4 ms·

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?

by dgzl 8y ago

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."
- dgzl 8y ago
  Edit: apologies if this is sounding hostile. Our inner thread has reached it's max depth, so I'm replying here. We'll probably have to end this conversion because of that, so here's my final response: > But the customers are not obligated to tip > 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. > There's no way this is a negative. So you're telling me if I'm a regular at a spot and I want to strictly pay the required amount for (food+environment+service) and nothing more, then I should accept "average service" and being complained about in the kitchen? That's exactly how you lose regular customers. > 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. Employees should be just as nice and work just as hard as the employer asks them, because that's their job. The people with the money (employers and customers) make the rules, not the worker. > If you are a regular, and recognized as such, and known to be a good tipper, you will most likely get better service. This is exactly the behavior we're trying to stop. Service should always be good. > Nobody, as a rule, messes with your food. 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. I know several people who've either been first-hand responsible or been whiteness to others performing gross things to people's food. This is edge-case for sure, but still a reality. > 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. My main reasons are: A) tips are taxed and aren't the "gift" people think they are. This is how the government allows employers to reduce a workers minimum wage down to like, $2.xx or something, and you won't find any worker who is happy about that, only employers and government. B) it creates a favorites-game between employees and customers, not something I'm interested in as a customer. The only people who like that system are people who get the benefits from it. Those who get screwed, get screwed. C) This standard doesn't span the entire service industry, and wait staff have no special place in my heart that the rest of the industry doesn't also have. Also, why do you say "stiff" when referring to someone paying the full and complete amount of their meal and service? To 'stiff' literally means to cheat or steal. As you say, the customer is not obliged in any way to pay more. Using this term is bully tactics, telling people that not paying extra makes them bad in some way. --- I've realized that the problem here simply lies in which perspective we value more. Do we accept that the customer should help pay the wage of the worker with a taxed donation, or do we accept that the customer should have an easy flat price absent from favoritism?
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.

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?

by 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."
dgzl 8y ago
Edit: apologies if this is sounding hostile. Our inner thread has reached it's max depth, so I'm replying here. We'll probably have to end this conversion because of that, so here's my final response: > But the customers are not obligated to tip > 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. > There's no way this is a negative. So you're telling me if I'm a regular at a spot and I want to strictly pay the required amount for (food+environment+service) and nothing more, then I should accept "average service" and being complained about in the kitchen? That's exactly how you lose regular customers. > 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. Employees should be just as nice and work just as hard as the employer asks them, because that's their job. The people with the money (employers and customers) make the rules, not the worker. > If you are a regular, and recognized as such, and known to be a good tipper, you will most likely get better service. This is exactly the behavior we're trying to stop. Service should always be good. > Nobody, as a rule, messes with your food. 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. I know several people who've either been first-hand responsible or been whiteness to others performing gross things to people's food. This is edge-case for sure, but still a reality. > 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. My main reasons are: A) tips are taxed and aren't the "gift" people think they are. This is how the government allows employers to reduce a workers minimum wage down to like, $2.xx or something, and you won't find any worker who is happy about that, only employers and government. B) it creates a favorites-game between employees and customers, not something I'm interested in as a customer. The only people who like that system are people who get the benefits from it. Those who get screwed, get screwed. C) This standard doesn't span the entire service industry, and wait staff have no special place in my heart that the rest of the industry doesn't also have. Also, why do you say "stiff" when referring to someone paying the full and complete amount of their meal and service? To 'stiff' literally means to cheat or steal. As you say, the customer is not obliged in any way to pay more. Using this term is bully tactics, telling people that not paying extra makes them bad in some way. --- I've realized that the problem here simply lies in which perspective we value more. Do we accept that the customer should help pay the wage of the worker with a taxed donation, or do we accept that the customer should have an easy flat price absent from favoritism?

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.