4 ms·

I noticed the expected tipping percentage go up after most customers started tipping in credit. Tipped workers had to up their game because they can no longer

I noticed the expected tipping percentage go up after most customers started tipping in credit. Tipped workers had to up their game because they can no longer do tax evasion with everything on the record. Back in the days where most paid their restaurant with cash, tips were more like 15%. The move from 15 to more like 20 to 25% almost perfectly corresponds with the amount needed to make the same earnings after tax.

barbazoo 4y ago
Do workers usually get a say in what those tip levels should be? I can't imagine that being the case.
- notch656c 4y ago
  I don't know all the mechanisms behind how it happened. I expect indirectly yes, as employees choose to work where they are paid highest (if possible) and employers putting the pre-calculated percentages on the receipt / point of sale that match those desires influence tips. You have to keep up with employee expectation to keep and retain employees and setting those expectation at the point of sale as a voluntary option is an easy win.
giardia 4y ago
I've always done 20% because it's easy to do in my head. Nowadays it's a low tip for those tip prompts and I punch it in manually if I tip at all. When I delivered food my tip spread was funny. Many people wouldn't tip at all, many would just let you keep the change or give you a token amount (~5-10%), and a few people would give you over 50% tips. Not many gave me 15-25%.
- notch656c 4y ago
  Yeah I did food delivery and a sizeable amount didn't tip at all. It also created huge problems picking up food because many of the places people ordered from were full service restaurants, and the workers would purposefully go slow as fuck because they knew they would get no tip as most the food delivery companies don't provision for a tip to the restaraunt people preparing the food for the food delivery guy. A few times I had to take a loss on orders to tip the restaurant I was picking the food up from just to get them to release the food. The food delivery guy is basically seen like the UPS worker. All around I decided it was a fucked business model and quit pretty quickly.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Get a delivery job for the restaurant and none of this happens.
- bscphil 4y ago
  > When I delivered food A "token amount" is pretty reasonable if you take tipping at face value, no? It's supposed to be a reward for good service. Waitstaff engage with you many times over the course of about an hour, and every person at a table receives service. It's fairly reasonable in this case to tip in proportion to the total bill. On the contrary, it's roughly the same amount of work for a delivery driver to deliver $100 of food as it is $10. Tipping the driver a few dollars (at most) seems not unreasonable in this case. The tip cannot possibly be reflective of any service rendered and it's essentially random what driver you will get, so you're not being biased or harming a particular person. This is, of course, wholly separate from whether the tipping system is a good idea on the whole.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    See my below post. The issue is the delivery driver has to pick up the order from a full service restaurant much of the time. The full service restaurant workers will blackball the delivery driver if he doesn't tip them, and that happens proportionally to the cost of the food. After 2-3 times the delivery driver not tipping the restaraunt at the food he's picking up, he will be waiting forever until his customers cancel.
    - bscphil 4y ago
      Yeah, it's certainly an unfortunate situation all around - mostly for the restaurant staff who are dependent on the tips - but probably doesn't change much from the consumer's point of view. FWIW I've not had significant problems with delivery. I think a lot of restaurants have gotten used to "the new normal", though to be fair the majority of meals I've had delivered have been mediocre, sometimes cold.
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      As any hourly worker waiting forever is a nice break from having to actually deliver food. Bonus if the orders are cancelled. Fault never makes it to driver.
      - notch656c 4y ago
wrp 4y ago
When I was a kid, Emily Post said always tip 10%. In college, the buzz around campus was that 15% was what the proletariat deserved. The past decade or so, I keep hearing you need to give 20% if you don't want to make enemies of the servers. Now, are you telling me it's become 25%?
maerF0x0 4y ago
I had this debate with a server once. She exclaimed ! You have to increase the tip, don't you know about inflation. I held my tongue about exponential functions, and just said "ok", I'll choose my battles... I guess that's why I'm an engineer and she's a server.

barbazoo 4y ago

Do workers usually get a say in what those tip levels should be? I can't imagine that being the case.

notch656c 4y ago
I don't know all the mechanisms behind how it happened. I expect indirectly yes, as employees choose to work where they are paid highest (if possible) and employers putting the pre-calculated percentages on the receipt / point of sale that match those desires influence tips. You have to keep up with employee expectation to keep and retain employees and setting those expectation at the point of sale as a voluntary option is an easy win.

giardia 4y ago

I've always done 20% because it's easy to do in my head. Nowadays it's a low tip for those tip prompts and I punch it in manually if I tip at all. When I delivered food my tip spread was funny. Many people wouldn't tip at all, many would just let you keep the change or give you a token amount (~5-10%), and a few people would give you over 50% tips. Not many gave me 15-25%.

notch656c 4y ago
Yeah I did food delivery and a sizeable amount didn't tip at all. It also created huge problems picking up food because many of the places people ordered from were full service restaurants, and the workers would purposefully go slow as fuck because they knew they would get no tip as most the food delivery companies don't provision for a tip to the restaraunt people preparing the food for the food delivery guy. A few times I had to take a loss on orders to tip the restaurant I was picking the food up from just to get them to release the food. The food delivery guy is basically seen like the UPS worker. All around I decided it was a fucked business model and quit pretty quickly.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Get a delivery job for the restaurant and none of this happens.
bscphil 4y ago
> When I delivered food A "token amount" is pretty reasonable if you take tipping at face value, no? It's supposed to be a reward for good service. Waitstaff engage with you many times over the course of about an hour, and every person at a table receives service. It's fairly reasonable in this case to tip in proportion to the total bill. On the contrary, it's roughly the same amount of work for a delivery driver to deliver $100 of food as it is $10. Tipping the driver a few dollars (at most) seems not unreasonable in this case. The tip cannot possibly be reflective of any service rendered and it's essentially random what driver you will get, so you're not being biased or harming a particular person. This is, of course, wholly separate from whether the tipping system is a good idea on the whole.
- notch656c 4y ago
  See my below post. The issue is the delivery driver has to pick up the order from a full service restaurant much of the time. The full service restaurant workers will blackball the delivery driver if he doesn't tip them, and that happens proportionally to the cost of the food. After 2-3 times the delivery driver not tipping the restaraunt at the food he's picking up, he will be waiting forever until his customers cancel.
  - bscphil 4y ago
    Yeah, it's certainly an unfortunate situation all around - mostly for the restaurant staff who are dependent on the tips - but probably doesn't change much from the consumer's point of view. FWIW I've not had significant problems with delivery. I think a lot of restaurants have gotten used to "the new normal", though to be fair the majority of meals I've had delivered have been mediocre, sometimes cold.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    As any hourly worker waiting forever is a nice break from having to actually deliver food. Bonus if the orders are cancelled. Fault never makes it to driver.
    - notch656c 4y ago

wrp 4y ago

When I was a kid, Emily Post said always tip 10%. In college, the buzz around campus was that 15% was what the proletariat deserved. The past decade or so, I keep hearing you need to give 20% if you don't want to make enemies of the servers. Now, are you telling me it's become 25%?

maerF0x0 4y ago

I had this debate with a server once. She exclaimed ! You have to increase the tip, don't you know about inflation. I held my tongue about exponential functions, and just said "ok", I'll choose my battles... I guess that's why I'm an engineer and she's a server.