. Because it won't just be the customers shouting at that point, it will make labor shout too. It is an unreasonable action but the willingness of someone to be unreasonable is frequently what change depends on.
Tipping is a terrible system, but it's the system we have. Individuals choosing not to tip is highly unlikely to result in systemic change.
Leaning on the pretense that you aren't also engaged in a transaction with the staff (when it is the common practice) just makes you a shitheel.
This seems to me to be probably literally true but, I think, not true in the meaningful, operational sense. The waitstaff is free to quit, yes, in order probably to be out of a job for at least a few days, to face the hassle of a job search and possible increased scrutiny from future employers, and to experience the same low wages and mistreatment unless they luck into a totally different type of position. It's like an argument that gas-price gouging is OK because I'm free not to fill up my car.
You absolutely are not responsible for underpayment by management, but, if you eat at restaurants where managers underpay, you are no longer a neutral third-party; you are now a participant in that system. To extend your argument, if you don't want to be responsible for helping to make up the yawning gap in the workers' wages, you are free not to eat at restaurants.
I have zero issue with gas price gouging. A high price attracts more supply. Leading to an inevitable glut. Rinse wash repeat.
It's the owner who made that decision and they are ultimately responsible for how they encourage/discourage tipping and compensate their staff. 30% suggested tip might seem nice initially but it might also drive away customers in the longer run. And those customers will never protest much, they'll just leave and not come back.
It also signals that "look, we are going above and beyond with our service, we deserve a 30% add-on", but when in reality their service is most basic, or even worse than before, there is a disconnect that people notice.
Business models that rely on tipping to cover basic business model costs should be reconsidered.
For the business owner, they have to consider the tradeoffs if they want to maintain the current waitstaff: quantity of staff, hours, variety of menu options, decor, desired profitability, amount of automation, quality of food, etc.
The immediate beneficiary is the waitstaff, which will no have to reconsider their employment or their demands of the business owner.
For the waitstaff, they will move on to other companies that either figure out a business model to pay a livable wage or consider alternative types of positions. Eventually the surviving restaurants will adjust pricing and hourly rates/salaries like every other normal business. There will be positions available for entry level waitstaff and more experienced waitstaff.
TLDR: The beneficiaries of tipping overreached — don't be surprised by a backlash.
Brief history of tipping in America: https://www.7shifts.com/blog/history-of-tipping-restaurants/
The only way (short of legislation) for consumers to change tipping is for businesses to be aware that having pinpads with options like this means they’re going out of business.
What people need to recognize is that this is yet another corporate tactic to distract from their abusive practices.
Just like recycling plastics; instead of designing actually recyclable or biodegradeable products and actually implementing recycling, they sell unrecyclable crap, ship the waste off to China (until they refuse it), and try to make everyone feel personally guilty for their insufficient personal recycling practices.
With tips, they make a business model of paying they people poorly, extracting maximum profits, and holding prices just low enough for you to buy, they laying a guilt-trip on all the customers to help their poor workers. Similarly, WalMart runs seminars for their workers on how to get more government poverty benefits, so that the taxpayer subsidizes their business.
At first, I was for tipping, as I've always been a solid tipper and of course I want to help the worker. But now, they are just obviously pushing the limit to see how far they can push our collective guilt. Plus, we have zero idea of how, or even if, these "tips" actually get to the workers. I'm starting to think that the only solution is for the society to reject it completely and go No Tip. If they aren't paying their workers enough, they will quit.
I have personally noticed that I now subconsciously avoid buying stuff where tipping is involved exactly because the corporations are trying to more than double the expectation, so what was a habitual generous tip is now framed as being a cheapskate, and I don't want to feel pressured into it, and I don't want to make the worker feel shortchanged or disrespected, so the likelihood is that I'll just skip the whole transaction, and everyone gets nothing.
In Singapore, it's common that restaurants will charge you a 5% service charge. And then you usually don't tip at all. Many restaurants will also clip a "bill preview" to your table when they bring the first round of orders. So unless you ordered additional rounds, you know precisely how much they will deduct when you give them your card. For me, that cost predictability adds a certain peacefulness to the whole dining experience.
It all felt predictable. I could estimate how much things were going to cost because I knew where tips were expected and the typical rate.
Then it all changed, with tipping appearing all over. My barber added Square checkout and added a tip screen with 10%/15%/20% options. Then later it became 15%/20%/25%. Now at my most recent haircut it was 25%/30%/35%. This is an addition to their price increases every 6 months that have doubled the price of a haircut (pre-tip) in the last 3 years. On my last visit the barber made a comment that everyone seems to be going longer between haircuts these days for some reason, but he didn’t seem to put it all together.
I ordered takeout from a local restaurant via an app, leaving a tip within the app. When I arrived the person at the counter made some comment about how tips are appreciated and how they still work for tips. I casually mentioned I did it in the app, but they tried to start a conversation about how the app takes a percentage and how they’re getting fewer customers these days for some reason. I just wanted my food, not to get pulled into a guilt trip about double tipping. I haven’t been back because I just don’t want to deal with that after a long day of work.
Its starting to feel analogous to TicketMaster or AirBnB, where you’re presented with one price up front but then when you get to the checkout you’re hit with a substantially higher price that you didn’t expect. The unpredictability is getting tiresome.
In Canada, advertised prices for anything that isn't sitting on a shelf are basically a meaningless anchor number. We have a sales tax of 13% on everything, and then once you add the various service, subscription, card tap processing fees, credit card fees, warranty, "donation," and other fees, it's prudent to add at least 35% to any advertised price in your budget.
My answer was to avoid businesses that have more than one or two locations and shop at locally owned places as much as possible. Personally I just left the city as soon as I could afford to, for many reasons, but one of them was the effects of the inequality from importing people en masse from poor countries to do service jobs for the nouveau bourgeois was just becoming vulgar. No level of tipping in the world will change the relationship between a largely publicly funded middle class and the people who massage them, do their nails, drive them around, deliver their food, walk their small dogs, and clean their short term rentals. It's gross. Where possible, I opt out.
1. 20/25/30% becoming the default instead of 10/15/20%. 20% is now expected and people throw passive aggressive remarks at you if you tip 20%.
2. Tipping at places that don’t provide any service: mom and Pop clothing stores!?; takeout places where you pick something from the shelves and walk to a counter to get it billed; restaurants where you order at the counter, pick it up when it’s ready, eat on a table and clean up after yourself when you leave;
3. Expecting tips after you’ve already charged for the service. This includes but is not limited to delivery apps: you get charged a service fee, a delivery fee, a local legislation fee that is to ensure the workers get paid fair wages, all of which exceeds 30% of your order. Then are expected to tip. It makes sense in some cases (delivery from a far place or a big order etc.), but not as a default. I’ll tip when you only charge delivery fee or don’t charge anything (like old school pizza places).
4. Tips for salaried employees or contractors. I am not paying my plumber a tip after I paid the dude $140/hour in labor charges on a job that cost me upwards of $3000. Just no.
Hopefully this customer behavior will make its way back to management (and maybe even lawmakers) so that we get to a more reasonable system (i.e., no drip pricing, employers pay a fare wage, tip screens for random purchases go away).
I made eye contact with the cashier and selected zero. I figure she didn't even notice the number I selected but I sure felt guilty doing it.
But, why don't I feel guilty tipping 20% when I have a hand basket at the Market Basket with 80 dollars of food, or a grocery cart with 450 dollars of food in it?
The fact that restaurants or any business relying on the practice use it as a reason to underpay their employees just pisses me off.
I used to be actually called a service charge, still is in some place, which reflects that's its for good service. At least, it was originally, and still is in Europe to an extent. It's not just a mandatory top-up regardless. It also mentally helps separate out the restaurant service change where there's genuine service, from the person just checking you out at a store or counter.
If they weren’t given an option to tip while paying with a card, plenty of people would pay with that card and then leave a cash tip in the tip jar at their favorite coffee shop (nobody is going to request that their card be run again for a tip). There are places that make you sign a receipt and add a tip—but that isn’t always part of the Square flow.
Now it’s integrated into the PoS system, so the default option is to give Square their cut for a tip.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
I have to say 30% is bonkers in Washington St. where min. wage is already $15.74
Tipping also allows for price discrimination (a good thing in an economic sense). People who are well off tend to pay more, but people who can't pay as much can still be customers.
I find it really annoying too, but there are some reasons to keep it around. 30% is just crazy though.
[1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-does-tipping-still-exis...
A lot of the comments are about management shifting costs to customers, but even if tipping were outlawed, the customers are still going to be the ones to pay, right. I do think it would be a better system than tipping, but the end effect will just be to raise prices; it isn't going to come out of profits.
Placed an order at argon40.com, and at the end of the checkout process they prompted for a 5/10/15% tip. On a website. Just ridiculous!
I’m not tipping in the drive through.
I equally hate the charity “round up” or whatever. I’ll donate myself without paying a commission you get to deduct, thanks.