11 ms·

I understand that it's a bit impolite not to tip, but surely it's much more impolite to hold a grudge against someone for not tipping. If you want more money,

I understand that it's a bit impolite not to tip, but surely it's much more impolite to hold a grudge against someone for not tipping. If you want more money, put your prices up.

wccrawford 9y ago
I think there's a difference between not-tipping and telling the employee you're not going to tip them, especially by some stupid "10 pennies make a dime!" saying, as if the employee wasn't smart enough to know that or save money.
- jstanley 9y ago
  My reading was that that only came up after the employee explicitly asked for a tip. Otherwise how has he refused to tip "even a single penny"? He's merely failed to do so.
  - psychometry 9y ago
    It's a figure of speech. Don't be so obtuse.
rkangel 9y ago
I'm guessing you're not american? Their attitudes towards tips are different than, for example, those in continental Europe. The way I understand it, service staff are criminally underpaid (by our standards). This is workable because they make up for the income using tips, which works because tips are larger (I'm not sure which way around cause and effect is here). This means that when someone in the UK might withhold a tip due to bad service we're just removing a bonus, whereas in the US we're effectively removing their pay for serving us. Not tipping is a much stronger action. To respond to your 'prices' comment directly - the person delivering the pizza doesn't get to set the prices. They have to take the job that they can in a service industry that pays peanuts on the basis that people will earn tips. And the business doesn't have any incentive to do anything about it - they get to pay people less and therefore keep margins high and/or charge lower prices to compete.
- jenscow 9y ago
  This has always bothered me when I visit. I tend to over tip just to make sure. My visits are short, and the level of service would normally deserve a tip anyway.
- cossray 9y ago
  I've been in Japan for the last 6 months and I have never witnessed any tipping. You make such an attempt and it comes off as strongly rude! Different cultures for sure
- emodendroket 9y ago
  > The way I understand it, service staff are criminally underpaid (by our standards). This is workable because they make up for the income using tips, which works because tips are larger (I'm not sure which way around cause and effect is here). As I understand it this was promoted by business owners themselves (which makes a certain kind of sense because it offloads the risk of a slow night onto their employees).
- graton 9y ago
  In many states now, all employees are paid at least minimum wage. In my state that is $10+/hour. But that depends on the state. The federal government allows tip based workers to be paid only $2.13/hour by their employer but they must make at least $7.25/hour after tips. But in my state they have to be paid at least $10+/hour before tips.
  - moosey 9y ago
    WA? CA? I personally really like the fact that servers are getting paid so well here in WA, and I've been tipping a lot less as a result. When it goes up the $13, I might reconsider it altogether. Thank goodness, I dislike the entire process. I think that it makes people mean; when you are a server working for tips you have a thousand bosses, and far too many people are terrible with even a modicum of power.
- bkor 9y ago
  > I'm guessing you're not american? Their attitudes towards tips are different than, for example, those in continental Europe. It's not attitude, they do underpay certain people. But at the same time various US pizza places do include a service or delivery fee which still doesn't go to the driver. As a result you might pay a delivery fee which is isn't a delivery fee. In a restaurant if they don't get tipped enough the restaurant has to make up the difference / pay them minimum wage (though this rule to differ per state). So not paying still should result in minimum wage. From what I understood in US it's rather arbitrary whom you pay extra and which persons you do not (e.g. even pay extra to get a haircut). Once you travel more you'll notice these rules are rather arbitrary (custom in one country, totally unexpected in another). For restaurants I often don't go back to the same place twice so I don't see the point of randomly paying more. As result I'm trying to stop doing that (it feels impolite, this despite me sometimes being unique in adding giving a tip). Paying by bankcard helps to avoid tipping. Going back to pizza delivery, in my country (not US) the delivery fee is often included in the pizza. This is done by offering a pretty huge discount for picking up a pizza.
pc86 9y ago
Please explain how raising the price of a large pizza increases money in the driver's pocket.
- jstanley 9y ago
  If the company wants to get more money from the customer (to pay to the driver or not) they need to put the prices up. If the driver wants more money he needs to negotiate that with his employer. It's not the customer's responsibility to pay over the quoted price just because the driver thinks he is underpaid.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    But it is, because this is an obligation that everybody understands, even if it is not legally enforced.
    - oldandtired 9y ago
      But it isn't. The customer has no part in the wage negotiations between business and employee. All it shows is that they (business and employees) are not being honourable towards each other or to their customers. A business should set it prices so that it fulfils it responsibilities (including to it staff). If the business cannot run at the prices so set then it fails. That is not the responsibility of the customer to make the business successful. It is the business' rite of passage to provide services or goods that customers want to buy,
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        If you get on a packed morning commuter train and start playing music on a boombox, you're not breaking any laws and nobody can stop you. Nevertheless, anybody with their head screwed on is going to think you are acting like a jackass.
        oldandtired 9y ago
emodendroket 9y ago
Yeah, why doesn't the pizza driver just independently change the prices Domino's charges for pizza? It's not just "a bit impolite" to not tip service staff in an American context; it's a grave insult that most people would only do in response to service they thought was shockingly below adequacy -- and likely they wouldn't even patronize the business again after doing so.
- oldandtired 9y ago
  Up front, I'm not an American of the USA variety. I had a long argument with two Americans of the USA variety about tipping. The attitude they displayed about tipping was that it was "criminal" if a customer didn't tip. My argument was that, since I was NOT a party to the employment agreement between business and employee, I had no responsibility to make up any shortfall between minimum wage and what the business was paying the employee. It was interesting that they felt very strongly that even though you, as a customer, were not part of the the business/employee employment agreement, you still had a moral obligation to ensure that the employees got their due. They could not understand that the employee was a representative of the business and that the charges for service (of whatever kind) to the customer were set by the business by their prices. Any other charges had to be up front (and not called gratuities). The Americans of the USA variety do not seem to understand that a gratuity is a freely offered gift on the part of the person giving it and it is in no way a requirement to be given. Otherwise, it is not a gratuity. It seems to me that the attitude towards tipping in the USA makes it one of the tenth world countries where the society has no concept of an employer paying an employee a fair wage for the work being done. Now, I don't have a problem with tipping (at my discretion) for above and beyond the call of duty service. However, for normal service being provided by a business, it is not appropriate for that business and employees to have an expectation that I make up any shortfall in living wages agreed between business and employee.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Nobody cares what your philosophical objection to tipping is. Functionally, there is no difference between you and a tightwad. The custom in the United States is to tip and the entire system is built around this expectation. Whether this meets your Platonic ideal of what a "gratuity" ought to be is really just completely irrelevant. I'll go further: if you are visiting a different country you should make an effort to adhere to their basic norms of behavior. If I go to Japan and I see a shoe rack at the entryway of a building I am not going to traipse around the building in my shoes, even though nobody would think this behavior was unusual at home. Also, if I were going to carry out your policy, I would not plan on visiting the same restaurant twice.
cafard 9y ago
I can't say I held a grudge, but I found it very funny in my pizza delivery days when somebody would tip a penny. Pulling the dime trick would have made me go out as a hero to my fellow drivers.

I understand that it's a bit impolite not to tip, but surely it's much more impolite to hold a grudge against someone for not tipping. If you want more money, put your prices up.

wccrawford 9y ago

I think there's a difference between not-tipping and telling the employee you're not going to tip them, especially by some stupid "10 pennies make a dime!" saying, as if the employee wasn't smart enough to know that or save money.

jstanley 9y ago
My reading was that that only came up after the employee explicitly asked for a tip. Otherwise how has he refused to tip "even a single penny"? He's merely failed to do so.
- psychometry 9y ago
  It's a figure of speech. Don't be so obtuse.

rkangel 9y ago

I'm guessing you're not american? Their attitudes towards tips are different than, for example, those in continental Europe. The way I understand it, service staff are criminally underpaid (by our standards). This is workable because they make up for the income using tips, which works because tips are larger (I'm not sure which way around cause and effect is here). This means that when someone in the UK might withhold a tip due to bad service we're just removing a bonus, whereas in the US we're effectively removing their pay for serving us. Not tipping is a much stronger action. To respond to your 'prices' comment directly - the person delivering the pizza doesn't get to set the prices. They have to take the job that they can in a service industry that pays peanuts on the basis that people will earn tips. And the business doesn't have any incentive to do anything about it - they get to pay people less and therefore keep margins high and/or charge lower prices to compete.

jenscow 9y ago
This has always bothered me when I visit. I tend to over tip just to make sure. My visits are short, and the level of service would normally deserve a tip anyway.
cossray 9y ago
I've been in Japan for the last 6 months and I have never witnessed any tipping. You make such an attempt and it comes off as strongly rude! Different cultures for sure
emodendroket 9y ago
> The way I understand it, service staff are criminally underpaid (by our standards). This is workable because they make up for the income using tips, which works because tips are larger (I'm not sure which way around cause and effect is here). As I understand it this was promoted by business owners themselves (which makes a certain kind of sense because it offloads the risk of a slow night onto their employees).
graton 9y ago
In many states now, all employees are paid at least minimum wage. In my state that is $10+/hour. But that depends on the state. The federal government allows tip based workers to be paid only $2.13/hour by their employer but they must make at least $7.25/hour after tips. But in my state they have to be paid at least $10+/hour before tips.
- moosey 9y ago
  WA? CA? I personally really like the fact that servers are getting paid so well here in WA, and I've been tipping a lot less as a result. When it goes up the $13, I might reconsider it altogether. Thank goodness, I dislike the entire process. I think that it makes people mean; when you are a server working for tips you have a thousand bosses, and far too many people are terrible with even a modicum of power.
bkor 9y ago
> I'm guessing you're not american? Their attitudes towards tips are different than, for example, those in continental Europe. It's not attitude, they do underpay certain people. But at the same time various US pizza places do include a service or delivery fee which still doesn't go to the driver. As a result you might pay a delivery fee which is isn't a delivery fee. In a restaurant if they don't get tipped enough the restaurant has to make up the difference / pay them minimum wage (though this rule to differ per state). So not paying still should result in minimum wage. From what I understood in US it's rather arbitrary whom you pay extra and which persons you do not (e.g. even pay extra to get a haircut). Once you travel more you'll notice these rules are rather arbitrary (custom in one country, totally unexpected in another). For restaurants I often don't go back to the same place twice so I don't see the point of randomly paying more. As result I'm trying to stop doing that (it feels impolite, this despite me sometimes being unique in adding giving a tip). Paying by bankcard helps to avoid tipping. Going back to pizza delivery, in my country (not US) the delivery fee is often included in the pizza. This is done by offering a pretty huge discount for picking up a pizza.

pc86 9y ago

Please explain how raising the price of a large pizza increases money in the driver's pocket.

jstanley 9y ago
If the company wants to get more money from the customer (to pay to the driver or not) they need to put the prices up. If the driver wants more money he needs to negotiate that with his employer. It's not the customer's responsibility to pay over the quoted price just because the driver thinks he is underpaid.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  But it is, because this is an obligation that everybody understands, even if it is not legally enforced.
  - oldandtired 9y ago
    But it isn't. The customer has no part in the wage negotiations between business and employee. All it shows is that they (business and employees) are not being honourable towards each other or to their customers. A business should set it prices so that it fulfils it responsibilities (including to it staff). If the business cannot run at the prices so set then it fails. That is not the responsibility of the customer to make the business successful. It is the business' rite of passage to provide services or goods that customers want to buy,
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      If you get on a packed morning commuter train and start playing music on a boombox, you're not breaking any laws and nobody can stop you. Nevertheless, anybody with their head screwed on is going to think you are acting like a jackass.
      - oldandtired 9y ago

emodendroket 9y ago

Yeah, why doesn't the pizza driver just independently change the prices Domino's charges for pizza? It's not just "a bit impolite" to not tip service staff in an American context; it's a grave insult that most people would only do in response to service they thought was shockingly below adequacy -- and likely they wouldn't even patronize the business again after doing so.

oldandtired 9y ago
Up front, I'm not an American of the USA variety. I had a long argument with two Americans of the USA variety about tipping. The attitude they displayed about tipping was that it was "criminal" if a customer didn't tip. My argument was that, since I was NOT a party to the employment agreement between business and employee, I had no responsibility to make up any shortfall between minimum wage and what the business was paying the employee. It was interesting that they felt very strongly that even though you, as a customer, were not part of the the business/employee employment agreement, you still had a moral obligation to ensure that the employees got their due. They could not understand that the employee was a representative of the business and that the charges for service (of whatever kind) to the customer were set by the business by their prices. Any other charges had to be up front (and not called gratuities). The Americans of the USA variety do not seem to understand that a gratuity is a freely offered gift on the part of the person giving it and it is in no way a requirement to be given. Otherwise, it is not a gratuity. It seems to me that the attitude towards tipping in the USA makes it one of the tenth world countries where the society has no concept of an employer paying an employee a fair wage for the work being done. Now, I don't have a problem with tipping (at my discretion) for above and beyond the call of duty service. However, for normal service being provided by a business, it is not appropriate for that business and employees to have an expectation that I make up any shortfall in living wages agreed between business and employee.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Nobody cares what your philosophical objection to tipping is. Functionally, there is no difference between you and a tightwad. The custom in the United States is to tip and the entire system is built around this expectation. Whether this meets your Platonic ideal of what a "gratuity" ought to be is really just completely irrelevant. I'll go further: if you are visiting a different country you should make an effort to adhere to their basic norms of behavior. If I go to Japan and I see a shoe rack at the entryway of a building I am not going to traipse around the building in my shoes, even though nobody would think this behavior was unusual at home. Also, if I were going to carry out your policy, I would not plan on visiting the same restaurant twice.

cafard 9y ago

I can't say I held a grudge, but I found it very funny in my pizza delivery days when somebody would tip a penny. Pulling the dime trick would have made me go out as a hero to my fellow drivers.