Tipping at self-checkout has customers crying ‘emotional blackmail’
wsj.com
wsj.com
Americans tipping abroad while on holidays ruins service for everyone that isn't American – as a non-American you are guaranteed to get worse service than a American in touristy places (and sometimes, to add insult to injury, your own local places), because an American tourist will just insist on tipping 20% or more in places where maybe 1€ = good tip and 2€ = great tip. It doesn't matter if they repeatedly get told not to do it, American tourists keep insisting on doing it to "be nice".
The result is that hospitality obviously optimises for being extra nice to Americans and treat everyone else with apathy. And because you only tip at the end, it doesn't even matter if you were willing to tip like an American, you're going to get the bad treatment (and by then when the bill arrives any motivation to tip well is gone – a classic catch-22). You're basically discriminated for not looking and speaking with an American accent everywhere you go as a tourist.
Please, inform yourselves of tipping cultures when you travel and do it appropriately. Also take in consideration a lot of "this is how much you should tip" guides online are horrible wrong and err on the side of overstating the tip (no idea why – possibly not to offend US sensitivities?). You'd think with all the "cultural appropriation" and "cultural imperialism" awareness these days people would be better in not imposing toxic parts of their culture elsewhere, but here we are.
Maybe this is how the tipping practice got started in the first place?
If you're in a touristy place and you're not American, if the place in particular has seen enough Americans, they're going to treat you badly because in their mind, you're taking up the table of an American tourist which would give them a lot of free money for doing the same work. I, as a non-American tourist who has never been in that particular place before, have no way of opting out of the "bad service mode" and opting into the "American service mode" – I obviously don't have an American accent. I obviously can't state "I'm going to tip you 20%!" at the beginning of the service – I'd look like a deranged person.
When I’m at smaller restaurant where the staff doesn’t know me well, and want to signal “I’m going to tip you well!”, I’ll often get an expensive drink at the bar beforehand and massively overtip.
The staff obviously talks to each other, and in my non-scientific study, this fairly consistently results in a better service outcome.
I tip in the US to receive better service. If it’s not considered rude to tip, and it results in better service, why wouldn’t I do that?
This of course doesn't apply if you are a regular, feel free to do whatever you want. The staff will treat you well because it's you, not because of the stereotype your accent implies.
Sounds like the same thing to me. Just playing as a team instead of an individual.
How does this work, unless you tip before being served?
When you go to Starbucks, ask for a product, then make payment for that product, and the little POS machine basically says "hey, can we have extra money?" it's systematized panhandling.
The delineation between "sat at a table and got service", and "payed at a counter to be handed something prepared" has a middle grey area for things that are made on-demand for me, by someone behind the counter, to my specification.
- In your Starbucks example if they grab a pre-bottle something is that service? - Pulling a latte from a latte machine? - Making espresso on a complicated espresso machine I can't understand, using the beans I specified? - Doing the whole foam art thing, with more complex instructions on how I like the coffee?
(To be clear, I'm not a coffee person, but I'm aware there's a complexity to the production of an espresso).
A good barista can put in more effort, skill, knowledge into the coffee than a poured cup of coffee from a Mr. Coffee at the diner. Similarly, I've eaten in plenty of diners where you order at the counter and food is delivered. Is that service? What if I carry my food to the table but they bring drinks? Or I forgot something and they deliver it
My point here isn't that I disagree about it being systematized panhandling. I think it's awful.
But, I often find it hard to identify where to draw the line.
* Did you sit at a table and a waiter/waitress took your order, then the waiter/waitress brought the food to you, which you ate at the table, while the waiter attended to your needs? Then you leave a tip
* Else: Then you don't leave a tip
To me, a tip goes to an individual, not everybody who happened to be working whether they helped me or not. This is one thing I really object to in places that have a general tip jar. I tip individuals, not companies.
What the inappropriate tip screens could do to be a whole lot more like how the world operated just a few years ago, is to add a "round up to next dollar as tip" option and make that the most prominent.
However, are employers using the expanded presence of tip lines & prompts as an excuse to pay workers less, somehow? Seems possible, in which case now I am kinda a dick if I'm not tipping. Wish we'd get rid of the whole damn thing, the anti-tipping movement in the early 20th century had it right.
... OTOH I used the tip % buttons on the CC reader as a way to give my favorite struggling-but-excellent pastry shop extra money when the owner was having such a hard time that she had zero employees. The single time it's been kinda nice to have them.
He told me he finally got it when he used tipping to establish better service for future interactions. Unpacking it, it’s really about the relationship.
What makes those tip fields feel like an imposition and a violation of social customs is because it shifts this from developing a personal connection with a service provider into something transactional.
I’d say that, if you feel it is like emotional blackmail, it probably is — the business is exploiting both worker and customer. If you feel that personal connection and sense of community, then tipping is a way of helping support the well-being of someone in the community.
After talking with few guys, I learned that at such places, the employee usually gets only a small cut of tips, you are tipping then employer instead. Nowadays, I don't have a moral issue giving 0%, 0,00€ tip when paying with the card. If I have some coins in my pocket, I'll tip the person, if not, that's it.
But now you see it in places that are carry-out only, maybe with the excuse that "it's for the kitchen." That doesn't fly for me because tips were always a reward for good service. Handing a bag of food over the counter doesn't qualify as far as I'm concerned. Even if a dining room is provided, if I'm carrying my food to the table, filling my own drinks, etc. then there's nothing to tip for.
In the off chance someone says something (and it’s happened) I never go back and just move along. It’s not worth a verbal argument over what amounts to an opinion or peer pressure. Just nope, goodbye.
Funny thing is, I have been told I’m an overly generous tipper when the service is worthwhile. But the whole charade has me recoiling to a more extreme stance thanks to the likes of stripe and other off the shelf SaaS POS systems.
My company pays my bonus when I have done my job very well and they have turned a profit. Why aren't the service sector's employers doing the same for their employees?
Just saw the other day that some Apple Store employees want to start asking for tips: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/05/04/apple-store-mar...
> The workers’ negotiators also want Apple to adopt a tipping system, letting patrons offer gratuities in increments of 3%, 5% or a custom amount for in-store credit-card transactions.
Not 10%, unless you have money to burn/launder. But also:
> “All monies collected through this manner would be dispersed to members of the bargaining unit biweekly based on any hours worked.”
So as in most places these days, by tipping you're not rewarding the employee who provided good service, your tip gets spread out among all employees whether they are working hard or hardly working. Which as far as I am concerned, entirely defeats the purpose of the tipping system.
I have no reason to buy anything from an Apple store but if I did, and someone provided exceptional service beyond what they were expected to, I would not tip them. I would instead saunter down to the Starbucks pagoda, buy a gift card, and then hand it directly to the person.
I typically add 10% cuz if i don't my Uber rating goes down and i get less rides when i need them so it's more than blackmail. It's extortion. As well as a reason not to have one-app-to-rule-them-all
It infuriates me when i add a tip and the driver f ups. I've had the wrong food delivered. Or delivered 20 minutes after the far end of a delivery estimate window.
Uber will refund you on the food that didn't get to you but don't refund your tip.
The dynamic OP describes seems like a great reason to steer clear of UberEats, not that we need another one.
If you never interact with a person throughout the process of buying there is no reason to.
On the other hand, I left $10 on top of a $50 takeout order at a local Italian place and the bored, empty-handed young waitress just sat there watching me while I struggled out the door with pizza boxes and a couple bags. I resented her for her smugness and entitlement. Plus the order was wrong, as I found out later.
Why on Earth am I expected to hand money over to people who are doing literally nothing but processing my credit card for payment? I've worked in food service, where I learned how hard it is and to never disparage employees at the point of service, but I cannot wrap my head around this selfish mindset of sit there and do nothing and expect people to hand over cash.
No, it comes from servants waiting for requests from their employers (“waiting on” their employers), not from them optimizing the experience of customers waiting in line.
This is not "employees are greedy, want money for nothing". This is a case of "employees barely paid enough to get food each week, survive off tips".
People forget that minimum wage comes out to around $15k a year. Even $15 an hour is only $30k. In almost all of the country, that's not enough for the cheapest rent, upkeep on a cheap car, food, taxes and other bills.
Excessive tips are the only way a lot of people working in the service industry survive at all.
I hate it, it's a sucky system. I would much rather have their wages be higher and the base product go up a bit in price and then remove tipping from most of these industries altogether. But that's just not happening.
Is this your fault that the industry as a whole legally shifts that responsibility onto the consumer? Definitely not! Does that make a person an asshole for knowingly paying less? Yes.
It's slightly more complicated: hourly wage is the greater of ($3 + tips) or (standard minimum wage). So, the effective minimum wage is still the standard minimum wage.
Again, the customer is asked to guess the restaurant’s payroll and make up the difference with the market wage. How does one know if they are paying too little? Or too much? Or just right? Maybe customers don’t want to play the guessing game.
Pay a competitive livable wage and raise the prices on the menu for the customer to determine the value of the product and stop asking/begging for tips. Done!
If a company chooses to pay more, their prices go up and they cant compete. Even though its just shifting the cost from a hidden to a declared one, its enough where restaurants struggle and either abandon the model or go out of business. Its an industry problem that needs to be fixed at that level, you cant just say "Go out of business, Done!" as thats not a realistic solution.
Not in Europe
I'll put the food in a bag, grab my napkins and parmesan packets, and ring myself up. Then I'll tip myself the 20% or whatever ridiculous margin multiplied by my already overly-inflated bill.
That employee doesn't do anything for me. She does many things for the sake of the restaurant, but not a single thing for me that I need or care about.
As a bystander to the employment relationship, it's not my role to provide the economic solution here. But I'm happy to tip for service. Turn the tables and I'm happy to hold the damn door open with a smile for $10. I'd do that all day long since that's a fantastic payoff for the effort required. I'd hold the door open anyway because it's the thing to do.
When the topic comes up on Reddit the people overwhelmingly against getting rid of tipping are waiters. Heck, bartenders are even more vehemently against the idea.
Plus, instead of thinking about potentially low tipping periods and how averages work, they think about missing out on that sweet $300 tip they might make at some point if they get lucky.
In the current system restauranteurs skimp on wages because they know workers make up for it with tips and hence are willing to work for dirt-cheap wages. But it's not like the restaurant business actually benefit from it, because supply and demand is still determined by how much patrons pay in total. If they charge more up front (along with everyone else), and just give a larger portion to workers, they'll still make the same amount of money.
We're stuck in a shitty local minimum that benefits nobody.
I don't think I agree with this. I believe it's a form of psychological manipulation where you get a foot in the door by offering lower upfront prices and then guilt people into paying more. Same reason why car dealerships try to sell you on a million add-ons.
The only downside is I avoid going to the same place again Incase they remember me and decide to spit in my food or worse!
By the way I will gladly pay more. I just don't want to be surprised by extra costs (not publicizing tax is another thing that irks me too)
Why did you leave a tip?
Is there a viable path forward? Is there some way I can support it happening?
Really roughly the idea being:
Minimum wage is now = ((Median 1bed room monthly Rent in zipcode)*.3333) / 160 and will be updated annually.
(.3333 of income must pay for a 1 bedroom house)
If you're under 18 and have less than 1 year's experience you can accept earning 50% of minimum wage to get the experience.
If your business has less than $500k of revenue, and no one is paid more than 2x anyone else. Then you can pay as low as 50% of minimum wage.
I'm curious to hear from others how such a system would break?
That's the tough part. The places that I'm familiar with that experimented with no-tipping ended up reverting back to the standard model. With tipping, good waiters at good restaurants can make solid money - probably more than they'd be paid in a no-tipping model. So they quit and get a different job with tips, and the back of the house makes a bit more money, but then overall business declines due to the less-experienced/lower-quality waitstaff.
I think we're stuck with the tipping model we have in the US until some tech really disrupts the dining experience - robot waiters or some such.
I’m fine allowing restaurants to figure out their compensation and pricing without offloading it onto me.
When I see stuff like this, it increases my aggravation level, and I’m sure it has the same effect on others. Retail workers already get treated badly by customers, and this could easily start pushing some people other the edge.
It seems like we’re entering the era of the “aggravation economy”, where the new strategy seems to be to annoy the hell out of people as much as possible so they pay to make it stop. This has been perfected by tech companies for years, and now seems to be spilling over into the real world.
Tipping is effective at encouraging that care and attention to detail, and shows a degree of respect for someone doing you a service.
I tip movers, my house cleaner, the valet, hotel maid service, bartenders, and anyone (at a non-chain restaurant) involved in directly preparing, serving, or delivering my food — including take-out.
I’m okay with this. I think the US’ tipping culture produces a better overall level of service than we’d have otherwise — barring some massive shift in our underlying culture.
I think the opposite is true. I've had better service in the UK and New Zealand and pretty much any country that doesn't have US tipping culture.
I could see it being true for high-end restaurants and offerings though, maybe.
Something to consider the next time you tip electronically. I don't think the data collection game is viable with cash, even the IRS cannot keep on top of it.
It's awful. It's basically a legalized bribe.
It makes you complicit in a system of exploitation where owners pay workers below what the worker needs to survive, and if you -the customer!- don't make up the shortfall you're responsible of the immiseration of the worker.
An acquaintance of mine runs a coffee shop in Brooklyn. She pays her staff a higher hourly wage, doesn't accept tips, and prices things accordingly. It's a much better system, and it should be the law
> persuade (someone) to act in one's favor, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or other inducement
That's not it.
That's why you should never tip at the self-order kiosk, but you should drop a cash tip into the tip cup when leaving, if the food and service was good.
what? NO
a terrible coffee and burnt pastries means REFUND. delicious food, good service and clean tables means WHAT I JUST PAID FOR.
did you really pay the normal price of a good (let's say a chair) if it's broken? why do you pay for a substandard service then?
It has been like this for literal decades.
Some cities, like Seattle, has a minimum wage at $15 for wait staff. So tipping is on top of that.
Most places aren't Seattle. Most states and cities aren't setting higher minimum wages for wait staff, and most aren't putting the minimum on par with other folks. As you travel through the country, you probably aren't going to see if the folks in the area are paid well or see how much of a jerk you are for not tipping in a country that expects it instead of including wages in the price of goods.
It's probably impossible to ban someone voluntarily leaving extra money on the table.
Uh no- that just means the person DID THEIR JOB.
If I hire a plumber and he floods my house.. oh ok just no tip. But if it doesn't flood, big tip!!
Just fucking pay people a salary and stop dicking around with tipping. It literally exists so companies can offload most of the risk to their employees.
Until systemic changes are implemented, I think the amount people tip should not be tied to service received to avoid bias (i.e. if you generally tip restaurant servers 20%, then tip all servers 20% and if you receive better or worse service do not tip more or less, but rather change the frequency that you are a patron). For tips requested for non-service interactions (e.g. self-checkouts), it is probably better not to tip so that it does not proliferate the problem.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/black-restaurant-workers-rec...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/dining/danny-meyer-no-tip...
On the other hand, somebody at our local pizza joint recently made the most perfect version of our favorite pizza we've had yet. When it was time to pay, I tipped extra and wrote a note complimenting the worker who made our pizza. That felt good and just.
This is painfully apparent in bars. Compared with, say, Ireland where a barman can take multiple orders at once, batch them, then quickly take payment via a single contactless tap.
In the U.S. you have to "open a tab", the bartender has to add drinks to your tab, then when you want to pay, the bartender has to print off the tab, have you sign it, do mental maths, and finally write down the total bill. I'm sure there's also extraneous labour when it comes to reading the signed amounts and inputting them into the billing system.
It also lends itself to fraud. What's stopping a bartender adding a few bucks here and there on tipped amounts. Or a card owner disputing a tip they genuinely gave. The idea that a bar which has scanned your card, can then withdraw any amount it wishes at a later date is totally backwards and should be stopped.
I am convinced that if a bar were to switch to the non-US system, then the increase in order speed and reduction in prices would mean no lost profit for the bar, and happier customers.
I was stuck staring at the machine trying to find out how to NOT tip right in front of the register person. I eventually just decided to hit the red button that I thought was canceling the order and it went on to next screen for payment. I was so aggravated in being manipulated into feeling like a cheap non-caring ass I might not go there anymore.
Before this, you always had to wonder if perhaps you were being unreasonable in not tipping someone who merely rang up a purchase for you. After all, if the machine is prompting for a tip, then perhaps a tip is appropriate in this circumstance? But now it's clear that they will ask for tips even when it's absolutely unwarranted. So you can now decide for yourself where the 'line' is on tipping, since "did the machine suggest a tip?" is no longer an accurate heuristic.
The grocery side asks for tip on checkout. You bring the groceries, they ring you up, you have to bag them yourself. Then they ask for tip. Makes me furious.
“If you could just answer the quick question on screen …”
And of course the default options are 15, 20, 25. I’m even starting to see 17, 21, 30 in some places.
I’m hopeful this kind of naked greed will finally push it all over the edge.
No real minimum wage laws, so pass what should be the employer cost on to the customer?
It's even crappier for workers when bosses dictate that tips should be pooled or whatever.
Honestly it should be more regulated and the minimum wage should be ate least reasonable.
Your comment made me think - I wonder if a way of reigning in this weaponization of tipping culture would be state laws for transparency of where tips actually go. Let's say anywhere that solicits tips must clearly post how that money is divided up (on the menu, tip jar, POS terminal, prominent signs, etc). Whether it all goes to your server, whether it's pooled between servers, pooled with the whole staff, whether any doesn't go to employees for any reason, etc.
I'd think the servers who actually benefit from tips (individually tipped at nice places) would be fine with this, while the places where it's become a general guilt-tax that just gets averaged out and used as a substitute for wages would be laid bare.
People would still try, and it would take a while for the culture to dissipate entirely, but most people would eventually realize there would be no reason to tip and so wouldn't.
It would sure be nice if we could snap our fingers and "stop worker exploitation". But throwing an idyllic state of affairs out as a "solution" to reject a concrete idea that might actually move us towards a better place is counterproductive.
As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, if you ask restaurant workers about tipping many actually like it because good servers at good restaurants apparently do end up making a decent wage. So like a lot of things, the tiny sliver of shining meritocracy ends up carrying water for an overall oppressive dynamic. Which is why I think some transparency into what exactly a "tip" means in any given context would go a long way - the various ways business owners divert tips is itself a very direct form of worker exploitation.
Everything else: My discretion. But I'm not obligated one bit.
How much I have to tip the border agents? What about if I interact with the police? Or end up in jail and being prosecuted? Does the prosecutor need to be tipped what about judge? They are all providing personalised services to me so I understand it is always expected to be tipped in those cases?
What about security guards? Should I hand out money to them if I see them while visiting some place like a mall?
Tipping a government official/government worker will land you in big trouble and is a punishable crime. Trying to bribe a security agent at the mall will get you funny looks and might get the police called on you. Tipping is pretty much only for services to consumers like delivery or at a restaurant or barber or taxi.
If a government service has any fee these will be clearly posted somewhere official and you will be charged the exact amount. Note that prices typically exclude sales tax, but the receipt will show the breakdown for you and the percentages are, again, available from an official source.
if (Pay after eating || delivery of food) then tip else notip
Suck it POS vendors.