8 ms·

It’s the same with the tipping that seems almost everywhere these days. Instead of the workers being paid properly by the company the customer gets guilt trippe

It’s the same with the tipping that seems almost everywhere these days. Instead of the workers being paid properly by the company the customer gets guilt tripped to tip and when you don’t tip the worker is angry at the customer, not the company.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
As a customer, I support workers unionizing to improve their wage bargaining power. Besides tipping, I can’t do much to help them do that. They’ve gotta organize to do it, and call on the NLRB when there’s (always inevitably) Corporate Fuckery [1]. Luckily, the NLRB received a $25M funding bump in the latest Omnibus spending bill signed into law. [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/cases-decisions/decisions/administrative-law-judge-decisions https://www.nlrb.gov/cases-decisions/decisions/administrativ...
- ghiculescu 4y ago
  How does tipping improve their bargaining power? Seems to me like it would weaken it (“why do you need a higher base wage? You get so many tips!”)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    It doesn't. The tipping is the only thing I can do in the short term to help, because those tips go to workers immediately (versus the lengthy sales cycle of labor improvements). My apologies that wasn't more clear.
    - maxbond 4y ago
      If course, it only goes to workers, when it isn't stolen by the company. https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-06-instacart-revises-pay-policy-after-tipping-uproar.html https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-06-instacart-revises-pay-po... As far as I know Instacart has stopped doing this, and many other apps were busted for this, but it's utterly, utterly shameful.
- baron816 4y ago
  I think a problem you get with tipping is that you have no idea what the worker is getting paid, and you have no idea what they deserve. You go up to the counter and you assume that's the case, and I'm sure much more often than not, they're not raking it in, but it's it a demeaning thing to look at someone and say "hey you look poor, here's some extra money that wasn't part of the bill"? Unionized may end up deciding that tips work in their favor, so that's not necessarily a solution. What we really need is for the government to ban soliciting of tips or to ensure prices are fully transparent prior to sale. That's a more realistic solution anyway, and one with fewer potential societal costs to it.
- User23 4y ago
  1.7 trillion spent and 25 million for NLRB. Truly the current regime looks after the little guy.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    2023 budget is $300M. "the NLRB received a $25M funding bump in the latest Omnibus spending bill signed into law." https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/statement-on-nlrb-funding-in-the-2023-omnibus-bill https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/statement-on-n...
    - User23 4y ago
      This is where if I were inclined to condescension I’d explain what an order of magnitude is, and how many there are here, but since I don’t actually think you’re stupid can you fill me in on what your point is?
lotsofpulp 4y ago
How does the customer know whether or not a worker is paid properly? It is none of their business, or responsibility.
- taneq 4y ago
  Ah, but pushing that responsibility onto the customer is part of the scam!
- wnevets 4y ago
  workers who are paid well usually dont have tip jars.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Tipped services are tied to cultural expectations, not wages. You don't tip your gas station clerk (who's probably making minimum wage), but you normally tip your bartender at a nice bar.
  - gruez 4y ago
    > workers who are paid well usually dont have tip jars. I'm sure that's why I don't see tip jars at grocery store checkouts, because the workers there are so well paid. Moreover, if you work at a job that society thinks is socially acceptable to ask for tips, why would you leave money on the table just because you're paid $25/hr?
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    So if I put out a tip jar, by definition, I am not paid well? I do not care if people think I am not paid well, if they want to tip me, I am more than happy to accept it.
  - refurb 4y ago
    False. So many comments in this thread seem like they’re written by people who have never worked jobs with tipping. When I worked as a server, tips were far preferable to salary. We’d get $10/hr plus tips, which could work out to $30/hr on average. We had people who came from other server jobs paying $20/hr with no tips who felt they were getting screwed.
PradeetPatel 4y ago
This is most likely a very US-centric view of the world. As someone who primarily worked in India and the Middle East, where tipping culture doesn't exist, it wasn't so much of an issue. With that said, workers in the US tend to have significantly more bargaining power than those in countries with more diverse and relaxed labour laws.
phpisthebest 4y ago
The problem here is that workers now want to be "paid properly" (what ever that means) and still get tips. There have been restaurants have tried non-tipping models, consumers and staff both hate it. First the highly productive staff often make less under that model (where poor performers make more), consumers hate it because the menu prices increase, and you end up with McD's level customer service where drinks are never refilled, and service overall degrades.
- jmugan 4y ago
  I don't know, I've had pretty bad service recently at places where you tip. I still top 20% out of guilt, but it might be that service in general is poorer now.
  - gearsandbeers 4y ago
    When did tipping 20% become standard in the US? I was talking to a colleague about this recently and they mentioned it but I could’ve sworn it used to be 15%
    - mattnewton 4y ago
      I don’t think it is just you- ten years ago I distinctly remember somewhere where the brand new POS tip screens used to have 10, 15 and 20 percent tip buttons; now I frequently see 15 20 25 or 20 25 30 as defaults on those screens when going out.
    - rx_bandit 4y ago
      It's true! I remember before we use to just double the tax and that was the tip. (When it used to be 7.25% in California) Nowadays we're taking a second and thinking before eating out.
    - jcranmer 4y ago
      I want to say around-ish a decade ago? It definitely used to be 15% when I was growing up. Although based on some recent news articles I found when I tried searching for a more definitive source, tip amounts have gone down in the past year or so.
joshstrange 4y ago
Agreed. Not only is tipping a scourge but it doesn't even try to hide what it is, you paying the worker for doing the minimum. In a lot of apps/websites you have to enter a tip before any service is rendered and you have no option to change it later if the service is bad. For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. Tipping has spread further and further into our economy and into areas it never should have existed (I'd argue it shouldn't exist at all but it's moved well past "traditional" and reasonable places). Services have the audacity to charge you a membership fee and then essentially require tips on top of that (Looking at you Kroger Boost, I've got a blog article worth of issues with that service).
- gruez 4y ago
  >For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. Honestly this is great, for two reasons: 1. You're letting the market figure out the right price for delivery service at any given moment, which reduces deadweight loss. For instance, if you're price sensitive you can order during off-peak times to get a discount. On the other hand, if it's peak hours and you need food urgently (impatient kids?), you can be assured that your order arrives ASAP rather than 1 hour later. 2. It strengthens the case for DSPs treating their delivery workers as contractors, because the price isn't set by the DSP. edit: To be clear, I'm for having prices for delivery services be set by the market (ie. people who want food delivered can put in bids and delivery drivers can put in asks). I'm not for the current state of affairs where your order is "accepted" but you have to put in some indeterminate amount of tips to get it actually serviced.
  - joshstrange 4y ago
    That sounds like hell. Also as a consumer I have absolutely zero information on how busy drivers are, if my tip needs to be > $X to get picked up faster, if more drivers will login if I tip $X or greater, nor do I have a way to increase my tip if drivers aren’t “biting”. IF I had that information/ability I’d concede to part of your point but I don’t and even if I did I hate that idea with a fiery passion. If that’s the world we are going to live in then why am I paying a membership fee AND service fees? I’d say you don’t get to eat your cake and have it too but that’s absolutely what these companies are doing.
mason55 4y ago
One perspective on tipping that made me feel a little different is that it can act as a form of progressive pricing or a sliding scale or “pay what your can afford” It allows places to keep base prices as cheap as possible, which means lots of people can afford to eat out, but people who can afford to pay more can do so. It’s sort of like raising the minimum wage but but having the costs only impact people with higher incomes. Yes, plenty of rich people are stingy and terrible tippers, so it’s not a perfect analogy. But I try to tip a lot everywhere I go and that’s how I think about it.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  You are just doing the same class division we’re pointing out but consumer to consumer. Even sillier than the worker to consumer reality. Corporations are in competition with other corporations, which is why there is not dynamic pricing. They are not offering anything worth more than they are offering. Your perspective fails on those merits when the solution is to pay employees correctly and see which corporations were never economical after all.
Consultant32452 4y ago
I prefer systems that encourage near universal tax fraud. That is why tipping culture is a feature, not a bug. If someone can propose another way of compensating workers that provides equal ease through which workers can skirt the law, I could easily be swayed, but this feature must remain.
- adra 4y ago
  I'm not sure why rampant fraud can ever be justified in a democracy. You take direct control of forming establishment to the greatest percentage of the populace who will ultimately choose the rules (how representationally biased being completely dependent on your nation). Vs the anarchism/libertarian model you seem to espouse which sets control in the hands of those who bully the rest. Those that drive corruption and cheating the max are the winners in this world and that's not the world I want to live in.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    >You take direct control of forming establishment to the greatest percentage of the populace who will ultimately choose the rules This is a fantasy. https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-... >Those that drive corruption and cheating the max are the winners in this world This is the status quo. All the rules are written to keep some very undesirable people in positions of power over you.
SavageBeast 4y ago
Good lord, THIS 100%!!
insane_dreamer 4y ago
> Instead of the workers being paid properly by the company the customer gets guilt tripped to tip and when you don’t tip the worker is angry at the customer, not the company Absolutely. Prices should be raised to cover reasonable salaries (making up the gap covered by tips nowadays), and then if you were really happy with the service and want to tip more, you can.
TaylorGood 4y ago
On an iPad UI nonetheless
thret 4y ago
The worker is also forced to beg for the money that they have earned. It's demeaning. Nothing about this interaction is positive.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

As a customer, I support workers unionizing to improve their wage bargaining power. Besides tipping, I can’t do much to help them do that. They’ve gotta organize to do it, and call on the NLRB when there’s (always inevitably) Corporate Fuckery [1]. Luckily, the NLRB received a $25M funding bump in the latest Omnibus spending bill signed into law. [1] https://www.nlrb.gov/cases-decisions/decisions/administrative-law-judge-decisions https://www.nlrb.gov/cases-decisions/decisions/administrativ...

ghiculescu 4y ago
How does tipping improve their bargaining power? Seems to me like it would weaken it (“why do you need a higher base wage? You get so many tips!”)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  It doesn't. The tipping is the only thing I can do in the short term to help, because those tips go to workers immediately (versus the lengthy sales cycle of labor improvements). My apologies that wasn't more clear.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    If course, it only goes to workers, when it isn't stolen by the company. https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-06-instacart-revises-pay-policy-after-tipping-uproar.html https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-06-instacart-revises-pay-po... As far as I know Instacart has stopped doing this, and many other apps were busted for this, but it's utterly, utterly shameful.
baron816 4y ago
I think a problem you get with tipping is that you have no idea what the worker is getting paid, and you have no idea what they deserve. You go up to the counter and you assume that's the case, and I'm sure much more often than not, they're not raking it in, but it's it a demeaning thing to look at someone and say "hey you look poor, here's some extra money that wasn't part of the bill"? Unionized may end up deciding that tips work in their favor, so that's not necessarily a solution. What we really need is for the government to ban soliciting of tips or to ensure prices are fully transparent prior to sale. That's a more realistic solution anyway, and one with fewer potential societal costs to it.
User23 4y ago
1.7 trillion spent and 25 million for NLRB. Truly the current regime looks after the little guy.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  2023 budget is $300M. "the NLRB received a $25M funding bump in the latest Omnibus spending bill signed into law." https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/statement-on-nlrb-funding-in-the-2023-omnibus-bill https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/statement-on-n...
  - User23 4y ago
    This is where if I were inclined to condescension I’d explain what an order of magnitude is, and how many there are here, but since I don’t actually think you’re stupid can you fill me in on what your point is?

lotsofpulp 4y ago

How does the customer know whether or not a worker is paid properly? It is none of their business, or responsibility.

taneq 4y ago
Ah, but pushing that responsibility onto the customer is part of the scam!
wnevets 4y ago
workers who are paid well usually dont have tip jars.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Tipped services are tied to cultural expectations, not wages. You don't tip your gas station clerk (who's probably making minimum wage), but you normally tip your bartender at a nice bar.
- gruez 4y ago
  > workers who are paid well usually dont have tip jars. I'm sure that's why I don't see tip jars at grocery store checkouts, because the workers there are so well paid. Moreover, if you work at a job that society thinks is socially acceptable to ask for tips, why would you leave money on the table just because you're paid $25/hr?
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  So if I put out a tip jar, by definition, I am not paid well? I do not care if people think I am not paid well, if they want to tip me, I am more than happy to accept it.
- refurb 4y ago
  False. So many comments in this thread seem like they’re written by people who have never worked jobs with tipping. When I worked as a server, tips were far preferable to salary. We’d get $10/hr plus tips, which could work out to $30/hr on average. We had people who came from other server jobs paying $20/hr with no tips who felt they were getting screwed.

PradeetPatel 4y ago

This is most likely a very US-centric view of the world. As someone who primarily worked in India and the Middle East, where tipping culture doesn't exist, it wasn't so much of an issue. With that said, workers in the US tend to have significantly more bargaining power than those in countries with more diverse and relaxed labour laws.

phpisthebest 4y ago

The problem here is that workers now want to be "paid properly" (what ever that means) and still get tips. There have been restaurants have tried non-tipping models, consumers and staff both hate it. First the highly productive staff often make less under that model (where poor performers make more), consumers hate it because the menu prices increase, and you end up with McD's level customer service where drinks are never refilled, and service overall degrades.

jmugan 4y ago
I don't know, I've had pretty bad service recently at places where you tip. I still top 20% out of guilt, but it might be that service in general is poorer now.
- gearsandbeers 4y ago
  When did tipping 20% become standard in the US? I was talking to a colleague about this recently and they mentioned it but I could’ve sworn it used to be 15%
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    I don’t think it is just you- ten years ago I distinctly remember somewhere where the brand new POS tip screens used to have 10, 15 and 20 percent tip buttons; now I frequently see 15 20 25 or 20 25 30 as defaults on those screens when going out.
  - rx_bandit 4y ago
    It's true! I remember before we use to just double the tax and that was the tip. (When it used to be 7.25% in California) Nowadays we're taking a second and thinking before eating out.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    I want to say around-ish a decade ago? It definitely used to be 15% when I was growing up. Although based on some recent news articles I found when I tried searching for a more definitive source, tip amounts have gone down in the past year or so.

joshstrange 4y ago

Agreed. Not only is tipping a scourge but it doesn't even try to hide what it is, you paying the worker for doing the minimum. In a lot of apps/websites you have to enter a tip before any service is rendered and you have no option to change it later if the service is bad. For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. Tipping has spread further and further into our economy and into areas it never should have existed (I'd argue it shouldn't exist at all but it's moved well past "traditional" and reasonable places). Services have the audacity to charge you a membership fee and then essentially require tips on top of that (Looking at you Kroger Boost, I've got a blog article worth of issues with that service).

gruez 4y ago
>For some services like Uber Eats/DoorDash I've heard that orders will just sit on a shelf because the tip isn't high enough to entice someone to "claim" that order. Tipping is mandatory if you want to get your food in any reasonable timeframe. Honestly this is great, for two reasons: 1. You're letting the market figure out the right price for delivery service at any given moment, which reduces deadweight loss. For instance, if you're price sensitive you can order during off-peak times to get a discount. On the other hand, if it's peak hours and you need food urgently (impatient kids?), you can be assured that your order arrives ASAP rather than 1 hour later. 2. It strengthens the case for DSPs treating their delivery workers as contractors, because the price isn't set by the DSP. edit: To be clear, I'm for having prices for delivery services be set by the market (ie. people who want food delivered can put in bids and delivery drivers can put in asks). I'm not for the current state of affairs where your order is "accepted" but you have to put in some indeterminate amount of tips to get it actually serviced.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  That sounds like hell. Also as a consumer I have absolutely zero information on how busy drivers are, if my tip needs to be > $X to get picked up faster, if more drivers will login if I tip $X or greater, nor do I have a way to increase my tip if drivers aren’t “biting”. IF I had that information/ability I’d concede to part of your point but I don’t and even if I did I hate that idea with a fiery passion. If that’s the world we are going to live in then why am I paying a membership fee AND service fees? I’d say you don’t get to eat your cake and have it too but that’s absolutely what these companies are doing.

mason55 4y ago

One perspective on tipping that made me feel a little different is that it can act as a form of progressive pricing or a sliding scale or “pay what your can afford” It allows places to keep base prices as cheap as possible, which means lots of people can afford to eat out, but people who can afford to pay more can do so. It’s sort of like raising the minimum wage but but having the costs only impact people with higher incomes. Yes, plenty of rich people are stingy and terrible tippers, so it’s not a perfect analogy. But I try to tip a lot everywhere I go and that’s how I think about it.

yieldcrv 4y ago
You are just doing the same class division we’re pointing out but consumer to consumer. Even sillier than the worker to consumer reality. Corporations are in competition with other corporations, which is why there is not dynamic pricing. They are not offering anything worth more than they are offering. Your perspective fails on those merits when the solution is to pay employees correctly and see which corporations were never economical after all.

Consultant32452 4y ago

I prefer systems that encourage near universal tax fraud. That is why tipping culture is a feature, not a bug. If someone can propose another way of compensating workers that provides equal ease through which workers can skirt the law, I could easily be swayed, but this feature must remain.

adra 4y ago
I'm not sure why rampant fraud can ever be justified in a democracy. You take direct control of forming establishment to the greatest percentage of the populace who will ultimately choose the rules (how representationally biased being completely dependent on your nation). Vs the anarchism/libertarian model you seem to espouse which sets control in the hands of those who bully the rest. Those that drive corruption and cheating the max are the winners in this world and that's not the world I want to live in.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  >You take direct control of forming establishment to the greatest percentage of the populace who will ultimately choose the rules This is a fantasy. https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-... >Those that drive corruption and cheating the max are the winners in this world This is the status quo. All the rules are written to keep some very undesirable people in positions of power over you.

SavageBeast 4y ago

Good lord, THIS 100%!!

insane_dreamer 4y ago

> Instead of the workers being paid properly by the company the customer gets guilt tripped to tip and when you don’t tip the worker is angry at the customer, not the company Absolutely. Prices should be raised to cover reasonable salaries (making up the gap covered by tips nowadays), and then if you were really happy with the service and want to tip more, you can.

TaylorGood 4y ago

On an iPad UI nonetheless

thret 4y ago

The worker is also forced to beg for the money that they have earned. It's demeaning. Nothing about this interaction is positive.