But yes, the craziness is coming here too. I have not seen it myself, but my friend complained about grocery store self-checkout asking for tip. Touchscreen order terminals in fast food takeout places also ask for tip, of course.
I could see more of a case for tipping at non-self-checkout. At least there, the employee is doing the work. But even there, why has it changed? What's different from what they were doing 10 years ago?
I could also see tipping checkout people during Covid (though I didn't think of it at the time). They were putting their health, and maybe their lives, on the line so that I could continue to eat. That was way above and beyond the job they thought they were signing up for. Tipping then would have been a kind of hazard pay.
Any time Europe does something it doesn't like I always read how it's an "imported" trend (usually from America). Europeans just can't ever accept they are responsible for their own behavior. They're just helpless and twisting in the wind at America's mercy when it comes to these things.
Of course, when it comes to things they're proud of then they're a strong independent people that don't need no America.
This is the first time I hear this stated as a fact rather than a theory, where has this been confirmed to be happening exactly?
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/autoentrepreneurs/trava... (in French, video)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/business/uber-eats-delive... (in English, article)
> French labor law allows independent contractors to outsource to legal workers, but Uber Eats, Stuart and Glovo said they prohibited subcontracting.
But: if this happens in Marseille/Nice, I'm ready to bet organized crime has a hand in it. Mafias still have a lot of power there, and they're taking all the fringe paralegals businesses.
A restaurant or a pub, yes, a taxi, yes, a bellhop or another hotel employee, maybe (there, the tip might serve as a borderline bribe for being discreet, e.g. if a married man books a room with an unmarried lady for one night). Literature older than 100 years mentions tipping in similar contexts.
OTOH tipping would look very strange, say, at the post office. Just not done. Perhaps leaving some very small change on the tray, but that's it. Same with most retail shops.