Delivery driver shows how customer's $92 order was sitting hours after no tip
unilad.com
unilad.com
However, I would not tip on principle should I knew the staff would be bragging on TikTok on how they "punish" folks who don't tip in advance, before even getting serviced. This is stupid, lose-lose, and childish behavior; and I actually hope it's not something that happens en masse. I haven't been back to the US over the past ~5 years but it couldn't have changed that much. Or could it?
With the delivery driver, each order is separate. They have a choice of where to go and which order to pick up when they do. The tip is a bidding war; bid zero and you may get stuck like this. They do get a fee in addition to the tip, and the services do have other incentives/disincentives, but unlike wait staff they're not working a shift with defined jobs.
Wait staff don't know the tip in advance, though they can guess. If somebody has stiffed them before, they are supposed to go to the manager. The manager might say, "I'll talk to them" or "I'm going to throw them out" or "We pool tips so serve them anyway". Either way, once you've told the manager, you go back to your job regardless.
They still have the right to complain about bad customers. They're still not supposed to violate the person's privacy -- you can get fired for that, or worse. But you can't forbid the griping.
It would be nice if there were no tipping options and the tip was baked in.