People no longer know how much to tip
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I used to tip anywhere from high 20's to low 30's, but in the years since COVID, _everything_ asks for a tip even when no extra service is provided (i.e. take-out), so I default to 0%, or a modest 10 or 15% if it's dine-in at a local shop.
I support workers' rights and a living wage, but can't really justify upholding the current scheme of exploitation by store owners in the name of supporting labor. I would much rather laws and/or unions force the issue of laborers getting paid what their labor is worth than giving more money to business owners praying that they are not crushing their employees.
the reality is that attractive waitresses make up to FIVE TIMES the take home nightly pay of workers in the back in tips. tips are extremely lucrative. there is a reason that wait staff themselves never oppose the current system. Not to mention the legal myths. if they actually received $0 in tips their employer would still be obligated to pay them atleast minimum wage. there is a reason they dont have to.
People constantly make this statement as if it is something wrong. The factor of the matter is that I probably make 20-30% more than ny teams project manager, why? Because I went into computers and had a mind for it and being blessed to be fairly intelligent (at least I'd like to believe so), resulting in me getting paid more for than someone else on my team. Is this wrong?
Should I be resentful that somebody was born with better looks than me and that they get compensated more for that in certain sectors than people who are less attractive or fail to take care of their personal appearance?
We all have strengths and weaknesses. Some people were blessed to be good with numbers, some to be good with people, why resent people for being good at something, or working to get good at it?
They won't accept tips.
In fact, if you leave money on the table, they will chase after you, to give it back.
If they did accept tips, I'd make it 50%.
I'm pretty sure the reason is that the employees are paid a living wage.
A nice side-effect, is that your table doesn't have an "assigned waitstaff." You can ask anyone walking by, for assistance.
The reason is cultural. They take pride in their work, regardless of any additional donations. I would even say it is insulting to be left a tip since the assumption, then, is that the worker would not have done the job to the best of their ability without the prospect of a donation.
There's just so many reasons to not accept tips. In tipping countries it's seen as a boost for productivity, while in practice it also generates friction within the staff, widens the gap between day and night staff, blurries the client/staff relationship and makes kitchen staff miserable. And just so many additional reasons.
i am very skeptical of that claim. many cultural practices are done because they have always been done that way. and the reasons they evolved is long forgotten
Sometimes practices can feel completely at odds with one's believes, but if they're still widely adopted it usually means influential parts of society are still relying on them.
those societies that don't have a culture of tipping, probably never had it to begin with.
if they're still widely adopted it usually means influential parts of society are still relying on them.
the problem with this is that waiters didn't start out relying on tips. that came later. essentially waiters are now being exploited by their employers. and that exploitation is being enabled through tipping. but now it's hard to change that, unless waiters start to demand more pay.
> waiters are now being exploited by their employers
So yes, employers are relying on tips to exploit waiters, and they have more influence on their society than the waiters.
To answer your point on societies that don't have a tipping culture (I guess you mean a vibrant tipping culture. I don't think there is any society with absolutely no tipping whatsoever): when the balance of influence changes, culture also changes.
As an example, French people had a wider tipping culture, but workers fought for higher minimum wages, stronger right, and gave the finger to conditions where they need tips to make a living, or even get paid fairly. Cafes and restaurants moved to baked in service fees, and staff doesn't expect any tip as they don't need to. Employees had more influence than their employers and the situation changed.
there are. in china people will get confused if you try to tip. it's just not done. exceptions only in areas with lots of western tourists. apparently in japan people get offended if you tip.
They get 6-9$ per hour (which is not much even accounting for the extra purchasing power) and hard to live on.
In my EU country waiters make more and often have a terrible attitude.
Now Uber Eats is popular, some people think tipping is cool because it feels like an American thing...
Who am I tipping, exactly? The kiosk? Myself? No one had even made eye contact with me up to this point. I have ordered fast food from a computer. When I have eaten it, I'm expected to bus my own table.
And yet, I felt bad for removing the tip before placing my order, and kind of slunk away from the kiosk hoping the kitchen in the back doesn't know whether or not I tipped, so they can't spit on my burger.
Raise the prices, get rid of tipping, it will make everyone happier.
2. Not only would spitting in food get you fired but it's also a crime. Do you really think it's common for people to be this reckless with their livelihood?
The most we would do is serve you slower if you're being a jerk.
I can't speak for every food service worker, but most FOH are too busy/indifferent to really care.
This is beyond madness.
If I walk up to the counter to order and walk up to pick up my order, the maximum tip is the coins I don’t wish to carry away.
I refuse to engage in your bullshit!
The staff who make pretty crap money to do a pretty thankless job who opened the restaurant, kept it clean + stocked, kept the bathrooms cleaned, make the order, serve the order, help you if something is wrong, help keep condiments/drink machines working, etc.
I agree with this logic we should always tip everybody we interact with $1 and that isn't the standard. It's a weird thing. Tipping in the food service industry is just "accepted" the same way a 6% real estate facilitation commission is.
The customer should pay for the product. The employees should be paid by the employer. This whole tipping nonsense has been exacerbated by the move to POS systems nationwide. Tipping should be seen as a reward for doing something excellent or extraordinary.
What experience do you have working this kind of job / interfacing with people who work these kinds of jobs?
More often than not in my experience, they are extremely miserable/unhappy (probably as a result of making less than $40k/yr). They don't have the skillsets/education/opportunities to get ahead. Customers constantly yell at them.
Telling them "be happy for what you have/how much you make" is sort of kind of like... not well received?
> It's a different argument if they're not getting paid enough
There's no easy solution. Most businesses run on like a 10-30% net margin if not lower. Payroll is a fixed portion of that.
We already have an "inflation" problem and giving everybody $5/hr raises isn't going to fix anything.
Otherwise raise the prices and find a point at which it can run.
The customer is paying the same regardless so why not just build it into the pricing?
I’m not saying anyone should be happy; you should reread my message. It isn’t a thankless job because *you’re getting paid*.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/homes/nar-verdict-real-estate...
How’s that my problem, exactly?
(thankfully I'm in Europe and don't have to deal with this bullshit)
Quite absurd practice that I really wish we can move away from as a society.
I still cave and end up tipping almost every time, since it's not the employees fault, but man - going to a frozen yogurt place, preparing everything myself, and having the checkout employee swing the tablet around for a tip always irks me.
Tipping is stupid, if you can’t afford to pay your staff, your trading insolvent.
But, yes, the default/baseline expectation should be 0.00 on top of the sale price.
Thank you.
Nobody working in high-end retail sales gets tips, but they do get commissions, which are included in the listed prices. This is really a much better, fairer, and less socially awkward approach to the issue. Note it's also much better than replacing tips with an hourly wage increase because the staff is rewarded if the business is busy, so they're incentivized to keep the clients coming back.
edit: and I tip the food delivery guy
If specific to restaurants, why?
It's just that they prefer to get more risk and more money with tipping over a traditional employee job.
Leaving aside for a second the fact that now tipping is basically asked everywhere (even at automated machines) - as an European I consider it an extremely stupid trend. If you're "forced" to tip, then it's not a tip anymore.
The concept of tipping, at least in Switzerland, has always been to show gratitude for an *exceptional* service. I totally understand the situation in the States, where the tip is basically the employee's wage - but this shouldn't be the case to begin with.
It shouldn't be considered rude to not tip the service was good / OK. Employees / waiters should be paid adequate wages regardless of their tips - in the end this is why the food in a restaurant is so expensive (compared to cooking at home).
IMHO they should add a mandatory 20% service charge _after_ they discount all of the menu items by 20% - or simply get rid of the tip entirely.
If they decide for you and ideally print up the amount in the menu then it's basically pricing it into the food which is how it should have always been.
The real problem is where tipping is now demanded when no customer service is given or before.
I understand this is the norm in the States, but in Europe this is definitely not the case (as far as I know).
I guarantee you, if european servers had a chance, they too would try to charge tips as much as possible because they do make way more with it.
The only way for them to increase their chances of getting tipped is by... providing an outstanding service - which is how tipping should work. Something exceptional deserves to be rewarded
But realistically I'd rather it just be built into the price.
This is the only way to be sure that the money you're tipping are going directly to the rider.
If they do it before, then I agree with you, it's totally stupid
I remember seeing an 85+ year old kiwi shaken down by a very pushy waiter.
When tourism ended during covid it seemed to be rolled back. But once again cruise ships are rolling into our ports I expect to see it pushed again.
Kiwis are quite resistant to the idea. When staff are friendly, and they usually are even at somewhere like McDonalds, they are being genuine and have nothing to gain.
I have noticed last time I went to the SI that many of the cafe's and restaurants are passing on card fees, but those on the NI are not. That must surely be targeted at tourists.
95% of tipping scenarios aren't that, and it's gotten out of control.
The key word here is deserving it - if it becomes almost mandatory then it's not exceptional anymore
Wow. I always tip for haircuts, but I’ll tip around 50% if the person is just down to business, efficient, and gets me out of the chair quickly. I’m happy to talk to people to make their day more interesting, but left to my own devices, I'd rather just have the quiet.
So basically I’m seeking out and rewarding the opposite behavior than what you are. I can only imagine the whiplash barbers and hairdressers must feel.
I don't love it, but I'm not going to be the one stiffing my waiter.
Don't make it my job to figure out your financials, I am just here to eat. Price your service properly and pay your workers.
Some US states are around that recently which is cool to see. There is also a culture of fairness or "The Fair Go" in Australia, which puts a bit of pressure on working conditions in the right direction.
Not perfectly applied and not true for every business of course. There is still exploitive businesses who will take advantage of international students and other people in tough spots for cash in hand work or through wage theft (work without pay, not supplying correct breaks etc).
Yes, I'm all for it. But it would easier to do during times in which service workers aren't just barely scrapping by, and had more negotiating power.
The situation is pretty bad, and I feel bad for who's working in that field :(
Here's a reddit thread [0] to give you some perspective. They're absolutely right, why would they take minimum wage when they can make 50-60/hr.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Serverlife/comments/14fl21y/servers...
So, if we stop with the tipping culture and the menu items prices increase, the problem would be solved also for the cooks that will finally make more.
What does the average tip-receiving worker who isn't a bartender/waiter/waitress look like wage wise?
Probably $14/hr base salary, get a split $20 worth of tips a night
Say you work 6 hours a night. $104 -> $84 is like getting a 20% paycut.
Reworded:
> It can sound controversial, but can we cut all barista pay/takeout food baggers pay/etc. 20% with no replacement
Should their salary be paid with the revenue the shop is making? Yes
Why should that be different in bars and restaurants?
waiter, it varies, but if they spend as much time on the table as a cashier, that is usually seen as poor service.
there are also plenty of businesses with cashiers with tip jars, or tip screens. have been for years. some places, and this gets a bit wild, some places don’t even have tip jars. you just put the extra money in their hand. the employee may ask if you meant it, or may just understand that you did. some assume, but they tend to lose tips over time.
whether tips should exist and whether tips exist are two separate things. loosely coupled at present.
not to say tipping is good, but neither is your argument against it.
sometimes the silhouette lines up just right to look the same forwards and backwards. if only more peoples’ views were skewed by a lack of tip jars and a presence of living wages.
if you are seeing tipping more than you have historically, that’s problematic for plenty of reasons.
What actually happens is that the $20 in tips per night is deducted from the minimum wage that your employer has to pay you. So the difference is in the immediacy of the funds, not the quantity—there is eventual replacement for everybody working minimum wage or lower, as the amount that employers are legally able to screw the person out of reduces.
Of course, immediacy is a poverty problem, the families in this situation are living paycheck to paycheck and cannot easily handle a couple paychecks that are 20% lighter. The same people who complain about tips are usually not people who want to expand social services and safety nets to allow that to change, so it's all a little bit of a complicated kerfuffle...
i’m talking about smoothie bars, fast food restaurants, etc.
I've become convinced that the only way tipping is going away in America is if it is made illegal.
The good news (?) is that tipping in the US has strange sociological effects that make it a good target for legislation. It has been found that various groups are more or less likely to A) leave a tip and B) receive a tip. That makes it pretty clearly a discriminatory practice.
When the service is outstanding, we tip ~5$ (or simply round the amount). I have rarely seen anyone tip more than that.
On top of that, if you really have to tip, you tip in "average" restaurants as tipping in luxurious ones is extremely odd.
I worked for it though. Busy nights busting ass, dragging cases and kegs of beer up flights or stairs, making drinks for the whole restaurant while providing full service to bar guests, etc.
I definitely wouldn't have gone into the industry if there wasn't tipping. The stress isn't worth it.
That said, I don't mind leaving a buck or two for fast food/coffee shop workers. I don't think it should be mandatory, but the option should be available.
I'd rather pay more than tip. People need to be paid reasonable and calculable wages.
Restaurants exist in every country in the world but somehow in America we have been convinced if you don't pay the extra hidden fee then nobody there can survive. Prices have increased so much on food that there just needs to be a reset. If I'm paying 15 dollars for fast food and then asked to tip on top of that I am fine with that business eventually going out of business.
I don't tip, ever. I've been pestered with why questions even after I calmly and clearly explained myself, chased down the street by angry waiters, cursed at and even threatened with violence. Still, I don't tip.
Especially with delivery at this point or places that are self service.
E.g. food delivery (at larger scale) came to my country during COVID. Since there is no tradition or expectation, I never tip the app. AFAIK, my friends don't either. And it's fine that way.
I partly want to blame the processors since they no doubt make more money when the overall charges are higher with tips.
"Tipped employees must receive a minimum wage of $2.13 per hour, known as a cash wage. That cash wage is combined with tips to reach the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. (Many states and localities, listed below, have minimum wages set above the federal rate)."
The idea being that you will fit the bill for their labor costs through tips instead of paying it themselves. Somehow the tipping idea perpetuated such that they can and do pay less than minimum wage because of the prevalence of tipping.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/tipped-minimum-wa...
We seem to have entered this era of everyone asking for tips, in addition to the online buy-me-a-coffee micro donations culture but sorry, I can't tip everybody.
Throw away the tip jars and demand higher wages from your bosses.
Here is a guidebook for US army officers in 1984, https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA166412/page/n49/mode/2up... :
> There are certain individuals who perform services for you who should be tipped if you expect to receive good service. ... Tip a barber at least 15 percent; however, as much as 2 dollars may be appropriate in some establishments if multiple services are performed.
The Hertz Survival Manual For Traveling Businessman, 1967:
> A barber receives a 25¢ tip, and the tip for a shoeshine is 10¢.
A 1953 newspaper article on John Wayne's expenses at https://archive.org/details/sedalia-democrat-1953-05-19/page...
> Superior Judge William R. McKav commented, during the detailing of Wayne's expenses, that a star of his stature would have to tip $2 or "you and I would know what would be said"
A 1949 novel, https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.86579/page/n15... :
> “That does not mean that I have to look like a cheap skate,” said Seymour. “You told me to take the kid to the barber: next time take him yourself and see what happens when you don’t tip the barber.”
> “I never tip him,” said Sarah. “You’re just a big sport on your sister’s money.”
> And in fact, Sarah never tipped the barbers for the children’s haircuts and she disregarded the gestures of contempt and anger which sometimes occurred
In 1923, the result of a court case:
> On page 188 of the August issue of Office Appliances was printed an account of an experience by A. W. Morf, of the Woodstock Typewriter Company, New York, N. Y. He refused to tip a barber, and the tip was added to his check. The case came into the court of special sessions at New York, and the court fined the barber $25.00.
That's not to say everyone tipped, only that over the last century it certainly crossed the mind of quite a few people to tip the barber.
"I remember the days", lol
As I've shown, it's been a common practice for a long time.
Here's some more data points for the 1980s:
A 1989 book for teens on etiquette says you tip your barber $1 or more: https://archive.org/details/dearteenager00swan/page/180/mode...
In a 1987 sociology textbook comparing the US system with the jajmani system at https://archive.org/details/introductiontoan0000barn_n9p2/pa... :
"In the United States a man who wants to get a haircut goes to a barbershop, waits for his turn, has his hair cut, pays for this service, and gives the barber a tip. If he lives in a city, he may go to many barbershops in the course of a year, not being obliged to patronize the same one all the time."
To be sure, this could also be a class issue. I grew up in a working class family and it wasn't until I was 26 or so that I learned (some, richer) people always tipped the housekeeper at the end of a hotel stay.
How many people do you know well enough to know how if they tipped at the barber's? I don't think I knew anyone else's payment practice.
They say it starts with black americans willing to work as waiters for lower wages, since they could expect to be paid with tips. If they took those jobs expecting to be tipped, tipping was already a common practice.
> When the practice was brought to the United States in the 19th century, the American public was deeply uncomfortable with it. Many saw tipping as undemocratic and therefore un-American. A powerful anti-tipping movement erupted, fueled by the argument that employers, not customers, should be paying workers. But American restaurants and railway companies fought particularly hard to keep tipping, because it meant they didn’t have to pay recently freed black slaves who were now employed by those industries. Europe eventually did away with tipping. But in America, pressure from powerful corporate interests resulted in a two-tiered wage system for tipped and non-tipped workers, institutionalizing a highly racialized system of economic exclusion.
[1] https://www.fordfoundation.org/news-and-stories/stories/amer...
For the specialty donuts that charge as much for a single donut as others charge for a dozen get tips like "don't play in the street".
This tracks with how Starbucks baristas are seeing more tips per week once they rolled out credit card tipping. https://old.reddit.com/r/starbucks/comments/zcl142/credit_ca...
I do not trust a company bribing me with my own money.
For years now, whenever I've pointed out that tipping makes no sense, people hit back with how that's just the way it is or point out how servers would make way less with it.
Fine then, everybody should start charging a tip until it's normalized, until people start tipping at counter service, at self-checkouts and wherever else because the people working at those places also work hard and deserve to be rewarded.
Also fun is how messed up the tipping system is in Canada:
- American style tips (20% minimum)
- The percentage increased from 15% (and 10% even earlier) because of inflation even though it's a percentage value and increases with inflation anyway
- We (in Ontario) have minimum wage unlike in some states where they make like 2.30 and are expected to make the remaining in tips
- We have higher food prices because of things like dairy protectionism (lookup dairy cartel)
- We have high living costs in general because of things like our really expensive real estate, and canadian salaries are on average lower than US counterparts.
- We have free healthcare compared to America, so that's another expense that servers don't have to pay for (especially if they get their tips in cash and don't report it for tax purposes)
I don’t know what’s wrong with them, I ditched all these American apps when there’s a local competitor.
So it used to be, you would order something for delivery, they would charge you the in-person price for each item, add them up, subtract discounts, and give you a number called the “subtotal.” To this they would add a delivery fee, taxes, and you would add your tip as 15% of subtotal.
In the dark pattern world that we find ourselves, the menu items on a typical delivery app are secretly priced 25% higher than in-person. (Go ahead, look up Applebees’ “2 for $28” menu item on a delivery app, tell me it doesn't cost $35.) This is so that they can advertise “Reduced delivery and service fees if you subscribe to our monthly service so that we can get MRR from forgetful people!!”. Then the tax and service fees are added to the cart total, but the discount is NOT subtracted, before they provide helpful tip buttons. Doordash doesn't even tell you the percentage, they just expect you to pick the smallest one and it's a 30 or 40% tip or whatever, Uber will tell you “oh you’re only giving this person a 10% tip you monster” even though it's a 15% tip calculated the “hard way.”
It all adds up, picking up a big nice breakfast in bed for me and the kid and my wife on my wife's birthday from Starbucks was like $30 via the Starbucks app, I punched it into Uber Eats and they wanted to charge me almost double for the identical order. So if that ~180% had a 15% tip in it, then it was actually ~57% marked up to begin with and you actually paid a 24% tip. (I don't know if that's typical of Uber Eats but it suggests that on Uber Eats you should only tip what-they-call-10%.)
But they will be unlikely to play these games with the tax man, so “double the tax” is probably slightly safer?
I pay my taxes, I don't see why the restaurant industry should not. If the tips aren't distributed to the staff that's not my problem, I'm not responsible for their compensation.