4 ms·

Aren't you just making this happen with tipping? I am from Europe and I always find it confusing to deal with prices in the US. First the prices don't contain

Aren't you just making this happen with tipping? I am from Europe and I always find it confusing to deal with prices in the US. First the prices don't contain the taxes, and then I have to add tipping. The price of a meal shows up on the menu as 9.95 and I end up paying around 15.

vorpalhex 7y ago
Please still tip the staff making $15/hr. It's still the custom at most locations.
- Frost1x 7y ago
  The original point of a tip was to optionaly pay when service goes over and above what they need to do. At some point, it morphed into passing part of the service staff wage to the customer and pretending this was somehow a good thing. It's so entrenched in culture now people just assume even for crap service you tip. At the end of the day, it really gives management an easy out by putting the customer against the service staff for labor rates while the restaurant decides fixed meal costs.
  - scient 7y ago
    Its absolutely ridiculous. Its now to a point where 15-18% is expected even for bad service, and 25% and up for good services. There is no way I'm paying an extra quarter of my bill in tips because the restaurant owner is too cheap and offloads the staff costs directly to their customers.
    - vorpalhex 7y ago
      Then don't eat at those places. That's a valid option - but don't stiff your wait staff.
  - todd8 7y ago
    Its gotten ridiculous, I just wish that we could move away from the tipping culture that we have here in the US. I almost always tip 20%. I even tip 15% for poor service--I figure that there are likely things going on in the kitchen or with other service staff that I'm not aware of, and that tips are often split between everyone so the my tip for poor service is help the other employees busing tables too. My wife often tips 25% or more. Why can't restaurants charge us more, pay their staff better, and then the staff could treat us like we were customers of the restaurant and not expecting us to directly compensate them. For the answer, see my last paragraph. Even for pick up service, say when I place a to-go order for cup of coffee with my Starbucks app and then pick it up from a bin on the counter myself, the app prompts for a tip. At other server-less restaurants, I'm forced to make the choice of tip when I place the order. So why the culture around tipping here in the US. I believe that it's related to why movie theaters can charge so much for popcorn. From Stanford.edu: "The findings empirically answer the age-old question of whether it's better to charge more for a primary product (in this case, the movie ticket) or a secondary product (the popcorn). Putting the premium on the "frill" items, it turns out, indeed opens up the possibility for price-sensitive people to see films. That means more customers coming to theaters in general, and a nice profit from those who are willing to fork it over for the Gummy Bears." [1] In the case of tipping in restaurants, the restaurants are naturally willing to charge more to customers like myself and my wife for the wine+food+service while still making a profit from price sensitive customers that pay less by tipping less for the same wine+food+service. [1] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-does-movie-popcorn-cost-so-much https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-does-movie-popcorn...

vorpalhex 7y ago

Please still tip the staff making $15/hr. It's still the custom at most locations.

Frost1x 7y ago
The original point of a tip was to optionaly pay when service goes over and above what they need to do. At some point, it morphed into passing part of the service staff wage to the customer and pretending this was somehow a good thing. It's so entrenched in culture now people just assume even for crap service you tip. At the end of the day, it really gives management an easy out by putting the customer against the service staff for labor rates while the restaurant decides fixed meal costs.
- scient 7y ago
  Its absolutely ridiculous. Its now to a point where 15-18% is expected even for bad service, and 25% and up for good services. There is no way I'm paying an extra quarter of my bill in tips because the restaurant owner is too cheap and offloads the staff costs directly to their customers.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    Then don't eat at those places. That's a valid option - but don't stiff your wait staff.
- todd8 7y ago
  Its gotten ridiculous, I just wish that we could move away from the tipping culture that we have here in the US. I almost always tip 20%. I even tip 15% for poor service--I figure that there are likely things going on in the kitchen or with other service staff that I'm not aware of, and that tips are often split between everyone so the my tip for poor service is help the other employees busing tables too. My wife often tips 25% or more. Why can't restaurants charge us more, pay their staff better, and then the staff could treat us like we were customers of the restaurant and not expecting us to directly compensate them. For the answer, see my last paragraph. Even for pick up service, say when I place a to-go order for cup of coffee with my Starbucks app and then pick it up from a bin on the counter myself, the app prompts for a tip. At other server-less restaurants, I'm forced to make the choice of tip when I place the order. So why the culture around tipping here in the US. I believe that it's related to why movie theaters can charge so much for popcorn. From Stanford.edu: "The findings empirically answer the age-old question of whether it's better to charge more for a primary product (in this case, the movie ticket) or a secondary product (the popcorn). Putting the premium on the "frill" items, it turns out, indeed opens up the possibility for price-sensitive people to see films. That means more customers coming to theaters in general, and a nice profit from those who are willing to fork it over for the Gummy Bears." [1] In the case of tipping in restaurants, the restaurants are naturally willing to charge more to customers like myself and my wife for the wine+food+service while still making a profit from price sensitive customers that pay less by tipping less for the same wine+food+service. [1] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-does-movie-popcorn-cost-so-much https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-does-movie-popcorn...