6 ms·

Having lived in Japan for a long time, I kind of dread visiting America because of the whole nonsense of tipping (and lot of other reasons, really). There's sim

Having lived in Japan for a long time, I kind of dread visiting America because of the whole nonsense of tipping (and lot of other reasons, really). There's simply no concept of it here and yet the service is excellent. I don't know what the typical wage is but I know people who work in service jobs and seem to have a lot more disposable income than their counterparts in the US. I also know people who work as servers and bartenders in the US and (predictably) they hate the idea of ending tipping even if it means a higher base wage. I suspect they're wrong but then I don't have to walk in their shoes.

turndown 10y ago
I've worked as both a server and a delivery driver, and even after having left both jobs I'd still be in favor of tipping because I think it incentivizes the worker to do well at their job. The US simply doesn't have the same culture Japan has. That said, travelling to the US shouldn't be handicapped by a fear of tipping. Don't tip, or do, but not going because of it is an unfortunate choice.
- Annatar 10y ago
  The US simply doesn't have the same culture Japan has. While this is true, it also sounds as an excuse not to improve. It is clearly time for the culture of United States to change, and not just change, but strive to change for the better. Punting won't do that. There is too much punting going on everywhere, which is one of the reasons the world now finds itself in the problems it finds itself in. Please help stop the vicious downward spiral. Not punting on problems is a low hanging fruit.
- zuppy 10y ago
  I don't think it does. Tipping is expected even if a bad service is being provided. I live in a country where you have to give tips everywhere and everywhere the service is awful. Why not be fair and pay the employee well (and also pay taxes for that amount). edit: I was thinking about how to award good employees and I think it's simple: give a small paper form at the end, where people will provide ratings for the service provided. Not all of them will fill them, of course, but I think you will get some feedback about who are your best employees and who are the worst. Also, regarding tips, how do they help the kitchen staff (in the restaurants, you can find other examples on other businesses)? That sistem isn't fair.
  - ecnal 10y ago
    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535700000627 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535700... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296301002065 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296301... While tipping is not an enormous driver of service quality (primarily for the reason you mentioned—that tips are expected even when service is poor), it does appear to be correlated with better service to some degree.
  - hayd 10y ago
    The difference between bad service and good service might only be 15% vs 20% and IME most American's do not tip punitively anyway, and tip the same no matter what. The employer is in a much better position to assess staff performance than customers... And it's not the customers job. If a waiter sucks they won't fire themselves just because they're only getting 15% tips.
    - freeflight 10y ago
      >The employer is in a much better position to assess staff performance than customers... And it's not the customers job. I disagree, after all it's the waiter who interacts with the customer most, while the employer mostly can only watch from afar or has other (better) things to do. In that regard a 5% difference on the tip won't do much at all. If the waiter expects to get tipped anyway, regardless of how bad the service was, then he's far more likely to give bad service and just get 5% less tip. But if getting any tip at all depends on the quality of service, then waiters at least have to try to deliver some decent service, instead of just doing an half-arsed job and getting their "guaranteed", although somewhat smaller, tip.
      - nommm-nommm 10y ago
        You think the manager has better things to do than observe their employee's performance? Isn't managing personnel just as important as managing, say, inventory? Isn't the manager's job to make sure the customer is well served? The manager, for example, can observe if the employee is the problem or the customer. I've observed customers (from the outside) fly off the handle for no reason whatsoever. An employee shouldn't be paid less because the person they are serving is awful. They also shouldn't be paid less because the back of the house is short staffed so the food took an hour to be cooked, because people will tip less for that reason. Also there's the people who believe "good service" means being served by a young attractive woman who smiles at you. I'd like to know what good service means to other people. Good service to me is you take my order and bring me what I ordered.
- newscracker 10y ago
  > I'd still be in favor of tipping because I think it incentivizes the worker to do well at their job Not in my experience. For instance, I've seen cab drivers expecting a 20% tip to be added by default regardless of the quality of service, courtesy and help (if any). It feels terrible to be asked to pay 120% (in total) for mediocre or even lousy service.
  - hayd 10y ago
    A very aggressive taxi driver (it was one up from a regular taxi, but don't recall what) drove my Gran and me from SFO to SF, the drive was TERRIFYING, would have been 1* on Uber. Yet he angrily demanded a 25% tip, he didn't get it. Fuck that guy.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  I'm in Australia, and we don't have a mandatory tipping culture, but we do still have optional tipping. I've tipped extra on those occasions where the service has been exceptional and above the call of duty. But I don't like to feel pressured to tip when someone is just "phoning it in".
- Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
  it incentivizes the worker to do well at their job However, tipping only exists in certain jobs, and apparently people who do other jobs do them just fine in the US. So tipping doesn't seem to be necessary. By the way, I also think the tipping issue is a significant annoyance when going to the US. I love visiting the US and definitely it's not a reason for not going (and I don't think the GP meant that either), but probably my most uncomfortable moments there (excluding when I was detained at customs, I think due to having the same name as a criminal) have been when I got disapproving or even downright angry looks for (unintentionally) not giving the expected tip due to not knowing all the details of customs by state, restaurant type, etc.
- okonomiyaki3000 10y ago
  I should clarify, there are a lot of reasons I don't like going back to the US and tipping is just one small part of it. It would be off topic to go into them here but, obviously, a dislike of tipping culture is hardly a reason to move to a different country and never return.
- kzrdude 10y ago
  Yes, it's not the same culture. The USA is very much about what's in it for me? One has to be paid extra, explicitly (apparently), to do one's job well, paid to give good service, paid to be nice (?). Is it necessary to have a direct tip for doing those things? In a different culture, those are things your salary pays for.
- angryasian 10y ago
  >it incentivizes the worker to do well at their job The entire point of being a server is to offer the customer a pleasant dining experience.. that is literally the major job qualification in customer service. Are you saying that people that work in retail aren't incentivized to do their job because they don't receive tips. I think its absurd, because if you ever work retail, you take much more crap from customers on top of working just as hard.
nicolas_t 10y ago
The wages for waiter are not very high, when I was a student there (12 years ago) I was paid 720 yens per hour (not in Tokyo though, I imagine wages there are higher). I think the reason people here tend to have more disposable income is that a lot of people live with their parents and the fact that the cost of life is not as high as in the US. I do agree with you though, I dislike tipping and I find the service in Japan without tipping to be better than the service in US with tipping. For waiters in the US, from what I've seen so far they are overpaid compared to the kitchen staff in restaurants because tips are not distributed fairly (and by law in some states, the kitchen staff cannot get a percentage of the tip). In Japan, it's the contrary, the kitchen staff would tend to be better paid (and more respected) than the waiters.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Amezarak 10y ago
I used to wait tables. They hate the idea of ending tipping because servers almost without exception make much, much more than any of the kitchen staff. Eliminating ripping and raising the base wage would almost always be a pay cut. I worked at a buffet, not anything fancy, and it was easy to make $20/hr. No employer was going to pay that for the work I did.
- greedo 10y ago
  Not only does the employer NOT want to pay that much to their employees, tipping encourages waitstaff to turn tables faster, increasing both the restaurant's bottom line, and the number of tips.

turndown 10y ago

I've worked as both a server and a delivery driver, and even after having left both jobs I'd still be in favor of tipping because I think it incentivizes the worker to do well at their job. The US simply doesn't have the same culture Japan has. That said, travelling to the US shouldn't be handicapped by a fear of tipping. Don't tip, or do, but not going because of it is an unfortunate choice.

Annatar 10y ago
The US simply doesn't have the same culture Japan has. While this is true, it also sounds as an excuse not to improve. It is clearly time for the culture of United States to change, and not just change, but strive to change for the better. Punting won't do that. There is too much punting going on everywhere, which is one of the reasons the world now finds itself in the problems it finds itself in. Please help stop the vicious downward spiral. Not punting on problems is a low hanging fruit.
zuppy 10y ago
I don't think it does. Tipping is expected even if a bad service is being provided. I live in a country where you have to give tips everywhere and everywhere the service is awful. Why not be fair and pay the employee well (and also pay taxes for that amount). edit: I was thinking about how to award good employees and I think it's simple: give a small paper form at the end, where people will provide ratings for the service provided. Not all of them will fill them, of course, but I think you will get some feedback about who are your best employees and who are the worst. Also, regarding tips, how do they help the kitchen staff (in the restaurants, you can find other examples on other businesses)? That sistem isn't fair.
- ecnal 10y ago
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535700000627 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535700... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296301002065 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296301... While tipping is not an enormous driver of service quality (primarily for the reason you mentioned—that tips are expected even when service is poor), it does appear to be correlated with better service to some degree.
- hayd 10y ago
  The difference between bad service and good service might only be 15% vs 20% and IME most American's do not tip punitively anyway, and tip the same no matter what. The employer is in a much better position to assess staff performance than customers... And it's not the customers job. If a waiter sucks they won't fire themselves just because they're only getting 15% tips.
  - freeflight 10y ago
    >The employer is in a much better position to assess staff performance than customers... And it's not the customers job. I disagree, after all it's the waiter who interacts with the customer most, while the employer mostly can only watch from afar or has other (better) things to do. In that regard a 5% difference on the tip won't do much at all. If the waiter expects to get tipped anyway, regardless of how bad the service was, then he's far more likely to give bad service and just get 5% less tip. But if getting any tip at all depends on the quality of service, then waiters at least have to try to deliver some decent service, instead of just doing an half-arsed job and getting their "guaranteed", although somewhat smaller, tip.
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      You think the manager has better things to do than observe their employee's performance? Isn't managing personnel just as important as managing, say, inventory? Isn't the manager's job to make sure the customer is well served? The manager, for example, can observe if the employee is the problem or the customer. I've observed customers (from the outside) fly off the handle for no reason whatsoever. An employee shouldn't be paid less because the person they are serving is awful. They also shouldn't be paid less because the back of the house is short staffed so the food took an hour to be cooked, because people will tip less for that reason. Also there's the people who believe "good service" means being served by a young attractive woman who smiles at you. I'd like to know what good service means to other people. Good service to me is you take my order and bring me what I ordered.
newscracker 10y ago
> I'd still be in favor of tipping because I think it incentivizes the worker to do well at their job Not in my experience. For instance, I've seen cab drivers expecting a 20% tip to be added by default regardless of the quality of service, courtesy and help (if any). It feels terrible to be asked to pay 120% (in total) for mediocre or even lousy service.
- hayd 10y ago
  A very aggressive taxi driver (it was one up from a regular taxi, but don't recall what) drove my Gran and me from SFO to SF, the drive was TERRIFYING, would have been 1* on Uber. Yet he angrily demanded a 25% tip, he didn't get it. Fuck that guy.
cyberferret 10y ago
I'm in Australia, and we don't have a mandatory tipping culture, but we do still have optional tipping. I've tipped extra on those occasions where the service has been exceptional and above the call of duty. But I don't like to feel pressured to tip when someone is just "phoning it in".
Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
it incentivizes the worker to do well at their job However, tipping only exists in certain jobs, and apparently people who do other jobs do them just fine in the US. So tipping doesn't seem to be necessary. By the way, I also think the tipping issue is a significant annoyance when going to the US. I love visiting the US and definitely it's not a reason for not going (and I don't think the GP meant that either), but probably my most uncomfortable moments there (excluding when I was detained at customs, I think due to having the same name as a criminal) have been when I got disapproving or even downright angry looks for (unintentionally) not giving the expected tip due to not knowing all the details of customs by state, restaurant type, etc.
okonomiyaki3000 10y ago
I should clarify, there are a lot of reasons I don't like going back to the US and tipping is just one small part of it. It would be off topic to go into them here but, obviously, a dislike of tipping culture is hardly a reason to move to a different country and never return.
kzrdude 10y ago
Yes, it's not the same culture. The USA is very much about what's in it for me? One has to be paid extra, explicitly (apparently), to do one's job well, paid to give good service, paid to be nice (?). Is it necessary to have a direct tip for doing those things? In a different culture, those are things your salary pays for.
angryasian 10y ago
>it incentivizes the worker to do well at their job The entire point of being a server is to offer the customer a pleasant dining experience.. that is literally the major job qualification in customer service. Are you saying that people that work in retail aren't incentivized to do their job because they don't receive tips. I think its absurd, because if you ever work retail, you take much more crap from customers on top of working just as hard.

nicolas_t 10y ago

The wages for waiter are not very high, when I was a student there (12 years ago) I was paid 720 yens per hour (not in Tokyo though, I imagine wages there are higher). I think the reason people here tend to have more disposable income is that a lot of people live with their parents and the fact that the cost of life is not as high as in the US. I do agree with you though, I dislike tipping and I find the service in Japan without tipping to be better than the service in US with tipping. For waiters in the US, from what I've seen so far they are overpaid compared to the kitchen staff in restaurants because tips are not distributed fairly (and by law in some states, the kitchen staff cannot get a percentage of the tip). In Japan, it's the contrary, the kitchen staff would tend to be better paid (and more respected) than the waiters.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Amezarak 10y ago

I used to wait tables. They hate the idea of ending tipping because servers almost without exception make much, much more than any of the kitchen staff. Eliminating ripping and raising the base wage would almost always be a pay cut. I worked at a buffet, not anything fancy, and it was easy to make $20/hr. No employer was going to pay that for the work I did.

greedo 10y ago
Not only does the employer NOT want to pay that much to their employees, tipping encourages waitstaff to turn tables faster, increasing both the restaurant's bottom line, and the number of tips.