‘Pure greed:’ Etiquette expert explains why tipping has gotten out of control
‘Pure greed:’ Etiquette expert explains why tipping has gotten out of control
We have reached a tipping point in the country over tipping.
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.
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.
It's almost like the profit motive is corrosive and requires stringent safeguards else it'll corrupt and destroy everything... for profit!
I used to be a consistent tipper.
Now I refused to tip at all.
I want workers to demand what they are worth to their employers, and I'm willing to be the asshole to help them accomplish that.
If we all stopped tipping, they'd have no choice but to turn the low wage issue around onto their employers. Then employers will have no choice but the pay their workers more, because otherwise they'd leave their industry for something else.
I don't care if that means we, as consumers, have to pay a bit more for the food and service. I don't care if that means that some businesses won't survive. I want fairness all around
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
Tipping should never be expected
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.
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.
There’s no such thing as a “master brand strategist.” Look into David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs theory. Hers is most likely a bullshit job.
It's very much a real job.
The Etiquette Expert... I'm an expert in these rules to this game I just made up!
I never tip these days. It's a band-aid solution that needs to end.
When tipping, either the customer is getting fucked or the employee; never the owner. I choose to fuckover the employee because they'd rather fuck me and lots of them support tipping culture saying "they make more in tips."
Well, good. You can "make more in tips" without me. I guess that way everyone literally wins.
While this is extreme, I understand why you would do this. I just call first and see if they require tip before I go. If they do, then I don't go.
Haha I love getting help from working class waitstaff that the system has exempted from minimum wage, stiffing them, and then bragging about it online.
Why? Because I'm an edgelord piece of shit.
Yes, tipping culture is wrong, but the doesn't make you some moral leader, or not a dick. You're just a sad little person who gets off on being a douchebag.
Yikes.
You’re part of the problem
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.
Tipping everything was starting long before covid. It was introduced with new interact devices. I first saw it at subways in like 2015
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?
Set the minimum wage for waiters same as for other professions?
It's the waiters who are pushing back on this. I know restaurant owners enjoy this situation, but even when they try to change it, waiters would require quite oversized paychecks to make up for this lack of tips. At a very nice restaurant near me, before covid, waiters typically were making $100k. This is not the norm for most restaurants, but even now I talk to waiters making $60-$70k. A lot of those tips are unreported so untaxed. This is unskilled labor (I'm not knocking it... I've been a waiter before and it's tough work!), and if restaurants had to pay these wages I don't know how high the food costs would have to be.
If you set the minimum wage to, say, $20 per hour but no tips allowed, you would likely have a lot of waiters leave the profession.
Though I guess others would take their place and, since that's still a decent wage, things would level out eventually.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don't tip to pay their wages. I tip for good service. If you provide good service you get a tip. If your attitude sucks or your service sucks you don't get a tip. You want more? Then go above and beyond.
If the problem was outside of your control or impossible for you to correct or know even existed it won't affect the tip. I try to tip in cash.
There's only one thing I still do that requires tipping, and that's because I want to get tattoos. After I started seeing tipping screens at restaurants where I pick up my food at the counter, I stopped eating out entirely. I don't even do fast food. I'm tired of trying to remember or decipher what is socially expected and am just done participating in that system. Just pay people a living wage, charge what you need to charge for that, and if you're offering a worthwhile service, you'll be fine.
Just pay people a living wage, charge what you need to charge for that, and if you’re offering a worthwhile service, you’ll be fine.
Someone tell me the reason why this would get downloaded?
This shit started to pop up in Europe. I only tip when the service was above average. And a tip is 5 bucks on top of a 100 CHF meal.
Now they ask for tips at food trucks. Yes 0 is the appropriate tip for that.
I've contemplated not tipping altogether, already thought it was stupid. Your paycheck should not depend on someone's charity.
and there’s no real consensus about how tipping should work.
Versus how is always worked before?
Because there is consensus on that, it was a very straightfor rule.
The tip was a private transaction between a customer and an employee who went above and beyond the service that the employees' boss require them to do, to perform the job to the customer's satisfaction.
It had nothing to do with the boss or the company they were working for (no tipping automation on the registers, etc.).
And it wasn't ever used in lieu of the employee receiving enough of an income at the company they worked at.
And it wasn't ever used in lieu of the employee receiving enough of an income at the company they worked at.
Unfortunately that is not true. Restaurants in most states in the US have a law that allows employers to pay tipped employees a much lower wage (about 2 bucks an hour) with the expectation that tips will bring them back up to minimum wage or higher.
Restaurants in most states in the US have a law that allows employers to pay tipped employees a much lower wage
You should check the year that those laws were implemented. They are a more recent phenomenon.
Also as it's been mentioned by someone else already, those laws included clauses to make sure if the tips were below minimum wage the employees income earned would be raised to minimum wage.
And as an aside (as I'm sure somebody will mention this), I'm not saying that minimum wage is a living wage.
But that is a different subject than the one that's being discussed here, the responsibility of customers to tip employees so that they may have a living wage, in lieu of employers paying employees a living wage directly.
"Etiquette expert" whatd do they do? Just going about yelling at people for doing things a different way. "YOURE SUPPOSED TO HAVE YOUR PINKY UP WHILE DRINKING TEA!!!"
Try this on for size: Tipping is a Legacy of Slavery
This opinion by Michelle Alexander always stuck with me.
The thing that made me want to eliminate tipping is the abuse servers have to suffer in order to justify it. I was front of house for 18 years, and in that time I've seen servers sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, regular assaulted, food thrown at them and I've even heard customers flat out say they base their tipping decisions on the race of their server. The attitude among servers is that you can either tolerate being treated like a second class citizen, or you can go to bed hungry that night.
I find it annoying to see the option everywhere, but I have continued to just tip on the things I always have at the % I always used. I hate the recommended amount with a passion... the last time I saw it it took the entire order amount and recommended % amounts where based off that. I have never tipped on total, why would after taxes be part of the tip %? Also I have heard mixed things about this but beer and mixed drinks are also removed as well before calculating the total for tipping. I at least will add a dollar for each drink since it's what I would tip if I was at the bar.
The only time I'd tip is for delivery. I don't even count it as a tip, I consider it a "don't spit in my food" tax.
it's not your waiter's fault that they're stuck in a scam on the scale of a whole culture
And whose fault is it at the Self-Checkout?
And the cashier at 7/11?
This seems to be more of a United States issue rather than a Western issue. In Canada, we didn't start tipping businesses all of a sudden that were never part of tipping culture. We always tipped delivery drivers, and servers, and bartenders, and hairstylists, and uber drivers. I've never seen a tip screen on a McDonalds or Wendys or Popeyes debit machine. I've never seen a tip screen on a retail debit machine. What the hell is going on in the US with tipping? What changed?
Don’t lie. It’s happening in Canada too. And it starts at 18%. It’s the $99.98 of percentaging too so you just know someone who was in marketing school is behind the scenes thinking this shit up.
It's even happening in the uk, although I'm not convinced anyone actually does tip on these screens
UBI
I didn’t listen to the interview, but what is the “going rate” for tipping up front (e.g. DoorDash, Instacart, etc)? For DoorDash, I do a custom tip depending on how far away the restaurant is, not based on the cost of the food. I assume that if they don’t like the tip, they wouldn’t take my job over others (could be wrong). But for grocery shopping, I tip higher because they’re doing a lot more. Just curious what others do.
That's a bid, not a tip.
Just curious what others do.
I stopped using them. I feel like the food delivery services are falling out of favor pretty generally which is a good thing. Especially because no matter how much the tip is, it's always the same cold food with multiple stops in between the restaurant and my address. That part is not always up to the driver, but still a good reason to not bother with it anymore.
The "pure greed" framing makes a lot more sense when talking about CEO pay ratios or something. Of course the server making the $2/hr tipped wage is "greedy" for more money, that's called "wanting to live."
Maybe instead of tipping more we should just get rid of tip wage.
If businesses close, then they couldn't be im business without exploitation of their workers and don't deserve to be in business.
It's greedy when it goes from "please tip I need money to make a living wage" to "don't get rid of tipping, I make 80k a year from it." Just get paid normally like the rest of us. Forced tipping is a scam.
Tipping in restaurants is great but it has gone to places where it is not needed.
I wouldn't say it's great even there. If you want people to pay 20% more for their food so your workers can get paid, just list that on the menu. Raise all food prices 20% and pay the wait staff a decent wage. Customers pay the same in the end and your staff isn't dependent on customer generosity to make a living.
I don't mind tipping the services that I have always tipped my whole life, way before COVID even happened: delivery drivers, grocery baggers, barbers, and sit down restaurants where I get served.
Who the hell tips grocery baggers? Bizarre
I used to shop on military bases and the commissary baggers have always only worked for tips.
Okay, but can we admit that topping barbers is fucking weird?
What is the point of the cost of the haircut if I have to pay more on top of that? Just... Charge more for the haircut.
Tipping from its inception was fucking weird. So weird that I'd say it was outright malicious. I'm sure many people are aware at this point that tipping was explicitly created to justify underpaying newly freed slaves, making the entire practice outright racist, Jim Crow era bullshit. The idea persisted so long that it became an uncomfortable and unwanted part of American culture, but at its core, it only exists to circumvent businesses paying a fair wage to its slaves. Greed is the motive, greed is the vibe.
I tip barbers like taxi drivers where I throw in an extra £1 if I'm paying in cash. I think this makes me eccentric in the UK though; not sure it is normal to tip them. Usually don't bother adding a tip if paying by card.
Restaurants have recently started adding a discretionary 10% service charge to bills in my city but that is the tip. Wouldn't tip more than that. If they don't include it in the bill I try to work out something like 12% from quick mental maths and add that on.
I've noticed the till checkouts have options to tip in some shops now but have never given any tips via the prompt.
Here in Europe we have something called "salary" and when there's a price on something, it's the price. The salary should be fair, at least the law says it has to be and mostly it is. And tipping/bargaining is a business practice that will and should die, too much room for greed/fraud/scamming etc, these times are over. And I don't bargain. Very few people I know do it like to do. And that's a good thing. I don't even bargain with business partners, I expect a fair price calculation from the beginning and that's what we do with our customers. And there's a growing trend in business to do this. The room for greed, nepotism and cheating is getting smaller and smaller, some day we'll have a fairer business landscape, for everybody. If a customer or business partner asks why something has that particular price, I just tell him or her. Easy. If he/she goes to someone else, he'll or she'll get a product that hasn't got our quality, he's (or she's) free to do so and people did. And 100% came back to us, not 99%, 100% came back. And if it isn't like that, there's something wrong with us or our product. And it makes it so much easier and fairer for everybody. Times are a'changing!
The first comment on that article when I read it, the guy says he will not tip his delivery driver if there's a delivery fee. I can't believe that after all these years, people still think that a driver is going to see one cent of a delivery fee. I remember Pizza Hut implementing a $1 or $2 delivery fee back in the late 90s, and our tips took a big hit. Back then, I figured that was just a learning curve, and eventually soon people would understand that it is not part of a driver's compensation, but I guess here we are, 25+ years later.
Please don't punish workers for a corporation's greed. A delivery fee is not a tip.
Stop agreeing to work for greedy corps and then getting upset when customers pay the advertised price
How about employers paying livable wage to their workers.
The whole forced tipping is bizzare. And the fact that for some reason workers are seeing it as a conflict with a customer and vice versa is also weird. Businesses are screwing with both parties and pushing the blame.
Sincerely, an European.
Here in the UK most takeaways charge a delivery fee but pay the drivers a set hourly / nightly rate whether it's busy or quiet. Expecting people to pay twice for delivery isn't acceptable.
I'm generally against tipping because in my part of Canada, tipping is "supposed to be" about 15~20%, yet we pay servers no less than any other service worker. A server gets paid the same hourly wage as a McDonalds worker.
Delivery drivers are where I still feel fine about tipping. They're often paying for their own vehicles and gas, insurance, all kinds of added expenses. But they're making the same hourly rate as someone in a restaurant.
Here in Australia the fee is higher and meant to cover costs like petrol and car maintenance.
But then again we don't have a tipping culture, so I probably shouldn't even be here.
Except to say to big companies: stop trying to enforce tipping culture here, it's not going to happen.
Waitstaff get paid well below minimum wage; tips are required to make up the difference.
Delivery drivers - and everyone else who isn't waitstaff - get paid minimum wage. It sucks, but that's the deal.
In the us, tips are not required to make up the difference, tips are allowed to make up the difference. By encouraging tipping culture you are directly allowing the business to offload its wage costs directly to the consumer.
"An employer of a tipped employee is only required to pay $2.13 per hour in direct wages if that amount combined with the tips received at least equals the federal minimum wage. If the employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference." - https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips
Your broad generalization on employee salaries is also dishonest of course.
For example, when I worked as a delivery driver, I was initially paid how you explained (except I also got a minimum $2 per delivery) However, it was changed to being paid minimum wage while inside the store and $2.13 while actively on a delivery, and the minimum per run was increased to $2.50.
Obviously every business is different in how they structure pay.
Nah, that's not the deal. If it were the deal, you wouldn't see waitstaff fighting against getting rid of tips in favor of a fair wage because they make more in tips
We aren't anywhere near a "tipping point" with regard to tipping. This is just a small number of people not wanting to pay for things, and not realizing that if tipping went away they'd still pay the same fucking total cost.
If your server makes a living by your 15% then the actual service you're being charged for costs 15% more than your menu price. You're just paying part later.
Your alternative to tipping is just servers being paid out X% of food sold, which means that food is going to cost more.
Being bad at math is no basis for an argument.
Tipping is bad culture because we as customers should not need to directly subsidize the employees paychecks. There is too much variability in that. I’ve worked in restaurants where there is a slow day. I’ve seen servers on busy nights leave with $10 in tips because tables just refuse to tip anyone.
The restaurant should raise their prices and pay all employees a livable wage regardless of position. It’s not about being bad at math. It’s about some people not wanting to tip and the only one getting fucked over is the person on the very bottom with no control. It’s about that same person having to spend 8 hours on a slow Wednesday morning with maybe 2 customers all day just not getting the tips to feed their family. It shouldn’t matter how many customers a server gets. They should get paid for the hours worked, not the customers served
Then get a job that isn’t tip based. Folks take those jobs because “I usually make more in tips” but that’s literally the gamble you sign up for with that mentality. I don’t want to take that gamble, so I work a job that isn’t reliant on tips. I don’t have good days where some rich dude gives me 100 bucks for no reason, but I also don’t have bad days where I make less than I expect and don’t know how to pay my bills. Tipping culture is bullshit and it’s the owning class exploiting us all, but workers who sign up to work for tipped based jobs know what they are getting into and don’t get my sympathy any more than some dude working at Best Buy hating his life does
Tipping is bad culture because we as customers should not need to directly subsidize the employees paycheck
This is literally what all business transactions are.
The restaurant should raise their prices and pay all employees a livable wage regardless of position
Right, so the discussion is about how you want the pay to work, and there are lots of opinions on that. As a person who served for a long time, I would have not wanted to go by percent of food order at one restaurant but would have vastly preferred that at another, literally in the same chain of restaurants.
I think the concept of ending tipping and paying more works, but I think there will be some sticker shock for a lot of goods. This is really baked into the system.
It won't actually cost more but it'll seem like it does, and perception is everything.
I don't think this is about servers. I think it's about tipping in places that used to not require tipping. Like I went to a concert and bought a t-shirt and the kiosk asked me if I'd like to tip.
Right, it's a hidden cost. That's what people don't like. There's a real discussion to have, but at least have that discussion.
If people are pursuing those jobs because they make more because of tipping (which is definitely happening, and why it is spreading) then the market for labor is saying pay us more. To pay them more, you need to charge more. This is where people like to pretend you can just take money from the rich owner and boom you don't need to raise prices. This math never works.
Thus, their argument is based on being bad at math. The price is the price, and we just aren't being honest with ourselves about it. If we value laborers, and advocate for them, we should be honest about our willingness to pay the price of their labor.
Have the discussion be about that - do we want the price fixed and up-front or variable and based on societal pressure, essentially? Is guilt preferable to higher pricing?
Like I said, a discussion worth having, but it's never the one people have.
This is just a small number of people not wanting to pay for things, and not realizing that if tipping went away they’d still pay the same fucking total cost.
That's far better than my tips subsidizing the people who don't tip. Tipping creates a perverse incentive to fuck people over.
