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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Honestly even after traveling to America several times I don't understand why this practice is still going on. It's just annoying for everyone (the employee, and the client) and a cause for embarrassment. In Europe we tip people when we get extra good service from them,, so that tipping feels special. That's the way it should be.

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As an American, I don't understand why tipping still goes on either. It should be banned -- it's discriminatory[1] and just generally a pain in the butt.

[1] http://freakonomics.com/2013/06/03/should-tipping-be-banned-... (or more directly, http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/customer_racial_discrimin...)

This being said, tipping led to excellent Curb your Enthusiasm episodes. :)

And some memorable Reservoir Dogs dialogue.

People who work for tips defend the practice, because the people who make it their profession have learned how to work the system. People who aren't good at it have been weeded out. So it's hard to say if it's really good or bad.

I've decided that it's a peculiar form of North American efficiency: part of management and monitoring the service worker has been delegated to the client. If someone's working for tips, less supervision is needed to ensure they are providing great service. As long as everyone obeys the cultural norms, it's a win for the owner, customer, and service worker. For those who don't obey the cultural norms, well, at least the service worker has a base salary.

This explains why it's more normal to tip a waiter, but not so for a fast food restaurant. In fast food, the workers are staying put behind a counter, and the manager is just a few steps away anyway. The more mechanical your job is, the less sense tipping makes. Maybe this is crazy (and if you're a service worker feel free to say I'm stupid), but perhaps we should look at tippable jobs as being good, because it proves that the worker also has some autonomy and has to be acknowledged by the customer as more than a serving unit.

I'm not even sure tipping is good in general. In most cases multiple people add to your experience. The kitchen staff, the waiters, people doing orders in the first place, kitchen porters, maybe someone else taking your registration, etc. But the result of tipping is normally either:

- person taking the tip takes it all

- tip goes to the pool and everyone (including people not involved in your case at all) get the same amount

Neither one is fair for people involved. (And that's assuming staff gets any of the tips at all)

Honestly as someone who lives in USA I hate this practice. Every time I am mad and want to tip low I think hey they have a family maybe or just had a crappy day this time and I don't want to deny them the ability to pay rent. The idea that my skimping on a $3 tip may be the difference between being able to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee after a crappy day at work or not makes me tip no less than 20%.

I'd rather they just be paid a livable wage and tips be optional.

The employer is required to make up the difference if a tipped employee makes less than the minimum wage (7.25 or higher) - though sure, that's maybe not a livable wage.

Honestly, though? I worked at a restaurant ($10 buffet) for six years and most of my friends work in the industry still. Almost all waiters make out much better than the rest of the kitchen staff. Additionally, many establishments (especially mom and pops) encourage waiters to report the minimum amount necessary (whatever works out to minimum wage) for taxes.

I wouldn't feel any worse for your waiter than for the guy who cooks your burger.

Bizarrely, though, waiters are much more vocal than the rest of the staff about their wages.

Oh don't get me wrong: I feel crappy for the kitchen staff too. I actually thought it would be cool to get in to the restaurant biz until I learned about it.

I don't know how kitchen staff don't go insane. Or maybe they do. Which is why I am always super nice to the staff at restaurants.

I live in Mexico and it is somewhat the same. When you get a job as a waitress you are told that your salary is X + tips, so they usually pay less than other kind of jobs, but it is expected to be compensated with the tips. So the only wining person is the employer.

Tipping is a tax dodge for restaurants. It allows the restaurant to pay their employees a miserably low wage, like $2-$3 hour, and only have to pay social security taxes on that amount. If you're a little skeptical, check out who the big lobby groups lobbying against minimum wage hikes - restaurant lobbies.

That's up to the state. In Washington, restaurant workers are required to pay the regular minimum wage (currently $9.32/hour), with none of that comprised of tips.

That's mostly because of fast food, to be fair.

Getting rid of tips might force to confront the fact that we don't pay people a living wage.

Then why take the job if it does not pay as well as other jobs? I don't understand how it makes sense for anyone in the equation.

Because the serving industry is a huge job market in the US. I was at a random restaurant / diner having breakfast, which in the Netherlands would have maybe one or two serving personnel running around - wasn't particularly large, maybe 30-40 seats. They had five or six people running around.

I have to add though, the serving and attention to customers was much better than over here. You're frequently out of drink in restaurants/bars over here, and the serving personnel doesn't seem to have the time or will to take care of that. Which is a missed sale, of course; over the course of an evening out, that adds up to 1-2 lost drink sales.

And also because a lot of people just can't get a job in the area they want. I know of a lot of people online that went for a degree in game design, but the jobs just aren't there. If they do get a job in the game industry, it's often as tester - bottom of the ladder.

>>If they do get a job in the game industry, it's often as tester - bottom of the ladder.

Uh, is it really that bad to start your career at a junior job?

Besides, graphics/game developers in my experience know a lot about math, algorithms and fast implementation. They should be able to get jobs somewhere else?

Those are programmers. People who followed a game design course often have 'good enough' skills in writing simple scripts and 3D modelling (judging by the CVs I've seen, anyway).

Ah, right you are. Everyone I know that did games are programmers, but they are a minority on the teams. :-)

Imagine this: you have no car, limiting your ability to travel to a job. You have only a high school degree, limiting your prospects. You have a child, limiting the times you can work. You have very few marketable skills, limiting the specificity of a possible job.

Do you think you'd have a whole lot of ability to be picky?

perfectly explained. By the time most people realize all the happenstances (er... personal requirements) necessary to be picky about the work they will perform, they have already made the decisions that have defined their potential work options.

There are the rare few that select service work over better paying work (CS/Engineering grads choosing to serve, bar-tend, barrista, etc. This is an accepted identity among people in Austin, TX and I'm sure other areas). Some of this may be under-performance, but I think it is more a respect for simplicity and a desire to appreciate life and people: they do it because the want to.

More often than not, service work is filled by people with a need for any job at all.

a) Because there aren't an unlimited number of jobs to choose from.

b) Employers are required to make up the difference if you don't make the real minimum wage (7.25) with your tips.

c) In practice, waiters do much better than the rest of the kitchen. I worked as waiter and kitchen staff for six years at a cheap buffet. Servers pulled $150 for a five hour shift, on average. Everybody in the kitchen made minimum wage.

Because otherwise you won't be able to eat or stay off the street?

Because it's hard to find other jobs. The free market doesn't always even things out. Sometimes, you just don't want to feel like you're broke and have no prospects, so you take the first job that you can get. And why shouldn't there be good, fair jobs available for people in that position?

I have a friend with a PhD who has been looking for work for 6 months. She needed to pay the bills and found a waitressing job in less than a week (from when she started looking to first day of work!).

Due to her education and experience she is probably in a much better position than people without those skills - even for a service industry job.

Yeah, I don't really understand that parent comment. Tipped jobs pay well, and don't really seem relevant in a "living wage" discussion.

Minimum wage jobs, on the other hand...

I wouldn't paint all tipped jobs with the same brush. I used to deliver pizza in high school. I got tips. I lived in a rural area and usually a "good" tip was $1.

I had zero choice for jobs. I competed with many other desperate kids for that job. In the end my choice was to leave the area, but I was smart and burdened with a teenage pregnancy or the massive family responsibilities of some of my peers.

True, when I think of a tipped job, I think of waitstaff and barstaff.

As an Engineer-American, I used to gripe about the tipping thing as illogical, etc. But very little about culture or language or manners has any logic to it. Now, I just think of the tip as an unstated part of the price--in fact at most places your tip is actually what brings the server up to a reasonable wage.

Instead of thinking of it as an annoyance, think of it as a pleasant opportunity to improve the day of your server by tipping 25% or more. If you're a regular somewhere, being a good tipper is also a great way to become the servers' favorite customer and get outstanding treatment, favors, extras, and more, for what amounts to an extra buck or two per meal.

Cultural difference ahead.

The idea that I am getting "a nice treatment" because I pay more makes me a little uncomfortable. I'm ok with, let's say, discounts or anything that could be considered "commercial services" (like a gift or an extra), but knowing that someone is nicer to me because I pay extra makes me feel weird...

All the "we're spending an obscene amount of money, so we're going to need a lot more help sucking up to us" kind of thing is something that baffles me, as it obviously fake...

I'm not sure, but doesn't the tipping usually come after the service? So the chance for extra nice treatment is mostly gone anyway?

I don't think that its sucking up. If you get good service, the only way you can show your appreciation is by tipping.

I've been to many places where even tipping higher does not give you better service. I think its a case-by-case thing; some waiters/baristas/bartenders accept it and others don't.

On a more personal note, a minor annoyance is on small purchases (like $2.50 coffee), how much can I tip?

Well, I can show appreciation coming back... Just as I do in a lot of other things I consume.

(Anyway, I understand is mostly a cultural thing)

Yeah, I don't get it either and I'm American. I've spent some time in Japan and the lack of tipping is among the things I love about it. Not only do I not have to worry about it, but I generally feel more confident that the worker is getting a fair wage.

I worked as a delivery driver in Boulder, Colorado for a year. They paid me $4.00/hr because they expected me to make up the difference in tips. Though I often did, not everyone does and the accepted practice of tipping temps employers into thinking they can get away with paying ridiculous wages.

Employers are always obligated to pay at least minimum wage in the US for tipped employee jobs. The employer can set a baseline like $4.00 per hour plus tips, but if the resulting wage is not at least minimum wage, then the employer must pay minimum wage regardless ("make up the difference").

Formulas for tipping can be used to raise a wage above minimum wage, but not drop it below minimum wage. Employers are consequently not paying unlivable wages (or not below the minimum). They are just advertising formula for how you can get a bonus beyond the minimum wage.

Source: http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/q-a.htm

(If employers are breaking the law then that is an entirely different matter.)

That's because tipping in America makes no sense at all. You're "supposed" to tip 18-20%. So why not just put that into the price of the dish you are eating in the first place? I hate nothing more than seeing something like '19.95' on a menu, but then it ends up costing something like '26.29' with tax and tip. What's the point?

See, I find it odd that people go to a foreign country, and then complain about the stuff that is different. That seems like being a bad traveller. Like going to Spain and then complaining that all the shops are closed in the afternoon and on Sundays. "Can't they just work normal hours???"

Nothing odd with that. Comparing a country you are visiting to your own (or some other country you've been to) seems perfectly reasonable. Of course, if you're only complaining you probably shouldn't travel.

I love a lot of things about the US (I'm european) and I'd love to go back there soon, but the tipping system is annoying none the less.

As an American, I would say most of us have a sympathetic ear, but don't know where best to place our efforts, so it shows up in tipping. However, I'm equally confused as to why there is no tipping in fast-food restaurants. The restaurant will even go as far as providing pants without pockets as to deter workers from receiving tips.

This is because managers believe, and may have studies to back it up, that a tipped service can never provide the consistency of a non tipped service.

Remember that "tips" is an acronym for "To Insure Prompt Service".

> Remember that "tips" is an acronym for "To Insure Prompt Service".

No it isn’t.

http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/tip.asp

Tipping goes on becuase most of the people working as waiters at restaurants in American are only getting paid the minimum wage, which for wait staff is $2.14. Depending on the year the exchange rate it could be about 1 EURO or so an hour.

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