3 ms·

Agreed: not tipping as an individual act in the US makes you a jerk, hurting workers without changing the system. Such change would probably have to be brought

Agreed: not tipping as an individual act in the US makes you a jerk, hurting workers without changing the system. Such change would probably have to be brought about via legislation that rolled up a combination of wage and benefits reforms.

Amezarak 8y ago
The workers don’t want the system to be changed. I worked in restaurants for six years, and most of my friends still do. Servers make 2-3x what kitchen staff do, sometimes even better. Even on the very worst nights in the cheapest restaurants I’ve never seen a server come away with less than kitchen staff. Cash tips are also often underreported. Good nights can be absolutely fantastic. I’ve earned an entire 40 hour kitchen check in three hours waiting tables. Kitchen staff wouldn’t mind, managers wouldn’t mind, probably even owners wouldn’t mind so much, but servers would be mass protesting if you eliminated tipping. They want you to raise their employer-paid wage, sure. Affordable health insurance would be great. But they absolutely do not want an end to tipping. And no, no employer is going to pay servers what they’d make with tips on an average night, and even if they did, kitchen staff would go on strike unless they got it too. And then you’re looking at food prices skyrocketing.
- dgzl 8y ago
  You make great points, but none of them justify the practice. Don't you find it curious how the rest of the world can manage this situation without tipping?
  - Amezarak 8y ago
    I don’t think there’s something so wrong with the practice that it needs to be justified. If you don’t want to tip, don’t. Believe me, not everyone tips. I’m not sure what the real problem with it (the wage issue, at least for restaurants, is a red herring$ other than it makes some people who dislike social interactions uncomfortable.
    - sharkmerry 8y ago
      do you not tip out the kitchen staff, etc? you are all part of the chain, why not pay everyone the same?
      - Amezarak 8y ago
        Is everyone at your company paid the same?
    - dgzl 8y ago
      I'll try to clarify some important reasons why tipping is bad: 1. It offsets labor cost to the generosity of customers, putting an employee's take-home in the hands of the customer. 2. This creates an interaction with the staff where they have incentive to try obtaining an additional ambiguous amount of money from the customer. 3. Sometimes this means being overly characteristic, other times it means trying upsell you to raise the total amount, effectively raising their tip. 4. Other countries reject tipping because they want their employees giving you 100% service regardless of a tip incentive (because there is none). In America, good tippers are treated better by staff (especially at bars, think stronger drinks), while bad tippers get what they get (not something you want from a food serving establishment: watch the movie Waiting and try telling me foregoing tipping is a good idea). Tipping is an abomination of a custom that we should reject as a society.
      - Amezarak 8y ago
        > 1. It offsets labor cost to the generosity of customers, putting an employee's take-home in the hands of the customer. But the customers are not obligated to tip (and some don't), giving them the option of cheaper food, and employees make a much higher average wage than they would otherwise. There's no way this is a negative. > 2. This creates an interaction with the staff where they have incentive to try obtaining an additional ambiguous amount of money from the customer. > 3. Sometimes this means being overly characteristic, other times it means trying upsell you to raise the total amount, effectively raising their tip Sure. If you have a really high care factor on a particular day you'll try to be nicer and work a little harder than you might otherwise. Most days you really don't put any more effort into it than you would in the kitchen. It's a job. I'm not seeing why this is a problem. And certainly upselling is going to be encouraged by management regardless of whether you get tips! As an aside, even though establishments (and servers, naturally) encourage it, I don't believe in tipping based on the size of the bill. I tip based on three factors: 1) how many people are in the party b) how long we were there and iii) how much I like the server. > while bad tippers get what they get (not something you want from a food serving establishment: watch the movie Waiting and try telling me foregoing tipping is a good idea). In general, watching movies to understand real behavior is not well-advised. If you are a regular, and recognized as such, and known to be a good tipper, you will most likely get better service. If you are a regular and stiff the server, 99% of the time you just get average service and a server complaining behind your back. Nobody, as a rule, messes with your food. I am saying this with not only the confidence of someone who did that kind of work for years, but as someone who now will quite readily stiff a server that I don't think deserves a tip. If you're eating at the kind of place where people would screw with your order because of your tipping, they're going to screw with it for other arbitrary reasons too. > Tipping is an abomination of a custom that we should reject as a society. Your "important reasons" seem a little specious. I get the feeling your main reason is you don't like doing it for some personal reason, but you're afraid of the social consequences if you don't. Look, if you don't like it, leave a perfunctory tip or none at all. I paid for most of my degree with cash earned from waiting tables. It's one of the best options available to people in the lower and middle classes who need flexible schedules and have no skills. There are a lot of people who don't tip. It won't hurt anyone's feelings too much, and will certainly generate less eye-rolling than the people who leave religious pamphlets or advertisements as a "tip."
  - tguedes 8y ago
    You must always understand the starting point of something. The rest of the world didn't start with tippping, hence why they adapted without. When restaurants in the United States have tried removing tipping, they lose their best waiters to rivals whom still do offer tipping, which causes them to quickly switch back to tipping. It's like credit cards and mobile payments. Why has India and China embraced mobile payments so much more than the west? Because they never had credit cards! The delta between paying in currency and paying with a mobile phone is vastly greater than the delta of paying with a credit card vs a mobile phone. So the places which had credit cards in the past, mobile payments are not as ubiquitous as in China or India. The starting point is extremely important.
    - dgzl 8y ago
      According to the first major source on Google, tipping was brought to America from Europe. Likewise, I don't think any other country but us has laws to subsidize wage for tips. Also, comparing mobile payments to credit cards isa weak comparison, they serve entirely different purposes.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The workers don’t want the system to be changed. Certainly not in traditionally tipped industries like restaurant servers where tipping culture is strong. The new jobs that employers are trying to make tipped may not have the same feature, especially those which both already have a service charge and try to push tipping. OTOH, maybe the tip pushing is more successful than I think.
  - Amezarak 8y ago
    I don't disagree with this, and I basically refuse to tip at anything other than sit-down restaurants, and I don't give my business to companies that charge automatic gratuities.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
lotsofpulp 8y ago
Tipping doesn't hurt the workers, price obfuscation always benefits the seller at the expense of the buyer.
- dgzl 8y ago
  (I think you have parent's assessment backwards, but): This exactly. When the minimum wage was created in the 30s, tipped workers were exempt if they could amass an identical wage from tips, a system some states still use. This is nothing more than business owners offsetting the cost of labor onto the generosity of customers.

Amezarak 8y ago

The workers don’t want the system to be changed. I worked in restaurants for six years, and most of my friends still do. Servers make 2-3x what kitchen staff do, sometimes even better. Even on the very worst nights in the cheapest restaurants I’ve never seen a server come away with less than kitchen staff. Cash tips are also often underreported. Good nights can be absolutely fantastic. I’ve earned an entire 40 hour kitchen check in three hours waiting tables. Kitchen staff wouldn’t mind, managers wouldn’t mind, probably even owners wouldn’t mind so much, but servers would be mass protesting if you eliminated tipping. They want you to raise their employer-paid wage, sure. Affordable health insurance would be great. But they absolutely do not want an end to tipping. And no, no employer is going to pay servers what they’d make with tips on an average night, and even if they did, kitchen staff would go on strike unless they got it too. And then you’re looking at food prices skyrocketing.

dgzl 8y ago
You make great points, but none of them justify the practice. Don't you find it curious how the rest of the world can manage this situation without tipping?
- Amezarak 8y ago
  I don’t think there’s something so wrong with the practice that it needs to be justified. If you don’t want to tip, don’t. Believe me, not everyone tips. I’m not sure what the real problem with it (the wage issue, at least for restaurants, is a red herring$ other than it makes some people who dislike social interactions uncomfortable.
  - sharkmerry 8y ago
    do you not tip out the kitchen staff, etc? you are all part of the chain, why not pay everyone the same?
    - Amezarak 8y ago
      Is everyone at your company paid the same?
  - dgzl 8y ago
    I'll try to clarify some important reasons why tipping is bad: 1. It offsets labor cost to the generosity of customers, putting an employee's take-home in the hands of the customer. 2. This creates an interaction with the staff where they have incentive to try obtaining an additional ambiguous amount of money from the customer. 3. Sometimes this means being overly characteristic, other times it means trying upsell you to raise the total amount, effectively raising their tip. 4. Other countries reject tipping because they want their employees giving you 100% service regardless of a tip incentive (because there is none). In America, good tippers are treated better by staff (especially at bars, think stronger drinks), while bad tippers get what they get (not something you want from a food serving establishment: watch the movie Waiting and try telling me foregoing tipping is a good idea). Tipping is an abomination of a custom that we should reject as a society.
    - Amezarak 8y ago
      > 1. It offsets labor cost to the generosity of customers, putting an employee's take-home in the hands of the customer. But the customers are not obligated to tip (and some don't), giving them the option of cheaper food, and employees make a much higher average wage than they would otherwise. There's no way this is a negative. > 2. This creates an interaction with the staff where they have incentive to try obtaining an additional ambiguous amount of money from the customer. > 3. Sometimes this means being overly characteristic, other times it means trying upsell you to raise the total amount, effectively raising their tip Sure. If you have a really high care factor on a particular day you'll try to be nicer and work a little harder than you might otherwise. Most days you really don't put any more effort into it than you would in the kitchen. It's a job. I'm not seeing why this is a problem. And certainly upselling is going to be encouraged by management regardless of whether you get tips! As an aside, even though establishments (and servers, naturally) encourage it, I don't believe in tipping based on the size of the bill. I tip based on three factors: 1) how many people are in the party b) how long we were there and iii) how much I like the server. > while bad tippers get what they get (not something you want from a food serving establishment: watch the movie Waiting and try telling me foregoing tipping is a good idea). In general, watching movies to understand real behavior is not well-advised. If you are a regular, and recognized as such, and known to be a good tipper, you will most likely get better service. If you are a regular and stiff the server, 99% of the time you just get average service and a server complaining behind your back. Nobody, as a rule, messes with your food. I am saying this with not only the confidence of someone who did that kind of work for years, but as someone who now will quite readily stiff a server that I don't think deserves a tip. If you're eating at the kind of place where people would screw with your order because of your tipping, they're going to screw with it for other arbitrary reasons too. > Tipping is an abomination of a custom that we should reject as a society. Your "important reasons" seem a little specious. I get the feeling your main reason is you don't like doing it for some personal reason, but you're afraid of the social consequences if you don't. Look, if you don't like it, leave a perfunctory tip or none at all. I paid for most of my degree with cash earned from waiting tables. It's one of the best options available to people in the lower and middle classes who need flexible schedules and have no skills. There are a lot of people who don't tip. It won't hurt anyone's feelings too much, and will certainly generate less eye-rolling than the people who leave religious pamphlets or advertisements as a "tip."
- tguedes 8y ago
  You must always understand the starting point of something. The rest of the world didn't start with tippping, hence why they adapted without. When restaurants in the United States have tried removing tipping, they lose their best waiters to rivals whom still do offer tipping, which causes them to quickly switch back to tipping. It's like credit cards and mobile payments. Why has India and China embraced mobile payments so much more than the west? Because they never had credit cards! The delta between paying in currency and paying with a mobile phone is vastly greater than the delta of paying with a credit card vs a mobile phone. So the places which had credit cards in the past, mobile payments are not as ubiquitous as in China or India. The starting point is extremely important.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    According to the first major source on Google, tipping was brought to America from Europe. Likewise, I don't think any other country but us has laws to subsidize wage for tips. Also, comparing mobile payments to credit cards isa weak comparison, they serve entirely different purposes.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> The workers don’t want the system to be changed. Certainly not in traditionally tipped industries like restaurant servers where tipping culture is strong. The new jobs that employers are trying to make tipped may not have the same feature, especially those which both already have a service charge and try to push tipping. OTOH, maybe the tip pushing is more successful than I think.
- Amezarak 8y ago
  I don't disagree with this, and I basically refuse to tip at anything other than sit-down restaurants, and I don't give my business to companies that charge automatic gratuities.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

lotsofpulp 8y ago

Tipping doesn't hurt the workers, price obfuscation always benefits the seller at the expense of the buyer.

dgzl 8y ago
(I think you have parent's assessment backwards, but): This exactly. When the minimum wage was created in the 30s, tipped workers were exempt if they could amass an identical wage from tips, a system some states still use. This is nothing more than business owners offsetting the cost of labor onto the generosity of customers.