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As a person who was born and living in a country which has no tipping culture. The tipping sucks. I should have been fully informed how much should I have to p

• srinathrajaram 10y ago
  >The worker's salary is a employer's responsibility. If the the worker become underpaid without the tipping, then the worker is underpaid by the employer. This! Tipping is nothing but the employer passing the buck and guilting the customer.
  • radmuzom 10y ago
    I find it very funny when people argue that increasing the minimum wage would increase costs for consumers (I don't necessarily disagree; in some cases it would, whether that is a bad thing is a different matter). I personally would pay a higher price, no tips and ensure that the workers serving can meet their basic needs via wages alone.
    • vkjv 10y ago
      Just an FYI, but if a tipped employee does not meet the minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference. https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm
      • lostphilosopher 10y ago
        This idea of "making up the difference" comes up in every convo on tipping. The counter point is usually that it doesn't happen. (Debate ensues...) But even if it happened FOR SURE EVERY TIME. What an inefficient system! Rather than just paying the minimum wage up front, with predictable, projectable costs, businesses spend person hours on calculating tips, hours worked, per employee, etc. And then have to pay (potentially) widely varying amounts at the end of the cycle. I get that some customers and some servers like the practice of tipping. But why not require employers to pay (at least) the minimum wage, period. You could still tip if you want to, and an you can still try to earn a tip if you want to. But now it's more like a bonus, gravy, than the difference between rent and no-rent.
        • andrewflnr 10y ago
          you can still try to earn a tip if you want to. But now it's more like a bonus, gravy Isn't that where we started? I don't think that's stable. If some people get tips, the next tier of goodish servers is going to think they deserve tips, until you end up where we are now.
          • srinathrajaram 10y ago
            You can start there and stay there. This does not escalate like you assume. The rest of the world works just fine with this system. I suspect that the escalation in the US has something to do with employers getting greedy and trying to reduce wages to factor in tips. I don't have any evidence to back this up.
      • deleted 10y ago
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      • thoughtsimple 10y ago
        This is almost certainly going to rarely happen. Almost no server feels empowered enough to insist on this. And restaurant owners will start insisting on collecting and counting cash tips so they can fully account for the wages. No server wants their boss counting their cash tips. At least in Massachusetts, declared tips is self reported.
        • greedo 10y ago
          I'm surprised this is still allowed by the IRS. When I was a waiter back in the 80's in California, we went from self-reporting to turning in our tips. All the tips were pooled, then divvy'd up between waitstaff, busboys, cooks, managers etc. And taxes were taken documented. So our "paycheck" was puny since the withholding was taken from our hourly payrate.
        • illumin8 10y ago
          I've even seen something very shady recently - a nice restaurant that added a mandatory 20% "service fee" to our party of 7, had fine print that said "60% of your service fee goes to your wait staff." The implication is that not only is this restaurant, which we ended up paying ~$80 a person to eat dinner + wine + dessert at, screwing their customers with the mandatory service charge, they're also screwing their employees by keeping 40% of it for the owner. I won't eat there again... Edit: Added visual proof (and name and shame): https://s3-media4.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/t3UUaCU8gl6zPsVQghlvOQ/o.jpg https://s3-media4.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/t3UUaCU8gl6zPsVQghlv... I would be happy to learn that the 40% was going to the cooks. It's still a shady practice, and what makes it worse than not informing your guests ahead of time is that they're doing this in the name of "providing a livable wage for our staff." Pay your staff a livable salary and stop screwing your customers over...
          • ensignavenger 10y ago
            I doubt that the 40% goes to the owner, it probably goes to the kitchen staff.
          • nommm-nommm 10y ago
            Hopefully the hostess and back of the house was tipped out with that 40%. It's also likely that 40% went into the owner's pocket though because that's totally legal! Since it was a non-negotiable service fee the DOL doesn't consider it gratuity (as gratuity is strictly optional) so they don't have to pass it on to their staff. I've seen this happen plenty of times, usually in the catering business, though not to the extent of 40%, usually around 5-10%.
      • Spooky23 10y ago
        That rarely gets enforced. Employers don't want to pay, employees want to enhance their wages by not paying taxes.
        • isaac_is_goat 10y ago
          And in many cases, not reporting your tips as income and paying income tax on them is illegal...of course, not much chance of getting caught.
          • dragonwriter 10y ago
            IIRC, reporting lower-than-expected tips increases the probability of a tax audit, and required tip reporting for payroll and other tax purposes makes it not-that-hard for employee underreporting to be detected and established in the event of such an audit.
      • dragonwriter 10y ago
        > Just an FYI, but if a tipped employee does not meet the minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference. In most cases, they'll also be fired quickly if they don't, so they'll overreport tips to "make" the minimum wage even if they don't actually receive enough. Whether or not tipping should exist, if it does, it shouldn't substitute for the minimum wage, it should be entirely on top of it.
  • awinder 10y ago
    It's more insidious than that, since cash tips are self-reported income, it's also a great way to shield income from the IRS and reduce taxable income
  • BurningFrog 10y ago
    It's an ingrained part of US culture. An individual restaurant owner _could_ try to change it, but that would probably be very hard.
• mikosty 10y ago
  Add mental strain of thinking should I and how much should I tip. Also hassle if you don't happen to have change readily available. Sometimes it's just easier to go to a place where you don't have to think this.
  • pc86 10y ago
    Mental strain, really?
    • mgbmtl 10y ago
      I would say it definitely contributes to "decision fatigue".
    • mikosty 10y ago
      I'm not a native speaker so 'mental strain' might be a bit overblown expression for this. I'm also from a culture where tipping is not common so for me it's also a cultural difference to deal with.
• ezoe 10y ago
  One more thinking. The tipping is dumping. The seller(who is the employer) offered a product with the price they choose. That price should reflect all the necessary costs of the product, including the salary to the workers. By demanding the tipping, they make the price cheaper than it actually is. That is dumping.
  • raverbashing 10y ago
    > By demanding the tipping, they make the price cheaper than it actually is. That is dumping. No. This would apply if you actually paid less than it actually is It might be false advertisement though
    • mcv 10y ago
      Exactly. It's false advertisement, and wouldn't be acceptable in most countries that care about such things.
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > By demanding the tipping If it's demanded by the establishment, it's a service charge, not a tip. They are legally distinct things. A tip may be expected by the server as part of social custom, but it is not demanded by the establishment from which you purchase.
• sebleon 10y ago
  Omitting tipping and taxes from prices is deceitful and annoying, but it promotes consumerism and getting people to spend more. The key for restaurants is to minimize the menu item price when you decide what to order. Even if you have a mental limit of $15, you might spend $17.55 on lunch because the menu said $14 when you ordered.
  • eeZah7Ux 10y ago
    > but it promotes consumerism Phrased as if it was a good thing.
    • sebleon 10y ago
      It's good for extracting money from restaurant patrons :p As for humanity, imo capitalism is the wrong model if we want to optimize for global happiness. Directionally, basic income seems better, though I'm sure the devil is in the details...
• dalbasal 10y ago
  I don't have strong opinions on tipping either way. Personally, I prefer a culture where tips are an optional extra in culture. You do it when pleasantly surprised. That's nothing more than an "i like it this way" though. That said, who says "the worker's salary is a employer's responsibility?" Monetary culture is ancient and emergent. It's culture. Complicated, organic, varied and local. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't want to change it if it's bad or impractical. But, is a culture of tipping bad. I like that this article is culturally focused. Wage disparities, the social outcomes of these etc.
  • BinaryWaves 10y ago
    > That said, who says "the worker's salary is a employer's responsibility?" ...The employer does the second they hire the worker
  • j2bax 10y ago
    Is there a place where "tips are an optional extra"? It seems wherever I've been they are either expected or not expected/allowed...
    • flog 10y ago
      Yes, it's anywhere outside of strong US ties. In New Zealand you'll get chased down the street by the honest waiter telling you that you've forgotten your change.
    • rbcgerard 10y ago
      I think when you get out of the food service industry (at least in the U.S.) tipping is more fluid. A tour guide or a ski instructor for example, while I would say tips are customary the "rules" are much less codified so it's largely more in the category of optional
    • davidivadavid 10y ago
      As far as I can tell, that's how tipping works in France (and I would assume most mediterranean countries).
    • 10y ago
• dalbasal 10y ago
  I don't have strong opinions on tipping either way. Personally, I prefer a culture where tips are an optional extra in culture. You do it when pleasantly surprised. That's nothing more than an "i like it this way" though. That said, who says "the worker's salary is a employer's responsibility?" Monetary culture is ancient and emergent. It's culture. Complicated, organic, varied and local. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't want to change it if it's bad or impractical. But, is a culture of tipping bad. I like that this article is culturally focused. Wage disparities, the social outcomes of these etc.
• bluedino 10y ago
  >> I also don't want to waste my precious time on paying the tip for calculating tax. 20% is an easy calculation. Move the decimal point over one, and double. $24.30 becomes $2.43, doubled you get $4.86 which is your tip. Round it up to $5 if you want. Did you really enjoy the service? Add another $2 or $3. Terrible waiter? Subtract $2 or $3.
  • kutkloon7 10y ago
    20% is also a big part of the bill, and if you go out everything is overpriced already.
    • logfromblammo 10y ago
      The standard tip for table service at a restaurant in the US is 15%.
      • jghn 10y ago
        Not for at least a decade, more in larger cities.
        • logfromblammo 10y ago
          A percentage-based tip scales with the prices on the menu, which are closely associated with the cost of living in a particular area. A 15% tip is exactly as appropriate in 2016 as it was in 1916. It works as well in Florence, Alabama, as it does in Baltimore, Maryland. The only reason to increase the percentage of table service tips is if the restaurant employee does more for the customer. I have not observed this to be the case in the last decade, in larger cities or out of them.
          • jghn 10y ago
            As logical as that might sound the tipping percentage is a matter of cultural norm and not about maintaining a status quo. In metropolitan areas 20% has long since been the standard and is arguably increasing. The rest of the country has been steadily catching up.
• pavanred 10y ago
  Some online services (e.g. Doordash) which ask you to pay a tip upfront even before the service irrespective of the quality. And, the default option is pre-selected to 15% of the cost on the checkout page. This after a specified delivery charge, and some "fees" bundled along with taxes etc. And I read articles about how companies like Doordash are not making profits and are riding on VC money. It is just passing the buck onto the customers to keep their uneconomical business models afloat.
• grecy 10y ago
  Worse still, tipping is merely a way of keeping class hierarchies, and it's disgusting. When a person walks into a restaurant in the USA they can waive a $20 bill at a waitperson and say if you do what I want, and if I like you, and if I'm feeling generous, I might give you some of this. Of course, they might not too. Labor laws, minimum wage, etc are all there to make this illegal in a work contract, and it should be illegal for tipping too because it's gross.
  • X86BSD 10y ago
    Tipping is supposed to be for exceptional service. For example, if the wait person takes your order and brings your food and nothing more I wouldn't tip. If they do the above and keep your water glass filled constantly without need to ask, if your meal, drink orders and dessert come out promptly and correctly, if they ask if everything is ok throuought the meal at appropriate times, etc I would tip. Getting good service is starting to get hard to find. Some waitstaff are really good some hate their job and really don't care about the experience you have at the establishment you are in. It's just a job. Also I've worked in kitchens, I know what douche nozzles customers can be. That's when you can see who your best wait staff is. During times they have to deal with them.
    • k-mcgrady 10y ago
      >> "If they do the above and keep your water glass filled constantly without need to ask, if your meal, drink orders and dessert come out promptly and correctly This shouldn't be considered exceptional. It's what I'm paying for and should not require tipping. >> if they ask if everything is ok throuought the meal at appropriate times I understand you included 'appropriate' but this is honestly the thing that irritates me most about tipping culture. When I visit the US the barrage of 'how is everything etc.' throughout every meal drives me insane. Leave me alone to enjoy the food and conversation, stop interrupting it.
      • X86BSD 10y ago
        It's hard to do the latter. When is the appropriate time to intervene to ask if everything is ok? But I can't tell you how many times I've not had a fork, or needed a drink and my waitperson never came to ask if I needed anything. The frustration can go both ways.
• deleted 10y ago
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• dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I should have been fully informed how much should I have to pay before I purchase something or some service. You are. A tip is, by definition, not something you have to pay.
• cr0sh 10y ago
  > The worker's salary is a employer's responsibility. If the the worker become underpaid without the tipping, then the worker is underpaid by the employer. The thing about tipping, though, is that even if the employee were "fairly" compensated, they could still be "underpaid". This of course is only in the case where the tip is after the service. What I mean by this, is when the tip is after the service, if the person is tipping fairly (or tips at all - some of these buggers just don't tip!), they will tip based on the level and quality of the service. That is what a tip is for. If the person goes above and beyond their customer's wants and desires, and does so regularly (if the customer is a regular), those tips can be (and should be) a fairly large percentage. For instance, when I tip - if I get adequate service, I'll do 20%. But if I get better service, my tip rate will go up; I have done well over 100% at times when the service was worth it. Now, I know that's an anomaly on my part - but going over 20% shouldn't be unexpected, if the service is worth it. It should also go the other way, of course (poor service -> less of a tip). It should serve as feedback to the employee as to how customers view their service, and how to improve it. If the person does their job correctly (and makes an effort to go above and beyond customer's needs), and people tip properly (always an issue in today's world), then the employee can easily make well more in a day than what they would get being "paid fairly" by their employer without any tips. However, today there are multiple problems: First, in so many cases, employees don't go "above and beyond" and so don't see the proper sized tips. But there is the other issue of people not tipping or tipping poorly - and so we have a feedback loop to the bottom. I'm not sure what has caused this, because I know it didn't use to be this way here in America. For instance, my wife works in a service industry job. Recently, she had to cater to the desires of a customer, ultimately going well outside the parameters of her job and position to make this customer happy (I won't go into much detail - but it was room service with a multiple course meal, in a hotel chain that doesn't provide this service, for a family of four). Despite preparing and delivering enough food to feed a small army, doing so with a smile and a wave, and going out of her way to do this (while staying late on her shift) - she received zero tip from these people. These are long-term guests of her employer, too (they've been there longer than she has worked there); they have never been treated unfairly by her. It's an unfortunate consequence of our system and society, and perhaps cultural - for some reason, many see service workers as "beneath them" or something, and refuse to tip. In other cases (like your's), there are other cultural conditionings from that side that makes tipping seem unnatural or foreign in some manner. All of this ultimately feeds into these employees doing a worse job than they might otherwise, again leading to a negative feedback loop. That said - everywhere my wife has worked, after she has worked there for a limited amount of time, the customer satisfaction scores for her area have increased; she does receive accolades and positive response from staff, guests, and her employers. People write glowing positive Yelp and other reviews mentioning her, and how her attitude and assistance made their experience extremely enjoyable. Furthermore, when she has left positions (for one reason or another), those scores drop like a rock (she follows them afterward sometimes), and customers generally follow her to her new employer - her service is that good. I shit you not, she has groupies. And she generally makes good tips. At least from those who understand what tipping is about and for.
• kofejnik 10y ago
  When I made a similar argument in similar discussion on Reddit, I was instantly labeled the worst and the most vile person ever for not appreciating daily struggles of poor waiters
  • collyw 10y ago
    This is the problem. The obvious way to get rid of the tipping culture is to not give them, or give as much as you the customer believe it is worth (rather than a standard 15 / 20%). Doing this it will be the waiting staff that suffer rather than the restaurant owners, who you are trying to pass the message to.
• exadeci 10y ago
  Went to an Indian restaurant in NY, the waiter was awful not just bad but an asshole, we left without tipping and the manager ran after us telling us we had to tip or he would call the cops. How about you pay your damn employee or fire him for being incompetent?
• wruza 10y ago
  Tipping itself should not be illegal, it is mine evaluation and almost personal relationships with service guy/girl. If you're okay with standard cold service, just do not tip. It also should not be mandatory, that's right.