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The odd thing is how specific to restaurants it is, and only a handful of other industries. You dont tip in any other context. If you want the deluxe experienc
by nwah1 4y ago
The odd thing is how specific to restaurants it is, and only a handful of other industries.
You dont tip in any other context. If you want the deluxe experience you order the deluxe option.
To me this seems wrong. If tipping were so great then why isn't it universal? What is special about restaurants?
Taxis/Uber/Lyft want tips. Same with barbers/salons/spas.
I know that the gray market is a big factor. Untaxed cash transactions under the table. But it is weirdly institutionalized and normal.
We have just decided to politely tolerate certain kinds of trivial illegal activity. But all-cash businesses do become a key vehicle for money laundering, and thus does have wider negative impacts.
It's not just that some low wage employees get tax-free funds. It aids organized crime.
I'm not exactly sure why it works like this, and contrary to the title this article doesn't really explain why.
- alexb_ 4y agoCash is needed for a free society as it's one of the last ways you can actually have transactions without being mercilessly tracked by large businesses and governments. Getting rid of tipping is another step closer to "cashless societies" that I absolutely never want to take.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoTips are taxed, and probably more likely to be electronic these days rather than cash.
- nwah1 4y agoBig difference between taxed and taxable. I know people who have explained how being a cabbie etc was only lucrative because of cash tips. But yea, electronic POS is now more common.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoYou'll be taxed whether or not you receive tips, so better work to get some. Has this changed? I've not heard that it has.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago> The odd thing is how specific to restaurants it is, and only a handful of other industries. I believe that generally it's in industries that directly replaced personal servants: people who cook and serve your food, carry your things around, make your bed, do your hair, chauffeur you around. I'm not sure why tipping happens in those jobs though.
- ghaff 4y agoI think you've sort of answered your own question. Servants used to be sort of an extension to the household and they tended to be given some extra money at Christmas if nothing else. Now that a lot of this sort of thing is time-sliced, it mostly got shifted to an ongoing gratuity. I do give my monthly housekeeper something at Christmas and I've seen other contexts where there's the expectation of contributing to a Christmas bonus for staff as well.
- nwah1 4y agoTrue, that is the common theme. Personal servants being distinct from your lawyer or your doctor or therapist. If tipping were good and respectable and promoting better market dynamics or service... then it would actually be more important in the medical field. If I get better food service by tipping, then I definitely want better medical service by tipping.