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Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

I feel so aggravated that nearly every single place I visit asks for a tip or 'donation' now. I take some solace in the fact it's not just me getting old and grumpy for once, and nearly everyone is saying the same.

I'm hoping this will be the trend that -finally- ends tipping culture in the US. When everyone asks for a tip, nobody gets a tip.

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I am totally with you. The other day I bought shaved iced for my child which took perhaps 1 minute to make. I was already paying $5 for a really tiny cup and then another $1 that showed up as the suggested tip on the card reader. The employee was looking directly at me and I couldn't see the option for "No Tip" fast enough. So I had to click on $1.

That $1 didn't mean anything to me until then. It was suddenly a tax I was paying for not being Larry David :)

The businesses who think that are striking a balance between good customer service and paying fair wages don't realize that the consumers are leaving with a bad taste in their mouths.

I especially love the dark pattern whereby the “suggested tips” are shown in descending order from left to right, trying to take advantage of people’s instinct to pick the first (presumably lowest) option.

Sometimes with 35% or 40% in that default spot on the left… madness

I've simply stopped going to businesses that abuse their customers in this way. Most recently, a fast food place near me changed their POS system such that if you want to leave less than a 20% tip, you have to engage in three extra button presses that are reasonably well hidden in the UI, leading me to just hit the 20% button in order to stop holding up the line.

They're the latest on my "will never do business with them again" list.

3 buttons will not hold up a line that much. you just punked out, and then refused to go back because you couldn't press the "other tip amount".

Buying a bagel from a shop with a POS like that was the breaking point for me: I will never go back, and tipping nudges have now lost all persuasive force. I have returned to the tipping conventions I grew up with (which are still unreasonable, of course; the entire practice needs to end).

Most businesses are increasingly using one of a handful of different POS systems (square, toasttab and clover).

I imagine the tipping options are set up by default on those systems and it requires a (probably already very busy, maybe non tech savvy) manager to manually go in and find the options to change or disable.

The workers are probably NOT happy about the extra tips going away.

Nobody really wins no matter what here. I guess I blame the new crop of POS POS vendors? IDK

They have to choose the default tip amounts so I’m pretty sure tips are off by default. Also, there was an interview on Vox or NBC where business owners state it’s off by default but “you are leaving money on the table by not asking.”

Yep I've actually started channel my inner Larry David these days even shaming the boss for not paying their employees enough. I even volunteer to teach them coding so they can get a better job (ok I am sure that's not a thing in this market but still). I find it releases the awkwardness and frankly is fun!

> I feel so aggravated that nearly every single place I visit asks for a tip or 'donation' now.

A lot of this was done by the credit card processors in order to increase their rake.

I don't tip on machines unless I'm in a resaurant (and I probably shouldn't there--either). If I'm going to tip, I give cash because I can't count on any of what I put into the machine getting to the person I intend it to go to.

> A lot of this was done by the credit card processors in order to increase their rake.

I can't speak for every terminal supplier but store owners often do have the option to turn it off.

But it becomes problematic when it ships with tips enabled by default and there's strong messaging from your terminal vendor's rep to keep it enabled. You end up having to go out of your way and against the grain to disable it.

Yep the waiter that served us the other night in a Mexican restaurant showed sufficient displeasure at the $50 tips we were giving him and clearly said he expected more. He hardly spent anytime talking to us (a party of 10 people) or making suggestions etc and did nothing out of normal , neither did he spent a lot of time on our table. I am not sure if they feel it is right to ask for more tips nowadays but I am afraid it also shows the general decline in affordability. Or the restaurants themselves are in really bad shape and not able to support the waiters fully? Either way it leaves a bad taste and if this continues even lesser people will go out for dining.

What was $50 as a percentage of your meal? Typically for a party of 10 the 18% gratuity is automatically tacked on to the bill, so there should be no room for discontent from the server. It’s common to see this disclaimer on menus “for a party of 6 or more a gratuity of 18% will be added to your final bill.”

> “for a party of 6 or more a gratuity of 18% will be added to your final bill.”

Which, of course, means it's no longer a gratuity, but an additional fee. It irks me when restaurants lie in this way.

It is also taxed vs tips are not taxed if they are a gratuity.

Tips are taxed, in the US, anyway.

Agreed and I never tip more if it's automatically added. Tips are meant to communicate good and bad, and if I have no say, then I won't exercise it.

> Tips are meant to communicate good and bad,

No, tips are meant to provide an excuse for lower baseline pay and to allow pay discrimination on what are otherwise protected traits by relying on the fact that tippers fairly consistently discriminate on those traits and anti-discrimination law does not apply to them at all.

For me, I just round up to the nearest dollar and call it good. For anything where a tip was expected pre-2017, it's between 5-15%, typically 10%. I'm tip fatigued and this is what I am comfortable paying now. Pay your employees better.

As a privileged white collar tech worker who makes far more money than just about any service worker, I happily respond to requests to tip by tipping. It is a privilege to be able to!

What?

The issue here is not even request to tip , but rather hostile behavior when not tipped to the satisfaction of the service worker.

I dine out way too much, date a service industry veteran, and know many other service industry workers. Never have I experienced that, seen that, nor heard of any of my friends saying they did that (even for no tippers). In fact, they’d all say doing that would be incredibly unprofessional.

So I am curious what region you are in that you experience such hostility.

I've seen the same thing and I'm in Colorado in HCOL area.

If you ever do see it, you’ll notice an involuntary component to the reaction. Not easy to self-report and there’s no incentive to try to. Chicago area, both urban and suburbs.

It's a privilege, you might leave with a sense of being generous but in the end you also feed into a culture of systemic abuse and exploitation.

I really dislike traveling to the USA and being forced to tip because employers don't pay enough, it feels really, really wrong.

It's absolutely true, especially compared to places like Japan that have incredible food, stellar service, yet crazy high costs of living -- all for no tips.

The US system is just so broken in so many ways.

But as everyday individuals, what are you gonna do? Our democracy isn't really functional and a normal person has zero say in policies.

If you don't tip, the system won't change. The person working there will just go home with less money. They're already making much much less than us, even if all their customers tipped 30%.

Some restaurant owners have taken away tips altogether, opting for an across the board wage increase. Of course that means their items are all priced higher in the menu.

It's just a no win situation.

Ability to afford to tip isn't the issue. Being strong-armed into it is. Screw them.

I see your point also. But to be fair, being prompted by a computer to add a tip isn't exactly "being strong-armed into it"

I think that characterizing it as strong-arming is appropriate when the UI makes it hard to choose anything but leaving a tip or when an employee is watching you as you're paying, or when the employee straight up asks for a tip.

Even being asked for a tip before services are rendered is bad. Maybe not "strong-armed" bad, but it's a close call.

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