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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 po
by 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...