Alright, let's make it zero then. Once a significant fraction of people stop tipping (10-15%), service staff will demand raises, which will reflect in the increased prices, causing more people to not tip, and the cycle will complete relatively quickly with only a small portion of people left tipping any significant amount. Some businesses may advertise as non-tipping as a form of marketing.
I only tip in restaurants with servers and at the barber, nowhere else. But I always make sure to tip with card. If it's not possible then tough luck.
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.
It's paywalled, but yeah I just do what I learned growing up: 15% is a solid tip, with more, e.g. up to 25% for excellent service or less - down to 0 - for bad service. $1 per drink at a bar. Or if I'm broke, I don't tip at all and feel bad about it. The young people who tip 25% and up and sneer at you if you don't can get right off my lawn and their sneers have no effect on me.
This advice is subtly no longer correct in delivery apps, as they have creative ways of calculating tip. The correct advice is probably to double the tax.
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 for one am getting sick of the constant request for tips, especially before services rendered. I feel obligated to tip because I'm worried if I don't I'll be getting "trouser food" as Roy says, and so whatever the price i think I'll be paying is actually $5-$10 more than expected.
Especially with delivery at this point or places that are self service.
I get tipping where it is an established tradition (like the restaurants or when traveling). But in these new paradigms you mention, you don't have to tip!
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.
Yesterday I had lunch at a Shake Shack. Humans don't take orders there any more; you place your order at a self-serve touchscreen kiosk. As I finished placing my order, I was prompted to leave a tip; 10% was the default and you had to press a button to change it.
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.
The guys likely to spit in the food are the same people who don't care the slightest bit about the business and are probably going to end up fired after a couple of months for not showing up getting in a fight with a coworker or manager. And this isn't me trying to bad mouth service industry folks, it's just that people who are working in fast food are usually are not in that situation because they're making life decisions that lead to financial success (again generally not specifically). The point being the person spitting in your food isn't going to care if you come back.
This is what I've done. There are a few restaurants that I've come across that have mandatory tipping, and I'll never go back. I don't think it's insensitive to believe that it is not the customers responsibility to pay for the employees.
Raise the prices, get rid of tipping, it will make everyone happier.
This is the way. I recently got an oil change, and at the end I was prompted to tip with the default 20%. I changed it to zero - the person doing the work is certainly being paid market rates and well above minimum wage (even now, why do I feel the need to explain myself?!) and I’ll never go back to this chain.
Jesus, fuck this—it's all too complicated. I'll just cook at home, thanks. Costs less, way healthier, tastes better and guaranteed to contain no bodily fluids. The enshittification of the food service industry is complete.
1. Not tipping in the aforementioned scenario is so far away from qualifying as "fucking with" anyone
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?
It's a restaurant. If high flying executives with great careers can commit crimes to make a extra buck, the person flipping your burger isn't going to be much more pragmatic.
I worked in food service, mostly FOH as a bartender/server, and at no point was I angry enough at a customer to spit in their food, pee in their drink, etc. It just wasn't worth the risk or effort.
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.
I had the lady at PetChain ask me if I wanted to donate to starving dogs (as I hold a bag of food, to feed MY starving dog). I ignored her, anyway, then i go to pay and theres another question on some digital pad asking if I want to donate to X shelter. I just ignored it and played dumb. It was enjoyable to watch her say 'its asking you a questsion' and me just tapping my card repetitively like a boomer.
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.
I don't agree with this way of looking at things. It isn't a thankless job; they're getting paid. It's a different argument if they're not getting paid enough, but it seems backwards to pass on the responsibility of properly compensating them to the customer.
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.
I don’t want to tip. Ever. Charge me more money and pay your damn employees. Don’t make employee compensation your customer’s problem. Tipping is rarely ever enjoyable for the customer, so why put that on them?? I know why… greed. You can get away with paying them less because “tips”.
In theory tips are shared with back-of-the-house staff (which probably also depresses their salaries). So if you usually tip 10%, tipping 5% sounds fair!
(thankfully I'm in Europe and don't have to deal with this bullshit)
That's especially ridiculous because Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer made a big stink about eliminating tipping from his numerous restaurants back in 2015!
Pro tip: pay cash whenever you can. You can avoid a kiosk that asks you whether you want to tip 30%, 25%, or 20% for the $8 coffee you just bought and just throw some loose change in the jar.
I get thousands of dollars back from my credit card company every year and pay for everything I can with my cards. Many cards specifically give you a higher percentage back on restaurants. I have no intention of ever giving that up. The awkwardness at the counter when the tip prompt shows up is only in your head.
You know that paying with cash is effectively an automatic ~3% tip over paying by credit card, right? You are getting a cut of the service fee they charge the restaurant.
I do not trust a company bribing me with my own money.
I am increasingly doing this as I have started to see "we are a cash-free business" signs; I don't want to lose the option of paying with cash, so I'm starting to exercise it more often.
I would much rather pay more for items than be expected to tip. I consider tipping to be like all the other "hidden fees" we encounter. Just give me the total price for something.
I mostly don’t tip. I don’t do this by stiffing waiters, I do it by not going to places where I’ll be expected to tip. Which means I make my own coffee in the morning and either make my own food or get premade salads or sandwiches from the grocery store. Works for me at least but I rather enjoy living modestly.
It's not stupid for exceptional service. If someone made extra effort that impressed me, I'd gladly give them some extra money because that was worth something for me.
But, yes, the default/baseline expectation should be 0.00 on top of the sale price.
Stop calling them tips, start calling them commissions on sales, and automatically include that in the price of each item. This eliminates tipping entirely and if the customer doesn't like the quality of service, they can make their displeasure known by not returning.
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.
I've started paying cash more at places that have tipping screens for what I consider to be a service that a tip is not required. For example the local donut shop has a tipping screen for them spending 1-2 minutes of time to get the donuts.
For most of the donut shops around me, I don't mind tipping. Typically, the person working the counter is the spouse/sibling/child of the person making the donuts. For family places like that, I'm much less opposed to tipping. Besides, how much is the tip going to be for donuts?
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".
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.
It can sound controversial, but can we please stop with tipping altogether?
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).
I’ve seen more and more places just include an obligatory 20% service charge. Should that just be priced in? Yes. But I think it’s a baby step in the right direction.
Yea, just price it in to the goddamn food or service. There is no difference between a $10 burger plus $2 obligatory tip and a $12 burger with no tipping. EDIT: It's not the customer's job to pay a company's payroll.
I have just came from London and have witnessed this in plenty of places there. Normally I would tip around 10%, but I'm more happy with this system, even if it's 20%.
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.
I hate that even more than tipping. Just hike the prices by 20%, and I might come back a second time. Hit me with a surprise 20% surcharge, and I surely won't.
Europe and the States are culturally different - servers in Europe don't ask for a tip on the receipt. Actually they don't ask it at all since it's not a thing they do expect.
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
Or when the tip is requested before any service has been rendered. Delivery apps are the worst at this - I had a bad enough experience on one delivery that I reached out to support to reduce the tip.
But realistically I'd rather it just be built into the price.
In New Zealand pre-covid the restaurant industry were subtly trying to introduce tipping especially in places American tourists visited.
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've noticed this in Auckland for many years, in tourist 'prone' places, but never in person - it's always on the eftpos machine. I haven't noticed it getting either better or worse. I always refuse - and tell people that "we don't want tipping to become established here."
I've never seen that in NZ and I travelled the South Island in 2020 just before COVID hit (and nearly got stuck in an Airbnb for lockdown). Nowhere I remember was asking for tips other than the usual tip jar by the till.
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.
I genuinely enjoy tipping at places that provide a service over an extended period of time. I've had a golf lesson where the guy stayed 15 minutes over to show me some pointers, I've gotten haircuts where the dude takes his time to do it right and is a pleasure to hang out with. Tipping in those scenarios feels like I'm rewarding awesome services.
95% of tipping scenarios aren't that, and it's gotten out of control.
I agree, but only if it truly is voluntary and for someone going above and beyond. Right now there isn't much difference in tip between an okay and a great experience.
> I've gotten haircuts where the dude takes his time to do it right and is a pleasure to hang out with.
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.
Tipping is not quite everywhere, Australia and Japan come to mind. Tipping boggles my mind as it is such an obvious manipulation of both the customer and the employee, by the employer.
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.
I understand culturally Japan is different, but what is to stop Australian business owners from shifting the burden of paying employees from themselves to Tippers?
Minimum wage requirements as I understand it, the current national minimum wage here is 23.23AUD or 14.73 USD per hour, plus 25% loading for casuals, plus 11% super annuation (basically mandatory 401k the employer pays), and 1.5-2x pay for odd hours or weekend work (depends on a few factors which rate you get). These are upheld by the federal government so it's a pretty broad and effective set value in the employment market. You wouldn't get far trying to pay less.
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, it's easier said than done. I've been recently to the states and I've never tipped less than 15% - even when the service was bad (40 minutes waiting for the waiter to get our order).
The situation is pretty bad, and I feel bad for who's working in that field :(
Wow. Thanks for posting that.
This thread was an eye-opener for me. The sad part is that waiters aren't doing as bad as I imagined (at least on that thread), but cooks are. And you cannot tip the cooks.
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.
cashier optimizes for speed and efficiency, if it takes more than a couple of minutes to check out the it took too long.
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.
no need to apologize, your comment simply made it sound like it was commonplace to see tipping in some contexts. and there are people that believe that tipping does make sense in some contexts.
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.
Just to be clear, someone in that situation does not get a 20% pay cut unless their employer is breaking the law.
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...
You are absolutely right. It's a collective action problem in extremely large cohorts (regional/national populations). As such, it can probably only be realistically solved by legislation banning the practice. Individual action on the issue is ineffective and victimizes the wrong parties.
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.
I lived in Switzerland for 6 months and being originally from the US I tipped a server at a restaurant reflexively by leaving money on the table. The server picked it up and brought it back to me before I left and said “This is not necessary, I get paid to work here.” Being the typical clueless American I was stunned. But I learned over time that just as I would not tip my accountant, banker or lawyer - or plumber, carpenter or mechanic that in this case here was another person I received a service from who did not need “charity”.
Where I live (New York), plumbers, carpenters, electricians and other contractors absolutely expect to be tipped. I’m not originally from the US, but I don’t get the impression that this is a new practice.
When I worked in bars/restaurants, I made way more with tips than the minimum wage for my state. Even as a male bartender who isn't particularly funny or hot.
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.
Ten years ago I would have been against you but today I admit that tipping has gone too far and more than that the practice should be stopped altogether
I’ll tip if someone really deserves a tipping, if they really put forth the effort, I’ll give them something extra, but I mean this tipping automatically, it’s for the birds.
Tipping has gotten absurd in the US. I am unironically waiting for the self-checkout machines at grocery stores to start demanding tips.
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.
Their "history of tipping" doesn't make a ton of sense.
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.
I've read this article before that seems to offer some additional information on the topic you raised. [1]
> 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.
Everyone on here is complaining about the tips, but I don’t see a way to break tipping culture. Are we going to keep ratcheting up tip percentages forever or is there a solution?
The problem is that if everyone stops tipping, the only ones being affected are the restaurant staff - not the owners. So the message won't be delivered and might actually cause more harm than it should.
One way to do it is to pass a law for bidding asking for a tip on a debit or credit card charge. In other words, remove the tip line. If people want to tip, then they will have to tip in cash. Spinning around the screen is too easy and too manipulative.
> I'm pretty sure the reason is that the employees are paid a living wage.
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.
To note, "it's cultural" usually means "they've tried a lot of options and this one stuck as the most pragmatic at a social level"
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.
"they've tried a lot of options and this one stuck as the most pragmatic at a social level"
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
Cultural practices that don't match the current society either have such a low impact that getting rid of them isn't a priority, or they're not long for this world.
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.
tipping came out of a need of rich people to show off their wealth. i don't think anyone remembers that. tips were given to servants who, in some way or form had a full-time job (or were slaves) with food and a place to sleep. they likely had bad working and living conditions and were being exploited by todays standards, but that wasn't the reason they got tips.
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.
>> influential parts of society are still relying on them.
> 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.
I don't think there is any society with absolutely no tipping whatsoever
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.
Tipping is a significant negative experience that probably causes me to eat out less often. It's increasingly manipulative, extortionate, and most of all pointless. You have no idea what service you paid for or if the person who rendered it actually received the money.
at least going out to eat and paying a tip is better than staying home paying for the food, paying for a delivery fee, paying for "recovery fees", then finally paying for a tip.
I tip wait staff, hotel staff, uber drivers, barbers, and that's it.
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.
> 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¢.
> 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"
> “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.
You should bear in mind that just because you didn't tip the barber, and perhaps no one you knew tipped the barber, that doesn't mean no one thought to do so.
As I've shown, it's been a common practice for a long time.
"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.
I lived through the 1980s and tipping for a haircut wasn’t a thing I ever came across —- maybe it was a class thing or something that older people with regular barbers did.
I also lived through the 1980s, but my grandmother cut my hair until I was a teen, and I can't remember what I paid at Supercuts or if I tipped or not.
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.
I worked at a full service gas station in high school and community college. In 4 years of pumping gas, checking oil, checking tires, washing windows, I had exactly one customer that would tip. People did not tip at full service because they were paying extra for the service. We did not expect tips, pay was slightly better than minimum wage.
I'd rather pay more than tip. People need to be paid reasonable and calculable wages.
The first time I saw a tablet asking for a tip, I automatically gave one. Afterwards I thought about it and realized that was stupid. I've always declined the tips ever since. Nobody has batted an eye at my declining to tip and half the time the person at the register just says, "It's going to ask you for a tip, just decline it." Even they know it is stupid. But, it had the side effect of making me mad about tipping. I had increased my tips to 20% over the years, but now I've gone back to the old 15%.
I'm at the point where I tip at certain experience-style dining outings, some bars, or at my local coffee shop where I know the workers and they're chill to me. Beyond these two experiences it's just gotten absurd.
I partly want to blame the processors since they no doubt make more money when the overall charges are higher with tips.
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[ 9.1 ms ] story [ 209 ms ] threadI 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.
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?
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.
Quite absurd practice that I really wish we can move away from as a society.
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)
I do not trust a company bribing me with my own money.
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.
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".
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.
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 $20 in tips per night is deducted from the minimum wage that your employer has to pay you. So the difference is in the immediacy of the funds, not the quantity—there is eventual replacement for everybody working minimum wage or lower, as the amount that employers are legally able to screw the person out of reduces.
Of course, immediacy is a poverty problem, the families in this situation are living paycheck to paycheck and cannot easily handle a couple paychecks that are 20% lighter. The same people who complain about tips are usually not people who want to expand social services and safety nets to allow that to change, so it's all a little bit of a complicated kerfuffle...
i’m talking about smoothie bars, fast food restaurants, etc.
I've become convinced that the only way tipping is going away in America is if it is made illegal.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqHKMovMWaQ&t=149s
The good news (?) is that tipping in the US has strange sociological effects that make it a good target for legislation. It has been found that various groups are more or less likely to A) leave a tip and B) receive a tip. That makes it pretty clearly a discriminatory practice.
When the service is outstanding, we tip ~5$ (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 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.
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...
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.
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...
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.
I'd rather pay more than tip. People need to be paid reasonable and calculable wages.
I partly want to blame the processors since they no doubt make more money when the overall charges are higher with tips.