Perhaps you’ve noticed. We have reached a tipping point in the country over tipping.
To tip or not to tip has led to Shakespearean soliloquies by customers explaining why they refuse to tip for certain things.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers were grateful for those who seemingly risked their safety so we could get groceries, order dinner or anything that made our lives feel normal. A nice tip was the least we could do to show gratitude.
But now that we are out about and back to normal, the custom of tipping for just about everything has somehow remained; and customers are upset.
A new study from Pew Research shows most American adults say tipping is expected in more places than it was five years ago, and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.
I went to a brewery recently where they swipe your card at the entrance and hand you a little black credit card type thing. You find your own seats, you go grab a glass, and you insert the card into a slot at a beer tap and pour your own beer, priced by the ounce. If you want food, you go to a kiosk, put your card in, and order food. When it’s ready, you go to the kitchen and pick it up to bring back to your seat. When you leave, you bring the card back up to the register and they charge you for all the food and drink. But then it asks you how much you wanna tip. Who the fuck am I tipping? I was my own host, my own bartender, my own waiter, my own bus boy. I haven’t seen an actual employee here except for some woman who swiped my credit card during a 5 second interaction.
… so you tipped $0, right? Don’t leave us hanging!
I tipped $0
Since it was at a brewery he should’ve tipped $0 anyway
I always thought it was $1/drink (obviously when they serve it to you)
For easy drinks (beer, wine, or simple liquor/ soda mixes), $1 is fine. If they have to bust out a tool like a muddler or peeler, you should probably give more than $1.
I went to a brewery like this as well. Pretty annoying to have to carry your own food out from the kitchen because they weren’t optimizing for take out. They had heavy plates and bowls. Also, feel like rather than sitting and relaxing I’m forced to get up and run around looking for condiments and silverware and water cups. Can’t make it all in one trip. Don’t quite feel like a guest. Then at the end you’re expected to bus your own table.
And yes, they wanted a full 20% tip, probably even 25% if I remember right.
Wtf is the point of this. Even if they wanted to save on labor costs of wait staff and everything why not just use your own card instead of trading it for a temporary card.
It’s like this pizza place I went to recently. They had a little arcade so I went to put some quarters in and realized I had to go buy tokens at a machine first. It wasn’t Dave and Busters or anything, just a hole in the wall with a few games in a corner. I didn’t buy any tokens. Same with laundromats that now want you to buy tokens ahead of time.
There isn’t a single business anymore that isn’t trying to just blatantly scam you out of your money. They used to at least be more subtle about it.
it divorces the act of spending from actual money, so you spend more. like buying gems in a mobile game. also saves on credit card transaction fees.
it divorces the act of spending from actual money,
That’s among the reasons why I carry cash for small purchases.
It feels more real when I can see actual physical money going out of my wallet.
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You’re comparing weeks of spending to a couple hours at a bar though, I’m not sure if that’s really comparable.
There’s a couple other reasons that apply as well:
Because they get charged less by the bank for lower quantity of bigger transactions, instead of high number of small transactions. Also allows for people who have cash but no card to use the system.
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Instead of 7 small transactions (and higher fees) it’s one big transaction.
Because they get charged less by the bank for lower quantity of bigger transactions, instead of high number of small transactions. Also allows for people who have cash but no card to use the system.
They don’t want to handle coins essentially. Going to the bank to exchange coins for cash every day is a huge part of the labor cost, so they make you use tokens that not only allows them to get rid of that but also essentially charge you seignorage.
Tipping needs to end. It’s the employer’s responsibility to make sure their employees are paid reasonably. Instead they pass that responsibility to the customer, ensuring tension between customers and staff.
Been in Japan this summer. A culture where tipping is non-existent. It was such a great experience to not worry about tipping. Instead you simply get outstanding service all the time and workers are simply paid a fair wage.
There’s nothing wrong with tipping. I like the option to reward someone who made my experience great. Keyword there is option. Employers should pay employees a living wage, and if customers want to reward a great job with a few bucks on top of that, that should be allowed, even encouraged, but should never feel obligated to tip or shamed for not tipping.
You should feel ashamed for making someone act as your slave for minimum wage. The least you could do is pay them what they’re worth.
If you don’t like it, don’t force tipped workers to work for you. You have full control here. You could just cook your own damn food.
I said living wage, homie, not minimum wage. I think everyone should be paid at least a living wage, I just said tipping in general isn’t bad - it just shouldn’t be used to supplement poor wages.
Okay, but they don’t have a living wage, so you don’t get to have that option. Either tip or stop using those services.
What fucking conversation do you think you’re a part of? Because you’re clearly not reading my comments before responding to them.
You said customers should never feel obligated or ashamed. Never. I definitely feel ashamed of using these services and feel obligated to tip generously, and you should too.
So we’re in agreement then? Why are you lighting me up when we’re clearly on the same side? You need to learn to recognize an ally and save the anger for someone who deserves it, or you’ll find yourself without any allies.
lol no.
Pretty sure you’re not responding to the employer
The customer creates the demand.
Tipping was always stupid from day 1. I’ve spent most of my life being told I’m a moron for being against tipping culture and instead wanting fair wages and clear prices. Suddenly in recent years people realize how stupid tipping is simply cause it went to its logical extreme. People are morons.
People are morons but if you’re from the states, which I’m guessing you are, there’s a far more densely concentrated amount of morons.
I used to think that way as well, but extensive international travel has shown me the error of my ways; turns out that morons are pretty evenly distributed throughout the world.
Fair enough, my extensive international travel cemented it honestly.
There’s plenty of other horrible tourists, I’d say the Brits are the worst in terms of young kids getting drunk and buck wild. But I’ll never forget the guy from Illinois who had his concealed carry permit wrapped in gladwrap in his wallet in Thailand and he tried to fight me over his rights when I quizzed him on why you would ever bring your permit overseas as the mere question of why you’d bring the licence was enough to threaten his right to guns.
I don’t think people are getting stupider, I think they’re just more confident in their stupidity. People used to defer to experts when they didn’t know something, but now they believe their opinion is as valid as any.
Oh it’s far from it’s logical extreme.
If you are for fair wages and clear prices, that means you’re actively boycotting all restaurants right? You wouldn’t be a hypocrite to still patronize these establishments that exploit their workers and expect you to cover the difference right?
I generally do not go to these kinds of places. When I do, I still tip, but I don’t like it. But yes, I hardly ever partake in businesses that operate this way.
Every moron who doesn’t tip thinks this way. Nobody wants to tip, and hopefully someday it will be universally abolished, but until then, this is the way it is and people are just trying to supplement their minimum wages to make a livable income. So just tip them appropriately for the work they do for you already, you moron. I guarantee that as a non-tipper, you are on many service workers’ shit lists, so I guess if you’re not getting good service, it’s your own fault.
Tipping for a service is all well and good, but what about someone who is just running a register and the kiosk asks if you’d like to add a tip? Like restaurants when I am picking up an order. There was no service involved, yet I’m expected to tip the person who hands me the bag? I think not.
Also the arbitrary way we as a society have determined who does and doesn’t deserve a tip. Hotel housekeeping? Customary to tip. Shuttle bus driver, not so much.
Why I always love to argue about this with people. It always devolves into “you tip for good service,” and nobody understands my suggestion that service should always be good regardless.
So I always ask them, “why don’t you tip your surgeon then? What if they do a bad job? Shouldn’t you tip them to ensure they don’t do a bad job?” And I never get good responses. “Well, they already get paid well and they CAN’T do a bad job.” We arbitrarily tip some jobs and not others. And there are definitely low wage jobs out there which do far more important things to our everyday lives, but people don’t SEE it so they stupidly don’t make the connection and say “this doesn’t make sense.”
People also love to argue that prices will go up without tipping since people would need to be paid more since they don’t get tips. Yet again, they are too stupid to realize their actual price includes the tips already. It’s not going to be dramatically more. It also sometimes reveals that people generally don’t give a shit about others, in that if we paid a little more so others can have livable wages, most won’t go for that in reality.
These are probably the same morons who think they pay federal income taxes and talk about “muh tax dollars” and never understand their refund gave them all of it back plus some, equating to welfare.
FYI, I don’t go to places that expect tipping. But thanks for presuming I don’t tip at all.
Also, as a previous tip-based service worker, I know all this already. But again, thanks for presuming only YOU know things.
Hurrdurr things are bad but I can’t fix them so I’ll blindly accept them. If you don’t, you’re a bad person.
I wanted to know if it’s ever appropriate to walk away and not leave a tip?
“No,” Sokolosky said.
She said people are trying to make a living.
“I always feel grateful, frankly, that I can tip,” she said.
No, I think this goes to show that the whole idea that people will cry if prices are raised to increase wages is a lie. People who buy products and services want the people who are tasked with delivering those products and services to make a good living. They are willing to pay more in the form of tips; they will be willing to pay more in the form of prices. Just give people raises already ffs.
(And that’s not to say that prices will actually increase all that much if wages increase because that’s also mostly a lie told to protect corporate profit margins.)
Prices would raise, because they always raise to however much people are willing to pay for it. As long as people are tipping, they’re voluntarily adding that instead of waiting for the market to correct for it. That said, you are also correct that prices are NOT the only place that businesses will go to protect their margin. If margins get too low to run a business due to labor, rents will have to decrease to keep businesses in the buildings. Similarly, if margins increase too much, landlords will increase the rent.
There’s a faulty assumption in here that I was to call attention to: it’s the it’s that capitalist companies are charging less than the market will bear.
100% of the time, prices are as high as they can possibly be. There’s no situation where a company says, “we could charge them $5, but let’s charge them $4”.
If we stopped tipping and people got raises, the balance would have to come from CEO salaries (etc) which is what they’re really saying when they say they can’t do it.
That said, for situations where tipping has become kind of expected but not required (eg baristas, who are paid minimum wage, but not eg waitstaff who are paid less than minimum wage), the expectation that prices have to go up to account for raised wages will raise “what the market will bear.”
Maybe not for deliveries? Since everyone already thinks delivery fees are tips? Idk.
I never tip anywhere I’m just picking up food and paying at the register. It annoys me as a customer and I wish they would quit asking.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Leaving tip at the counter or for take out food is just incomprehensible to me. It’s like tipping a grocery store clerk at check out when you are paying for your groceries. I bought this food already, what am I leaving a tip for?
I stopped going to Domino’s because of this. I’m not tipping when I’m the one picking up the pizza.
I’ve stopped using tipped services entirely now. The only tipping I do is for a waiter at a sit down restaurant.
The mini mart under my building asks me to tip when all I’ve done is bring what I want to a counter. It’s infuriating because there’s no reason for it, it’s literally just there to guilt people into an extra few bucks.
This is my test, essentially, too.
To put more detail around my lines:
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Order at counter and food brought to me may be 5-10% on the upper end
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Order at table, food delivered to table - normal tipping rules
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Everything else? Please stop asking and starting paying a living wage or as close as you can.
If I’m going to tip someone for taking my order, then it’s either insulting to those who perform table service or the top tip % has to go up. I say people should get paid by their employer and let’s end this tip thing.
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You should tip gig workers too. They aren’t getting even half of what you pay. Some rides/deliveries are literally 3 dollars without a tip.
I don’t use gig services because of the tipping. I’ve cut out any food delivery and don’t use Uber/Lyft. I’m not tipping on top of the +25% service charges those services add.
Lol, read that the other way at first. That’s perfectly fine.
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Ugh, gig workers need to be brought into some semblance of a minimum wage. Uber and Doordash are just techstortion.
I agree but just like restaurants please don’t punish the drivers.
I just refuse to order off Uber Eats or Doordash. Does that count as not punishing the drivers?
Yeah. If the business model isn’t viable then it will change.
Just don’t use services that rely on exploiting the most vulnerable workers.
When you’re hungry, learn how to cook pasta or something.
Nah I’ll just curl up in a corner.
And again, why is that my problem?
Wow, this “etiquette expert” grift is more interesting than the article itself. https://www.valerieandcompany.com/
Internationally recognized as a National News Contributor, Valerie is an expert in her field of leadership presence and personal branding. She is one of only 20 Master Brand Strategists worldwide and has received front-page press coverage in the Wall Street Journal as a pioneer in executive coaching.
How is this grift? These are all corporate words for “I train existing leaders”
It’s very much a real job.
A job who’s qualifications comes from news media exposure and being
one of only 20 Master Brand Strategists
Is an absolute corporate grift.
Her job is literally to help other people get positive exposure lol
These are real things that people do. She does what a publicist does, only for corporate people. As a CEOs job is literally to attract funding, I’m sure you can see how this is a relevant job.
It really is a recursive situation of uselessness. She goes onto news media to promote her own ability to make execs feel like she can help them promote their own ability. All we achieve is making corporate leaders feel entitled to their position and more money extracted from people actually creating value.
You can hate the system and still recognize that the system has parts.
You don’t like that her job has value, and that’s fine -but it still has value.
Were you not being literal? Did I just completely misunderstand your post?
I think you just have a structural/functional view of the world that is fundamentally incompatible with how I view it.
Valerie can probably help with that, for a shocking fee
Maybe you see the world on How it Should work, not How it Does work. Those two are not incompatible, unless you confuse one for the other.
You’re being a bit pedantic by correcting people on it. We get it’s a “real job”, we’re saying that it’s BULLSHIT that it’s a real job. It’s a bullshit job. She’s the expert of made up rules that she creates by enforcing and enforces by creating. She makes money, cool, it’s a “job” in that sense, but it’s a bullshit job.
If someone paid me to shit on the sidewalk every day, would you correct people who said “That’s a bullshit job”? “Um it’s a real job”
She’s the expert of made up rules that she creates by enforcing and enforces by creating
Our entire society functions via made up rules that don’t make sense and contradict themselves. Ask literally anyone you know on the Spectrum. As long as society exists roles like this will exist.
21 now. I declare myself a Master Brand Strategist.
It’s very much a real job.
The Etiquette Expert… I’m an expert in these rules to this game I just made up!
Like with every single thing that humans try to do to help each other, corporations have figured out how to exploit it for themselves.
We feel like tipping helps people because literally handing money to someone SHOULD help them. Except what actually happens is that corporations, with the full support of the government that they own, simply use that social convention to offset the wages that they have to pay their staff.
Reminder that tipping only exists because of racist and greedy motives, not because of people being nice. Sure, you could tip because you’re nice, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but we were told to tip from the beginning to keep blacks underpaid in their shitty service industry roles. Tipping started at the top, not the bottom.
Pizza Hut box: The delivery fee is not a tip to the driver.
Me: Then why TF am I paying it?
I can’t speak to Mega-Globo chains but
The delivery fee is supposed to cover the barest of $2/Gal gas, and $.2/mi car wear n tear.
Basically it meant if you didn’t make a single tip at all the entire night then you probably broke even on gas costs. That plus you $5-7/hr wages are you’re living on the Ritz.
That makes sense if it’s a company car. I’ve never seen one.
Pizza delivery corpos should be forced to supply their own vehicles. Stop forcing workers to use theirs.
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Gas and maintenance for the vehicle it was delivered in
How can the US actually end tipping culture? I cannot fathom a way forward that doesn’t fuck over a lot of people in the short-term. Ideas?
Why would it? That’s not what’s being suggested at all.
Why would it?
Well the most obvious reason is that tipping culture is robbing workers who it’s supposed to help.
In my state, “tipped” positions’ minimum wage is 2.12/hr. Despite the fact that tipping isn’t guaranteed or mandatory. There are other “tipped” positions than waiters. How often do you tip the car hop at sonic that brings you your drink? They often make less than minimum wage. The dude making your sandwich at subway? Yeah, they deduct that guy’s tips from his hourly.
Tell me why we shouldn’t end a system that exploits the culture to get away with paying out poverty wages?
The biggest opponents of ending tipping are the bartenders and servers. There aren’t many other jobs where they can make hundreds of dollars in a few hours on a busy night, and they would not give up that even when offered $30 an hour
I don’t doubt that, and it would be fine if it were just servers. Now that tipping culture has spread, it’s actively hurting people who the population at large doesn’t feel like they should have to tip
Your understanding of minimum wage is incorrect - under the FLSA, if an employees tips do not bring their wages up to minimum, the employer must make up the difference. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped/2020
Still horseshit though. If you can’t pay employees a fair wage, you don’t deserve to be in business, and it shouldn’t be on the customer to subsidize your employees’ shitty pay rate.
I realize that. The idea is that these employees make minimum wage no matter what you tip them. The only tipped position that routinely breaks that is a restaurant server.
Well yeah. Every one with a card reader realized they could enable the prompt. Whether or not tips actually go to the workers.
I went to tip a local burrito place with my card a couple months ago, and the lady said don’t bother. She doesn’t get any credit card tips.
Wage theft is huge.
If they don’t they open themselves up to a massive lawsuit since there’s a record of it, unlike cash tips which are often stolen by management
And yet wage theft remains the largest form of theft in America. Almost like the punishment isn’t a deterrent.
I wonder how much Tax revenue is lost because tipping? When I worked for tips the only tips that got reported to the government was credit cards and I mainly got cash so I could see it being 12-13 thousand a year unreported and I wasn’t making even close to other cute waitresses who were easily getting 3-4 times more than me a night and they didn’t report cash tips either
Way less than is lost to tax avoidance by the ultra-rich, or indeed deliberate under-taxation of the ultra-rich. Enjoy your tips and don’t feel bad about it.
I never felt bad about it, taxing poor people is the governments bread and butter so you would think they would want to end tipping so they could take ever single cent from poor people.
This assumes everyone working for tips is poor
It’s not a zero sum game. We could be losing money to rich tax dodgers and also to tips.
(There’s unlikely to be any tax losses anywhere near what we lose to tax dodging - but it’s not a competition.)
That said - it’s not the tippee’s fault (yeah I’m going to call them tippees and there’s nothing they can do about it). The employee (commonly referred to as a “tippee”) isn’t being paid a living wage, so the employer makes up the difference with tips. The tips aren’t taxed (they’re only taxed for waitstaff since their tips are a “part of the salary”), and don’t go into the business owner’s books - so they can (“truthfully”) state that their business is successful at their current rate of pay, and there’s no real record of the reality.
It was understood if you take a bottle of water from the cooler and place it on the counter, the only extra was a thank you to the cashier.
I’ve run into this and it’s bullshit. No.
I wanted to know if it’s ever appropriate to walk away and not leave a tip?
“No,” Sokolosky said.
Also bullshit.
ETA: And this was a stupid article that was poorly written. The interview subject also had little insight. This wouldn’t have been upvoted if the topic wasn’t viscerally felt by USA citizens because there was nothing said.
Only delivery and restaurants that bring your food to you and bartenders get tips. That’s it. Fuck you subway I’m not tipping a sandwich artist. Fuck you Chinese buffet restaurant no tip I went and got up and got my own food.
Start being aggressive about it and I’ll go 100% Mr. pink and nobody gets tips ever.
