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You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquette of iPad Tipping
- pwg 8y agoFrom the article: > In Connecticut, Mr. Dimyan, who says he feels his $3 coffee is pricey enough as it is, vented about the electronic tip prompts in a Twitter post earlier this month. > Square replied from its official Twitter account: “Tap `No Tip.’” Or.... Pay cash for a $3.00 item?
- Finnucane 8y agoSrsly. Is this actually a problem for anyone?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- quasse 8y agoConsidering that every aspect of my banking is now online (including depositing checks), yeah, it is actually kind a hassle to have to keep making trips to one of my bank's ATMs just to refill my supply of small bills so that I can buy coffee.
- Finnucane 8y agoAre you unable to figure out how to select 'no tip' as well? Sorry but I find this to be a triviality of overprivilege.
- dx87 8y agoYou replied to a comment saying that people should pay cash, someone says that they don't carry around cash, so now you're moving the goalposts and saying the person is privileged and doesn't know how to press the "No Tip" button. If you stop changing the subject every other comment, maybe you won't be so confused with people's responses.
- pc86 8y agoI just get $20 cash back when using my debit card for someone every now and then.
- paxys 8y agoIt is a problem because not tipping is seen as a massive faux pas in the US, and it is very possible to get publicly shamed for hitting the no tip button even if, like the article says, you are being handed a ready-to-go item.
- mikeash 8y agoIs it really? I have never seen it happen to anyone, or heard of it happening. I'd expect it to be far more common to be publicly shamed for peering at the screen while someone else is making a purchase.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ComputerGuru 8y agoA lot of people just plain don’t carry cash to spend any more. To say that five years ago (with typical CC PoS systems) that would have been fine but today thanks to these startups we’ve regressed to having to pay with cash or else need to pay 15-30% more is ridiculous.
- pc86 8y agoPlease cite an example where not using cash necessitates a 30% higher price?
- 5874-4b22-a4e0 8y agoThe requests for tips.
- mikeash 8y agoKey word being "request." It's optional, and you can choose not to pay one.
- astrodust 8y agoHow about brew your own coffee and save $2.95 on that transaction.
- thrmsforbfast 8y ago1. The sort of beans used in the $3 cup of coffee are probably quite expensive. E.g., the espresso beans that my local coffee shop uses retail at about $1 per espresso drink ($20/lb of beans with 20 or so double shots in a pound). Plus electricity, amortized cost of the espresso machine, and cost of milk. In the end, a home-made cappuccino of equivalent quality costs about $1.20 - $1.25 to make at home. 2. It takes me about 10 minutes to make a cappuccino and clean up the mess. And I'm pretty experienced with a nice setup. I am paid a lot more than $6/hour. Hell, my college side gig paid a lot more than $6/hour. 3. Coffee shops are a nice place to get work down outside of work (eg side projects or self-learning). Especially relevant for those with kids at home. So for a $3 drink, he's paying $1-$2 for an hour or more of shared work space and 10 minutes of saved labor time. That seems like a fair deal. And this is assuming that it's even possible for him to make the drink he wants when he wants it. If he works in an office without an espresso machine, it might just be straight up impossible for him to make the coffee he wants when he wants it. Now, maybe Folgers from a drip machine should be good enough. But if we're going to be pragmatic robots, we should really just buy super cheap caffeine powder in bulk and mix it into our free water.... Folgers is for snobby suckers. Plus, I bet you have some hobbies/mini-luxuries I don't care about and could scoff at ;-)
- noncoml 8y ago> Pay cash for a $3.00 item? Do HNers still use cash? It's been years since I carried a wallet that has a slot for cash.
- Simulacra 8y agoI don't feel guilt when they swivel that ipad around, more like annoyance. When I'm asked to tip for someone handing me a cup of coffee, I say no tip. We should really be pushing to get away from this relic of slavery, and don't tip unless it's absolutely clear we need to; i.e. at a sit down restaurant.
- ghrifter 8y ago> relic of slavery ... what? Tipping was something that the patricians/bourgie upper class did to help uplift the waiters/service staff in Europe. It caught on in the USA in the late 1800s and fell out of favor from that upper class in Europe by then. Largely, USA coopted a "noble gesture" from wealthy Europeans and it has persisted ever since for like a century. Anyways, I hate tipping as well.
- smhenderson 8y agoI think the parent is referring to this [1] and other articles like it that have surfaced in recent years. I only recently read about it although I can't remember where at the moment. The linked article below is very similar though. It talks about a lot more than tipping in the US having roots tied to slavery but it's mentioned. This is just a snip out of the article, it's a long read but an interesting take on tipping in the US. That's another wrinkle that many people don’t know about, right? Tipping in the United States actually dates back to slavery. The origin of tipping is really the feudal system, it’s this idea of noblesse oblige. But when tipping came to the United States, it had a real racial tinge to it, because, originally, the workers who earned tips were almost exclusively black workers—they were newly freed slaves. There was this massive anti-tipping movement to protest the practice, a resounding populist movement that actually got anti-tipping bills passed in six states across the country, including Washington state and many southern states. What’s interesting is that that movement, the anti-tipping populist one, ending up spreading to Europe and succeeding, because the labor movement picked it up and said ‘we are professionals, and we shouldn’t have to live on tips, because we should be paid by our employers.’ That’s why you see so little tipping in Europe. What we started here spread there and actually killed it at the origin in Europe. We, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction in the states. The restaurant industry, which was hiring newly freed slaves as tipped workers, really wanted the right to hire these workers but pay them next to nothing. So they put forth this idea that they were valueless and really shouldn’t have to be paid by their employers. They essentially made the argument that newly freed slaves should get a zero dollar wage. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/18/i-dare-you-to-read-this-and-still-feel-ok-about-tipping-in-the-united-states/?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/18/i-dar...
- bootlooped 8y agoI dislike the tip-at-purchase-time paradigm. I haven't even seen my order yet, how am I supposed to evaluate how much of a tip it warranted? But that gets to the heart of it really: tipping is more about subsidizing payroll than rewarding good service.
- noncoml 8y agoDoorDash does this as well, and I don't understand why. Why should I commit to a tip before my order is delivered? At one occasion the delivery guy completely forgot about my delivery until I called 1 hour later saying I still see the food waiting at the restaurant. I still had to pay the tip.
- frereubu 8y agoThis is the heart of it for me. If I tip cash, even if the tip jar is next to the register I always make a point of going back to tip at the end of my drink / food if the experience was good. A digital version should be some kind of contactless payment point at the door where you can easily set a tip amount and tap your phone / card.
- paxys 8y agoOr just adjust your payment after the fact, like Uber and Lyft. It would be pretty easy for Square to implement this.
- goerz 8y agoSince we're talking about coffee shops: the Starbucks app allows to add a tip for a certain period of time after a a mobile order (something like an hour)
- asdff 8y agoDo you use Square every day? The last time I went somewhere with specifically a Square reader was probably two weeks ago. Even if I went back tomorrow, am I going to remember my last experience enough to judge a tip? Even if I go to the same coffee shop and use the same Square every morning, unless I'm holding a grudge it's de facto back to front end tipping rather than upon services rendered.
- jjxw 8y agoHow is this any different than not tipping with cash? Everyone behind you in line can see whether you put anything into the tip jar. Or is it that there's some plausible deniability that you can claim with not having cash which isn't present for card tips?
- X6S1x6Okd1st 8y agoYou have to make a specific action to not tip in one. The other if you make they minimal amount of actions (pay for your item, grab the item) then you haven't taken the action of not tipping. Also the visual difference between tipping 20% and 10% is huge with this, it's hard to tell with cash and change
- behringer 8y agoand I tip 15 percent, not 20, so if there's no 15 option I just give 10. And that's only in a sit down restaurant I never tip if I'm not being waited on.
- SilasX 8y ago“But my A/B tests proved that a 20% rather than a 15% default led to an increase in total tipping, and vindicating my claim of a downside-free benefit to ‘nudging’ customers to tip more!”
- quotha 8y agoDownside is you may be 'nudging' your customers not to come back!
- randyrand 8y agoThe introduction of iPad-tip-for-everything ridiculousness has made me reevaluate tipping in general. I've found myself tipping less even for the more normal things, all because the iPads forced me to start thinking about it. I often tap "no tip" on Square terminals.
- foolfoolz 8y agoa great rule of thumb is if you paid cash where they don’t have these ipads to ask for a tip, is a tip ever expected?
- mmmBacon 8y agoSometimes I pay cash to avoid the awkwardness of the whole tipping thing with the iPad. This allows me to choose to tip what I want rather than default to 20%.
- n1000 8y agoHaha. Glad to see this. I’m new to the US and thought the tip was expected...
- behringer 8y agoThe tip is expected only when you're at a real restaurant. No tip is required for fast food places. No tip is required up front before you're served. You should tip hair stylists and restaurant staff that brings you food or drink. I generally only tip 15 percent and I never tip at a buffet.
- fx32s 8y agoWhy should you tip the hair stylists though. Isn't the service exactly what you pay for in the first place (same as taxi/uber)? For food I can kind of understand of since they decouple serving and preparation + ingredients. Note that I am not American and am new to tipping. Just curious
- behringer 8y agoOh no I don't think we should be tipping anybody, but these are the industries that abuse their employees. Hair stylists, taxis, sit-down restaurants, they all usually need tips. You don't tip the stylist though if it's the owner as of course they would just set their price.
- mikeash 8y agoIt's really just a matter of whether it's customary, which is only loosely related to whether it actually makes any sense. Your taxi driver gets most if not all of your fare, but it's still expected to tip them. A grocery store cashier gets none of your payment directly, but you don't tip them. Don't try to make sense of it, just do what others do.
- ghaff 8y agoThen there are a fair number of cases where reasonable people disagree. Maid at hotel, others at hotels/parking attendants/etc., Uber/Lyft, the subject of this article, limo driver, bartender (in a bar or at an event), and so forth. You can tip in all those situations but I'd argue it's not the strong expectation that tipping at a sit-down restaurant is.
- jjuhl 8y agoNo guilt. No tip. Never. If they want more than the listed price they should raise the listed price. Social customs/expectations/guilt/whatever be damned. I never tip. Never have, never will.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 8y agoThat's a bit extreme. I hope you don't eat at sit down restaurants often.
- pc86 8y agoOr the same one more than once. Stiffing waiters in the same establishment more than one is a risky proposition at best.
- wetpaws 8y agoThat's not stiffing, the price is written on a check, so what you probably mean is "economic transaction". Paying waiters low on the other hand is stiffing.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 8y agoThat's not how all the players view it. Like it or not just because you feel justified in something doesn't mean that others will.
- wetpaws 8y agoWhen you buy products on Amazon, do you look for more expensive or less expensive listings?
- X6S1x6Okd1st 8y agoThat's a false equivalency.
- CryoLogic 8y agoIf anyone here has been to Japan, tipping is handled much more elegantly and with a lot more business integrity. Instead of guilt-tripping customers into tipping, businesses in Japan up their prices if they need more money. I remember once when I was in Osaka I was at a really good sushi place that I had visited several times prior. There was no tip option on the receipt (didn't see it anywhere in Japan) and there was no tip jar. I asked the server if I could tip. She told me they couldn't accept my tip because they believed the food was priced correctly. It was a totally different experience than in America where not tipping gets you poor service and unhappy waiters.
- acchow 8y agoMy parents didn't know when they went to Japan; they tipped at a restaurant and walked out the door. They were promptly chased down the street and their money handed back to them.
- kwhitefoot 8y agoI had the opposite experience in Raleigh, North Carolina. My family and I ate at the ten ten Chinese buffet and when we paid I, as a good European, didn't add a tip, it just never occurred to me and anyway the only service we had received was a waiter slopping pink lemonade into glasses from a jug as he wandered around the tables. We were chased by an irate waiter asking why I hadn't tipped. So I tipped him a single dollar bill to make it clear how little the service was worth.
- tfha 8y agoIn Japan, a tip can often even been seen as offensive. "What, you work at a curry shop? Here's a few hundred yen you poor thing." sort of message that is implied by tipping.
- kbumsik 8y agoExactly in Korea too. Tipping is often considered as if a generous rich guy throws their money to a poor man with sympathy. I think tipping is very rare in most of asian countries.
- rayiner 8y agoOwn your privilege and tip the goddamn 15-20%. If you can afford to spend $3 on a coffee, you can afford to spend $3.60 on a coffee. You almost certainly make a lot more than the guy or girl behind the counter. (I love the iPad payment thingy because I always feel guilty never having cash to put in a tip jar.)
- rabidonrails 8y agoYour response misses the point. It isn't that someone who pays $3 for coffee can't afford the extra 60c but rather that the coffee should just cost 3.60. Further, is there a difference between someone serving a full meal and someone that is just punching buttons?
- euroclydon 8y agoTips are a low tech way to scale a service worker's pay with the volume the store does that day.
- monktastic1 8y agoI can sympathize with the feeling of wanting to share with those less fortunate, and that tipping provides me with a non-awkward way of doing so (instead of "here, want a dollar?"). But this: > If you can afford to spend $3 on a coffee, you can afford to spend $3.60 on a coffee. sounds like a logical fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox#Paradox_of_the_heap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox#Paradox_of_the... It might be that $3 is right at the limit of what I am willing to spend on a cup of coffee, and that doesn't deserve a "check your (expletive) privilege."
- rayiner 8y agoWhen a coffee costs $3, the marginal buyer will be willing to pay $3. But many other buyers would have been willing to pay more, i.e. they would've bought the coffee at $3.50 or $4. In economics, this is called "consumer surplus." Tipping as it exists in the U.S. is a way to share some of this consumer surplus with the wait staff. If you really would not have bought the coffee at $3.50, then don't tip. But the majority of people probably would've bought the coffee at $3.50 or even $4.50. Unless you are really one of those marginal customers, you should just tip. (Note that people tipping is also good for the marginal customer. Like other forms of price discrimination, it allows the provider to price the product lower and allows customers to purchase the product who otherwise could not have done so.)
- zackmorris 8y agoAfter losing my keister in the housing bubble I made a deal with myself to never use credit again and to always tip at least 20% to make the world a better place. Pretty much all non-salary jobs are underpaid now by a factor of 2-4 so tips can add up to more than a paycheck. I also like to think that it makes up for the people who undertip or don't tip at all. Edit: I now have one $2000 expense card that I pay off each month and typically stays under a 50% balance to build my credit.
- bhhaskin 8y agoBut what if tipping is a big part of the reason people are underpaid? What if by tipping you are just moving the issue along.
- zackmorris 8y agoI think this is most likely a fallacy. A positive action by me to increase wages shouldn't be blamed for the negative actions of others (mostly business owners) to suppress wages. I could see taking responsibility though for not choosing to eat at more expensive restaurants that generally pay their staff better. Probably what it comes down to is that restaurants are entertainment so aren't needed by society the way that grocery stores are. Then again, so is just about everything else in our economy. 10% of our labor could supply all our basic needs, the rest is just wasted keeping up with the Joneses. What I'm saying is that there may be no free market solution to the service industry being underpaid, which is why I support a $15 minimum wage and universal basic income, among other things.
- dwater 8y agoNot tipping in America rarely if ever gets you poor service. You have to return to the same business and happen to get served by the same server enough times for them to remember you. It does deprive the server of a living wage.
- frereubu 8y agoA British friend of mine was chased down the street and harangued by a waitress when he tipped 10% (pretty standard in the UK for decent-if-not-amazing service). I get the feeling they'd remember someone who left a tip which was that underwhelming, let alone no tip, wouldn't they?
- prophesi 8y agoWas this a small family-owned cafe? I know a lot of people in the service industry who would love to chase down certain customers down the street if they were allowed to.
- 5874-4b22-a4e0 8y agoWhen dealing with 8 or so tables, I generally wouldn't be able to remember who sat where unless they were particularly notable, ex. extra messy, or annoying. I'd generally get decent tips too. few dollars - five dollars on a buffet lunch meal ranging from $8 a person. That said, its just the right thing to do for servers are trying their best. Finding a few dollars per table makes their day a little brighter.
- ghaff 8y agoThe UK may be one of the most potentially confusing places. Some places where a waiter takes your order include "optional" service charges and others don't. And, of the ones that don't, some prompt you to add a tip on the PoS terminal and others don't.
- IshKebab 8y agoIt's not really confusing. Basically, don't tip anywhere except restaurants with table service where you pay at the table after the food. Then it is 10% (unless they did particularly good or bad service). Pay at the bar before receiving food? Don't tip. Buying drinks at a bar? Don't tip. Ordering an Uber? Don't tip. Etc.
- patorjk 8y agoI've noticed this with food trucks (like the article mentions) and some mall food court places. It definitely feels awkward. It's resulted in me avoiding these types of places or using cash. It's kind of a relief to know that it bothers other people.
- Balgair 8y agoThe 'politics' of tipping aside, one thing that really grinds my gears is that they calculate the tip after taxes are applied. I feel that the tips should be calculated based on the exchange I had with the establishment/person and that the taxes should considered separate from our interaction. Like, here's the 20% tip on the 100$ I spent. Not, here's the 20% tip on the $100 + 5% tax, $105 total. I know why they do this, it's more money to them, but, to me, it's disingenuous (or they don't realize it being done this way, which may be worse).
- Waterluvian 8y agoIt was never like that. They just exploit the digitization of tipping to con you out of a bit more money. Tipping is being fundamentally exploited as a way to make everything look cheaper.
- spdionis 8y agoIsn't the problem the other way around? In Europe taxes are included in the price from the start.
- late2part 8y agoThat's because the VAT paradigm obscures the taxes; in US and some other places the amount paid is separated into "cost" and "tax."
- anigbrowl 8y agoAfter all, those muffins just materialized in the display case, everything here functions so seamlessly that I don't really know why these self-styled 'employees' are cluttering up the place.
- sp332 8y agoIs that what you tip for at a coffee shop? For someone to arrange muffins for you to look at?
- DesiLurker 8y agotell me this kind stranger, what is it I do tip for? 'cause I've never figured this out, is the muffin supposed to land itself in my hand or is the plate supposed to walk itself from the cook to me. these are the basics of any restaurant. why should I have to pay 'extra' for this? and who decided 20% is the right tip amount for the right way to deliver your food to you. OTOH if it is optional then why frown when I decide to exercise my options. As I see it its just a way for restaurants to punt the responsibility of providing livable wages to workers and externalizing every nickle and dime to me the consumer. its just a way to put you on the spot and shame you into paying extra.
- monktastic1 8y agoThe question is: why not build the cost of those activities into the price of the food itself, instead of leaving it to customers to figure out?
- anigbrowl 8y agoBecause the employer wants to display a low price to attract you into the store, labor protections in the US tend to be weak, and employers tend not to like transparency about their labor costs - it's an uninteresting distraction to most consumers and a free gift to the competition. There's a first mover disadvantage and if the relationship between employer and staff is adversarial then employees generally lack leverage in corporate-decision-making.
- natch 8y agoPay your 20% and where exactly does guilt need to come into it? Pay and move on.
- booleandilemma 8y agoWhenever I tip via iPad I never get a thank you in return, I’m not sure they even notice.
- frostyj 8y agoIf you don't think there is anything worth tipping, don't tip. Simple.
- minimaxir 8y agoSemirelated question: how do you feel about tipping for Uber/Lyft? A few informal polls awhile ago (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/theres-still-no-consensus-about-tipping-on-uber https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/theres-stil...) couldn't come to a consensus.
- PunchTornado 8y agoalmost never, unless an exceptional event
- mikeash 8y agoI really liked it when Uber started up and tips were not part of the experience. That was always an annoying part of taxis. Now that it's standard for Uber and similar companies, well, it sucks but there we are. It's always been customary to tip taxi drivers, so it's not weird, just an unfortunate failure to change the culture.
- lh7777 8y agoI never tipped Uber drivers, but I stopped using Uber before they added the option to tip through the app. On Lyft, I've always tipped ~15% if the car was clean and the driving seemed safe, often more for <$10 rides. From what I've read, it's not easy to make a good living driving for Uber/Lyft, so adding a bit of a tip doesn't bother me too much. Sometimes I take a regular cab home from the airport because the Port Authority has (seemingly) intentionally made using app-based services as inconvenient as possible. At least now everyone has Square for credit card payments, but the cab drivers often have the minimum automatic tip set to 25% (or even 30%!) so I have to take the time to manually enter something more reasonable. I'm sure they get a significant number of passengers who are in a hurry and can't be bothered to do so.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoBack in college when I drove pizza delivery, I used to like being assigned to the upper class neighborhoods.. Nice and safe. That is until, in my experience, I saw how little they tipped, and how much they expected for it. Yet when I delivered in the neighborhoods full of gangs, working class folks, and migrant farmworkers, I'd receive generous tips for my delivery. It was quite striking. The poor know what a tip means to another poor person.
- rayvy 8y agoI tip not because of guilt, or because I feel like I need to pay for the service. I tip because I frequent local restaurants, bars, coffee bars, etc - and the 20% is a little good will towards the establishment. How can I walk around complaining about Amazon and big corp dominance when I won't even cough up 20% for a small local place? *note how I'm only mentioning local establishments. To hell with everyone else
- late2part 8y agoIf Amazon and other big corps cost 20% less would you be okay with them?
- prefer_not_to 8y agoJesus christ, just tip and don't worry about it. You goddamn nerds.
- AnabeeKnox 8y agoJust don't tip and don't worry about it.
- laken 8y agoI tend to tip more than average, though I usually consider small counter transactions (like a $3 coffee) to be worth a 15% tip max. I don't like when the kiosks are configured to either not have 15% as an option, or make it look like the bare minimum. I do feel that social pressure from the people behind me or the cashier to tip at least 20% which is the middle option on some of these, or on some even 25%. Those I feel are often quite high for the level of service.
- dougmwne 8y agoI grab an ice cream about once a week. It's normal Sysco ice cream, nothing fancy, but the location is always popular with a line. The cashier aggressively points out the tipping buttons and watches closely while you make the selection. I watch nearly every person ahead of me tip a dollar for a 4 dollar ice cream. A dollar every thirty seconds. I'm quite jealous of that hourly rate.
- rb808 8y agoWhat I would love is to use tech to be able to split the tips. In a restaurant I'd love to tip the guys in the kitchen who went to culinary school, the guy who worked in the fields to grow and collect the vegetables, the people who cleaned the restaurant. As for the person that wrote down your order and asked if "everything is OK", they can go jump.
- rtkwe 8y agoThose other people are in the more reasonable regime of being fairly compensated for their work directly though.
- markbnj 8y agoAs the father of a current bartender/waitress and the husband of a former I'd like to say: please don't use the servers as a lever to change this thing, because if they couldn't rely on tips they couldn't do the job. And then I thought about it a bit. The question I don't have an answer to: if people stopped tipping tomorrow, and the average tip was distributed somehow into the price of the food, would establishments be able to pay a living wage? If they can't, then that only heaps additional condemnation on the system imo.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> As the father of a current bartender/waitress and the husband of a former I'd like to say: please don't use the servers as a lever to change this thing, because if they couldn't rely on tips they couldn't do the job. In purely effectiveness terms, that's why they are the perfect lever—in the current pay regime, they can't afford to do the job without tips, so a sufficiently broad practice of withholding tips that renders them unreliable for even the workers that would previously thrive under tipping will force labor pressure on businesses to end the current tip-expected pay regime and collapse the tipping system. Now, the interim state might be near-apocalyptic for servers, but it there is probably no more effective way to bring the tipping system down.
- adrr 8y agoIf everyone stopped tipping for a month the industry would be forced to change as the labor pool would dry up until wages are increased. Tipping is part of business strategy to bait and switch people with lower prices. It's becoming common to hide the real price of things as we see with tips, resort fees, service charges, booking/ticket printing fees etc. Just give us the real price upfront.
- PunchTornado 8y agoSo you walk into a place, you say you want a muffin, they hand it to you and expect a 20% tip for that? Like wtf?! US is weird.
- justfor1comment 8y agoThere are also restaurants in the US where the tip is optional or mandatory depending on the party size. If you and 2 other friends go to a restaurant, tipping is optional and you can decide the percentage. If you and 5 other friends go to a restaurant, tipping is mandatory and fixed at ~20%. And people wonder why I am asocial.
- SahAssar 8y agoMandatory tipping isn't tipping, it's just the price of the service. This is ridiculous.
- frebord 8y agoYeah I've started doing no tip on the iPad, but I feel guilty every time, which is ridiculous really even though I wouldn't have thought twice about it 3 years ago when I wasn't prompted to leave a tip. Also tipping a bartender for popping a cap off my beer or pulling a lever on a tap... Also tipping in a full service restaurant is equally fucking weird. Like why am I paying you a percentage of the food I order, why don't I just pay you (how good a job you did) * (how long I sat at your table).
- BooneJS 8y agoOn the other hand, Peet's and Starbucks have apps that you pay with and you don't have to enter a tip to get out of the screen. Starbucks lets you know that the option to tip will be available for 1 hour.
- neonate 8y agohttp://archive.is/QLnVR http://archive.is/QLnVR
- cryptozeus 8y agoI noticed a great tipping system in the oberoi grand of Kolkata city in India. When I was about to tip the bell boy for bringing my luggage to the room, he graciously declined. He continued to explain that there is no personal tipping in the entire hotel. If I enjoy the stay and like the service, At the check out time you can leave the tip in an envelope near the front desk. This was great because for the next 3 days I enjoyed the great service without thinking about whom to tip how much during every interaction.
- nashashmi 8y agoBefore Square and credit card display readers, shops would have a jar in the front asking for tips. Rarely people gave tips. But some would. I can understand tips at restaurants for waiters. I cannot understand tips at coffee shops and pizza places without waiters. What is the tip for? Pray tell.
- tptacek 8y agoHacker News threads about tipping are always rough. US tipping is not complicated. You are being asked to share with a service worker's employer some of the burden of compensating them. The notion that you're rewarding exceptional service is a polite fiction. Depending on where you are, the tip is either expected or it isn't. Unfortunately for the mindset of a typical software developer, there won't be much clarity on this point; you'll have to rely on context clues to determine whether and how much of a tip is expected. You can reasonably withhold a tip from someone who is actively hostile or incompetent, but really all you're doing is making yourself feel better. If payment and the tip is expected up-front, you can either buy into the cost-sharing dynamic of tipping, or you can not. Very few people in the US are going to admire a principled stance you take against tipping. The moral of the opening breakfast scene in Reservoir Dogs was not that Steve Buscemi was a smart and principled dude. Harvey Keitel was the one you were expected to admire in that scene. A very easy, relatively pleasant way to get through life in the US if you're well-off enough that you routinely buy coffee in expensive coffee shops: just always tip. Anywhere there's a tip line. You never have to figure anything out, and sometimes people really appreciate it.
- SilasX 8y agoI'm not sure that's a relevant point to make in the context of this article, because there's widespread disagreement (leaning toward "no") on whether tipping for that muffin is required in the sense that a tip for dining-with-table-service is. A guaranteed 20% for a coffee shop muffin at the counter is definitely not expected. Or were you just intending a pre-emptive general critique of the three people who might use this story to advocate tipping 0% for table service? I think that might merit waiting for the one thread it happens in.
- geggam 8y agoJust say No. We can recycle that old campaign and put it to good use.
- tptacek 8y agoYou can be the person who doesn't tip the counter-service worker if you like. The iPad didn't create that tipping expectation; before there were iPads, there were glass jars full of cash. People probably won't judge you for not tipping at a coffee shop. Like I said, I find it's easier to go through life just tipping wherever it's asked, and not worrying whether I'm being an asshole to service workers. I'm not saying you would be; I'm saying, that's one conundrum I like never having on my mind. (20% on a muffin is like 80 cents, by the way).
- sys_64738 8y agoI don't want to touch your dirty iPad. Thanks, but no thanks.
- justfor1comment 8y agoTipping makes it very difficult to stick to a budget. This was a big problem for me when I was a student. I wanted to limit every meal to $10. Since neither tips nor taxes are included in the prices at restaurants it became infeasible to eat out. Ended up cooking most of the food at home.
- rtkwe 8y agoIf you're already setting a budget that strictly why not just take the 2 minutes to figure out what pre-tax&tip total would keep you under $10? With 7.5% sales tax and a reasonable 15% tip 8 dollars pretax comes to 9.80.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- module0000 8y ago>> You press the middle button so you don’t look cheap to the people behind you in line The reasoning is "so you don't look cheap". If "looking cheap" matters to you, shame will rule your life and your actions. What other people think generally does not matter - assuming "other people" are not your boss, spouse, or someone in a direct position to affect you. Not trying to make a case for becoming a sociopath, but they definitely don't experience that guilt described in the article.
- potbelly83 8y agoNever tipped when buying a coffee, never had any problem with service. I don't think they really expect you to tip either, it's just the program they use has the tipping option built in.
- colemickens 8y agoI don't know a single service worker or single former service worker that doesn't tip 15 or 20% as a minimum. Everywhere. The pay disparity between tech workers and service workers is so severe, it really pains and confuses me to see so much hand wringing about it. And if you're protesting the tipping process by not tipping workers who make less than minimum wage, please don't go around acting like you're noble or better than those who tip (as has happened multiple times in this thread) That attitude serves nothing but to soothe your conscience.
- logfromblammo 8y agoHere is is again, the guide to tipping in the US. If you are not receiving an individually-tailored service, do not tip. Never tip based on an after-tax amount. If you receive any portion of your goods or services gratis, tip as though you were charged the full amount. When paying cash, round up to the nearest whole dollar. Never tip before the service has been rendered, and only tip if you are satisfied with it. For restaurant table service, hair stylist, tattooing, or other personal care or beauty services, tip 15% of your before-tax bill total. Adjust 5% up or down in response to perceived service quality. For a buffet restaurant or food delivery, tip 10% of your before-tax bill total. Do not adjust the amount; if the delivered order is incorrect or unforgivably tardy, do not tip. For bartenders, tip at least 10% of your tab before you leave, minimum $1 per drink, even if you are paying by the drink. If service was not courteous and timely, do not tip. Just leave, and do not return. If you'll be getting too drunk to remember the tip at the end of the night, pay it as you go, with each drink. Don't tip in advance; that's for low-tippers who want to look like big shots. Baristas are not bartenders. If you want bar tips, get a liquor license and put booze in the coffee. For restaurant counter service, drive-through, street stand, fair kiosk, or food truck, do not tip. This is the portion relevant to the article. You do not get a tip for a bog-standard service mandated by the employee manual. Operating the point-of-sale terminal and handing me the goods I just paid for is exactly that. No, I will not pay you 20% to hand me a muffin. If an employee suggests or implies that I should do so, I am less likely to return. If that tip suggestion is inappropriately embedded in the point-of-sale process, that's a management problem, and I definitely won't return. For taxi/driver/shuttle service, tip 10% of the fare. Adjust upward for very good service, but do not tip less than 10% unless you are tipping nothing for very poor service. For baggage handling or porter services, tip 1% the cost of your ticket, delivered item cost, or daily room rate, per bag/parcel, minimum $1 each. For hotel concierge, 10% your daily room rate, per service, on checkout. For hotel maid service, tip 1% your daily room rate, per day, minimum $1, attached to a note at the end of each week, or left in the room on checkout. For independent service contractors/small businesses, such as house cleaners or personal trainers, do not tip, but give an appreciation bonus if you wish on your yearly customer anniversary, or slightly in advance of the year-end holidays.
- gmjoe 8y agoI think a lot of the frustration isn't from tipping... it's from tip creep. To many people, tipping feels like an unfair relic of the past that can be associated with negatives like racism (servers of color receiving less), pay disparity (why do underpaid servers get to benefit from tips but not underpaid line cooks), etc. At least here in NYC there's been a growing movement of "tip included" restaurants and coffee shops, which feels like social progress. But when my bakery added a prominent tip jar (not even a cafe!), when Uber added a reminder about tipping after each ride -- it can feel like society moving backwards.
- make3 8y agotip included.. that should mean no tip, tip included in the price of the thing, aka salary
- ilovetux 8y agoI've worked in food service for many years. I worked in kitchens for many years and I have to say I hate tips! Now-a-days I'm more fortunate and don't work in kitchens anymore. My biggest problems with tips is when I'm making (for example) $10/hour and I see the waitstaff counting out the hundreds of dollars in tips they got that night when I get $400/wk minus taxes. It is disparaging that one's performance while working in a kitchen is not only not rewarded, but the reward for good kitchen performance is actually given to the waitstaff. Just to be clear, I do tip. I usually just go with $5, $10, $15 or $20. If the order is really large I might do the math just to make sure I'm in the ballpark. If the food is particularly good, I will send a $20 back "to the chef".
- MikeBVaughn 8y agoI mean, I just hit the 20% button and go on with my day. I'm already buying drinks at an expensive coffee shop; I'm not going to get hung up on sixty cents on a purchase that's (comparatively speaking) stupidly extravagant. I usually end up throwing that much in the tip jar anyway when I pay in cash. I don't really feel like this bears deeper analysis above and beyond the standard discourse about the ugly issues regarding wages for service jobs in the US.
- b1r6 8y agoI just strongly avoid using any business that deals with tipping. This way I don't worry about tipping calculus. In the case that I do engage with such a business, I only tip when there is objectively individual work being done: Eating out at a table? Tip the waiter 15%. Waiter was extremely rude? Tip the waiter 0%. Picking up food at a counter after ordering online? Tip 0%. Bringing bags into a hotel? Refuse help so I don't have to tip. I really wish tipped workers would just get paid an honest wage to begin with, meaning the true cost of labor would be baked into product prices!
- kreeWall 8y agoI was very curious about this and so whipped up a quick poll to share with friends - feel free to fill it out if you feel so inclined (US only). https://goo.gl/forms/ppBBDCkgoeoFJ6tu1 https://goo.gl/forms/ppBBDCkgoeoFJ6tu1
- parliament32 8y agoThe part that really gets me is that they expect you to tip before you receive any sort of service. You want a tip on how well you took my order so far? I go out of my way to add to tip jars after I've actually been served (my latte has a nice heart on top? awesome). But this whole idea of tip-before is ridiculous. I never tip up front if the machine asks for it, and I feel no guilt whatsoever.
- parliament32 8y agohttps://archive.fo/CILOc https://archive.fo/CILOc
- notacoward 8y agoSome of the anti-tipping points might be good in an abstract kind of way, but people who make hundreds of thousands of dollars moralizing to people who make much less and have no control of the situation over a couple of bucks ... it's not a good look. I tip because the people I tip seem to appreciate it. It brings a little more happiness into the world. I could adopt an attitude that makes neither of us happy, but why?
- dragonwriter 8y ago> I tip because the people I tip seem to appreciate it. It brings a little more happiness into the world. I could adopt an attitude that makes neither of us happy, but why? Each individual tipping decision in isolation is a positive, but the aggregate together preserves a system which is a negative. There's a collective action problem, and the moralizers are trying to drive defection from the existing regime to the point where it breaks the problematic system. Also, the moralizers aren't mostly moralizing to the recipients, but to others in their same social strata. They aren't trying to get tied workers to defect from typing, they are trying to get other people like themselves to stop tipping.
- notacoward 8y agoAll of which only has any effect other than to hurt service workers only if everyone goes along. Which ain't gonna happen. Therefore, those who continue in that vein either consider the outcome acceptable, or just don't really even care enough to think about it for that one second. Either way, still not a good look.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> All of which only has any effect other than to hurt service workers only if everyone goes along. It doesn't require everyone, or even close to everyone, but it does require a sufficiently large portion of the customer base to render the tipping regime untenable. > Which ain't gonna happen. I don't think that's actually clear, once you recognize that it doesn't take everyone.
- jason_slack 8y agoI live in the U.S. Here tipping is almost always expected or at least asked for. It can be uncomfortable. Plenty of comments here about this. However, I grew up being told that I should work hard, everyday and earn my paycheck. I was taught that expecting a tip was wrong because I should give my very best, always, regardless of how much money I was earning. If I was unhappy with the money, find a job that paid better. But always give 110% at every job. When I was younger I worked at a Starbucks. I was in charge of counting the tips each week and distributing them. The formula was based upon how many hours you worked that week. It usually worked out to be around $20-something, sometimes more, around holidays maybe $40-$50 something. I never cared how much. However other co-workers would cry if it was low because they felt like they were "stiffed". Not because they did a bad job, but because they just expected good tips. Recently in China, I stayed at the same hotel for a few months. When it was time for me to leave I asked my co-workers how much should I leave the maid for a tip. After all she cleaned my room for months. They told me don't leave her anything. It would be considered an insult because it implied that she didn't do her very best and maybe more money would have made her do better work. I was a bit taken back because I expected to tip her. I asked a few more co-workers and they all said the same thing. Don't tip her. Instead what I could do if I really wanted to was to leave her something that wasn't money. Like a gift of some sort. I left her a new Vivo X20 Android phone.
- irrational 8y agoIf I sit down for a meal I always tip 20% (except for that one time the server was so very bad and only got 10%). Otherwise I always tip 0%.
- tareqak 8y agoDid this thread trigger some sort "too many comments vs. upvotes" threshold? I think the discussion here was mostly civil.
- arunmk 8y agoThe original thought behind tipping was to help waiting staff. Nowadays iPad based tipping has become the norm in self-service and even carry-out situations. I believe the article is focussing on that aspect.
- gremlinsinc 8y agoMy rule of thumb: I only tip for full table service, and the amount depends on how full our drink cups remain. I have tipped though for holidays and things - esp. for places I frequent where the person behind the counter gives exceptional service.
- diegs 8y agoI can afford to tip, so I tip. I pay 20% more a year for the privilege of consuming expensive capuccinos and muffins served by people who are being priced out of the city in which I live by my profession. Whether or not the system is just, the businesses are compensating their employees fairly or not, or my tips are going to one person or the whole group, I feel better about not needing to worry about such things, eliciting a good reaction from the employees I interact with on a regular basis, and putting more of my money into the local economy in which I live and interact with on a daily basis. I can't solve any of the macro problems, but for a minimal cost to me as a highly paid tech worker, I feel good about my contribution to the micro problems. YMMV.
- albertgoeswoof 8y agoExcept you are actually exacerbating the problem by subsidising companies that don’t pay their workers properly.
- objektif 8y agoSo where does it stop? Should software developers expect a tip if someone uses their service? Does it matter how mich money they make? I bet some restauranteurs make so much that they can pass some down to their employees. I am completely against tipping unless the service is exceptional. If restaurants in Europe can afford to pay their employees living wages, it should be possible here as well.
- xane 8y agoI am sick of these practices. They will only hurt those who work for tips. I stopped tipping once I realized this borders on extortion. I don't give a damn you won't serve me next time, your manager will have a different opinion when proper reviews will appear online. It will also push me into making my own food. I got really fed up with this practice when certain gas stations put labels that filling yourself is against the law. Tipping IS A MATTER OF CHOICE and is NOT OBLIGATORY!!! If you think subversive actions like coercing people to leave tips will go unnoticed, dear managers, YOU ARE WRONG! Business doesn't grow through pulling strings but through good service. It's our money you work for, not the other way around. Any attempts of coercion will be met with only the due amount. Tired of this stupid thing, freakin' enough.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]