12 ms·

Maybe we should not have tips? There is no actual need or advantage to giving people tips, and there are plenty of countries where tipping is not common (inclu

• Sangermaine 9y ago
  Because that would cost the companies more and they're happy to get away with paying less. It's really not a mystery.
  • jhpankow 9y ago
    I wish there was a list of Bay Area restaurants that don't require tipping. I discovered one last Friday and look forward to returning for the good food, service, and fair wages.
    • Moru 9y ago
      There are an app for everything: http://www.schystavillkor.se/ http://www.schystavillkor.se/ Sadly this one only covers Sweden but you can look up what restaurants have signed the contract with the union. This guarantees fair wages and working conditions. The law in Sweden is pretty free so there exists unions that are supposed to talk to the companies and get an agreement on what is fair both ways.
    • drdeadringer 9y ago
      Would you mind sharing the name of the restaurant?
      • jhpankow 9y ago
        http://www.yayoi-us.com/california-location.html http://www.yayoi-us.com/california-location.html
        • hkmurakami 9y ago
          Ah it's the Japanese chain taking its operational playbook from HQ (I think, though it'd be interesting if hey deliberately made a decision to exclude tipping)
    • santaclaus 9y ago
      I recently went to Homestead in Oakland, which includes tips. The service was top notch, despite what the include-the-tip naysayers claim will happen.
      • drb91 9y ago
        Homestead is truly excellent!
      • bunderbunder 9y ago
        I'm impressed by the pervasiveness of the belief that people won't, for the most part, try to do good work simply for the sake of taking pride in their work. It's such a remarkably pessimistic way to regard other people.
        • ggg9990 9y ago
          Or, just to keep their job! I don't take pride in my work but I make good money and I don't want to risk my job. so I do fairly high quality work.
      • asteli 9y ago
        Half Orange by Fruitvale BART notably comes to mind.
    • mikez302 9y ago
      This may be helpful (anywhere in the US, not just the Bay Area): http://bit.ly/tip-free-restaurants http://bit.ly/tip-free-restaurants I found it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EndTipping/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EndTipping/
    • s0rce 9y ago
      Kebabery in Oakland is great
    • stevenspasbo 9y ago
      Lanesplitter pizza claims to pay a livable wage
  • c0wb0yc0d3r 9y ago
    In the US, employees must still be paid minimum wage. Depending on the state, an employer may count tips toward this amount. If an employee reports $0 in tips, the employer must pay them $7.25/hr. While I would like to believe that what you say is true, I find it hard to be true. I think the bigger issues are at play whether it's is the fact that minimum wages need to be adjusted, a more modern solution is needed to replace minimum wages, whether a job in question is simply suitable for a human to perform (in this case a doorman, they don't really have them where I live so I don't know their purpose), or maybe children (even adults) need to be taught better money management skills. I personally think that an area for quick improvement would be helping folks with managing their money. Anecdotally, I know people who haven't paid more than the minimum on student loans because they that they will automatically be forgiven in 20 years. On a $40k loan, they have easily squandered away a down payment on a house or money they could have otherwise put in their 401k.
    • mjevans 9y ago
      I agree with most of your points. However, I'd like to start with two labor patches (in the same set). 1) Pro-rate all benefits (with 3/4ths of median 'full time' work hours as full time). 2) Eliminate that tip as part of wage 'loophole'. Tips should still be allowed, but they should be for truly exceptional things, and not a hidden cost of buying something.
      • c0wb0yc0d3r 9y ago
        2) Eliminate that tip as part of wage 'loophole'. That is interesting. As I understand it now, the way tips are factored into wages, it benefits the employee more so than the employer. Society loses because the employee is supposed to report tips so they are taxed, the employer loses because they still have to pay minimum wage, and the employee wins because they are paid minimum wage and get their tips tax free. Maybe I'm just being dense, but how would this elimination be beneficial?
        • dragonwriter 9y ago
          > As I understand it now, the way tips are factored into wages, it benefits the employee more so than the employer. Society loses because the employee is supposed to report tips so they are taxed, the employer loses because they still have to pay minimum wage, and the employee wins because they are paid minimum wage and get their tips tax free. Employers of workers in customarily tipped jobs can and do use tips as a performance metric, so if the employer has to top up your tips to minimum wage, it probably also means you are also losing your job. This also motivates overreporting tips.
  • berberous 9y ago
    What about doormen buildings? Why tip them in December individually? The Board should just pay them each a bonus. The unit owners pay regardless.
    • SilasX 9y ago
      I guess because it can be kept off-books and untaxed? This is typically a thing you see in high-tax state/cities.
  • travisp 9y ago
    It's not so easy to be one of the first companies to go against standard practice. And sometimes you even get sued https://www.eater.com/2017/10/11/16458026/no-tipping-conspiracy-lawsuit-ushg-momofuku https://www.eater.com/2017/10/11/16458026/no-tipping-conspir...
  • notyourday 9y ago
    I'm sorry.. Elevator operator ?! In 2017?! WAT?
    • jdeibele 9y ago
      There was an article just a few days ago about the remaining elevators that have operators: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/nyregion/manual-elevators-operators.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/nyregion/manual-elevators...
    • perseusprime11 9y ago
      until we get self driving elevators... :)
  • aarreedd 9y ago
    It's not that it would cost companies more. It's that companies would have to charge more up front. Even if customers end up paying the same price in the end they are not thinking about the cost of the tip when ordering their food. They are just looking at the price on the menu.
• untog 9y ago
  Well, sure. But that feels like a bit of a dismissal of the issue. New tech has enabled our much more convenient cashless society, but it's left a gaping hole for certain members of that society. It doesn't seem unreasonable that tech might also think about ways to fix that problem too, rather than deferring the awkward stuff to someone/anyone else.
  • betterunix2 9y ago
    Tipping is a non-issue and I am more than happy to dismiss it; other developed nations get by without tipping, we can as well. New technology always forces some professions to change, and changing from a tip-based system to just having a higher base salary does not sound so terrible. Tips are nothing more than a way for business owners to justify paying their workers less. I agree that there are problems with a cashless society. I just do not see the end of tipping as one of those problems.
    • untog 9y ago
      I am sure that all the doormen, bartenders and the like out there will be very reassured to hear that them earning less money is a non-issue you are more than happy to dismiss. > changing from a tip-based system to just having a higher base salary does not sound so terrible Of course it doesn't. But that isn't what's happening. Instead, they get paid the same base salary and don't get tips. And the profound disinterest in problems like this is why more and more people resent Silicon Valley rather than look up to it.
      • betterunix2 9y ago
        It is not a tech problem and blaming the tech industry will not solve it. Employers should not be allowed to underpay their employees, regardless of what form of payment is commonly used. Blame lawmakers who refuse to raise the minimum wage and who continue allowing restaurants to pay below minimum wage because their waiters receive tips. Why do people expect tech companies to fix this problem? Tech companies did not invent tipping and tech companies did not create a system where certain professions rely on tips. Other industrialized countries are doing fine without tipping, and some of those countries still rely on cash. What do you think doormen and bartenders in those countries do?
• Feniks 9y ago
  Sadly the wonderful American invention of "gig economy" has crossed the Atlantic. Those Deliveroo guys deserve a tip. Actually getting your hands on cash money is surprisingly hard in my country though, ATMs are rapidly vanishing.
  • pmezard 9y ago
    Crossing the Atlantic does not mean it cannot be fought. In communist France, they organized a couple of strike-like episodes this year [1]. And I really hope this recent "auto-entrepreneur" status which is mostly used to bypass temporary worker laws eventually get repelled entirely. The solution is not tipping, the solution is applying the law and closing loopholes. [1] http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2017/08/26/en-colere-les-livreurs-de-repas-se-mobilisent-de-nouveau-pour-leurs-conditions-de-travail_5176952_3234.html http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2017/08/26/en-colere-...
• tomc1985 9y ago
  Maybe we should keep cash and stop trying to kill it? So many think there is no value to a physical, untraceable, my-transaction-is-not-necessarily-logged money, so sad :/
  • betterunix2 9y ago
    We can make untraceable electronic payment systems; in fact, there was a failed startup doing just that all the way back in 1989: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digicash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digicash That said, what makes you think having a cash-oriented society guarantees tipping? There are industrialized nations that still rely on cash but where tipping is not ingrained in the culture; my experience in Japan was that if I left a tip people would assume I had made an error in my arithmetic or forgot my change. I agree that privacy is a problem with going cashless. Let's ignore tipping and instead focus on an actual problem.
    • tomc1985 9y ago
      Why must this be only about tipping? Cash provides for people in a lot of ways that digital money can't or never will. Tipping, getting paid under-the-table, drug purchases... can digicash benefit all these people? Those groups should stay with cash, the amount of OpSec required for digital alternatives is too much...
      • betterunix2 9y ago
        Yes, digicash (more properly called "ecash" among researchers) is useful in every example you listed: it is anonymous and supports offline payments (i.e. direct payments between two parties).
        • CM30 9y ago
          Normal cash is also much easier to use, doesn't rely on any software needing to be installed (or a computer/network access in general) and offers a decent amount of deniable plausability too. Why the obsession with replacing everything with technology when sometimes the old system works fine?
• rhino369 9y ago
  In most of these industries, the "fair wage" is actually less than tips. Or at least they used to be. Ending tipping will hurt them overall. Just think about how a great a deal tips are for waiters. 10-20% of gross revenue is huge.
  • workthrowaway27 9y ago
    And they often get under-reported on taxes.
    • Kalium 9y ago
      The importance of this cannot be overstated. For a long time, cash tipping functioned as a tax dodge for a sizable number of people. In theory, anyone who receives tips is obligated to track and report them. In practice, it's very easy to dramatically under-report and the odds of an audit are minimal. What cashless tipping does here is take away the ease of under-reporting.
  • ashelmire 9y ago
    You greatly overestimate the amount waiters make.
    • rhino369 9y ago
      I think you greatly underestimate how little unskilled workers generally make.
• btilly 9y ago
  My ability to choose whether to tip less for bad service is a way to encourage servers to give good service. My experience traveling is that places like France with legally mandated tip amounts have very inconsistent service quality. It can be good, but it can also be very bad. And when a server decides to make your service bad, there is nothing that you can really do about it and nobody will care.
  • betterunix2 9y ago
    My experience in Japan was that the service quality was even better than in America, and if I left a tip they assumed I did not know how to do arithmetic or that I forgot my change. Culture is probably the more important factor in the quality of service, not the ability of customers to leave or refuse a tip.
    • libertyEQ 9y ago
      Cultures differ even among "industrialized countries," so it makes little sense to compare them. Given your comments in this discussion, it is clear you have never worked in the service industry and you have little empathy for their issues.
      • betterunix2 9y ago
        In fact, my first job was a typical summer job in the service industry: I scooped ice cream at an ice cream store. There was a tip jar and our tips were pooled and divided by the hours we worked -- it was not much but it was something. I would not have complained if there were no tips and our salaries were increased a bit to compensate. No, I do not have a lot of empathy for people who are unwilling to accept change or who think that a company that introduced some new technology should be held responsible for how that technology personally affected them. I have no interest in freezing society in time and only allowing new ideas that have no negative impact on anyone to be put into practice.
        • libertyEQ 9y ago
• intopieces 9y ago
  >There is no actual need or advantage to giving people tips. Sure there is. In tipped professions, tips go directly to the waitstaff the day they are earned. It's what makes being a waiter a fantastic starter job when you move to a new city, say, or get kicked out of your home by an abusive spouse, or just need to make money without waiting 2-3 weeks for your first paycheck. It also reduces the opportunity for your employer to cheat you out of wages earned: you settle your tips at the end of the night, in full view of everyone, instead of receiving a deposit or paycheck that may take weeks to "correct."
  • makecheck 9y ago
    And employers could also arrange to pay employees more frequently. And employers could hand out checks “in full view of everyone”. Nothing requires tipping.
  • greedo 9y ago
    Nope. Our tips were pooled, and we didn't receive them until the end of the week. They had employment taxes taken out, and were also split up with busboys, dishwashers, line cooks, managers etc. This was in California in the 90's. So the idea that tips reward performance is a joke. If I was excellent one night, a coworker who was terrible would get a boost (in average) while my take was lowered.
• choward 9y ago
  Tips are just a way to trick people thinking items are less expensive than they really are. It's like service fees on your bills. Those should be included in the monthly price of the package, but since that's the price they get to advertise, they want it to appear as low as possible. It's like food prices on a menu. You have to pay an additional 20% fee over the listed prices.
• hkmurakami 9y ago
  Because price obfuscation is a real operational advantage.
• ironjunkie 9y ago
  The biggest hurdle to move away from tipping is that the people that get screwed by the tipping culture are the first one to want to stay in it. They are also the first ones to moralize people about how tipping is a must and if you don't tip, that poor waiter will be unable to make a living. NO! The ones that get away easy in this whole scheme are the owners that have now no responsibility to pay their employees correctly.
  • herbst 9y ago
    The issue here again is the screwed up minimal wage, or how tips can be accounted for that. Therefore a american exclusive issue. Source: Most people i know who earn tips, are the ones who rather refuse or minimize a tip to someone else (central europe).
  • deftturtle 9y ago
    Exactly. I quit a job where I was paid minimum plus tips, but it's not enough. The restaurant should pay more than minimum wage. Profits should be split, regardless of how tips are handled. They try to keep the cost of food at 30%, as is common in business. COG around 1/3 or less. So when we have a really busy night, there is excess profit relative to the amount of tips. Assuming tips are a constant percentage of sales, the amount we earn extra is proportionate to sales. But there is a certain minimum number of sales the owner must reach to break even. At a certain volume, profit accelerates further, but tips are still relatively constant. So my desire would be for a restaurant to split excess revenues more equitably in addition to whatever baseline wage they set.
    • will_hughes 9y ago
      > The restaurant should pay more than minimum wage. Perhaps, but it sounds more like that your minimum wage isn't set to be a living wage[1]. That's the important part - minimum wages should be set so that someone who is working full time (~40 hours/week) should be getting enough income so that they can afford a modest standard of living for themselves and a family too. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage