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Comment by CalRobert | Hacker News Reader

Living in Ireland from 2013-2023 I saw tipping get _much_ more common, sadly.

I don't mind tipping for exceptional service, I do however have a major issue with the obligation of tipping. It really should not be on the customers to pay the employees salaries directly.

> It really should not be on random strangers to determine the employees salaries directly

FTFY

(I mean, actually I agree with your point too; but personally I think tipping is much more unfair to the employees than to the customers.)

I do, it creates perverse incentives and dehumanizes people.

Imagine yourself catering someone and then having them talk about how great that is and wanting to pay you for that. Not in abstract but actually, in practice. It nails down the servant role, frankly. It feels abhorrent to me, even if you get numb to it over time.

From my perspective, tipping is a socially acceptable way to establish classes. Which itself is a terrible practice and the people catering you aren't your servants.

I used "catering" in this comment as a placeholder for any job that receives tips.

What's worse, it adds "emotional labor" (if I may borrow that term) to a staffer's job; while it's expected for staff to be representative of their company, it really feels like staff in tipping establishments have to put on a show and fake persona to optimize the tipping. But likewise, if you don't tip or don't do enough you (as a customer) are treated like shit.

I'm too autistic to be playing these games and figuring this shit out. I'm glad I don't live in the US.

It really depends on the amount. In Belgium for instance there would be no tipping, but rounding up or adding one or two spare coins of change you still have on you in case the service was excellent.

It is like any job where people get a bonus because they have gone above and beyond.

Is this changing as cash gets less common?

Sorry for the delay, but yes, people have a tendency of rounding up if this is a possibility and it gets either charged to the person or put into a pot redistributed to everyone, depending on the local policy where everyone agrees beforehand.

This is normally on top of any bonuses for performance that the employees would get and their living wage which is guaranteed.

Why can't the employer give that bonus? In non-service jobs employees don't get tips for going above and beyond; they get raises or bonuses.

This is normally on top of any bonuses for performance that the employees would get and their living wage which is guaranteed.

Giving extra money is literally tipping?

Yes, but the default would be no tipping, I meant this was and is seen as completely optional and non required.

I don't think we should be tipping at all, even for exceptional service. The job is the job, and the employer should be paying the full amount that job is worth. If the employee is doing it exceptionally well, going above and beyond, the employer should reward them with a raise, same as for salaried positions.

That's assuming the employer values that above-and-beyond-ness, of course. If not, they won't give that raise, and employees will eventually settle on a level of service that the employer is paying for. If that's good enough for the customers, that's fine. If not, that's an opportunity for a competitor to pay employees more so they'll serve customers better.

Customers should not be put in the awkward position of feeling like they should be augmenting people's wages, even if it's on top of an already-sufficient living wage. Wages paid is a negotiation between employer and employee. Customers should not be involved, beyond paying the listed or contracted/agreed-upon price.

I live in a country with near zero tipping culture.

For the most part I find the food gets to my table at some point but I'm rarely particularly happy with customer service. It's sometimes an awkward negotiation to get their attention or to ask something. The opposite was true in my time living in the US - soft skills, fast response, engagement are standard. And I've been on both sides of that in food service.

Now, the logic of what youre talking about makes perfect sense and I agree with that in principle. And yet there is something about dining that is somehow different. Escapes that definition.

There are also times I find that exchanging money is more honest. I want you to serve me, I'm paying you, I don't have to keep at the back of my mind a question whether I'm asking something beyond what your boss expects/pays you. I like that about the US - it's brutal but that's reality.

Don't get me wrong, I live in EU for a reason, but some things here are made unnecessarily complicated and oblique too.

> There are also times I find that exchanging money is more honest. I want you to serve me, I'm paying you, I don't have to keep at the back of my mind a question whether I'm asking something beyond what your boss expects/pays you. I like that about the US - it's brutal but that's reality.

But isn't this describing tipping? You're having to ask yourself, "Is this service good enough for a tip? How much of a tip?" instead of just exchanging money for the service and that's it.

It is and that's why my point is that there is nuance here.

I had more fun and more satisfaction working in food service in the US than in the EU. There was also more real opportunity right there on the spot to do the thing and get more.

Like yeah, you're having to ask yourself and that's friction. But shouldn't there be a friction when you're being served by someone who is an equal? I've seen folks treat service like garbage in the EU because that exchange obscures the fact that there is an exchange of money. And I've seen service fall back on apathy.

But this is just one way to look at it - ideally it should be exactly as you describe - good service, simple exchange at specified price and confidence that the service is adequately paid for the job.

Only issue is that even in the EU this is often not the truth and restaurants would never ever afford to actually hire full-time employment contracts.

> Like yeah, you're having to ask yourself and that's friction. But shouldn't there be a friction when you're being served by someone who is an equal? I've seen folks treat service like garbage in the EU because that exchange obscures the fact that there is an exchange of money. And I've seen service fall back on apathy.

Interestingly, I arrive at an entirely separate conclusion - there is no way for equality in a relationship in which one party holds your financial security (for lack of better words) in their hands. How can the waiter be your equal in that situation, when they might have to act just to ensure they can make the money they need?

I haven't spent almost any time in Europe, but in the US at some point it seems to have gone from a setup to incentivize that "soft skills, fast response, engagement" to one that I don't feel does that much due to the social obligation. When your worst case scenario is 18% and your best case is likely 20% + rounded up, who bothers to change their behavior? In my experience it's more like a commission than a tip, and that's because the only real impact is it encourages the waiters to remember to promote expensive alcoholic drinks before and during the meal, since you can earn way more money getting 18% from a table who orders 2 drinks than you do by earning 21% from a table drinking water. As a commission, it should be paid by the employer.

I call tipping the "A*hole discount" because only someone who is comfortable being seen as one would consider tipping 0% or even 10%. And servers will tell you that if you receive terrible, horrible, very bad service you should never tip zero, you should speak to the manager instead (since yadda yadda, the tips are for everyone, you don't know whose fault it is, etc). So instead of tips being a way to reward good service, it's actually just a discount reserved for people who are so uncouth that (A) they don't care if everyone at their table thinks they're an ass, and (B) they don't mind taking food off the table of low-wage workers (very low in states that have the horrible policy of a lower "tipped" min wage). Do those people really deserve a discount?

Yes, I have also been thinking how a similar reward system would work without tipping. Just use a bonus system based on customer feedback. And the flow could be very similar to how it is with tipping.

It's not worse than tipping, but we've already normalized the obnoxious idea that every transaction needs to earn five stars. You know the places. The ones where they warn you "You're going to get a survey, if there is any reason why you don't feel like you can give us a 5 please tell me" (unsaid: Please sir -- they flog us for 4 star ratings). I can't imagine anyone I know not rating an Uber 5 stars, unless they were say, called a slur or the driver caused an accident.

So, I'm not sure how to best construct a system not open to "guilt gaming" in this way, but I would like to see one.

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